Postmodernity Through The Lens of Otaku Culture
My generation is no stranger to the peculiar world of the otaku. We've been exposed to this Japanese subculture through the numerous anime, video games and trading card games that constituted a large part of our childhood. From initiating overzealous sparring matches after watching the latest episode of Akira Toriyama's "Dragon Ball Z", to splurging pocket money on a new set of pokemon cards for our collections or exploring uncharted lands in The Legend of Zelda games, all of us have at some point in our lives had a taste of what it's like to be an otaku. Yet, instead of viewing these experiences in a positive light, society tends to look down on anyone who shows interest in or tries to identify with otaku culture.
In his book, "Otaku: Japan's Database Animals", Hiroki Azuma provides us with a philosophical, and historical analysis of the characteristics and consequences of this intriguing consumer subculture known as otaku culture. This subculture not only reflects the transformations that postwar Japanese society had undergone but also goes on to mirror the metamorphosis of the nature of human behavior during the era of the post modern. He describes the rise of the otaku as a direct result of the warped conditions in Japan produced by the country’s rapid postwar modernization, its inability to cope with its loss in World War II, and America’s consequent cultural invasion. Azuma is of the view that the consumerist activities of otaku actually correspond to the postmodern consumption of culture in general. They abandon the search for depth and meaning and instead hunt for instant gratification in a rather animalistic manner. For otaku, culture then is defined by a database of settings and character traits while the otaku themselves transform into “database animals". Otaku culture is greatly misunderstood and there is a schizophrenic attitude towards them, especially in Japan. despite the fact that otaku are the main contributors towards innovation in commercial products, the rise in consumption patterns, and popularisation cultural practices, they are treated as disruptive and viewed as the downfall of Japanese society itself. For Azuma however, otaku are not merely social outcasts who hole themselves up in their rooms and keep themselves occupied with their manic obsession with anime, manga and video games. Through his analysis of otaku culture we learn that his theories have universal applications and in order to subvert the current negative discourse on this subject, this paper shall take a closer look at how significant this subculture is when it comes to understanding the reality in which we live today.
To understand the behavioural characteristics of otaku and later apply them to society at large, we must first observe their emergence in the context of the conditions prevalent in postwar Japan. The word “otaku” literally translates to ‘your home’ or ‘your family’, but in a very formal sense – one that identifies one not by personal relations but by a relationship to one’s territory. This territory resembles that of a snail-shell: stored inside are anime dvds, manga, figurines and all sorts of derivative fan works. Otaku carry their world with them to protect themselves; their association to a group maintains their emotional stability. They consciously choose fictional reality over social reality and even though "they generally possess the ability to distinguish fiction from reality”(Azuma, p.27), for them, fiction is simply more effective for their human relations. Otaku shut themselves in a hobby community. This behaviour can be observed as a reaction to there being no significant social causes or political goals for them to rally under, i.e. an absence of a grand narrative that unifies society. As social values and standards are dysfunctional, otaku feel the need to create alternative ideals and values. According to Azuma, this is "a postmodern characteristic because the process by which the coexistence of countless smaller standards replace the loss of the singular and vast social standard corresponds precisely to the “decline of the grand narrative” (Azuma, p.27) This tale of narrative decay is told by French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard as that of postmodernism. The postmodernists no longer have faith grand narratives such as Enlightenment where “man is essentially a rational being” or Marxism where "the history of man is class warfare”. Modernity may have been ruled by the grand narrative but postmodernity was traumatized by its collapse.
In Japan, grand narratives such as the shared experiences from World War II and the destruction and rebuilding of the nation only functioned during the period from 1945 to1970. According to Pop artist Murakami Takashi, when student protests aimed at changing the nature of U.S.- Japan postwar relations failed and economic advancement was hindered by the oil shocks, it resulted in a severe decline of activity within the social sphere leaving disenfranchised youth no choice but to look for alternatives in fantasy. As the first generation of otaku, they channeled their hopes and dreams for a brighter future into science fiction where specters of these grand narratives were reincarnated. During the period from 1970 to 1995 is when anime with sophisticated narratives such as Space Battleship Yamato (1974-75) and Mobile Suit Gundam (1979-80) became popular. Azuma calls this the "First Period of the Postmodern." 1995 onwards marks the "Era of Animals" when grand narratives had vanished entirely, even from the world of fiction, which is also coincidentally portrayed quite creatively by the Evangelion series which premiered in the same year.
The otaku’s “construction of shells of themselves out of materials from “junk subcultures”(Azuma, p.28) is a behavior pattern that can fill the void left by the collapse of grand narratives. Here, God and society have been substituted with junk subculture. This may seem like a downgrade, but only from a modernist perspective. Despite this, the modernist continues to hold on to the grand narratives. Wouldn't he seem like the more deluded one in this case?
Lets sum up Azuma's understanding of otaku history in relation to postmodernity: in the 1970s they lost the grand narrative, in the 1980s they began to construct and consume narratives, and in the 1990s they abandoned the construction of these narratives and thus began purely consuming the database.
What is this notion of the database? Azuma explains this through models of the modern and postmodern world. In the modern model, there is an observable surface layer of the world and a deep inner layer that controls the surface layer. This deep inner layer is the grand narrative. Postmodernism doesn't believe in grand narratives which is why Azuma proposes a “database model” as a superior alternative to make sense of postmodernity. The collapse of the cold war structure and the dawn of the Internet best represent the transition from "narrative to database". The Internet is precisely a good example because it has no grand narrative beneath the surface however it isn't simply a cluster of webpages with nothing underneath. There are entire databases and coded elements that make up the deep inner layer and the coding and algorithms can be changed and influenced by the user depending on how they interact with the surface layer. The Internet is but one vast database in which appears any number of worlds that differ depending on input.
An example of this is the way websites like Youtube, Spotify and Netflix use predictive algorithms to give you suggestions from the database based on certain elements that appeal to you. If you've shown interest in horror movies for example, Netflix might recommend any movies within its database that fall into the same genre.
Until 1989, the world was organized by ideology, but now the image of the "net" as the matrix for cultural multiplicity is prevailing. "Such a "databaseification" of the world is supported economically by globalization and technologically by the spread of information technology."(Azuma, p.181)
It is interesting to note that media theorist Lev Manovich also has similar ideas about the database where he says it is "a new way to structure our experience of ourselves and of the world. Indeed, if after the death of God (Nietzsche), the end of grand Narratives of Enlightenment (Lyotard), and the arrival of the Web (Tim Berners-Lee), the world appears to us as an endless and unstructured collection of images, texts and other data records, it is only appropriate that we will be moved to model it as a database." (Manovich, p.219)
For postmodern otaku, it goes without saying that grand narratives or fiction that consisted of world building, such as Gundam, were no longer desirable. The age of narrative consumption had come to an end and was replaced by the age of database consumption. Otaku were more interested in shows like Evangelion and "required settings to empathize with the story’s protagonist, to draw erotic illustrations of the heroine, and to build enormous robot figures but beyond that they seldom immersed themselves into the world of the works."(Azuma, p.37)
Hiroki Azuma argues in his book that otaku don’t consume a work just as a narrative; they also take it apart and focus on its individual elements. These can be characters, settings, art style, or the sound track. As consumers, they are curious about how the work is created and desire to pick it apart, element by element, and reconstruct something new. This is a postmodern phenomenon not just unique to otaku—it happens all across the globe. For example, this behaviour can be observed in the remixing culture of hip-hop music.
The elements mentioned above are known as moe elements which are "developed to effectively stimulate the moe(feeling of affection towards something) of the consumers" (Azuma, p.44). For simulacra to be successful, it must be properly composed of moe elements from the database. Azuma mentions Digiko as a result of sampling and merging popular elements from otaku culture. Simulacra must possess trending moe elements otherwise it will be weeded out from the market and disappear.
Animalisation VS Snobbery
Azuma poses a question in his book:
"If, in postmodernity, the notion of transcendence is in decline, what becomes of the humanity of human beings?"
To answer this question we must search for the meaning of the rise of database consumption within a broad world historical view, rather than an exclusively Japanese one. According to Hegel, History is the process of struggle that takes place between “the Human” and “the Other” which propels us towards knowledge, liberty, and civilization. He is of the opinion that this process came to an end at the start of the 19th century for Europe, i.e. the emergence of modern society was the end of History. What Azuma finds interesting here though aren’t Hegel’s ideas, but rather a footnote to Alexandre Kojève’s interpretation of Hegelian thought. Kojève talked about what modes of existence were likely after the end of Hegelian history, and discovered the first one in America, which he termed a return to animality, i.e. the consumer behavior which lives in harmony with “nature” instead of struggling against it.
“After the end of History, men would construct their edifices and works of art as birds build their nests and spiders spin their webs, would perform musical concerts after the fashion of frogs and cicadas, would play like young animals, and would indulge in love like adult beasts.”(Azuma, p.68)
What he is trying to say is that, once all our base desires are fulfilled, we become a classless society where we are like “animals”. Because we're living in harmony with nature, we stop separating ourselves from nature, and ultimately, cease to be men.
However, In Japan, Kojeve encountered another posthistorical mode of Being, i.e. "snobbery". Snobbery denies nature based on formalized values (e.g. seppuku). This posthistorical snobbery can be seen in the rise of otaku culture. In Azuma's opinion, there was a sort of narcissistic egotism in Japan in the 1980s which seeped into the otaku subculture during the 1990s. A pseudo-Japan was created in response to the defeat of traditional Japanese culture. Anime fuses the east and the west together. Sailor Mars, named after planet and Roman war god, hotheaded and modern, yet a traditional shrine maiden, is a great example of how this looks. This is why "Japanese-ness" is so forced in anime and manga – it’s a cultural snobbery that's different from the animal.
Animality and snobbery are the two choices post grand narrative, however, Azuma says the role of snobbery was only a phase. Otaku today have shifted from snobbery to the animal. This is clear from the fact that his database consumption of moe elements is similar to drug addiction rather than a pastime.
Navigating through the database
What is the significance of otaku culture and what is it they tell us that is important to understand our culture politics? For Hiroki Azuma, the philosophy and thinking of the future can be understood through otaku culture. Though otaku are shunned and mistakenly thought of as social rejects who do not conform, cannot communicate, fail to be men and lose touch with reality (Galbraith, p.210), we could definitely learn a thing or two from them about understanding the reality we live in. Azuma convincingly argues that otaku are not just a site where one might deconstruct Japanese culture. They are the reason for the emergence of a new database structure. Otaku perform a deconstructive movement, i.e. a "radical flattening of hierarchies"(Azuma, p.177) as well as offer a new area for the execution of social control. Azuma's approach is not to celebrate the otaku subculture but to explore, by participating and evaluating, what might successfully constitute counter movement within subculture circulation.
In a nutshell, Azuma’s “database” model is enormously useful in understanding socio-cultural relations with almost anything. We can use it to make statements like, “Anime fandom/the internet is a great example of this database model. As the world becomes more postmodern, other industries will begin to follow suit. This drive towards postmodernism will be a point of all consumerist interactions moving forward, and can be seen behind drives such as postnationalism and the way cultural flows are functioning.
It may seem like a bunch of colourful characters on the surface but otaku culture is immensely significant because it talks about channeling desires through the database and ultimately about creating a new kind of politics. These politics cannot be created through the superstructure, i.e. the existing forms or parliamentary democracy and the market structure and so on, rather, it has to come from within the database and that's the goal of the Hiroki Azuma's new book "General Will 2.0: Rousseau, Freud, Google" where he says the collective consciousness is in fact the database.
With the phenomenon of hyperflatness, otaku teach us sideways movement through the database. Based upon where we are situated in the database, we can draw different kinds of insights. This, for Azuma, is our reality, i.e. we live our lives in the database. The point is to try to shift positions within the database and look at it from different angles. It doesn't have depth, it's a model for reality in which there is no distinction between what is interior or what is exterior, what is hidden or apparent what is seen or unseen. Anything that can be seen is there in term of visual representations provided we are willing to engage in analysis. This is the task of politics now. We are now in a reality where all symbols have lost their symbolic efficiency and the power to produce meaning. Here we can learn something from the otaku who have a deep distrust in all symbolic manifestations. For otaku a symbol could mean anything depending on how you mix it up with the elements of the database, which is the most interesting application of the database in my opinion. An example of this is how otaku have portrayed ISIS as a harmless moe girl using moe elements from the database in order to defang Daesh.
The only contradiction I see is that the tale of the grand narrative collapsing and humans becoming database animals is a grand narrative in itself. Azuma's theories are broad and universal, however, isn't postmodernity supposed to reject these very characteristics? Although Hiroki Azuma constructed a convenient lens for looking at postmodernity, I can't help but feel that he became a little too attached to it to recognize the contradiction of using it as a grand narrative.
