“Anime and Manga Studies” is an interdisciplinary field that investigates the media of anime and manga as well as the cultural context surrounding them. Mikhail Koulikov (2019), librarian and creator of the Annual Bibliography of Anime and Manga Studies, defines the fields’ subject matter as not only anime and manga as artistic media but also “their historical, cultural, sociological and economic dimensions, their production, distribution, global reception, and related topics.” This broad scope naturally lends itself to interdisciplinary research, where the insights that disciplines provide can be integrated to provide a holistic view of the complex problem of the politicization of otaku culture. The specific disciplines I plan to integrate in my degree are cultural anthropology, sociology, media studies, and Asian studies.
This chosen set of disciplines will provide knowledge that I will use to address my central research problem: the politics of the globalization of anime/manga and otaku culture. Cultural anthropology seeks “to understand the perspectives, practices, and social organization” of human cultures (American Anthropological Association, n.d.). This discipline will enable me to study and understand the perspectives of Japanese and American fan subcultures, and I plan to use its methods of ethnographic fieldwork in my capstone research. Through its focus on the social world, the related discipline of sociology will help me see the social and political dynamics of otaku subculture, including how fans negotiate and perform social roles (Scott, 2007). Media studies will allow me to understand the media itself: its attributes and meanings, and how it is made, distributed, received, and consumed. In particular, the political economy school of media studies investigates the processes of production and distribution (Durham & Kellner, 2012), which will be especially useful for researching how anime crosses international borders. And Asian studies will aid me in understanding Japanese culture and the context surrounding anime in Japan and Asia. Alongside the political economy approach of media studies, Asian studies can also help me study how the Japanese government appropriates otaku culture to increase Japan’s cultural influence internationally (McGray, 2001).
An example of the politicization of otaku sexuality can be found in the Tokyo neighborhood of Akihabara, or the so-called “Holy Land of Otaku” (Galbraith, 2018). This neighborhood is used by the Japanese government as a symbol of “Cool Japan” to promote Japanese media abroad. However, many stores are filled with the pornographic dōjinshi that otaku produce and consume as part of their fan practices (Macias, 2007). Instead of representing a “Cool Japan,” Akihabara thus has the potential to create foreign perceptions of a “Weird Japan” or even a “Porno Japan” (Galbraith, 2018). Some tour guides strategically steer tourists away from the less-PR-friendly stores in Akihabara, creating a sanitized image of otaku culture that omits otaku sexuality (Macias, 2007).
One scholar in the field whose work has inspired my own research interests is Dr. Patrick Galbraith, currently faculty at Senshū University. He received his first PhD at the University of Tokyo School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, and his second doctorate (in Cultural Anthropology) was completed at Duke University (personal communication, March 13, 2019). In addition to publishing papers and editing collections in the academic sphere, he has written several books, such as The Moé Manifesto (2014), for popular audiences on multiple aspects of otaku culture. Much of Galbraith’s research investigates the history and culture of moe, contesting stereotypes of otaku practices by sharing the voices of otaku themselves (Galbraith & Lamarre, 2010) while also acknowledging the political implications of some of these practices (2017). I hope to build on his work with my own research into the global politics of otaku culture.