#Hiroki Azuma

[summonee]

We're so back (I've actually wanted this book for a while now because even though I don't care about the topic I really like the theorist).

[jinsei-pika-pika]

「美少女ゲームの臨界点　波状言論　臨時増刊号」 – 2004 東浩紀 (著)　

[thejaymo]

243 - Back 2 It | Weeknotes

Got back from Portugal late Tuesday and have spent the week getting back into things.

I was in Lisbon to speak about Solarpunk at the Architecture Triennale.

[puffles]

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Mawaru Penguindrum. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical biology most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Kanba's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Haruki Murakami literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Mawaru Penguindrum truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Penguin 1's existential catchphrase "          ," which itself is a cryptic reference to Kenji Miyazawa's Japanese epic Night on the Galactic Railroad. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Kunihiko Ikuhara'ss genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. 😂

And yes, by the way, i DO have a Pingu Group tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎

Ok but there really is a Penguindrum Literary Reference compilation

[centrally-unplanned]

Japanese website Forest Page is shutting down ~today, a tragic loss of "Heisei otaku memories", as so many are calling it. Launched in 2003, Forest Page was a "Geocities for mobile", a site that hosted user-created websites and gave them tools to allow non-coders to make them. In practice, it became one of the premiere places for fanfiction in Japan, with the stories hosted on author-created sites.

It wasn't quite the Fanfic.net of Japan, as for one the Japanese fandom just never centralized quite the way the 2000's western one did, instead being spread out over a half dozen or so sites. But additionally, it wasn't initially popular for fanfic so much as cell phone fanfiction, because in 2000's Japan the "cell phone novel" was a specific thing. These websites were being made for flip phones, not smartphones, and not only would people read them on those phones, they would often write them. None of that was very conducive to the creation and consumption of a "traditional" novel; so starting in the 2000's Japanese writers started making stories fit for the medium, namely:

Very short

A huge focus on dialogue and inner thoughts, with no/minimal description or scene detail

Using a limited POV of a specific character

Often employing the medium-as-message, like using emojis, structuring the story as IM's or emails, etc.

Also they all had huge gaps between lines, I'm not really sure what that is about:

Probably for readability on the phone given the small screen size? But it was absolutely part of the genre. A few of these novels actually made it big, got movie adaptations, people wrote articles about the "cultural phenomenon", it was the 2000's so Hiroki Azuma had a take on it of course, and so on. It slotted neatly into the vibe of the time of technology changing culture, paralleling discourse around otaku in the same era.

In fanfic those trends met up, and anyone familiar with fanfiction probably read that list of traits of the cellphone novel and thought "oh, this is perfect for fanfiction". Skipping out on description? I don't need it, I know what they look like already. Focus on conversation and POV? Perfect for shipping fics. Short lengths? Yeah, we are shortcutting to the good stuff, that is the point. Mirroring trends in the west, Forest Page's userbase was ~95% female, and the most common content on the site was romantic or edgy-dramatic stories in the franchises you'd expect. The closure page linked above actually summarizes the site's history by year, and lists the biggest fandoms:

Which is exactly what I would expect from a female otaku fanfiction website. Congrats to Pirates of the Caribbean for making it though, freeaboo's represent.

I do think the fact that the site was a website hoster as opposed to a fic hoster did align with the way the Japanese fandom was more "creator focused" and embraced the media mix more. There were "fic circles" a la doujin circles who made their own pages, people would make fanart, fan video games, and so own to host alongside it, and all of it was centralized to the creator; it made following them-as-a-person just a little bit easier. Most websites were simple text, but others did have the full Geocities experience:

Something that was somewhat common were basic visual novel concepts where the reader could make choices, or even insert their own name so they would be the "MC" of the story:

(Dream novels are in fact their own thing in Japan) My understanding is the site was quite popular through the 2000's and into the 2010's, though over time the "cellphone novel" as a concept fizzled out. People got smartphones, more people got PCs, and the constraints didn't make sense anymore - you can read ebooks and normal websites on your phone now after all. You can probably draw a line between these kind of stories and the webfiction/light novel boom of the late 2000's/2010's, something that was equally born on the internet, that streamlines the novel to "shortcut to the good stuff" but without the need to fit on a flip phone's screen. Though I will admit my own understanding of their histories shows them more as two sides of the same "youth demand for new literature" coin.

In 2017 Forest Page launched Forest Page Plus, a new service fully optimized for the smartphone era; but it did not transfer over all the old content, starting the clock ticking on the original Forest Page. My understanding is that in June they announced Forest Page was officially closing down; and from what I have gathered from reminiscing writers on twitter, they did not provide any easy, one-touch way to save any of the content, so people are archiving Wayback Machine links or sharing tips on how screenshot-save stories (I think the rub is they gave people a way to transfer content to FP+, but most don't want to do that, as places like Twitter & Pixiv are the content kings of this era).

As of tomorrow I would bet the large majority of the content will be gone; quite sad given both the quantity of stories there and how many got sometimes millions of readers. I am sure most of the biggest stories are archived at least, but particularly the early stuff was a very ephemeral genre, one that doesn't make sense to revisit once you aren't a 16 year old teen writing and reading fics on a flip phone in between classes. Which means another legion of the ghosts of the Wired is being born today. May we pour one out for a fellow online community that lived and died!

[white-cat-of-doom]

A round of newly shared promotional photos from Japan, before they open in Shizuoka next week on 17 July 2024.

Namiko Hanada as Jennyanydots.

Ryudo Tsutaki as Mungojerrie and Ayu Shimizu as Rumpleteazer.

Maaya Tahara as Cassandra and Yuma Ishida as Tumblebrutus.

Taken over the course of the Nagoya stop from 2022 to 2024.

Jellicle Songs Pyramid, from December 2022:

(Top left and down) Cezary Modzelewski as Chorus Tugger, Ippei Sagehashi as Chorus Macavity, Yurie Sato as Bombalurina, Yuriko Yamada as Cassandra, Kanako Fujiwara as Sillabub, Saaya Azuma as Rumpleteazer, Yuki Takahashi as Young Deuteronomy, Masae Ebata as Babygriz, Ayaka Yoshida as Jellylorum, Hitomi Sekino as Victoria, Yuki Hirai as Jemima, Hikari Ono as Demeter, Miki Kasahara as Jennyanydots, Hiroki Terunuma as Carbucketty, Junpei Wakebe as Munkustrap, Kaisaer Tatike as Skimbleshanks, Shoyo Kamitani as Rumpus Cat, Ryudo Tsutaki as Mungojerrie, Akito Iwamura as Mistoffelees, Ryujiro Isshiki as Coricopat, and Yujin Haga as Gilbert.

The Jellicle Ball, from November 2022:

Mitsuha Kojima as Bombalurina, Hiroki Terunuma as Carbucketty, Maaya Tahara as Cassandra, Ryujiro Isshiki as Coricopat, Shunsuke Ito as Gilbert, Misaki Ono as Jellylorum, Tsukushi Maruno as Jemima, Namiko Hanada as Jennyanydots, TaeSun Kang as Chorus Macavity, So Yokoi as Mistoffelees, Masaru Kitamura as Munkustrap, Kazuki Kanemoto as Old Deuteronomy, Ayu Shimizu as Rumpleteazer, Haruna Sasaki as Sillabub, Naomi Takada as Tantomile, and Nemu Kondo as Victoria.

The Ad-Dressing of Cats, from 2022 or 2023:

Mitsuha Kojima as Bombalurina, Shun Kuwahara as Carbucketty, Maaya Tahara as Cassandra, Marina Tada as Demeter, Yujin Haga as Gilbert, Miki Okudaira as Jellylorum, Yukako Shingu as Jemima, Miki Kasahara as Jennyanydots, Shu Oshida as Mistoffelees, Kazuki Morita as Mungojerrie, Taijun Kanemoto as Munkustrap, Yuki Takahashi as Old Deuteronomy, Ayu Shimizu as Rumpleteazer, Cezary Modzelewski as Rum Tum Tugger, Kenshin Mori as Rumpus Cat, Fumina Yamanashi as Sillabub, Kaisaer Tatike as Skimbleshanks, Saki Suginoas Tantomile, Junpei Sano as Tumblebrutus, and Nemu Kondo as Victoria.

[fishuus]

hi!! Your art is incredible and awesome... not sure how to say it otherwise but it's super tasty looking lol 🫶

I was wondering if you have ever posted what brushes do you use ? I am always on the lookout for nice brushes! Also if you've got any tips for inking, I'd appreciate it enormously. No worries if not! 💕

hi, thanks so much!

i mostly just use whatever defaults came with clip studio paint. for inking, my go-to is the the default marker pen brush (under the marker tab in pens), but sometimes i'll swap to the calligraphy one (should be in the pen tab), or this brush but with the pen pressure turned off. just depends on how i'm feeling about whatever i'm inking. when i want to add some texturing when toning, i use stuff like the spray or diagonal line brushes (again, should be included in CSP), i just make an eraser version of them so i can also use them on layer masks.

as for inking tips ... i don't have any hard and fast "always do x for y" advice but i rambled a little about how i approach it.

this first point is actually pretty straightforward, it's just to look at inking techniques by artists you like, think about what makes them work so well in their context, and try them out for yourself. this isn't about plagiarizing art styles but more about understanding how other artists choose to stylize certain things in their work, and seeing what works and what doesn't for you personally. sometimes it's through looking at other people's stylizations that you get a better understanding of how you want to approach translating this actual 3d object (people, clothes, background details, whatever) into your own art as well. as you try out various techniques, maybe you find that some of them work well with your own style, and some of them don't and you stop incorporating those. it's all a constant work in progress. over time you can adjust how you use them in a way that fits your own drawing methods and workflows and they just start to come more naturally to you. of course, they may and should change a lot along the way because now it's something that's part of your own style. work on developing a good eye for these things and be thoughtful about what you want to convey and how.

just as an example, daiya no ace by terajima yuji definitely has to be up there for me in terms of influences, the way he approached body lines and clothing folds as a way to convey movement and posing made a lightbulb turn on in my head back when i was still reading it.

not a comprehensive list, but other manga i just like looking at off the top of my head - rookies (morita masanori), anything by yamashita tomoko but i really recommend the night beyond the tricornered window for something that's easily accessible, anything by asada nemui (please check for content warnings for their works first though!), all-rounder meguru (endo hiroki), urasawa naoki's works, dungeon meshi (kui ryoko), witch hat atelier (shirahama kamome), yotsuba&! (azuma kiyohiko), a bride's story (mori kaoru), i recollect love (moegi yukue), the later works of tojitsuki hajime (unfortunately a lot of is now out of print and not accessible online but i managed to get all their books bc their commitment to crosshatching shaved heads each time impressed me so much LMAOSJDsd) etc, etc.

this second thing is much vaguer and harder to quantify but ... honestly just draw a lot and see what feels good to your hand. inking and art styles in general are fluid things. so much of what inking comes down to, to me, is just drawing the lines that in a way that feels good to me. that only really comes from doing it a lot (not saying i'm a hardcore artist or anything lol just that i've been drawing on and off for a while now) and, well, getting a sense of what you like doing. sometimes you might look at a detail you finished that looks really good but feels like a happy accident, and it kinda is, but it's also just as much of the things you've internalized over time. combining the first point (developing your eye and a sense of thoughtfulness about inking) and the second (getting experience through developing your muscle memory) is basically it.

idk if any of this made sense lol but hope some of it helps!!!!!

[leomacgivena]

子ども作るのは辛い、子ども作るのはわがまま、子ども作るのはリスク、そもそも親子とか家庭とか最悪みたいに感じるひとがいちど多数派になってしまうと、空気を戻すのは難しいだろう。人間は周りみて人生決めるからな。

Xユーザーの東浩紀 Hiroki Azumaさん

[tomatonibbler]

the mutual icebreaker challenge!!!!!!!

tagged (kinda) by @baptismals

last song listened to:

favorite place: western nc

favorite book: cleanness by garth greenwell

currently reading: the book of laughter and forgetting by milan kundera, otaku: japanese database animals by hiroki azuma and umineko chapter five (i have a lot more books that im reading but these r the ones i find myself revisiting)

favorite movie: bringing up baby

favorite tv show: ohhh gosh this ones hard bcuz i dont watch that much tv. maybe northern exposure lol?

favorite food: curry 🍛 specifically paneer bhurja and baingan bharta

tagging:

i was going to tag a bunch of people but then i got nervous so this is open to anyone who wants to do it. go ahead.

[zaruba-needslove]

Hehe. Reblog for reach. I'm just making polls for fun lol. Not saying that I'd consider writing any of these crack combos... but it'll be interesting to check out if anyone interested in such odd ship 😃

I'm excluding the ships that were quite abundant in AO3 like KeiAce, AzuAce cos a lot of ppl tend to write those anyway. And even then there's still a lot i cant include here like WinAce, AzuKei, AzuTohru, KeiJitt, AceJitt, WinGirori...

Anyone interested in Azuma/Archimedel?

[weaselandfriends]

Tokyo subway sarin attack (the "Aum Incident"): March 20, 1995

Neon Genesis Evangelion premiere: October 4, 1995

Further changes to the plot were made following the Aum Shinrikyo sect's sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in March. Azuma Hiroki has said that the original Evangelion story was "too close to reality" from Anno's point of view. Anno thought that the original scenario was not suitable for broadcasting, and he feared censorship. However, he also criticized Aum Shinrikyo, because "they lost any contact with reality". For this reason, Azuma stated that Evangelion "is an intrinsic critique of Aum". (From Wikipedia)

(Image source: 16bit Sensation)

[sinjpt11]

Genshiken

Genshiken, is an anime about the lives of college students who are part of a club dedicated to otaku culture. The series portrayal of otaku life, shedding light on the stigmatization and societal challenges faced by enthusiasts of anime, manga, and video games. 

Relevance in Japan

In Japan, otaku culture has often been met with mixed reactions, ranging from fascination to outright disdain. "Genshiken" captures this dichotomy by depicting how its characters struggle with societal perceptions while passionately engaging in their hobbies. This struggle reflects broader issues of cultural identity and acceptance in Japanese culture, highlighting how individuals often feel marginalized due to their interests. Globally, the anime resonates with any subculture that faces similar societal challenges. The series emphasize the importance of finding a community where one can belong, a universal theme that transcends cultural boundaries.

Relevance to American Life

Genshiken does not really relate to my life, but it is relevant to life here in the west. The experiences depicted in Genshiken also have strong parallels with American life, particularly with fandoms and subcultures. In the United States, fandoms for comics, gaming, and other interests often experience similar issues of social stigma and misunderstanding. The anime's portrayal of characters grappling with their identities within and outside their fandom reflects the broader struggles of individuals balancing mainstream societal expectations with personal passions. 

Relevance to Readings

Genshiken aligns with John Fiske's concept of the "cultural economy of fandom," where fans create their own communities and systems of value outside mainstream culture. This relates with the American experience of conventions, online forums, and fan creations, where fans express their passion and build networks.

Connecting this to the reading "Database Animals" by Hiroki Azuma, Genshiken also illustrates the shift in how media consumption shapes identity in the postmodern era. Azuma's concept of "database consumption" highlights how fans engage with media not just as consumers but as active participants who draw from a variety of references and subcultures. In Genshiken, characters navigate this landscape, reflecting on their identities as fans and their relationships with the media they consume. 

Overall, Genshiken is more than a lighthearted exploration of otaku culture; it is a thoughtful commentary on the dynamics of identity, community, and acceptance. The anime's themes are universally relevant, offering insights into the challenges faced by niche communities worldwide. Whether in Japan, the United States, or elsewhere, the series resonates with anyone who has felt the need to navigate their passions within a society that may not fully understand or accept them.

[jinsei-pika-pika]

[pudknocker]

リベラルが負ける状況自体が差別的というのは、いま本当に言い出されているけど、もうそれ民意の否定なんだよな。そういう考えを突き詰めていったら暴力革命しかないし、実際それがマルクスレーニン主義というやつだった。 論理はわかるが、ぼくは暴力革命はごめん被るので、それには乗れない。

Xユーザーの東浩紀 Hiroki Azumaさん

[canmom]

i really need to actually read hiroki azuma with the amount i throw around 'otaku database thing'

[white-cat-of-doom]

Today is Neko no Hi (猫の日) in Japan, otherwise known as National Cat Day, which takes place every 22nd of February, as the date resembles the words "nyan nyan nyan" (meow meow meow) in Japanese.

The Shiki Theatre Group shared some performance photos from Nagoya in honour of the special day!

The Naming of Cats

The Jellicle Ball

The Naming of Cats cast:

Akito Iwamura as Mistoffelees, Ayaka Yoshida as Jellylorum, Cezary Modzelewski as Chorus Tugger, Hikari Ono as Demeter, Hiroki Terunuma as Carbucketty, Hitomi Sekino as Victoria, Ippei Sagehashi as Chorus Macavity, Junpei Wakebe as Munkustrap, Kaisaer Tatike as Skimbleshanks, Kanako Fujiwara as Sillabub, Mai Usami as Tantomile, Masae Ebata as Babygriz, Ryudo Tsutaki as Mungojerrie, Ryujiro Isshiki as Coricopat, Saaya Azuma as Rumpleteazer, Shoyo Kamitani as Rumpus Cat, Toma Masaki as Asparagus, Yujin Haga as Gilbert, Yuki Hirai as Jemima, Yuma Ishida as Tumblebrutus, Yurie Sato as Bombalurina, and Yuriko Yamada as Cassandra.

The Jellicle Ball cast:

Hitomi Sekino as Victoria, Junpei Wakebe as Munkustrap, Kanako Fujiwara as Sillabub, Mayumi Fujita as Demeter, Mitsuha Kojima as Bombalurina, Namiko Hanada as Jennyanydots, So Yokoi as Mistoffelees, and Yuki Hirai as Jemima.