The podcast delves into the global popularity of Japanese-style anime within the context of geek culture. Topics include fan subs, danmaku subtitles, mecha children in anime, and cybernetic play in transmedia narratives. The guest, Jinying Li, sheds light on the cultural implications of anime's rise, especially in China's digital economy.
Anime's global appeal transcends borders, shaping modern geek culture worldwide.
Expansion of jai culture in China reflects a unique fusion of anime and digital trends.
Fan-subtitles demonstrate the power of community-driven knowledge sharing in the anime fandom.
Danmaku interface design symbolizes the conflict between information overload and content absorption in anime culture.
Deep dives
Understanding Anime Through the Lens of Geek Culture
Anime's Knowledge Culture is a book by Jinying Lee focusing on the rise of anime and its intersections with geek culture globally. The book explores the significance of understanding geeks, otaku, and jai as vital social and cultural groups in current post-industrial societies. Geeks are described as key knowledge workers and consumers shaping popular media trends, economic aspects, and societal structures. Lee emphasizes that comprehending geeks and their cultural values is essential for grasping contemporary information societies.
Exploring the Concept of Jai in Chinese Culture
Jinying Lee discusses the concept of jai, the Chinese term for otaku or geeks, and its significance in the Chinese context within the anime subculture. Jai originated from the transnational influence of Japanese otaku culture and evolved uniquely in China due to the country's socio-economic transformations. Lee highlights how jai culture expanded beyond anime to encompass broader digital culture practices, influencing China's transition toward a post-industrial digital economy.
Analyzing Communication Labor Through Fan Subtitles
The discussion delves into the concept of fan-subtitles, generated by passionate communities within the anime fandom. Fan-subtitles represent a form of voluntary, knowledge-sharing labor among fans, enhancing communication and knowledge exchange within the community. This free labor showcases the power of community-driven communication in creating a global knowledge-sharing network among anime enthusiasts worldwide, emphasizing the significance of this collaborative effort in shaping knowledge communities.
Understanding Danmaku and Its Implications in Anime Culture
Danmaku, originating from Japanese video platforms and adopted by Chinese anime fan sites like Bilibili, features user-generated comments flying over videos. This visual interface design symbolizes the clash between reading comments and watching video content, creating a zone of indecision or incoherence for viewers. Danmaku's immersive experience captures the tension between information overload and the desire for meaningful absorption, reflecting broader conflicts between information dissemination and content focus within anime and geek culture.
Exploring Mecha Child Motif and Its Relevance to Knowledge Workers
The concept of Mecha Child, a motif prevalent in anime, symbolizes the fusion between children and machines, perpetuating eternal youth, creativity, and human-machine integration dynamics. Jinying Lee suggests that the Mecha Child motif mirrors the perpetual quest for creativity and control among knowledge workers, aligning with the post-humanist ideologies of information society. This integration highlights the tensions between human-machine unity and the pursuit of knowledge and innovation in contemporary digital economies.
Cybernetic Play and Its Significance Across Media Platforms
The discussion focuses on cybernetic play, a gaming concept where players learn and enhance their performance through feedback loops and trial-and-error processes. Jinying Lee connects cybernetic play to broader social media and computing landscapes, highlighting how the mechanism influences user experiences and content creation. The tension between information proliferation and singular control within cybernetic play reflects broader conflicts in knowledge cultures, emphasizing the perpetual quest for certainty and meaningful absorption.
Analyzing the Superflat Movement and Its Implications for Digital Mediation
Jinying Lee explores the superflat movement coined by Takashi Murakami, characterizing it as a visual system influenced by anime and manga aesthetics. Superflat organizes images in a distributed and hierarchical manner, requiring viewers to scan across the surface rather than focus on a singular point. Lee suggests that superflat aesthetics reflect broader digital mediation structures, embodying tensions between distributed information fields and controlled techno-economic systems in digital media platforms.
Recommendation to Understand Dive Culture Through Digital Platforms
Jinying Lee recommends exploring Chinese dive culture not through anime, but by immersing in platforms like Bilibili. The platform's unique media environment provides insights into dive culture by engaging users in exams and interactions, showcasing the intricate knowledge work involved in navigating and participating within dive communities. Lee suggests firsthand experience on Bilibili to grasp the essence of dive culture beyond traditional media consumption, enabling a deeper understanding of knowledge culture in the digital realm.
With comics franchises getting turned into multi-billion dollar revenue opportunities and consumer technology companies dominating daily headlines — the trappings of “geekdom” have made their way into the global mainstream over the past few days. As part of this trend, Japanese-style anime has also gained immense transnational popularity, arguably becoming part of the “new cool”.
It’s against this backdrop that Jinying Li dives into the sociocultural landscape of anime with her book Anime’s Knowledge Cultures: Geek, Otaku, Zhai (University of Minnesota Press, March 2024). However, instead of diving into the “Japaneseness” of anime and otaku culture, Anime’s Knowledge Cultures helps frame anime within a more globalized sense of “geekdom” — especially with the rise of post-80s millennial zhai in China’s cultural and economic spheres.
Li is an Assistant Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. Her research and teaching focuses on media theory, animation, and digital culture in East Asia. She is also a filmmaker who’s worked on various animations, features, and documentaries, including the noted Chinese 2016 animation feature Big Fish and Begonia.
With this academic and domain expertise, Li’s book illuminates phenomena like fansubs, danmaku “bullet-style” subtitles, and geek “complexes” to audiences who are interested in the theoretical and practical implications of anime’s global popularity. Tune into this episode about Anime’s Knowledge Cultures to learn more—listen to the end for some special anime and movie recommendations.
Anthony Kao is a writer who intersects international affairs and cultural criticism. He founded/edits Cinema Escapist—a publication exploring the sociopolitical context behind global film and television—and also writes for outlets like The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, and Eater.
