The Dreaming: Chapter 2 all finished. Now inking chapter 3!

 

Okay, I finally got my sorry ass together and is posting up all those academic papers I picked up at the Melbourne Monash University Manga Symposium 3 weeks ago. Unfortunately, I only have the papers from the Japanese side, as the apeakers on the Australian side didn’t have papers to hand out. Which is too bad, because there were some genuinely interesting stuff – but for that purpose I’ve decided to post up the titles of their papers and their email addresses whereever possible. My own paper’s in Session 4 – though file sizes can be huge due to the pdfs.

 

Imagining Japan: A Symposium

 

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Session 1 – Background for Understanding Popular Culture in Japan
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Sex and Violence in Japanese Popular Culture and War: Putting the Focus on Boy’s Culture – Prof Kimio Ito (Osaka University)
Lacks the necessary graphics as part of the presentation, but very interesting concerning the evolution of shonen manga, especially from wartime Japan to modern day manga.
The Decline of Rokyoku: ‘1960s’ as a Significant Point in the History of Popular Culture in Japan – Dr Manabe Masayoshi (Osaka University)
Not quite so manga-related, but “Rokyoku” is something you’re BOUND to have seen in manga. It’s a type of Japanese drama/singing that is kind of like Noh in its minimalism. Documents the changes and outside influences in the form.
 

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Session 2 – The Grammar of Manga
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Language in Contemporary Japanese Manga – Prof Kinsui Satoshi (Osaka University)
The Body in Contemporary Japanese Manga – Prof Yoshimura Kazuma (Osaka University)
A must-read if you can read Japanese, and reads Japanese manga. “Cyborg 009” seems to be some sort of benchmark for manga, especially concerning linguistic and racial stereotypes – these 2 papers document the way manga creates a language on its own; forming a separate reality that doesn’t have much to do with the reality we live in. Real popular culture crystallisation. This panel also included a “performance” by a 4th year student of Seika University; Ms Sato Maki. Too bad I don’t have a picture of her doodles – she was asked to draw faces of people of different nationalities, for example a Japanese, an American, a German, a Chinese and a Korean. Her drawings of each seemed like re-tread of every ethnic stereotype there could be in existence – which, like it or not, is actually a main staple of manga and popular culture in general. The Japanese readers of manga (should) know that these character faces are of ethnic stereotypes, so what they do is to give visual cues as to the background of a particular character. Believe me, that pig-tailed girl in the “China doresu” yattering in pidgin dialect may be considered offensive in the West, but in Japanese manga it serves a REAL purpose.

 

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Session 3 – The Global Construction and Consumption of Japan
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The Imagined Worlds of Australia’s Manga Fans – Dr Crag Norris (Monash University)
The Otaku Sub Culture in America – Joshua Sarcewicz (Student, East Stroudsburg University – USA)
Mobile Phones and Diversity in the Spread of Japanese “Cute Culture” in the Asia Pacific – Larissa Hjorth (RMIT University and University of Melbourne)
No papers for these 3, goshdarnit.

 

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Session 4 – Responses to Manga Culture in Australia
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An Introduction to the Workshop Concept – James Rampant (Monash University)
Some translated manga at http://www.lostinscanlation.com/. No, it’s not a giant freebie; it’s a university student project.
Manga in Singapore & Funky Ninja Magic – Kenneth Chan (Monash University)
Adopting Manga: From Hong Kong to America – Queenie Chan (Manga Artist)
I actually went first on this panel.

 

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Session 5 – Japan as Image
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Japan as Image – Installation
This is a panel that presents it’s papers as an interconnected diagram (points above). It’s not necessary to analyse the diagram to understand the papers, but it shows how the pop culture landscape of Japan is all interrelated.
Exporting (or exported) Otaku – Dr Omote Tomoyuki (Osaka University)
Centralised Pop-Japan – What the Acceptance of Japanese Popular Culture in Korea Tells Us – Dr Yamanaka Chie (Osaka University)
Exported Japan – On Japan’s Culture Policy – Mr Ito Yu(Osaka University)
Girl’s Popular Culture Going It’s Own Way – The Diffusion of Japanese Cute and Yaoi – Ms Jessica Bauwens (Osaka University)
Japanese Anime Becoming Mainstream – Or is It? – Renato Rivera (Osaka University)

 

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Session 6 – Manga Culture, Japanese Art and Cinema
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Imagining Gi-wafu: Gi-yofu Kenchiku, Manga and Japanese Contemporary Art – Dr Rio Otomo (Melbourne University)
The Hong Kong Connection: Wong Kar-ai’s 2046 and Japanese as the Language of Desire – Katy Stevens (La Trobe University)
Fuyu no Sonata: Japan’s New Image of Korea – Alison Tokita (Monash University)
Knowing Japan Through Image and Reality: A Reading of Peter Carey’s “Wrong About Japan” – Dr Craig Norrish and Prof Ross Mouer (Monash University)
The Impact of Cultural Policy on the Avant Garde: The End of Angura System – Dr Peter Eckersall (Melbourne University)
Again, no papers.

 

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Session 7 – Alternative Imaginings in Japanese Popular Culture
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A Short History of ‘Hentai’ – Dr Mark McLelland (Queensland University)
Everything you will ever need to know about hentai, and how the word has been misappropriated in English. No paper unfortunately, but the word hentai is actually misused in English; referring to anything of a sexual nature whereas in Japanese, it refers to extreme forms of perversion. It seems Hentai has a long and colourful history in the underside of Japanese Popular Culture.
Imagining ‘Asia’ in Japanee Videogames – Dr Dean Chan (Edith Cowan University)
A dream job: writing papers on video games.
Robot Culture – Kirsty Boyle (http://www.karakuri.info)
Think the Japanese obsession with robots is a 20th Century phenomenon? You’re wrong.

I’m STILL on freeze in “The Dreaming”… my editor and the art director has been VERY busy for the last 2 weeks, so I’ve been putting my energies in preparing for an academic symposium hosted by Monash University next week. I’ve been invited on a panel there to speak about non-Japanese manga to an audience of Japanese researchers, so I’m putting together my paper for that to be presented. My paper is titled “Adopting Manga: From Hong Kong to America”, and ofcourse will showcase my work and art (including pages from “The Dreaming). It’s still very interesting, because it’ll be attended by manga scholars from Osaka university and also some Japanese manga artists. I’m presenting on the same panel as Avi and Kenny, the founders of Oztaku, which is an Australian manga anthology. (http://www.oztaku.com)

 

Announcement: Here’s the abstract for my paper titled “Adopting Manga: From Hong Kong to America”, to be presented at the Manga Symposium @ Monash, 4-5 March. MELBOURNE.

 

Adopting Manga: From Hong Kong to America

By Queenie Chan
http://www.queeniechan.com/
ironmice@hotmail.com

 

This paper covers the artist’s own personal experiences, from the long-running manga fandom in Hong Kong to the newly-developing American scene. Hong Kong, like many other Asian countries, has been importing Japanese manga and anime for a long time, starting from the 1970s and reaching it’s peak in the 1990s. The proliferation of the material means that it has long since become a part of youth culture, with people in their 30s and 40s continuing to read it as well as a new generation of artists springing up. This acceptance of manga is an interesting contrast to the American scene, where a stigma still remains in mainstream society towards reading “comic books” of any sort. Since 1997, manga has exploded onto the scene in America, aided by televised anime shows, and reaching a previously unexplored demographic: teenage girls. While looked upon by the mainstream as a sort of fad or peculiarity, the success of manga means that American companies are not satisfied with continuing to do translations. They are instead looking to nurture non-Japanese artists and to create a competing industry. One of the companies currently doing this is TokyoPop, which the artist is working for to create “The Dreaming”; a manga with a distinct Australian flair.

I interrupt my blog to put up an appeal for donations to charities for the Asian Tsunami victims. Unless you’ve been living underneath a rock with no electricity and running water, you would already know about the devastating Tsunami that swept through the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day, killing thousands on the shores of 7 countries. The damage caused is enormous – the rising death toll says it all, which at the time of me typing, stands at 40,000. This may make it the worst Tsunami attack in recorded history. Not only did this one ravage Asia, but went all the way to Somalia and Kenya, all striking the poorer, underdeveloped areas where people are likely to suffer most. The humanitarian cost of this is going to be STAGGERING, with India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka being the worst hit. Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, Maldives were better off, but not all that much. The Thai tourist resort of Phuket has literally been flattened.

If you want to donate through credit card, here are some sites:

http://www.worldvision.org.au/
http://www.oxfam.org.au/
http://www.careaustralia.org.au/
http://www.redcross.org.au/

 

Information about Tsunamis
Tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes, in areas where the earth’s tectonic plates are liable to shift and grate against each other. If there is enough friction between the plates, the movement will puncture the earth’s crust, causing the water above to swell and ripple like a pebble in a pond. When this happens in the ocean, the waves can travel extremely far, and up to speeds ot 800 kms (500 miles) per hour. This makes it comparable to the speed of an airplane. Up until it reaches the shoreline the waves are very low, typically half a metre in height, but when they hit the shoreline, the crest of the wave can swell. This forms a massive wall of water, unstoppable in its force, which can reach up to heights of 10 metres. This then sweeps through anything in its path, usually throwing anything infront of it up into the air, and dragging anything in its path back with it when it recedes back into the sea.

While earthquakes are difficult to predict, there are warning systems in place around the Pacific Ocean for approaching Tsunamis. Unfortunately, this system doesn’t exist in the Indian Ocean, largely because of poor infrastructure, and because underwater earthquakes aren’t common there. The one on Boxing Day was quite devastating – scoring 8.9 on the Richter scale, and is the 4th largest earthquake ever in recorded history.

 

Tsunamis in history
There has only been 2 other Tsunami attacks in recorded history which killed over 10,000 people. As you can see, both happened before last century. They are:

Indonesia – August 27, 1883: The volcano Krakotoa in the Sunda Straits exploded, in an explosion heard 3,000 miles away. 37,000 were killed in Sumatra and Java.
Japan – 1896: Japan has had a long history of dealing with Tsunamis. The Sanriku Tsunami struck in the middle of a religious festival, killing 27,000.

The first sign of a Tsunami (besides earthquake tremors) is a receding sea. Before the onset of a giant tidal wave, the sea will suddenly retract, almost ask if sucked out by a vacuum of sorts. This happen so quickly that fish will sometimes be left flapping on the beach. Then as quickly as it is sucked out, it will blast back in, as a forceful wall of water. If you’re unprepared, you’re likely to be swept away, pulled underwater and drowned. The best thing to do in an Tsunami is to get to higher ground and STAY there, as there can sometimes be more than 1 wave.