This panel explores the role of anime and manga in shaping our imaginations in contemporary Japanese society. Anime-and-manga-style images, which had been stigmatized in the past, became so visible in urban landscape that conservative and authoritative parties in power cannot ignore their influence today: local and national governments, public cultural sectors such as museums, and even Self-Defense Forces proactively use anime and manga contents for their promotion to appeal to the younger generations. Anime and manga utilized in such promotion offer useful resources for our time-space imagination and, without doubt, contributes to shaping our sense of past, present and future.

This panel critically discusses such an abundant use of anime and manga in contemporary Japanese society and its influence on our imaginations. On a positive side, it is deniable that anime and manga contents and promotion with them vitalized rural communities, enhanced local economies, attracted younger generations out of the region, and empowered marginalized people in the society. Many scholars, critics, and mass media celebrated such a role of anime and manga under the obsolete banner of Cool Japan. Our panel instead critically considers what Japanese society has lost by embracing anime and manga for creating and stirring our imaginations: use of the specific aesthetics of anime and manga has some negative impacts on the Japanese people and society. Each paper of this panel picks up a unique case, in which anime-and-manga-style contents function to repress and reduce the complicated richness of the reality and the potential of alternative imaginations.

Autointoxication in Manga and Anime: 2-D Beauty and the Real World

Noriko Hiraishi (University of Tsukuba)

Stories of transformation have always been common in literature, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8AD) to Kafka’s novella published in 1915. In the 20th century, comics, animation, and SFX works livened up the genre. In Japan, many transforming heroes and heroines such as Ultraman, Son Goku of Dragon Ball, and Sailor Moon have attracted audiences since the 1960s. In the 1990s, more “real” transformation stories became popular in women’s manga: in works dealing with cosmetic surgery. This paper explores autointoxication in manga and anime, examining representations of beauty and ugliness within the genre.

Most works on cosmetic surgery depict the miserable life of an ugly girl: she decides to change her face through plastic surgery and thus experiences a completely different life as a pretty girl. The contrast of her former/latter lives is described comically or seriously. Concerning how faces are drawn in manga and anime, characters tend to have rather similar appearances: with big eyes and a thin nose. However, the difference between beauty and ugliness is depicted in the stories on cosmetic surgery, where an ugly girl is given typical “mongoloid” features. Although these works often denounce Japanese male-dominated society, they reinforce Caucasian-oriented standards of beauty. Do these stories of 2-D beauties affect real Japanese society, where about 90 percent of cosmetic surgeries in 2017 involved facial treatment? Considering also the popularity of Cosplay and film/theatre adaptations, the paper will clarify the actual condition of this autointoxication.

More than a Moe-Okoshi

Yasuhito Abe (Komazawa University)

This paper critically examines how a Japanese regional promotion initiative engaged with transmedia practice through the use of the concept of moe. In doing so, this study takes the Executive Committee of Daughters of Chita (the Chita Musume Project, thereafter) as an inroad to understanding what can be called as the moe-okoshi practice, which generally means a regional promotion practice through the use of moe. The Chita Musume Project has created cute female anime characters and engaged with moe-anthropomorphism of the Chita Peninsula in order to enhance its visibility for both domestic and foreign audiences for the past ten years. An analysis of the Chita Musume Projects highlights the characteristic of moe-okoshi practice in contemporary Japanese society.

In so doing, this paper starts by reviewing key research on the notions of moe and moe-okoshi. Then, it describes the history of the Chita Musume Project from 2009 to 2019. Finally, this paper critically examines how Chita Musume characters were tactically used for regional promotion and discusses their social and cultural implications.

Two key findings emerged. First, the moe-okoshi practice can certainly contribute to enhanced visibility of regional areas for certain audiences. Second, the ultimate success of its transmedia practice may ironically constrain the scope of regional promotion. Moe-okoshi practice not only reduces a rich history of each tourist spot into a simplistic narrative for selected audiences, but also makes the idea of regional promotion as nothing more than moe consumption.

Japanese Sword as a Cultural Commodity of Historical Amnesia

Kohki Watabe (University of Tsukuba)

This paper surveys the history of cultural status and representation of Japanese swords in modern Japan and discusses that it has been utilized as a cultural commodity to mythologize the moral and spiritual superiority of Japan while forgetting dark sides of Japanese history. Among various cultural products the Japanese government advocates for its Cool Japan policy on the global market, Japanese swords are one of the most significant items deeply associated with tradition and spiritual value. They are always imagined as a "spirit of the samurai" and connected with the ideas such as dignity, loyalty, discipline, purity, and sacrifice. What is behind the top-down Cool Japan policy is increasing popularity of Japanese swords in anime and manga: an exhibition of Japanese swords featuring Neon Genesis Evangelion circulated all over the nation; Touken Ranbu Online, a sword-themed video-game targeting young Japanese girls, made a smash hit.

The aestheticized representation of Japanese swords in popular culture, however, selectively focuses on a romanticized aspect of the history. On the hand, the dark history related with Japanese swords is neglected such as the fact that the Japanese government before WWII used them as a national symbol to aesthetically justify their militarism: state-censored newspapers propagandized the sharpness and toughness of Japanese swords which enabled Japanese soldiers to kill many people in China. There, increasing reference to Japanese swords in today's soft-power boom makes them function as a cultural commodity of historical amnesia.