Month / October 2017

by Ray

Scissors: Memoirs, Vocaloids, Daft Punk

While going through the texts and in class the theme of the “American Dream” and picking yourself up by the bootstraps, the self-made, self-reliance mentality common in America, the central focus on the “self”, applies much less to Asian Americans who became successful. There is a much greater focus, followed by actual action, for Asian Americans to seek help within their communities and work together. Generally there is less of a community effort in seeking this and more talk when I look at Western persons who have obtained it, and a lot more bragging. Continue reading →

by Ray

Paper: Water and too much Milk

Japanese milk advertisement.

In the text When the Emperor was Divine, I noticed the symbolism between water and milk. Taking a geographic perspective, I like how the symbolism of water for Japan or Japanese could refer to Japan being an island nation-state that is heavily dependent on the ocean. While milk for America, aside from it being white, could refer to America’s dependency on large areas of land, ranches and cows, which produce milk. Also the general cowboy/Wild West culture and milk is largely absent from traditional Japanese cuisine and is heavily seafood based and American cuisine is heavily dependent on it.

Continue reading →

by Ray

Rock: On “Otaku”

Akihabara, Japan, one of the most notable centers of otaku culture.

So while looking into various parts of Japanese anime/manga fan culture and how it has impacted the entertainment industry in America, (Eureka Seven has a lot of “pop crosscultural currents” within itself alone to explore) I decided to look up one of the less favorable terms that reoccurs both in Japan and as a loanword in the US, “otaku”.

Most have probably heard it stateside in the negative context, along with the even more demeaning “weeaboo”, from what I’ve read it applies beyond anime or manga in Japan and is slang term referring to an obsessive, not necessarily unhealthy, interest in a subject with there being twelve ranked otaku interests.

What I found interesting is that the its sub-culture origin in Japan came from school clubs where students various interests outside school work were encouraged (at least what I’ve found so far).

I also found, and expected to find, the general accusations of otaku culture, and even using it as a loanword, outside of Japan as being cultural misappropriation, on top of the already negative stereotypes.

I admit that the otaku topic and exploring into already has me out of my comfort zone, mainly because of the stigma, misappropriation issues, the “weeaboo” derogatory term (thanks 4chan…), and not wanting others to apply this to me. It became personal very quickly reading extremely negative things, whether they were true or not. Continue reading →