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sanetAs promised last week, are some thoughts on Genshiken and fandom. I'd write more of a preamble, but I need to get some lunch and start reading up on comics/manga history. I'm trying to sneak a half-chapter on anti-colonialism and comics into my thesis. We shall see how that goes. In the meantime...
Genshiken. Dir. Takashi Ikehata. Genco, 2004. (Season 1)
Genshiken is part of that self-reflexive subgenre of anime about anime and its fans. The story began in 2002 as a manga by Shimoku Kio, and I guess someone thought it’d be the perfect thing to adapt into an anime series…with multiple seasons…and OVAs…and a spinoff…because that’s just what happened. I’ve only seen the first season (12 eps) so far, but I’m going to watch the OVAs and second season when I get a chance, because it’s an entertaining look into otaku culture.
Guiding us into the society of Genshiken is Sasahara, a newbie first year university student looking for a club to join. In Genshiken –an abbreviation for the “Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture”- he finds a quirky but generally good-hearted bunch of guys. There’s the hardcore geeklord Madarame, the laid-back costume designer Tanaka, the shy, stuttering doujin artist Kugayama, and the cool gamer Kousaka, who joins at the same time as Sasahara and is often tailed by his non-otaku girlfriend Kasukabe. In the 4th episode, the club gains its first female member, the cheery cosplayer Ohno. Hijinks at “Comifes” (a play on the real-life doujin market Komiketto), trips to Akihabara, and clashes with both the more popular Manga Society and the mundane student council abound.
What I found interesting about this series is the links it draws between fans and non-fans. It makes parallels between the mainstream and the otaku subculture, but without trying to say “otaku are just like everyone else!” or to draw them back into mainstream culture (which I found the Densha Otoko movie did a little bit). F’r instance, in the second episode, the Genshiken members take Sasahara shopping for manga in Akihabara, while Kousaka plays the good boyfriend and goes to boutiques in Harajuku with Kasukabe. Crosscutting shows the otaku and the fashionista both trying to decide what to buy and spending way too much. In a funny, light-hearted way, it puts both of them into perspective as different kinds of consumers –the sort of point you might find a scholar of commodity culture making. In fact, the show is a self-conscious commentary on these sorts of issues, right down to the episode titles, which read like parodic academic papers (this episode is called “Comparative Classification of the Modern Youth through Consumption and Entertainment.”) I like an anime that can be self-critical and laugh at itself. I think that’s what fans do. Fandom (at its best) is not about blind devotion, but a combination of engagment and criticism of what you like and what you do as a fan.
On that note, I also like this series because it includes non-fan and anti-fan perspectives. There’s a great book called Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (edited by Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington) that has an entire section about anti-fans. I think it’s an important and understudied dimension of fan experience: how antagonism works within the community. Kasukabe is a great character for this. She thinks all the club members are perverts and is always trying to get Kousaka to quit. But at the same time, she comes to all the meetings and even reads some of the more socially acceptable manga. She never loses her abrasive edge, but she doesn’t break the club up either. In fact, when the student council threatens to shut down the club, Kasukabe goes ahead and saves it while everyone else is dithering about what to do –just because she wants to see it end on her terms. She provides friction, motive force. As the season progresses, we see more of her than our everyman character Sasahara, who fades into the background. The show’s not perfect, but it is a more nuanced portrait of fandom than you might give it credit for at first glance.
I hear that in the OVAs, they introduce an otaku-hating fujoshi who’s wrestling with the shame of liking (and creating!) yaoi doujin. I can’t wait to see it!
Genshiken. Dir. Takashi Ikehata. Genco, 2004. (Season 1)
Genshiken is part of that self-reflexive subgenre of anime about anime and its fans. The story began in 2002 as a manga by Shimoku Kio, and I guess someone thought it’d be the perfect thing to adapt into an anime series…with multiple seasons…and OVAs…and a spinoff…because that’s just what happened. I’ve only seen the first season (12 eps) so far, but I’m going to watch the OVAs and second season when I get a chance, because it’s an entertaining look into otaku culture.
Guiding us into the society of Genshiken is Sasahara, a newbie first year university student looking for a club to join. In Genshiken –an abbreviation for the “Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture”- he finds a quirky but generally good-hearted bunch of guys. There’s the hardcore geeklord Madarame, the laid-back costume designer Tanaka, the shy, stuttering doujin artist Kugayama, and the cool gamer Kousaka, who joins at the same time as Sasahara and is often tailed by his non-otaku girlfriend Kasukabe. In the 4th episode, the club gains its first female member, the cheery cosplayer Ohno. Hijinks at “Comifes” (a play on the real-life doujin market Komiketto), trips to Akihabara, and clashes with both the more popular Manga Society and the mundane student council abound.
What I found interesting about this series is the links it draws between fans and non-fans. It makes parallels between the mainstream and the otaku subculture, but without trying to say “otaku are just like everyone else!” or to draw them back into mainstream culture (which I found the Densha Otoko movie did a little bit). F’r instance, in the second episode, the Genshiken members take Sasahara shopping for manga in Akihabara, while Kousaka plays the good boyfriend and goes to boutiques in Harajuku with Kasukabe. Crosscutting shows the otaku and the fashionista both trying to decide what to buy and spending way too much. In a funny, light-hearted way, it puts both of them into perspective as different kinds of consumers –the sort of point you might find a scholar of commodity culture making. In fact, the show is a self-conscious commentary on these sorts of issues, right down to the episode titles, which read like parodic academic papers (this episode is called “Comparative Classification of the Modern Youth through Consumption and Entertainment.”) I like an anime that can be self-critical and laugh at itself. I think that’s what fans do. Fandom (at its best) is not about blind devotion, but a combination of engagment and criticism of what you like and what you do as a fan.
On that note, I also like this series because it includes non-fan and anti-fan perspectives. There’s a great book called Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (edited by Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington) that has an entire section about anti-fans. I think it’s an important and understudied dimension of fan experience: how antagonism works within the community. Kasukabe is a great character for this. She thinks all the club members are perverts and is always trying to get Kousaka to quit. But at the same time, she comes to all the meetings and even reads some of the more socially acceptable manga. She never loses her abrasive edge, but she doesn’t break the club up either. In fact, when the student council threatens to shut down the club, Kasukabe goes ahead and saves it while everyone else is dithering about what to do –just because she wants to see it end on her terms. She provides friction, motive force. As the season progresses, we see more of her than our everyman character Sasahara, who fades into the background. The show’s not perfect, but it is a more nuanced portrait of fandom than you might give it credit for at first glance.
I hear that in the OVAs, they introduce an otaku-hating fujoshi who’s wrestling with the shame of liking (and creating!) yaoi doujin. I can’t wait to see it!
