Is the reality we live in really real or not really? Why is it that watching certain anime, or interacting online, brings across an experience can is easily more vivid and powerful than 3 dimensional reality can? Is our reality really as real as we’re being led to believe?
Although not a requirement, it would be useful to have already read the about page of this blog before reading this post as it is somewhat builds upon it.
Also, for the purposes of this article and the rest of this blog actually (although I will constantly use reminders like these), I’m using the word Otaku to shorten “an appreciator of Modern Japanese Visual Culture” without all the freaking social stigma, because I believe that an Otaku is socially equal or superior to “normal” people even though it isn’t true in Japan at least. Modern Japanese Visual Culture includes, but isn’t limited to, anime, manga, light novels and visual novels.
As many matured adults should already know, the reality we live in isn’t as real as it appears to be. It is fundamentally fake. This is the conclusion I have reached after about 20 plus years of living in this 3 dimensional excuse of a reality, which I will illustrate with a few real-life examples.
Before that, I would like to clarify that this “fakeness” exists in order to prevent widespread chaos and disorder in this world from occuring. Read on to find out why.
Firstly lets talk about family relationships, more specifically the father-son type since I’m a guy after all. Most fathers in my father’s generation (my father is 55) are technophobes. From young, I’ve been discouraged from spending too much time with the computer because it is a “waste of time”. For several years, I believed this to be true but I rebelled anyway because that was what youth does and will always do.
It was only recently in my National Service days that I realised the internet was so much more than simply free games and music. It was a living, breathing thing, and interacting online opened my eyes to the lies the older generation bestows upon us. I began to believe that terms like “internet addict” were invented as a societal control measure to allow the older generation to stubbornly hide themselves from the truth.
It was only recently (after I left service) when I talked to a 41 year-old colleague at work that I realised that the older generation didn’t really force themselves to be technophobes. This colleague kept on asking me on advice on how to burn CDs, and transfer images from his handphone to his computer etc. I asked him, “why don’t you ask your son?” To which he replied, “I would never do that, it just simply wouldn’t happen.”
Many youth like me may not realise it, but there exists an invisible barrier of fakeness between every father and son relationship that we call “respect”. It is simply impossible to close this distance between father and son because it would lead to huge ego upsets which endangers the institution of family if it was ever attempted. I myself have actually naively tried to impose the viewpoint on my father that the reason why I don’t always read the local paper thoroughly is because it is inevitably a societal control measure imposed by the government, and that blogging is slowly uprooting traditional media. He became incredibly frustrated and annoyed to the point of shouting, and I decided to leave him to his devices.
If I kept imposing upon him (i.e. disrespecting him) the existance of our family could be endagered. Despite recognising that this world is fundamentally fake, I am matured enough to recognise that family is an incredibly important aspect of keeping society intact, and that it isn’t worth it to close this distance between us. Clannad has also hammered in this message quite strongly.
This can be applied to other family-oriented events as well, for example Chinese New Year visiting in Singapore. It is basic respect to visit relatives during Chinese New Year in Singapore, but I often find myself wondering what the heck am I doing in this relative’s house for since I don’t see him for the rest of the year. The entire interaction feels fundamentally fake, but if the tradition was ignored, it would again endanger the institution of family. Which would lead to widespread chaos and disorder.
This fundamental fakeness is also enforced by the law. I mean, its a fact that what men really want to do is to have sex. It is obvious that if you saunter up to a woman and declare your innermost desires, you’ll wind up nowhere but jail. Its as if the law is trying to tell us “be fake, or else.”
This fakeness is not so obvious to the immature, or even youth like myself. The reason why I’m blogging like this? Lets just say the Singapore Army can do really crazy stuff to your brain when you work for a year plus in a Military Police section.
HOWEVER, I do not go around imposing my views on every person I see as I accept that we live in a 3 dimensional world and there are set rules and regulations to obey in this world (like not upsetting the reality of others for example). Keeping this in mind, there are 4 paths most people can take:
1. Do not accept that the world we live in is fundamentally fake and be disillusioned into thinking it is our only reality. Most people take this path and this will lead to a larger mid-life crisis. If the person is not mentally strong enough to endure this crisis, it will eventually lead to suicide. Statistics released recently on local papers show that youth and retirees in their golden years share similar amounts of happiness, while those in between are much, much unhappier.
2. Accept that the world we live in is fundamentally fake and instead of accepting again that we have to obey the rules and regulations laid out in this fake 3D world, impose on others (who have not yet accepted this) the fakeness of this world and behave according to your beliefs. We call these kind of people cynics or eccentrics, or any other number of negative adjectives like weird or queer.
3. Accept that the world we live in is fundamentally fake and instead of caving in to social pressure to deviate to the extreme, take up a religion. I am most familiar with Christianity as I’ve attended 6 years of methodist school (but I’m not Christian). Seems most religions preach about not focusing on “worldly pleasures” which seems to work wonders. I have some Christian friends and this belief seems to keep them in check compared to the non-Christian ones.
4. Accept that the world we live in is fundamentally fake and, WITHOUT caving into societal pressure to behave like the stereotype, become an Otaku.
I have already stated my religious beliefs in the about page of this blog so at this point if you have not went through it, its probably a good idea to do so.
Is appreciating Modern Japanese Visual Culture worldly? In most cases (except in the case of 3D CG), no. What I am postulating is that the fundamental reason why our world is fake is because it is 3 dimensional. Most otaku-fare is 2 dimensional. Sure, the objects (such as computer monitors or books) used to appreciate such media is definitely worldly, but the act of appreciating it isn’t.
To draw a parallel with Christianity, the bible itself is worldly, but its teachings are not.
Similar to Christianity, to fully appreciate otaku-fare, we need to emotionally recognise at least an intermediate level of related jargon such as moe or tsundere (the more terms the better). This is in a sense, similar to studying a bible.
Also, I’ve been able to recognise this other-worldly euphoria that I am only able to experience when I watch good anime or play good visual novels alone (like for example, at the moment when Reverie flipped on the stars in Planetarian). Its as if you have to phase your state of mind into a lower dimension to experience this state. And it has been proven to me over and over again that nothing else in this world can bring across this experience. Nothing. Probably the same feeling that Christians get at a gospel? But when you finish off, its back to reality.
The bible has many Heroes that are pure and uncorrupt at heart that go through much adventures enduring hardships. In Otaku-fare, moe heroines share similar character properties, and also grow much through their own adventures. Nagisa from Clannad comes to mind, most recently.
I find it interesting when some “normal” people say that watching Clannad or Manabi Straight! makes them feel paedophillic. If appreciating a character that is pure and uncorrupt at heart childish or paedophillic, doesn’t that make studying biblical characters paedophillic as well?
Yes, what I am trying to bring across here is that the reason why Otaku world-wide behave thus so is because anime and related media have actually become their religion in a traditional sense. It doesn’t have to be an intense, everyday thing like the stereotype depicts us anime fans to be spending the entire day watching anime. I myself have only watched Clannad completely last season while taking in small doses of manga and visual novels here and there (I work a full-time temp job). Just experiencing it awhile everyday and having some interaction with the similar minded people is kind of similar to having what Christians call Quiet Time or QT for short. I don’t know about the rest of you, but it does bring a peace of mind to me. And when I’m done, I can get on with my 3 dimensional “reality” a little more energised than before.
16 comments
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April 9, 2008 at 7:29 am
sz3
Interesting.. Though you cannot discount the age (sometimes) between Bible characters and characters from manabi straight or other loli anime (mostly.. im just wildly dropping points here).. After all.. Animated characters leave much less for the brain to “work” with when compared to words.. And face it. We would rather work less.. =P
April 9, 2008 at 9:15 pm
dKiWi
My counter to that is playing visual novels require a hell of a lot of reading… played Planetarian yet?
April 11, 2008 at 2:17 am
Anonymous
Interesting read. I’d argue that options 3 and 4 aren’t mutually exclusive though; depending on one’s definition of “otaku”, what about otaku christians?
April 11, 2008 at 5:51 am
dKiWi
@Anonymous: I disagree.
My viewpoint is that it isn’t necessary to be intensely Otaku if you are intensely religious and vice versa. In fact, none of my Christian friends are Otaku. One of them buys a shit load of manga, but that’s what he is: a manga fan, not an Otaku. He doesn’t recognise modern Japanese visual culture jargon. He buys manga because he likes collecting books, and I know how that feels as I buy quite a lot of manga as well.
Similar to obssessive Otaku, there are also obssessive Christians that go around preaching Christianity to an extreme level which some people find irritating. I find them EXTREMELY irritating though, and they are the reason why I’ve not become Christian even though I’ve been through 6 years of methodist schools. They are kind of similar to extreme Otaku who keep preaching their Otakuism which tends to turn normal people off.
There are also light Christians who know what Christianity is, but maybe go to Church once a month or once in two months.
Thus what I feel is that if you are a light Christian, you are more likely to be an obssessive Otaku and also vice versa.
April 11, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Anonymous
Thanks for answering my comment. I’m glad to hear about your views on this
Perhaps I should clarify; “Mutually exclusive,” referring to your implication that practicing a religion and becoming an otaku are seperate paths one can take. I think that perhaps the two states can exist simultaneously.
We’re on the same page regarding extremists, but I’m curious, how far “along” or obssesed must one be before they are classified as an “otaku”? For example, wouldn’t your friend be a “Manga Otaku”? In the same way people can be train-otaku or gundam-otaku~? Reading your reply again, you first say that your friend buys a ton of manga but isn’t an otaku. But then later you said that light Christians can be obssessive otaku…
April 15, 2008 at 1:08 am
out of point
lol i suppose ur talking abt me eh
>.<
well interesting views but other than that i’ll refrain from commenting cos i know where ur coming from and lol yeah.
April 15, 2008 at 1:18 am
out of point
and i wont consider myself an otaku on anything lol cos i read mostly shonen (correct type right kiwi) and the animes that follow the series usually have like tons of fillers and in some cases diverge totally from the manga storyline. and like kiwi says i just like to collect the series(es, lol) and yeah i dont watch alot of moe (infact hardly any) so i dont see the value in anime la. but lol thats just me hahaha.
also, i lost my previous post cos of posting too fast wth kiwi fix ur board la hahaha
April 16, 2008 at 12:28 am
dKiWi
@Anonymous:
If you’re using Otaku in the context of “manga Otaku”, then you are defining Otaku differently from the context of this essay. You are using the literal Japanese meaning of Otaku which is “geek” while in this context I am using Otaku to shorten “appreciator of modern Japanese visual culture” as it would be really tiring to keep typing that out.
Actually, in a Japanese visual culture context, it isn’t a good idea to use Japanese words literally. For example “moe” literally means “rosebud” in Japanese, which is not at all accurate when used in a visual culture context.
So to answer your question, the friend in question likes to collect manga, but he is unable to derive full satisfaction from the purchase of the manga as he is unable to emotionally recognise certain aspects of the manga he has bought that only Otaku can. He is probably treating it as “Japanese comic books” while manga is really much more than that.
@out of point:
Actually, I wasn’t thinking about you when I wrote the essay, I was thinking about this other guy who buys a f*ckload of Chinese manga and actually is running out of space to store them.
And this guy doesn’t only buy Shounen manga, he buys all kinds of manga.
April 16, 2008 at 10:05 pm
out of point
wahahah too similar for my taste
lol!
April 17, 2008 at 2:44 am
Anonymous
Ah, so you mean Otaku in a frame of appreciating *all aspects* of modern Japanese culture? Or could your definition also apply in a context where person is interested only in a segment of said culture? Although your friend does not qualify, let’s consider a hypothetical individual with a vested but exclusive interest in manga, and the ability to “correctly” intrepret such works. In other words, being aware of the jargon and cultural cues, but with a specific interest. Is she an otaku? And does this conflict with religion?
April 17, 2008 at 6:29 am
dKiWi
@Anonymous:
Oh! I see where you’re coming from. Well this said person would not be a “true Otaku” so called, and I think they would be really rare.
Anyways, you cannot “specialise in manga” as an Otaku, because you have to keep in mind manga can be adapted from anime, light novels and visual novels. Light novel adaptions into manga are particularly popular nowadays, and it is difficult to fully appreciate manga adaptions without having watched/read the original media in the first place. In fact, such manga are actually quite boring UNLESS you have experienced the original media before.
And yes, I do believe it will still cause a conflict with religion. I feel inclined to go to a church and conduct a survey (“for a school project”) with questions like “Do you know what is an Otaku?” and “do you know what is an eroge” kinda thing. I don’t think I will find many Otaku in Churches, or temples for that matter.
April 17, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Anonymous
Aha! So you approach “Otaku culture” holistically, as an entity made up of distinct works manifested in different forms? Where the building blocks are properties such as Haruhi or Bleach, represented through various types of media?
That’d be an interesting survey though, because as you restated, by the aforementioned definition, “true Otaku” would be rare in any demographic.
It would be fascinating to see the results though. One thing the modern church aims to do is be relevant and aware of the state of modern culture in general. One would imagine that individuals in churches in Japan, while perhaps not classifiable as otaku, would at least potentially be aware of the existence of this unique group.
Then again, in an informal survey I conducted, (on a general population of 3 or 4 people ^^;), some mainstream anime fans (Ghibli) were not aware of the existence of Haruhi, which is generally accepted as having made large waves in the “otaku world” as it pertains to Japan. So who knows…
April 17, 2008 at 9:53 pm
dKiWi
If you approach Otaku culture from just one angle (like only anime or only manga), it is impossible to appreciate it fully. Otaku culture is something like mathematics or physics, where one aspect builds upon the next. And no it isn’t the titles like “Bleach” or “Haruhi” that define it but the media (anime, manga, light novels and visual novels) and jargon that do so.
As I was a science student (engineering student to be) who has a bias towards liking pure mathematics (obvious from my lack of command of the English language compared to many other bloggers), I believe that it is important to “appreciate” rather than “understand” an art form or physical/scientific system through links.
Otaku culture is interesting in the sense that even though it is obviously an art form, the amount of jargon that exists and has to be understood to explain the art allows someone trained in the sciences to appreciate it at a greater depth than an art student probably can. It is something like a pseudo-scientific artform, as it can be appreciated like a physical system. Think thermodynamics, or elementary mechanics if you’ve taken physics.
Through my understanding of dimensional mathematics, I am able to conclude that because most of Otaku culture is 2 dimensional, it will never be widely recognised. You cannot blame the modern church for not recognising such culture, because majority of the world never will. And church caters to the majority, unlike Otaku culture.
Some blog commentors have said that gaming was considered a geeky, loser hobby in the past and that because it has gained popularity, that Otaku culture is probably next. I disagree, largely because of the dimensional arguement. Most computer games and Star Trek are 3 dimensional, thus it is much easier for Gamers and Trekkies to gain mainstream acceptance compared to Otaku culture. Read my about page and try to expose “normal” people to any form of Otaku culture and watch their reactions if you want to understand this point of view.
This is my empirical hypothesis backed by mathematical analysis and some physical evidence (trying to show “normal” people Lucky Star in a military camp for example), and I believe that physical evidence (like a survey) should support it. Not sure whether I’m gonna try it though.
April 17, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Anonymous
So it’s the media and of itself that is the defining aspect? But media is just a concept, a definition, a facilitator; nothing can be realized without content.
And to bring up gaming is opening up a new can of worms where the lines between 2D and 3D perhaps become blurred quite readily. For example, some games take place in a 3D environment, but we view them on a 2D plane, just like we view anime on a 2D plane. It’s similar to our ability to percieve a 4D environment on a 3D plane. And what of anime that incorporates 3D sequences? It’s all in 2D of course, but then how is that any different from gaming? We don’t have the holodeck yet…
And of course, there’s the issue of games that are derived from the universe of a property. Are they not considered part of modern visual culture too, in the sense that in order to be enjoyed fully one must also experience the other manifestations of the content? For that matter, Visual Novels are games, by my definition (an active activity providing entertainment). The level of interaction varies depending on the title, but again that’s title dependant, not medium dependant.
I agree about the holistic nature of the culture, but I disagree that it’s the manner of presentation in and of itself that is the defining aspect. For example, the average Japanese person should at least know Dragon Ball and Doraemon. They’ve achieved an iconic status in Japanese popular culture as well as modern visual culture.
With respect to your attempt to spread Lucky Star, I’d thus disagree that it’s due to the inherent nature of the medium per se, but rather, societal and cultural norms that influence this type of behaviour. Focusing on a specific but relevant example, manga in Japan is mainstream, even though it’s a 2D medium. What of works with only one manifestation?
I guess this discussion has veered off course (slowly evolving into art vs science, and no thanks to either of us, haha) but thanks for your replies!
August 28, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Raide
At this moment, the most vocal of us minority seems to apprehend our generation to be open-minded, critical, always thinking about major picutre (reality), and always think that it’s our right to express ourselves. However I think this is no different than what people like us (with ‘introvert’, intelligent trait which have more mental-engaging need rather than social need) do and think since ages ago. They are critical and all but never a majority because it is inherent in the personality not too stand out too much that it may cause trouble.
In those 4 paths people may take, I think no matter what time or era it is, the balance will never change. People naturally born with their own personality and it’s always equally distributed everywhere and every time. So yeah, I think in the future, the impossibility of synchronization between father and son won’t stop happening in the general, common populace.
My English is amateurish so maybe I fail to get my point across. But what I want to convey as most interesting is this; this is the age where kids below 10 years old can easily access high speed internet and interact with information and people we can’t possibly interact with, when we and the rest of human are at that age. Do you think this fact is a sign of possible evolution in future civilization or that nothing would change at all?
I love the content of your blog. :3
August 29, 2008 at 9:04 am
dKiWi
Thanks for the compliment. Pity I can’t update it as often now that school has gone into full swing ^^
Something would definitely change in the future, and I am excited to be part of this technological age where the possibilities are endless. This may not be a “good” thing as a whole, but definitely liberates the individual and is incredibly interesting for liberals.
The internet has proven the information is “alive” in the sense that it is begging to be disseminated, and attempts to halt this advance have been met with violent reactions from the technological age populace. I am glad that the Singaporean government has recognised that banning the internet isn’t a viable solution, and may in fact lead to their downfall.
The future may not be bright, but it will definitely be exciting.