Mutual Images Journal最新文献

{"title":"Layers of the Traditional in Popular Performing Arts: Object and Voice as Character: Vocaloid Opera AOI","authors":"Tina Rosner","doi":"10.32926/2018.6.ROS.LAYER","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.6.ROS.LAYER","url":null,"abstract":"The paper analyzes how the concept of presence is put into play in connection to disappearance, contemporary popular media technology and objects in the 2014 production of Vocaloid Opera Aoi, composed by Hiroshi Tamawari. In the traditional noh theatre version of the famous story, the character Aoi does not appear “in person,” she is represented by a kimono. In the 2014 production the modified story is performed with bunraku puppets and sung by a Vocaloid singer, a software. By analyzing this, I elaborate on the connection between the recent studies on object dramaturgy and the questions of nonhuman (Bennett, Eckersall), and the nonreflective position rooted in animism from the fan base of pop culture that attributes personality and emotions to their respective robot/android/software idol. \u0000I examine the latest performative events in contemporary Japanese theatre that involve both human and non-human actors/agents (animals, objects, androids, vocaloids): the corporeality of the organic and inorganic Other, focusing on how the presence of the organic and non-organic nonhuman appears within the interplays of representation, how it relates to the layers of empathy, responsibility and consent, in the frame of contemporary Japanese popular culture.","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114300743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Utopia or Uprising? Conflicting Discourses of Japanese Robotics in the British Press","authors":"Christopher J. Hayes","doi":"10.32926/2018.6.HAY.UTOPI","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.6.HAY.UTOPI","url":null,"abstract":"Technology is a particularly interesting example of where media portrayal of Japan is inconsistent. For many years, Japan has been known as a technologically advanced nation. This image persists, especially in the last couple of years with the introduction of service and retail robots such as Softbank’s Pepper. While sometimes news publications present this as a positive image of the future, an idea of what we in the West have to look forwards to, at other times, the image of technology in Japan is decidedly negative. Sometimes it has too much technology, or it has technologies that ‘we in the West’ would not see a use for. How do these conflicting views arise? This paper uses Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse British news articles about three recent robots in order to reveal the discourses present. The article will investigate whether these depictions are a result of Orientalism, but will show that no single Orientalism is responsible, but rather a combination of Techno-Orientalism, Self-Orientalism, and Wacky Orientalism.","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128035883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exhibition review – The Citi Exhibition : Manga マンガ - Exhibited at the British Museum","authors":"Bounthavy Suvilay","doi":"10.32926/2018.6.R.SUV.EXHIB","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.6.R.SUV.EXHIB","url":null,"abstract":"Since the British Museum is not primarily an art museum, but an institute that preserves and presents the historical products of human culture, it has some impressive collections of Japanese graphic art, dating from the 1600s to the present. Among these works, 110 are described as manga. There were also three small manga exhibitions prior to this. So, it is not surprising that this museum holds one of the largest ever exhibitions of manga outside Japan for 2019. \u0000The three curators, Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, Uchida Hiromi and Matsuba Ryoko, worked for [...]","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125466454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Editorial: Art and Politics Section","authors":"Marco Pellitteri, Eriko Tomizawa-Kay","doi":"10.32926/2018.5.PELTOM.EDITO","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.5.PELTOM.EDITO","url":null,"abstract":"This issue of Mutual Images Journal presents, in this special section, a collection of essays centred around the theme of “Japanese Arts and Politics”. The articles within this section focus on the relations between Japanese art and political themes. \u0000This section of the journal is, in part, the output of a workshop and research project designed by Eriko Tomizawa-Kay—a lecturer at the University of East Anglia (UEA)—and titled Reflective Transitions of Politics in the Arts: Examining the Atomisation of Japanese Socio-political Milieus through Art. The workshop was held at UEA, in Norwich, on 24 August 2017, bringing together scholars to investigate how Japanese arts have been shaped by political forces in the “neoliberal” world order, as an analytical dimension to study and comment on the process of atomisation of society as it can be perceived in the arts. The workshop’s papers presented empirical examples of internalised art productions and art currents in Japan, in juxtaposition to, or contrast with, art expressing national or regional politics. The contributors focused on the presence of political notions and messages in Japanese fine arts, popular visual media, visual entertainment forms, and visual arts at large, and on the possible intersections among “western” arts and artistic representations of political themes concerning the Japanese context. \u0000As a collaborative endeavour that expands interdisciplinary research contributing to a growing literature, this project attempts to break new ground in [...]","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115535161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Anime’s Cultural Nationalism: The Politics of Representing Japan in Summer Wars (Mamoru Hosoda, 2009)","authors":"R. Denison","doi":"10.32926/2018.5.DEN.ANIME","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.5.DEN.ANIME","url":null,"abstract":"Japanese animation has longstanding links to nationalism. For example, relatively early in its history, Jonathan Clements quotes sources suggesting that animation was used to promote the singing of Japan’s national anthem before film screenings, through a short film called Kokka Kimigayo (The National Anthem: His Majesty’s Reign, 1931) made by Ōfuna Noburo. It is ‘hence liable to have been one of the most widely seen pieces of domestic animation in the 1930s’ (Clements 2013, 47). Animation’s links to nationalism in Japan developed further during the Second World War, which marked a pivotal moment in Japanese animation production. Thomas Lamarre argues that this animation was not simply nationalistic, but that it was also racist and speciesist. Analysing Momotarō: Umi no shinpei (Momotarō’s Divine Army, Seo Mitsuyo 1945) and Tagawa Suihō’s Norakuro manga and anime Lamarre argues that ‘Speciesism is a displacement of race and racism (relations between humans as imagined in racial term) onto relations between humans and animals’ (Lamarre 2008, 76). The semi-covert depictions of differing nations as different animal species within Japan’s World War II animation subtended state discourses about enemies and a planned Co-Prosperity Sphere in Asia.","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127982923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Master of Silence: Matsumoto Shunsuke’s Muon no fūkei and His Quiet Resistance to Sensōga During the Fifteen-Year War","authors":"Hope Steiner","doi":"10.32926/2018.5.STE.MAST","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.5.STE.MAST","url":null,"abstract":"This article is focused on the wartime works of Japanese artist Matsumoto Shunsuke (1912-1948). In particular, it examines his Muon no fūkei (silent landscapes) series from 1941-1945 and the artist’s motivations behind choosing to depict everyday street scenes in Japan during the Fifteen-Year War (1931-1945). The war was a difficult time for most artists; they were either forced to conform to social and governmental pressures to paint sensōga (war paintings), or they had to virtually stop production rather than run the risk of being arrested. Matsumoto Shunsuke was one of the few painters to focus on individual expression and everyday life scenes during this period. He spent much of Japan’s war wandering the streets, sketching and taking photographs that would later become the templates for his landscapes. The study of wartime art in Japan is still a relatively new topic, but much speculation has been given to Matsumoto’s works as symbols of anti-war resistance. However, the artist’s motivations were far more complex. This paper will explore Matsumoto’s alienation from Japanese society due to his deafness and artistic principles and how these factors, along with his political disagreements with the government and other artists, led him away from sensōga and instead towards the silent landscapes that have today become some of the most popular paintings from the era.","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117136504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Depictions of the Battle of Okinawa and its Social and Cultural Complexity using a transmedia approach: The Case of Gima Hiroshi (1923-2017)","authors":"Eriko Tomizawa-Kay","doi":"10.32926/2018.5.TOM.DEPIC","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.5.TOM.DEPIC","url":null,"abstract":"The battle of Okinawa of 1945 was one of the bloodiest battles of the Asia Pacific War, with nearly a quarter of the Okinawan population perishing. This paper examines paintings, woodblock prints and manga that depict this battle, and through analysis of these works I show how deeply they reflect significant issues relating to Okinawan history, culture, and society, notably the struggles of its citizens and Okinawa’s social and political complexities. This paper explores several artists’ visual descriptions of the brutal and catastrophic Battle of Okinawa, particularly in terms of how their works disseminated the artists’ views on the battle, as well as war in general, to an audience beyond Okinawa prefecture. Art that concentrates on the Battle of Okinawa, either as a focal point or a cultural influence, has been little studied so far, most probably because it has been treated as a sensitive and controversial issue, culturally and especially politically. Artists are grouped and discussed according to regional identities (Okinawa or non-Okinawa), generation (pre-war or post-war), and gender. I also analyse the complexities of the objectives and challenges of each artist who was trying to create works that exposed the social reality, though my main focus is on the woodblock print artist, Gima Hiroshi, who was an Okinawan diaspora artist with a more transmedia approach than 2 contemporary painters such as Maruki Toshi (1901-1995), Maruki Iri (1912- 2000), and war-theme (sensō) manga artist, Kyō Machiko (b. 1978).","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"1935 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129017017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Geopolitics of Ecological Art: Contemporary Art Projects in Japan and South Korea","authors":"Ewa Machotka","doi":"10.32926/2018.5.MAC.GEOPO","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.5.MAC.GEOPO","url":null,"abstract":"The notion of ‘affinity with nature’ functions as a powerful political concept employed in the national identification of different cultural regions of East Asia including Japan and South Korea. Both countries have much in common. They share the myths of a ‘love of nature’ and a comparable history of post-war economic miracles followed by an ecological crisis and the subsequent development of environmentalism. They also host highly recognised contemporary art events guided by an environmentalist agenda: the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale (ETAT), established in the depopulated countryside of Niigata Prefecture in 2000 by the Art Front Gallery, a commercial gallery from Tokyo; and the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale, initiated by the Korean Nature Art Association (Yatoo), sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and first held in 2004 in Gongju, South Chungcheong Province.\u0000Guided by ecological thought, both art events aim to induce harmonious interaction between human and non-human realms, while questioning established modes of artistic interaction with ‘nature’ related to modern Western art discourses. Satoyama (lit. village mountain), an agricultural site based on harmonious human-nature interactions, the foundational concept of the ETAT, challenges the notion of gaze that defines the modern Western notion of landscape and its relationships with power. The ‘nature art’ practiced in Gongju, which involves simple interventions in the environment that are spontaneous and impermanent, questions the paradigms of Land Art. While responding to concrete environmental issues pertinent to the operation of social-ecological systems, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale and the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale both attempt to create localised alternatives to dominant epistemologies associated with global (Western) art discourses. But the question is if these practices are capable of challenging the established geopolitics of ecological art and conventional hierarchies of power between the local and the global embodied by the institutional framework of the eco-art biennale.","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116706924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tradition vs. Pop Culture: Attracting Tourists with the Cool Japan Campaign","authors":"Natalie Close","doi":"10.32926/2018.5.CLO.TRADI","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.5.CLO.TRADI","url":null,"abstract":"In 2008 the Japanese government set a goal of attracting 20 million foreign tourists by the Olympics in 2020. The country managed to achieve that goal by last year and has since revised their goal to 40 million tourists by 2020. A big part of the drive to increase tourist numbers has been the government led Cool Japan campaign. Attracting foreign tourists remains one of the mainstays of the Cool Japan campaign, as can be seen in the tourist-focused events and advertising witnessed overseas. One of the key aspects of the Cool Japan campaign has been to promote creative cultural industries, in particular businesses associated with anime, manga and gaming. This can be seen in such promotional activities as the closing ceremony for the Rio Olympics and the appointment of anime characters such as Doraemon, Atom Boy and Sailor Moon as ambassadors for Japan.\u0000However, the campaign has been accused of lacking focus as it tries to simultaneously promote aspects of both traditional and modern Japanese culture. This can be seen in the Japan National Tourism Organisation’s promotional campaigns featuring more traditional aspects of Japanese culture such as temples and festivals. In addition, there have been accusations that the Cool Japan campaign has done little to understand what foreign visitors are actually interested in and how best to promote the country. This paper investigates the success of the Cool Japan campaign and looks at the extent to which this fractured focus is actually attracting tourists. The research draws on data collected in Japan with those experiencing Japan as part of their vacation and interviews with tourists. The focus of this paper is on how the Cool Japan campaign influences potential tourists, and how effective the use of anime characters to promote Japan actually is.","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123986819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Repackaging Japanese Culture: The Digitalization of Folktales in the Pokémon Franchise","authors":"Erika Ann Sumilang-Engracia","doi":"10.32926/2018.5.SUM.REPAC","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.5.SUM.REPAC","url":null,"abstract":"Pokémon is arguably one of the most enduring brands in Japanese pop culture. As of March 2014 the Pokémon video game franchise alone has sold more than 260 million units worldwide (Lien, 2014). The Pokémon series has been the most well known game that the Nintendo Game Boy series has ever produced and marketed internationally. This study looks at Pokémon as a cultural product. Information contained in the Pokédex, an electronic encyclopedia of Pokémon found in the game points to the use of Japanese folklore as inspiration for some of the Pokémon released. There is an intricate give and take in the process of telling and retelling of folktales that is argued to be present even in its currently newer forms. This study explores the digitalization of folklore by looking at the incorporation of Japanese folktales into the Pokémon video game.\u0000Looking at how folkloric motifs were integrated in the creation of these pocket monsters inhabiting the world of Pokémon points to the importance of the Japanese folklore in the character designs. These folklore motifs infused in the game characters, and the world itself gives the franchise a Japanese cultural flavor which, as pointed out by other authors like Allison, make the experience more enjoyable (2003, p. 384). As such, this study looks at how the Pokémon franchise fuses socio-cultural elements in the creation Pokémon’s individual and unique pocket monsters. In effect, these new game creatures called Pokémon become new conduits by which old Japanese folktales are revisited, revised, and ultimately renewed. More importantly, it becomes one important avenue in the creation and proliferation of a Japanese cultural identity that is marketed abroad.\u0000\u0000It is argued that Pokémon is indeed a new medium where Japanese folklore has been appropriated and digitalized. According to Iwabuchi, influence of products of different cultures on everyday life cannot be culturally neutral. Instead, they inevitably carry cultural imprints called “cultural odor.” In terms of cultural odor, this makes Pokémon Japanese in fragrance. The creation of these newly formed folklore is a dynamic interaction between Japanese culture, the technology they are coursed through and gameplay as a form of performance by the consumers. The whole franchise now serves as a digital archive for folkloric beings that influenced directly or indirectly their creation. This resulted in enabling participative interaction between folklore and the individual. For international consumers, they also potentially serve as entryway into picking up an interest and learning more about Japanese culture. More than the ukiyo-e paintings and monster catalogs that proliferated during the Edo Period, Pokémon has fleshed out these folklore motifs and has put them at the front and center through their games, allowing for players to interact with and bond with them in an ever expanding virtual space called the Pokémon world.","PeriodicalId":199469,"journal":{"name":"Mutual Images Journal","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128608529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}