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Forum - View topicINTEREST: Cultural Critic Hiroki Azuma: Shin Godzilla, your name. Signify End of an Age
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I'm not sure I totally understand what he means. Maybe it'll be more clear after I have an opportunity to actually see each of them?
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Nyren
Posts: 707 |
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icomeanon6
Posts: 115 |
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I think your assessment of otaku/geek popularity is correct, but I don't think that's what Azuma was referring to. I think he's talking about a shift in the content itself and its creators, rather than in the reactions to the content. Basically, otaku media today is more optimistic, more feel-good than it used to be because most of the creators are in a better place than they used to be. I haven't seen Shin Godzilla yet, but if Azuma thinks that it's a departure from otaku "hopelessness," than it's a HUGE departure from what we used to expect from director Hideaki Anno. When you watch End of Evangelion, you can't help but shake the feeling that Anno might actually have been suicidal; there's just this emotional bleakness that permeates the entire movie. The word now is that Anno is much happier than he used to be, so he probably couldn't make something as genuine in how depressing it is as End of Evangelion anymore. As much as I love and respect End of Evangelion, it's probably a good thing that we won't get as many of those if it means fewer creators in the industry are depressed and feel their lives are going nowhere. |
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Arale Kurashiki
Posts: 773 |
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Hmm. When I hear 'otaku' I think a lot more about the modern shlock, but I suppose if one defines 'otaku' by Gainax-era innovation instead, the good side of the concept, he probably has a point. They truly don't make them like they used to.
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1052 |
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Are Anno and Shinkai really representative of otaku culture? Yes, Anno is a huge geek for tokusatsu shows and a few other bits of Japanese nerddom, but he's also been nearly as critical of modern anime as Miyazaki. And Shinkai, really, exists in his own silo with very little connection to the stuff that's getting produced for TV. This is like making a declaration about the future of American geek culture based upon Michael Chabon and Stephen King's latest works.
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Badcrazy
Posts: 31 |
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I feel like you are missing the point he's not making any comment on if this is a good or bad change just that it is. Something worth noting japan has always been quite negative to the otaku culture as a whole so for as many anime flims to do this well it means a lot. |
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Alabaster Spectrum
Posts: 528 |
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I'm sure a lot of modern anime fans will be very offended by what this guy said but for me I've been pondering along similar lines can only hope the whole post modern otaku scene dominated by light novel and eroge sub-cultures is heading to a bit more of a back seat again as the predominant culture and idea of what anime can or should aspire to in it's appeals to potential fans. It doesn't have to end or die out nor do I think it will but both those movies show an alternative path for an industry desperately looking for more open doors again that doesn't have to involve just bilking fringe demographics to stay afloat and I hope more producers take notice and start taking it again. I really don't think that's an unreasonable expectation or hope but I'm sure this somehow offends somebody anyway because it's the internet.
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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It seems to be that "the point" (or whatever it is supposed to be...) of Bishoujo games and the similar Sekai-kei works has been lost after decades of iterations.
The issue might simply be that variants of Bishoujo and Sekai-Kei have flooded the market so much that the "old way" of otaku productions have simply become lost upon production staff and as such all that we will receive are light novel variants of a male lead surrounded by pretty girls, and if there is ever a monogamous relationship "the world is at stake if they don't get together, NOW!" regardless if the main pair is heterosexual, yuri, or yaoi. That said, I think the old age probably died out during the 00's economic crash, and those few works that resemble the "old age" of otaku are but the last lights flickering out. |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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Azuma my man! Good to here he's still around.
I somewhat agree, though will lend some clarity to what I believe he is talking about. "Your Name" is the final nail in the coffin for Story-based anime. Now the character-centric narratives are not only the norm, but vastly more successful. You can jduge this because Azuma has written books on the decline for Storytelling and what he calls Grand Narratives. No longer is the otaku-subculture clawing for meaning in this world by means of anime. The old trends have plateaued. The old guard have been satiated. Otomo doesn't feel a need to work on anime, Miyazaki retired, Anno may or may not ever get to his 4th Rebuild movie. Kawamori seems fine letting Macross drift without purpose. And so much anime is character-based, it makes me sadly cynical about the new version of LoGH they're going to animate.
You'd be pretty amazed, I think Azuma pegs the three generations as those that grew up and founded TV anime subculture, those that grew up with that subculture in the background, and then those that grew up in the Post-Eva-era. (Those who invested in the Fake-Grand Narratvives of anime as a replacement for the Grand Narratives of Society, Those who entertained the Fake-Grand Narratives as optional, and those with no need for Grand Narratives.) Last I was reading from Azuma he was getting into game theories and was trying to tie post-Eva culture to the multi-universe, multi-path VN landscape, but this was over a decade ago so i dunno where his theories have gone since then, but i assume he has kept his generational difference alive. The old otaku lost their desire or need to engage with Fake grand narratives, and the new generation's Narratives are purely character based. Narratives, thusly, are dead. Azuma is the Nietzche of Otaku. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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The decline of story driven narratives in manga & anime has been a thing since the 80s, if not earlier (it's one of the things Miazaki had to say about the popularity of Urusei Yatsura, as I recall). From reading the garbled google translate version of the original article, the gist seems to be that Shinkai's popularity represents the rise of, for lack of a better phrase, "porn game" creators & their form of storytelling to the peak of otaku culture, which represents a distinctive break/shift from what was represented by Ghibli & a younger Anno.
The specifics of what distinguishes these new stories seems to be (& I might be basing this on nothing more than my own prejudices) a mix of blatant (male) insert protagonists; a central & quickly established relationship with an ideal (female) partner; a world which hinges on that relationship & a narrative that boils down to "save the princess, save the world." They usually get the good ending. I think the original article contrasts your name. with Shinkai's earlier 5cm per second, where of course spoiler[the protagonist doesn't get the girl, even if he can't forget her. The Bad ending, so to speak.] I've seen other creators/commentators mention the, I guess, dumbing down of narratives & the like. Inio Asano mentions in an interview with ANN that audiences seem to have developed very rigid expectations of what can & can't be included within a genre, at least in relation to sex. But I think in this instance what Azuma is getting at is that the sense of pessimism that pervades many older works of anime has been replaced by more optimistic outlooks. Of course, one could also argue that said change has also been accompanied by a noticeable reduction in introspection, perhaps because if things are going well you don't need to think about why. |
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koinosuke
 Posts: 274 Location: Fukushima, Japan |
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Ghibli films have been making Japanese box-office records and topping year-end charts in Japan for decades. |
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Heishi
 Posts: 1346 |
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Interesting analysis...
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leeoflittlefaith
 Posts: 105 |
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I don't get it. It's like he's saying the opposite of what Miyazaki's been saying about otaku culture not being cool because it doesn't represent real life experiences. This guy's saying the otaku thing was a really neat phase that's now fading away, right? I'm more inclined to agree with Miyazaki personally.
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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That'd be a good thing for me, because darkness-induced audience apathy kicks in pretty quickly for me. When things are bleak and hopeless in a story, I tend to lose interest because it feels like nothing good will ever happen in the story and that kindhearted characters are ineffectual and/or dying.
I don't really see the reason why a character-driven story is necessarily worse than a plot-driven story. If anything, I'd prefer a character-driven story because I'd care and connect with the characters more, whereas a plot-driven story has relatively flatter and more archetype-like characters pushed along by the narrative. It's the biggest difference between Pixar and DreamWorks (and Illumination). Pixar's stories are always centered around the characters with a production process that begins with what the protagonist would be like and building everything else around that protagonist. DreamWorks, on the other hand, has a storytelling process that begins with a location, then creating in characters who might fit in to that location and finding what works. |
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vangelionite88
 Posts: 285 |
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its been around for decades, and its true its far more normal now than when i was a kid, i remember telling a friend of mine about watching dbz and sailor moon, i was kind of embarrassed to bring up sailor moon since one could consider it kinda girly but he was like, i watch it too, this surprised me a bit, but in the years to come it would grow ever further due to pokemon, yugioh, digimon.... dbz. but anime has certainly become more commonplace, still weird and not mainstream or normalized in terms of presentation, its target audience is still the otaku, but its not shunned as i thought it would be by a large portion of the populace. im rather glad. guess all those you tube crusades payed off. lol.
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