There’s an entire alternate shoujo genealogy out there: we female fans know it well, even if the Gainax guys don’t. Is this a limit of Lamarre’s male otaku pov as much as Okada’s? Or just a limit of academic publishing?
Based on my conversations with him, I'd go with the latter rather than the former.
Okay, so. I think gender in anime/manga/fandom is criminally underacknowledged. I also think that there's a vast difference between the way Japanese men and women live fandom--basically, I'm not sure if there really is such a thing (or better, position) as a "female otaku." I tend to think that instead there are male otaku and female fujoshi, full stop. I think a lot of the fannish behaviors are common to each, but they're also very different in a lot of critical ways. But I don't want to do the same but opposite thing that I've heard male American fans say: that fujoshi are otaku and they should just admit that. I don't think they're the same at all. Thoughts?
I also really, really wish there were cross-cultural (trans-national?) studies of fandom--generally fandom globally is predominantly female, or at least that's the overwhelming impression I have thanks to the Internet and volunteering with the OTW. I think #s 3 and 4 above are obviously common to fandom globally regardless of gender, and I think 5, or at least the second half of it, is common to fandom as well. Thoughts?
Also, I agree that the female side of animanga is criminally under-represented in scholarship. That said, I wonder if Chobits, to take a random example, couldn't perhaps be interpreted as subtly anti-otaku: Hideki gets with Chii in the end, but they can never have sex--or rather, he can either have sex with her or love with her, and not both, and that he chooses the one, rather than trying to find someone with whom he can have both (as opposed notably to at least one other couple in the manga) seems to be a possible critique of (male) otaku-dom.
no subject
Based on my conversations with him, I'd go with the latter rather than the former.
Okay, so. I think gender in anime/manga/fandom is criminally underacknowledged. I also think that there's a vast difference between the way Japanese men and women live fandom--basically, I'm not sure if there really is such a thing (or better, position) as a "female otaku." I tend to think that instead there are male otaku and female fujoshi, full stop. I think a lot of the fannish behaviors are common to each, but they're also very different in a lot of critical ways. But I don't want to do the same but opposite thing that I've heard male American fans say: that fujoshi are otaku and they should just admit that. I don't think they're the same at all. Thoughts?
I also really, really wish there were cross-cultural (trans-national?) studies of fandom--generally fandom globally is predominantly female, or at least that's the overwhelming impression I have thanks to the Internet and volunteering with the OTW. I think #s 3 and 4 above are obviously common to fandom globally regardless of gender, and I think 5, or at least the second half of it, is common to fandom as well. Thoughts?
Also, I agree that the female side of animanga is criminally under-represented in scholarship. That said, I wonder if Chobits, to take a random example, couldn't perhaps be interpreted as subtly anti-otaku: Hideki gets with Chii in the end, but they can never have sex--or rather, he can either have sex with her or love with her, and not both, and that he chooses the one, rather than trying to find someone with whom he can have both (as opposed notably to at least one other couple in the manga) seems to be a possible critique of (male) otaku-dom.