Joe's Week 5

What is the ‘shojo’ and how does it often function in anime?

According to Wikipedia, Shojo means young girl in Japanese word or refers to a sea spirit with red face and hair and a fondness for alcohol in Japanese mythology. According to the interpretation in the Introduction (2006), “the term shoujo literally means ‘little female’ and is commonly used to designate girls aged 12 or 13. …. the transitional stage between infancy and maturity, and admixture of sexlessness and budding eroticism.” (Cavallaro, 2006: 11)

In Miyazaki, contrary to the nature of the average shoujo as a passive being in a timeless dreamland, they are portrayed as active, independent, courageous and inquisitive heroines to the point as “youths wearing shoujo masks” (“Panoramic Miyazaki” 1997, p. 2). These very natures are exemplified in Miyazaki’s approach in “Nausicaa’s treatment of her father’s assassins, Sheeta’s refusal to yield the magical crystal to the evil Muska (Laputa), Kiki’s brave venture into a new life in an unfamiliar city …. and Chihiro’s willing submission to numerous challenges and humiliations for her parents’ sake (Spirited Away).” (Cavallaro, 2006: 11) We can also have a glimpse of San’s defiant bloodstained face in Mononoke.

Reference:

Cavallaro, D. (2006). Introduction. In The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki (pp. 5-13). London: McFarland & Company

“Panoramic Miyazaki” (1997). Eureka (Special Issue) 29, no. 11

Joe's Week 6

What are the underlying thematics of Princess Mononoke? How does it 'defamilarise' its historical setting, according to Napier (2005)?


The Princess Mononoke's underlying themes take place in a mythical space deeply removed from the capital comprising "marginals" of "a diverse and unusual group of women, outcasts and non-Yamato (non-ethnic Japanese) tribes and particularly the ancient gods, the kami, which linked to the forces of natures."  The impetus was provided by the war of the kami against the humans or more correctly, the humans against the kami; and led to the story’s “foundation” – “ ‘extermination of ghosts’ ”.  Typical themes in the story are: 

1. Ashitaka's expedition 
2. His relationship with Princess Mononoke
3. Conflicting struggles revealed in Lady Eboshi's protection of outcasts, leper, the humans of the Iron Town;  the survival of Princess Mononoke and Animal Gods
4. Exhibition of the main characters' selflessness and devotion to their dependents.

These themes defamiliarise its conventional Japanese history through Miyazaki's decision to set Princess Mononoke at the Muromachi period of, the fourteenth century, creating "a mythical space deeply removed from the capital, both symbolically and literally", "the marginals of history" by "subversion of conventional expectations". He put emphasis on unusual groups, like "women, outcasts and non-Yamato (non-ethnic Japanese) tribes and, particularly, the kami, the ancient gods of the the Japanese people", neglecting samurai, peasants and feudal lords, but as supporting roles. One of the main drives of the film, which is the narrative impetus and does not follow the convention, is the war between the humans and the kami. (Napier, 2005: 233)




Reference:
Napier, S. (2005). Anime: from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bex Week 8

According to McKnee, what relationship did Dick’s ideas have to (a) Christianity (b) religion and philosophy in general?

P.K.D was directly inspired by the Bible and especially of the figure of Paul. The figure of Paul could be seen as an influence on the novel Our Friends from Frolix 8 in which a hero shoots off into space to save humanity from repression by other evolved humans. Back on Earth the human Eric Cordon keeps hope in the hero alive through written word and speeches but is eventually executed by the evolved humans. This is directly inspired by Paul and Jesus, Jesus as the hero who leaves Earth but who promises to return, and Paul who keeps his message alive.

    Other works have also been inspired by Christian theology such as the novel Ubik in which Ubik says: “I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds.” Ubik is almost paraphrasing God in the bible that created the universe and Earth.

     The novel The Man in the High Castle steps away from Christianity and instead focuses on religion and philosophy of the I Ching. P.K.D actually cast the I Ching “for them and let them (the characters) proceed on the basis of the advice given.” 

Joe's Week 8

Discussion Thread


According to McKnee, what relationship did Dick's ideas have to (a) Christianity (b) religion and philosophy in general?

After reading the supplementary note, the following is what I came up with.

Despite the ever-shifting nature of Dick’s cosmological theories, Christ is absolutely central throughout all of his religious speculations.  Dick constantly referred to Christ, the Holy Spirit, and countless other key Christian concepts and is often identified as a Christian thinker believing Christ to be the Saviour.  He was Christian and was unable to accept Gnostic dualism itself.  He directly denounced the Manichean view that the world of creation is evil and showed in his writing the anti-Gnostic theme.  Dualism is a veil that conceals the fact that God underlies all existence.  Dualistic theory is actually monistic and it describes the universe as a chess game God plays against himself.  Dick repeatedly rejected the concept that evil is real and it contains tangible existence.  He believed this world to be unreal not because it was evil or created by an evil deity, but because it is good, and a benevolent, omnipresent deity underlies it.  This deity is in the process of improving the world.  The God Dick believed in was the Christian God, and it was Christianity which his theories finally returned to. 




Reference:
McKee, G. (2004). A Scanner Darkly: Dick as a Christian theologian. In Pink Beams of Light from the God in the Gutter: the science-fictional religion of Philip K. Dick. NY: U Press of America.

Teu Week 7

What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? Which is The Man in the High Castle?

The Man in the High Castle I personally think is speculative fiction. The difference between science fiction and speculative fiction is that science fiction has the immediate details ranging from the extraterrestrial to time travel. Science fiction sometimes explores the future introducing new science and technology, while keeping the imaginary world reasonably explainable. Speculative fiction can demonstrate a whole range of different genres, while keeping the storyline strange and intense. Speculative fiction can introduce alternate history. This being part of the plot of The Man in the High Castle.

This novel takes a different route from the usual science fiction, it delves into a alternate history. Nazi Germany and Japan defeat the Allies of WWII, and take over the United States of America. Japan take control of the West of America and The Nazis take control of the South. The Man in the high castle fantastically portrays this alternate history which obviously in turn changes the future.

Andrea (Week 5)

According to Lent (2000), what place does animation occupy in Asian societies? How different is this across Asia (i.e. comparing China and Japan)?

As Napier (2005) claim “the ‘culture’ to which anime belongs is at present a ‘popular’ or ‘mass’ culture in Japan, and in America it exists as a ‘sub’ culture. (…) [but] in Japan over the last decade, anime has been increasingly seen as an intellectually challenging art form, as the number of scholarly writings on the subject attest” it seems like the situation of this “short-lived, rising and falling due to popular taste and demands of the hungry market” (Napier, 2005) products are changing very differently from the last decade till now.

Anime in Japan is truly a mainstream pop cultural phenomenon. The audience range from children, teenagers to young adults.

The animated works are major parts of the output of Japanese studios, it also occupied a large percent of Japanese output market. “Commercially, it is beginning to play a significant role in the transnational entertainment economy, not only as an important part of the Japanese export market, but also as a small but growing part of the non-Japanese enterprises that deal with anime.” (Napier, 2005)

The situation is a little bit different in china. Although the number of animation viewers is increasing so quickly in the last decade, it is still stand out of the mainstream place. For me the answers may be find in both cultural and commercial way. Commercially, on the one hand, graphic novels, or cartoons are not the main industry in china. On the other hand, Japanese animation in china is popular by lots of kids and teenagers, and some of them are addicted in it. This somehow makes those parents feel like the animation influence their kids very badly. Cultural way, the same as Japanese culture, china is even more complicated and higher cultural country with long history than Japan. This may cause the cultural conflict and crash very strong.

Is it a high or low cultural genre, according to Napier (2005)? What are some of its subgenres?

Napier (2005) describes that “For those interested in Japanese culture, it is richly fascinating contemporary Japanese art form with a distinctive narrative and visual aesthetic that both harks back to traditional Japanese culture and moves forward to the cutting edge of art and media.”

As we both know “Japan is a country that is traditionally more pictocentric than the cultures if the west”. And anime actually offers people an opportunity of understanding the basic level Japanese social context. “Anime, with its enormous breadth of subject material is also a useful mirror on contemporary Japanese society, offering an array of insight into the significant issues, dreams, and nightmares of the day” (Napier, 2005) so for me, it is definitely a high cultural genre.

Its subgenres could divide into three parts, which are the apocalyptic, the festival, and the elegiac. Personally, the subgenres of anime are also the reflections of anime being the high cultural popular culture genre.

Reference

Lent, J. A. (2000).Animation in Asia: appropriation, reinterpretation, and adoption or adaptation. Retrieved 21 June, 2006, from AnimeResearch.com

Napier, S. (2005). Why anime? In Anime: from Akira to howl’s Moving Castle (pp.3-14). Hampshire: Palgrave/ Macmillan.

Andrea (Week 6)

What are the underlying thematics of Princess Mononoke? How does it ‘defamiliarise’ its historical setting, according to Napier (2005)?

The underlying thematic of Princess Mononoke is “indermines the myths of traditional Japanese identity while offering a counternarrative in their place.” And “Princess Mononoke reenvisions the conventions of Japanese history (…) the most important one of subversion and defamiliarization. The film defamiliarizes two important icons in Japanese culture, the myth if the feminine as living-suffering and supportive and the myth of the Japanese as living in harmony with nature, often expressed through a union of the feminine with the natural.”(Napier, 2005)

Although Princess Mononoke is not based on an actual historical event, “it belongs properly in a section on animation and history because, in its distinctive way, it is a meditation on Japanese history that provides a counter narrative to some pivotal myths of Japanese culture and society.”

It ‘defamiliarise’ its historical setting based on “which the main protagonists are those who usually do not appear on the stage of history. Instead, this is the story of the marginals of history.” (Napier, 2005)

Reference

Napier, S. (2005). Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Qunhua's week6

How do it and other Miyazaki films address the humanity/nature divide, according to Wright(2005)? Could Miyazaki's vision be described as in some sense religious (inasmuch as it converys a sense of the sacred)?

According to Wright, L.(2005), Miyazaki practiced the ancient form of Shinto to emphasis an intuitive continuity with the natural world. His works have multi-culture which is taken from American science fiction, Greek myths and British children’s literature. He created a hybrid ‘modern myth’ because of these his audiences are all over the world. Miyazaki’s works are apparent and he putted plenty of details about Japanese beliefs, practices and myths in it. Japanese earthy spirituality has been drawn from the Shinto tradition. As a theme, spiritual has been addressed in all of his works in which included Award winning “Spirited Away (2001)”, Howl’s Moving Castle (2005), and so on. An interesting things is Miyazak whose works always display a kind of nostalgia for a time when humans lived more in harmony with nature, however, he never deny the reality and current civilization

References

Wright, L.(2005). Nature spits, Giant Insects and World Trees: The nature Vision of Hayao 

       Miyazaki. In the Journal of Religion of popular culture. Volume X: Summer 2005.

Andrea (week 8)

Research the films that have been adapted from Philip K. Dick novels or short stories. Which have generally been acclaimed as the most successful? Why?

Brown (2001) states “In the career spanning thirty years, Dick produced thirty five science fiction novels and more than hundred short stories.” And seven Hollywood films were adapted from his work, each were: Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990), Minority Report (2002), Paycheck (2003), A Scanner Darkly (2004), The Adjustment Bureau (2011).

According to Brown (2001), “Dick’s early novels conformed to type: he used the popular leitmotifs of SF- alien worlds, precognition, ray-guns- but employed them to his own agenda.”, “another of his concerns was what constitutes a true human being, as opposed to a fake”

Firstly Most of these seven adaption stories were based on the future, like A Scanner Darkly, Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report. Secondly in Paycheck, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and The Adjustment Bureau were about the main characters struggling for their true identification. And in Blade Runner (1982) and Total Recall (1990), alien worlds were mentioned by the writer. Besides, in Minority Report (2002), precognition was the main storyline.

Why these adaptions were so successful? “Dick was populating his novels with a repertoire of fully-realized characters drawn from real life (…) his art reflected life--and it was an eventful, troubled and chaotic life”, “one of the many strength of his work was the empathy with which he wrote about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.” (Brown, 2001)

Reference

Brown,E.(2001). introduction. in Dick, PK., The Man in the High Castle (p.v-xii).London: Penguin.

Andrea Week 7

What does Brown (2001) identify as the central themes and concerns of the novel? What elements conform to the wider generic features of SF?

Brown (2001) identifies that “Science fiction is about the effect of events on individuals.” And “Like all great SF, it gives us a ‘what if’ glimpse of another world, a reality we are invited to compare with our own.” Obliviously, ‘what if’ is the central theme and concern of science fiction. Because stories usually under the specific settings. Brown said, the whole story has to provide us another world “we are invited to compare with our own.” And via the comparison, the work has different effect on individuals by their different experience and understanding.

Brown(2001) also point out that “Dick’s early novels conformed to type: he used the popular leitmotifs of SF- alien worlds, precognition, ray-guns- but employed them to his own agenda.”, “another of his concerns was what constitutes a true human being, as opposed to a fake”. I think, not only Dick’s work, most generic features of SF whether are based on an imaginary world and the “Fractured realities presented a future” (Brown, 2001) or the main characters confused by the reality, and search the answer of being human. These two elements are the most common features of SF.

Additional, all the stories are inspired from the real life, similar version that exists in the real world, and all the characters comes from the ordinary people. Real is a very important element, not only in SF, but also in other literatures.

Reference
Brown,E.(2001). introduction. in Dick, PK., The Man in the High Castle (p.v-xii).London: Penguin.

Bex Week 6

According to Napier, how does this anime problematize traditional (or conservative) constructions of gender, class and race?

The three main women in Princess Mononoke are all independent women and, different from traditional anime, none of them have sweet or cute traits. Independent female characters are depicted in general anime but they always have that cutesy trait. The three main women are independent; Eboshi leads a military like camp and eventually leads an army, San (Princess Mononoke) is a violent, wild girl who lives with in the forest with a wolf, and has a naturalised, sexual quality to her and the other Moro the female wolf she lives with who is her mother figure but is essentially a warrior.

    Usually female characters are used as a “vehicle for tradition”, but these three completely shake that up. They depict both sides of the central conflict within the story; that of nature versus culture, San and Moro vs. Eboshi. If they had made Eboshi a male the audience could very well simply blame him for the loss of nature, it is simply another evil man being pig-headed. Instead the blame falls on civilisation and humanity as a collective. Eboshi is inspired by her need to defend her people not her want to destroy. A motherly quality, but she does not act her need out by waiting for men to do everything, she takes on leadership and goes into battle herself.

    Eboshi also signifies a change from the traditional role of women in all media and in most cultures, that of the women being closely related to nature. San’s character, while aligned with nature, takes on all the qualities that nature imposes, violent, wild, and aggressive. This is not the type of role women are seen in when related to nature. As Napier states (page 241) women within “upscale Japanese magazines” depict women wearing kimonos promoting “the magazine’s image of traditional harmony… being together with nature.”

Bex Week 5

What is the ‘shojo’ and how does it often function in anime?

‘Shojo’ literally means “little female”. It usually refers to twelve to thirteen year old girls, a time where maturity is setting in and the transition from childish sexlessness to eroticism and sex. In also refers to the types of stories; shojo stories are set in dreamy landscapes that are magical and wonderful, not dark and violent like much anime science fiction. In Japan these shojo stories are enjoyed by females and males.

    In most shojo stories the shojo character is depicted as being passive and inactive. Opposite, Miyazaki (director and writer of Princess Mononoke) depicts his shojo as active and fearless, violent even. Cavallaro quotes commentators as described them as “youths wearing shojo masks.” Due to a quote by the director that shojo are “play toys for Lolita complex guys” I’m lead to believe that the reason men enjoy the shojo stories is because of attraction to the young girls. However, Cavallaro also quotes Napier in saying that “unfettered change and excitement (of the shojo)… is far less available to Japanese males, who are caught in the network of demanding workforce responsibilities”. So perhaps they also enjoy it because they get to experience vicariously what they missed out on at that age, slowly exploring their own sexuality and the world without being rushed through life via school, chores, work and the constant aggravation of that future work life and career we all see towering ahead of us. 

Week 7: According to Mountfort (2006), what role does the I Ching have as an organisational device in the structure of High Castle? How does the use of this device illuminate the character of the novel’s protagonists?

Mountford (2006) regards the structure of ‘The man in the high castle’ is the combination of cybertextuality and oracularity with the help of the I Ching. Dick (as cited in Mountford, 2006) states the device is used by letting the question to be exposed to the I Ching. It will then ‘reply’ with an oracle answer and be interpreted by the questioner, thus, the fiction is organised totally by using I Ching. In ‘The man in the high castle’, Dick consulted the I Ching of how and what will be in the events and consequences accordingly to the character’s situation, hence, which way the story would go. This use of the I Ching led to the event where Tagomi and Frink who neither known of the other existence to cross-path secretly, in other words, to influence each other life without knowing so (Mountford, 2006). Toward the end of the story, I Ching told the lesson not to disregard true inner self of its users. Dick also regards this device as the “malicious spirit” as he suspect the I Ching told lies in the end. We can see this through the way he depict the writer to write "Grasshopper Lies Heavy" toward the end as a story in story. Dick seem to put the story of himself into the story he written based wholly on I Ching. "Grasshopper Lies Heavy" implies that the President Roosevelt was not assassinated and the British empire still preserve its military strength and together with the Soviet and Italian (which was betrayed) win over Germany in Stalingrad and Berlin afterward. This is when Hawthorne finally admit that his fiction exits in another dimension of its own as Dick (as cited in Mountford, 2006) see I Ching as if it lead him to his worse nightmare where the "bad guys win" (pp. 13).

Reference:

Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle-text/Cybertext in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta, 2006.

Bex Week 4

Why does the religious right in the US condemn fantasy, according to Cockrell (2004)? On what grounds does Cockrell defend fantasy literature, using Harry Potter as an example? 

On the first question Cockrell states that first, Harry Potter is insanely popular and in the media and in people’s view more than any other books. For the US religious right it’s something for them to focus on when they attack “Satanism” and “witchcraft.” It’s something to blame that everyone knows. Cockrell goes on to state that during the 1980’s most censorship was about sex and the body, now it is focused on fantasy. To the religious right fantasy is lying and those who read it will be persuaded to lie and be deceitful. But the reason, religious right target Harry Potter is because the books are “too close to home.” They’re set in our world, not somewhere made up so to them it’s an attack on their culture and society. Parents also feel that Harry Potter encourages their children to rebel against them. Harry himself explodes the wineglass that his aunt is holding and inflates her until she blows away.

    In Harry Potter’s world magic is more like philosophy and natural science. They are, as Scholes is quoted saying, “two true and different visions of the world,” one being science, the other being Rowling’s magic. This magic also has no God, another reason for the religious right to condemn it.