In the 1990s, Japan faced a series of crises that contributed to a growing sense of unreality in its younger generation. From the bursting of Japan’s bubble economy resulting in unheard-of job layoffs, to the poison gas incident in a Tokyo subway carried out by a fringe religious sect, a newly insecure Japan suddenly found itself facing an uncertain and rather bleak future. As a result of the recent violence and devastation introduced into the collective consciousness, the otaku subculture took firm root in the exploding mainstream media and the tendrils of its influences can be found in almost all aspects of modern society.

Superflat is a term coined by Murakami Takashi, the man who spearheaded the artistic movement in which art is used to highlight and criticize the flattening of cultural productions into superficial consumer goods as a reflection of the youths of postmodern Japan further distancing themselves from reality in a retreat back to the fantastic.  Inextricably grounded in the otaku culture, Superflat seeks to explore the social anxieties and pressures that the otaku of today face and simultaneously express their ambivalence toward postmodern reality by producing eye-catching works that convey complex and warped ideas about existence, war trauma, and childhood innocence.

Referring to the absence of depth in Japan’s cultural productions, Superflat satirizes these consumer goods by rendering them as monstrosities and abnormalities:

Henmaru Machino, known for his extremely alarming treatments of the moe fetish, inserts the smiling face of a prepubescent girl onto a chimera made up of phallic antennas, engorged nipples, and a gaping vagina. Henmaru’s work, Untitled (Green Caterpillar’s Girl), draws attention to Japan’s contradictory sexualization and fetishistic worshipping of young girls by depicting them in mainstream media as being simultaneously the Madonna and the whore. The extremely graphic sexualization of this piece draws attention to what has become a characteristic aspect of otaku aestheticism in which the innocence and purity of young girls provoke both the sexual desires and paternal instincts of the otaku consumer. Here, the excessive sexuality and undeniable cuteness of the caterpillar girl coagulate in the horrific manifestation of the threat of sexual awakening forcefully trespassing into the realm of childhood. In addressing the Lolicom subculture, Sociologist Sharon Kinsella writes,

“The little girl heroines of Lolicom manga simultaneously reflect an awareness of the increasing power and centrality of young women in society, as well as a reactive desire to see these young women infantilized, undressed, and subordinate. Despite the inappropriateness of their old-fashioned attitudes, many young men have not accepted the possibility of a new role, encompassing greater autonomy for women, in Japanese society.”

Another theme addressed by Superflat is the aftermath of World War II and the dropping of the atom bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Katsuhige Nakahashi’s ZERO was made by meticulously photographing a plastic model of a WWII-era Zero fighter plan with a macroscopic lens, then printing the resulting photographs in order to return the plane to full scale. The act of constructing the plane out of 15,000 color photographs speaks to the atomization and fracturing of life and reality as keenly felt by those who lived through the devastating blight of Little Boy and Fat Man. The end product is a limp, sagging carcass that embodies defeat and dejection. Rather than being preserved for commercial use, after the exhibition the plane was burned in order to return it to zero.

Murakami has collaborated with Louis Vuitton in order to mix fashion and pop art in turning the low vs. high culture dichotomy on its head.

Michael Darling, associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, reflects critically on Japan’s obsession with fashion:

“Rabid consumerism and the slavish following of fads, especially in fashion, have further contributed to a culture of surfaces and superficiality, representing still another facet of the Superflat concept […] Recognizable fashion brands, interpreted as status symbols around the globe, have become perhaps the most fluid cultural currency in the world. In Japan the display of branded clothing and accessories takes on almost messianic fervor, and has arguably spawned the recent fad of excessive label consciousness among the top-level designers themselves. It is a process one could call superflattening, as the essence of the coveted object – in this case a brand-name dress or purse – is transformed through hype and consumer demand into a stylized graphic object that is almost nothing but brand.”

~ * ~

Riex
Aight. By the way, I don’t feel like making this super elegant or whatever.
Fuck that, it doesn’t work for us.

itsubun
Yeah, me neither. I’m just going to be straight forward and say what I want.

Riex
Sweet, this will be a first in the history of women!

itsubun
YOU’RE GOING DOWN!!!

Riex
Lezz rumble!
*takes boxer’s stance*

itsubun
Heh, why don’t you start? Throw the first punch~
I’m not coming up with anything.

Riex
Because Naruto is gay. And there’s too much lameness to pick just one thing
But here we go…
WTF
Seriously, wtf…
is up with his jumpsuit?
No fucking ninja wears a bright orange jumpsuit.

itsubun
It’s supposed to clue us in to his connection with the Kyuubi. And he likes to stand out because no one really bothers paying any attention to the poor kid. Go figure right?
TOO BAD HE’S NOT SUPER EMO LIKE SASUKE WITH HIS BLACK AND BLUES.

Riex
Well, I’d say that when you’re trying to be a NINJA and you’re blowing your cover with a bright orange jumpsuit, you deserve to be treated like a retard. Unless, unless he’s trying to blend in with an orange tree…or a brightly light section of the grand canyon. Or something…an RSS feed icon!

itsubun
Hey, Sakura wears pink and red, Ino wears purple, and the Akatsuki members aren’t exactly too inconspicuous with their tramp coats and rain-of-blood-clouds either.

Riex
You make a good point. They’re all retarded.
*sigh*

itsubun
I AGREE.
Besides, they use their jutsu techniques to camouflage, not their actual outfits.
Anything else you wanna throw at Naruto?!

Riex
Besides a rock? Or a pair of balls?

itsubun
Oh ho ho, he has more balls than anyone else in the series.

Riex
That’s not saying much (though he’s got more balls than Sai).

itsubun
Yeah, you got me there. Srsly, the main villains all look like trannies.

Riex
Except for that one medical dude, he looks pretty straight.

itsubun
Kabuto!? But in actuality, he’s Orochimaru’s bitch. And they’ve “FUSED”.

Riex
Ew, wtf? Leave the doujins out of this.

itsubun
TRUSTORY
I’m 4rizzle.
He’s hosting Orochimaru’s consciousness or some freaky deaky shit… or maybe Orochimaru has taken over his body, either way they are ONE.

Riex
Well, at least they don’t bitch and whine about unmanly things like “friendship” and cuddle-hugs like a certain individual. They keep that shit in the closet.

itsubun
That’s because Naruto is comfortable enough with himself to be able to do that. And the others appreciate his openness and affection because they’re all sexually repressed, emotionally stunted boppers. He helps them to reconcile whatever it is that’s lacking in themselves.

Riex
I’m gonna have to disagree and just say that, in the world of men, Naruto is just socially inept.

itsubun
Yeah, he is. But only in the sense that he doesn’t fit into their social order. He acts on his own instincts and emotions without seeing the need to sublimate himself. And while he is lacking in “proper” self-discipline by ninja standards, his lack of reservations actually becomes a strength rather than a weakness because he’s able to rally people around him and foster a sense of community. By the end of the Chunin exam, he gets really close to the other genins after facing off with them in the rounds.

Riex
So he’s the King Retard, capable of rallying all other emotionally/sexually repressed individuals around him in a ninja fighting orgy of love?

itsubun
XD YOU KNOW YOU WANT IN!

Riex
Oh, of course.
<.<

itsubun
What I like most about Naruto is his lack of reservations. He doesn’t hesitant to stand up for his own beliefs, even if he is a bit misguided at times. He has good intentions, but he doesn’t try to impose his standards onto others. He keeps his values close to him and fights for the things that mean the most to him.

Other people admire his spirit or “way of the ninja” [usually after he beats them into the ground with it] so they strive to adopt his idealism and attitude and incorporate them into their own perspectives and outlooks. Like Hinata, Neji, and Gaara.

Riex
Which I suppose is all well and good, but I’m part of that group of people that believe in efficiency. The group that says that when your oppenent is down and you think he’s dead, shoot him in the head a couple of times just to make sure.

The group that says “why waste extra chakra on basic camouflage when you can just wear something besides an orange jumpsuit”?

itsubun
Heh, yeah, that’s also a point that I’m ambivalent about. I don’t like the fact that Naruto still has yet to directly kill an opponent. I understand that they’re trying to retain his image of innocence and purity. But I think they need to scrap that and let him grow into his potential as a multifaceted character who has to cope with his own guilt and darkness derived from the act of murdering another human being. That would be an interesting direction to take the character development.

Riex
Or my favorite one…get to where you can defeat an opponent without relying on some demon fox.

itsubun
Hey, hey, hey, I disagree. That’s a tricky point to argue because what about the characters who have their bloodline limits? They have a definite advantage over the average ninja. And I see Naruto’s fox demon as an inheritance from his father, the 4th, considering the context and circumstances of how he obtained the demon in the first place. So I’d say, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

Riex
That’s all well and good, but take their shit away too…who do you think would win? Look at Rock Lee. He ain’t got shit ‘cept that gate unlocking nonsense, and even without that he could whip Naruto’s ass

itsubun
That’s because he’s trained in taijutsu, which technically still counts as an advantage. Whereas Naruto is good with ninjutsu because of his excess chakra. If you’re talking about completely stripping them of all their jutsus, then I’d say the odds are even on all sides.

Riex
I didn’t say take away Naruto’s ninjutsu, just his fox. It all comes down to the demon fox.

itsubun
Even without his fox, I’d still say that Naruto is kickass.

Riex
In general, yeah…comparatively speaking, not so much.

itsubun
It’s not solely because of the demon fox that Naruto has been able to make it thus far in his journey. It’s because Naruto IS a natural genius of his own kind. Heh, you know, everyone’s always raving about how Sasuke’s a genius. Genius boy, born into a genius family, everything he does is calculated out to be INGENIOUS. But look at Naruto and all of the things that he has managed to accomplish, even without the legacy of his heritage to validate his achievements.

Riex
Yeah, I don’t cheer for that bastard either. If I had to pick any one it’d be Rock Lee and Shikimaru.

itsubun
Naruto is my #1. I’d walk the line for that guy. Because sometimes I get that feeling that the audience doesn’t actually appreciate how bad that kid has it. It’s probably because of his comical demeanor and his sunny attitude towards everything, but all things considered he is pretty fucked up. Not in a superficial emo way either. But he’s a ticking time bomb. He lives his life with the perpetual threat of being consumed by the fox demon hanging over his head at all times. His glossed over tragedy is what makes me love that kid. He doesn’t spend his time dwelling on the shit that’s happened to him in the past, which is why he doesn’t resent the village for its harsh treatment of him during his childhood. He just moves forward, always saving one friend or another, always looking for the best in others.

Riex
That’s probably the most valid point you’ve made yet, but at the end of the day I still won’t be a fan of him. See, with Naruto it’s all a determination/power battle…”keep on truckin’” is a good phrase to describe how he works. Maybe that just reminds me too much of Dragonball Z, or maybe I just realize that it takes more than that to get places in life. So I’ll always be cheering for brain combined with brawn, power and intelligence. And if there’s some heart thrown in there at the end, then that’s alright.

Naruto fights to save, whereas I like to see people who fight to win…with salvation as an afterthought, something not given to those who have shown themselves undeserving.

itsubun
I wouldn’t say that Naruto is brainless. Because what you said about emphasis on determination/power battle implies that Naruto doesn’t fully acknowledge the odds against him. He does. And then he decides that he can’t afford to lose because the cost is too much and he cannot afford to lose a love one. So he opts to win and he goes for it. Fighting to save and fighting to win doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. See, the special thing about Naruto is that the has this surety in him, this seemingly groundless but irrepressible belief that he’s going to pull through and everything is going to turn out alright. And yeah, it’s naive and blind and stupid and whatever. But it keeps him going without slowing down to feel bad for himself. And it makes him productive as a ninja and a human being.

I think Naruto is incredibly inspirational. Not because he lectures down to other people and makes them feel bad about themselves and their own circumstances. That’s more along the lines of Orochimaru and Madara and their “manifest destiny” spiels. It’s because he keeps pushing forward, keeps getting hurt and getting back up again, keeps fighting against his sad fate… And you never hear Naruto complaining about his lack of family or bitching about other people’s mistreatment of him. He treasures the things that he does have and he tries to keep them close and protect them with his own strength and love. It’s because of his words and actions and the way he lives his life that other people are able to witness his personal struggles. He gives them hope and they strive to take in some of his overwhelming goodness in order to surpass their own limitations and become better than they are.

I’d argue that he doesn’t measure his odds in the same way that other people might. Because let’s be honest here, sometimes the odds are insurmountable, and if he were to try and rationalize all of the scary, horrible shit set up against him, he could lose hope and fall to despair. He has everything to lose if he fails. So he pushes past all of that and keeps fighting against the fears and insecurities and impossibilities.

Riex
And he always seems to pull through. Which, to me, is bullshit.

itsubun
LOL, he’s the titular character of the series.

Riex
Yep, and that’s probably what kills me about him. I mean…him and Rock Lee are quite similar
but Rock Lee gets his ass kicked sometimes and loses. Then he gets back up again…probably why I like him better. Even if he is fucking gay as hell.

itsubun
And it’s a series aimed at a demographic that glorifies hope and the human spirit. If Naruto loses, that’s gonna do damage to audience reception of the series. Naruto, as a character, has to bear the expectations of the series itself. And to be fair, that winning streak can be found in almost any other shounen adventure series.

Riex
Which is probably the source of all the beef we’ve got with him. But there’s a difference in naruto though.
No one fucking dies ever, ‘cept for that old granny lady and no one cared about her anyway.

itsubun
Shikumaru’s jounin teacher died. Orochimaru is dead. Jiraiya is dead. The series started off with the death of the 4th.

Riex
You got me on the 4th, but I only watch the anime…you spoiling bastard!

itsubun
LOLOLOL TOO BAD!
And the lack of death is probably due to the tight character dynamic that the mangaka has labored to create. Think about it, if one of the secondary character, like Neji, died, then how is Kishimoto going to fill in that gap for the team formation? Because of the intricate network that Kishimoto has set up, if one of the main characters die it’s going to be hard to tie up the loose ends without damaging the fabric as a whole.

Riex
Go watch Berserk, then we’ll talk about death and why I think naruto’s lack of it is BS.

itsubun
Well, Berserk’s whole set up has a much darker tone and depth than Naruto. Different themes and philosophies at work make for different treatment of death.

Riex
Yeah…now we’re getting off topic and I think we’ve both made our points.

itsubun
nods ndos

Riex
ndos!

itsubun
Constructive criticism is constructive!
Don’t mock me, you!

Does my personal Jesus wear an orange jumpsuit?

~ * ~

I never thought of Naruto as a “HERO” in the traditional sense of saving the world or rescuing damsels in distress and all of that epic crap, because I don’t care to put those kinds of pressures and expectations on him. I mean, he’s still just a kid and he’s pretty naive and shortsighted when it comes down to it. But there’s something about this kid that draws people in. Maybe it’s his warmth, or his unvarnished need to help others because he wants to preserve for his friends a world where they can find their happiness, or maybe it’s because he’s so damn stubborn about keeping his word, losing sight of everything else because he wants his friend to come home safely.

I like Naruto because he’s someone that I would want to be friends with if we were to exist in the same time and place. I think it’s a damn shame that the best things about Naruto are often overlooked in preference for the other characters who are so much “cooler” and “stronger” and more “detached” from everything with their grand schemes for world domination and clan reconstruction. I guess for me, I like that Naruto is capable of making mistakes because of his inability to detach from his emotions. And I don’t see that as a weakness or a flaw. Because here’s a guy who been fucked over by a lot of shit in his life, but he’s still capable of caring for other people on such a deep level, still believes in them even when they’ve let him down so hard. It’s so much easier to become jaded and to distance yourself from your emotions by hating others, by subscribing to the bastardization of the human form, by seeking revenge in order to protect yourself. It’s infinitely harder to accept the bad things that come with people and to work with them on their flaws and insecurities so that they can become more capable of happiness.

So to conclude, yeah, I adore the kid.

]]> http://coffee-spoons.curry-fury.com/2008/07/12/waffle-shovels-naruto/feed/ 9 http://coffee-spoons.curry-fury.com/2008/05/13/kou-kou-kyoushi-2003-%e2%80%93-the-dorama-of-student-teacher-relations/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kou-kou-kyoushi-2003-%25e2%2580%2593-the-dorama-of-student-teacher-relations http://coffee-spoons.curry-fury.com/2008/05/13/kou-kou-kyoushi-2003-%e2%80%93-the-dorama-of-student-teacher-relations/#comments Tue, 13 May 2008 15:00:06 +0000 itsubun http://itsubun.dasaku.net/?p=20

Kou Kou Kyoushi [高校教師], translated into High School Teacher, is about, surprisingly, a high school teacher and his relationship with his student. Koga Ikumi is the docile new teacher at an all-girls high school. The day before school officially starts, he meets a pretty stranger at a game arcade. And such is his luck, the next day said stranger shows up in class as one of his students.

I love this series for the unconventional subject matters that it deals with. I love that it’s not afraid to delve into taboos like: teenage prostitution, bullying, extortion, rape, sexual relations between student-teacher, abuse of trust between patient-doctor, and… you get the gist of what I mean.

Although to be fair, I wouldn’t like KKK so much if it merely exhibited these taboos as a shock factor to its audiences. The series actually performs a significant labor in carrying out a functioning dialogue between the multiple themes that it presents. One such theme is the responsibility of the professional to his/her patron. An obvious example is the role of the teacher that Ikumi struggles to maintain while dealing with his own physical sickness and mental torment derived from his feelings for Hina.

One of the best things about KKK is that even while it’s juggling all of these weighty issues, it still manages to depict its characters as incredibly human in their fallibility. Ikumi not only succumbs to his temptations, he goes beyond that and lies to Hina, telling her that she has a fatal illness and manipulating her fears in order to make her codependent on him for his own unwarranted catharsis. He dangles her mortality in front of her, exploits her despair, traps her in her own insecurities, and remakes her into the perfect companion for himself. He does so because he’s the one who’s close to dying and he’s helpless and so, so incredibly lonely that he wishes he were dead already. When faced with his own mortality, things like ethics and responsibilities and become trivial. What does any of it matter when you’re so close to death and there’s no one else who could possibly understand the horrible fear that’s potent within you at all times, when you’re so painfully aware of all your frailties? What does it mean to look into the darkness and find it staring back?

These kinds of questions – the stripping down of the human soul, your humanity laid bare by circumstances that are all out of your hands, and the hard-earned answers that are even harder to swallow – enthrall me to no end. I am a complete SUCKER for existential angst fodder. I love that KKK merely sets up these character molds only to smash them to smithereens and remake them into something profoundly beautiful and disturbing. KKK surpasses any other dorama that I have seen in its emotional complexity and depth.

Another WIN for this dorama is Hiroki Narimiya’s character, the Never-Never-Land villain, Yuji. Besides the fact that Narimiya is one of my favorite J-idols, the character that he plays is even more intriguing. Heartbreaker, host, extortionist, pimp all rolled into one bad boy archetype that also functions as an insightful critique of the same stock character. Critique, because ultimately the series facilitates an impressive character study that unravels the power-play that he attempts to engage in and reveals him to be the perpetual boy who obstinately refuses to grow up. Yuji is always seen playing video games in the background while his crew rapes and videotapes his latest victims. To him, life IS a game and his only objective is not to get a GAME OVER. With this kind of childish mentality, his acts of malice are given another depth of cruelty, pathologized because of his inability to empathize or even care about the interpersonal consequences of his actions.

Of course, he gets the proverbial comeuppance of dorama antagonists and by the end of the series lands his ass in jail for the murder of a teacher. The punchline comes when one of his subordinates, a very scary [and by scary I mean incredibly hot] girl [played by Aoi Yu – who also played sweet, little Hagu in the H&C live action movie], pulls a Brutus and switches his plastic knife for a real one; thereby causing him to commit a murder that he never intended for [all because he cannot handle the responsibilities and heaviness of maturity].

I will now wrap up this post [highly recommended, go watch] and leave you with this:

]]> http://coffee-spoons.curry-fury.com/2008/05/13/kou-kou-kyoushi-2003-%e2%80%93-the-dorama-of-student-teacher-relations/feed/ 10 http://coffee-spoons.curry-fury.com/2008/04/17/moving-in/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=moving-in http://coffee-spoons.curry-fury.com/2008/04/17/moving-in/#comments Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:55:27 +0000 itsubun http://itsubun.wordpress.com/?p=14

Just finished tinkering with the various design options of wordpress, which are actually quite limited and disappointing. But maybe that has more to do with the fact that I’m not very computer savvy so things like web design and HTML coding intimidate the hell out of me. I was actually going to wait awhile before I posted my first entry because I haven’t figured out what my objectives for this blog are. But the blog felt depressingly empty, like a new house without any furnitures. So I went ahead and wrote up this non-entry to fill in the blankness and make this cyberspace a little bit more cozy.

One of the anime that I will definitely be blogging about is Kaiba (from Masaaki Yuasa, director of Kemonozume). I have been looking forward to this anime ever since I read Bateszi’s entry, written back in March and watched the 15 second teaser he linked to.

My taste in anime have always tended towards the series that are marginalized from the limelight of mainstream anime due to their deviation from the criterion of fan service and consumer demands. I have a soft spot for series like Princess Tutu, Honey & Clover, and Welcome to the NHK! These underdogs are often overlooked and underhyped because of the unconventional subject matters that they deal with.

And… that will conclude my ramblings for this first post. I apologize for the lack of structure and coherency. Next post will be more focused. Thank you for reading and happy anime viewing.