Postmodernism is one of those stuffy words you see thrown around the Internet. It’s slapped on architecture, education, movies, and even anime. But what really is postmodernism? How can an anime be postmodern? Despite it’s name, postmodernism has nothing to do with being modern. I rather dislike the word modern because every age thinks itself…
Category: Otaku Culture
The History of Cosplay
Cosplay sits as the best-known expressions of anime and manga fandom. Each year, fans spend countless hours designing and sewing their costumes and perfecting their impersonations. Many view cosplay, a contraction of costume play, as a Japanese import. However, like anime, cosplay comes from the interplay of American and Japanese culture. What Exactly is Cosplay?…
Musings VI: On the ghost of O’iwa, and why she’s still scary.
The Season of Horrors It may seem strange at first that summer is the prime time for ghost stories in Japan. We tend to associate summer with pleasant things… but imagine you’re living in early modern Japan. You have no iced drinks, no electric fans, no convenient water taps. There’s basically no way to keep…
Anime Undermines American Manhood
Anime is a threat to American values. It injects foreign ideas into the veins of American culture, particularly American masculinity. But then, American masculinity needs the medicine. Click-bait title and introduction aside, let’s look at American values. The United States contains several core values: freedom of speech, rights of the individual, equality, achievement, social mobility,…
Love, Chunibyo, and How to Cope with Reality
While I watched Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions, I began thinking about how the series illustrates the difficulties of coping with reality. Everyone has different ways of coping with their problems. We avoid, fight, deny, and face demons within and without. Reality is tough. It’s hard to face death. It’s hard to face loneliness, loss,…
Musings V – Adaptation in Japanese (Pop) Culture
One among many orientalist[i] stereotypes of Asians is that they are masters of imitation (or adaptation) but lack original creativity (or invention); an assumption which looks ridiculous when one spends just a little time studying any given Asian culture, I would say. Rather, I spot the tendency to imitate (instead of inventing) in modern popular…