Edited by lakashi Murakami

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Contributors

Toshio Okada

Kaichir6 Morikawa

Noi Sawaragi

Midori Matsui

Alexandra Munroe

Tom Eccles

Katy Siegel

Planning and Editing by

Chiaki Kasahara

Bilingual Editing by

Reiko Tomii

Design by

Takaya Goté

J SOCIETY

Published by

Japan Society, New York

Yale University Press, New Haven and London

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CONTENTS

vi

viii

xilifiv

150

164

186

208

240

262

268

Foreword

TRY

Acknowledgements

ee

Notes to the Reader/Japanese Key Words

AUM/ASHO+—I—K

Little Boy (Plates and Entries) Eaitea by Takashi Murakami

U bib(RRC) HE

Earth in My Window Takashi Murakami

mic ALLA

Superflat Trilogy

Greetings, You Are Alive Takashi Murakami

SUPERFLAT TRILOGY—##8 Bis=ZetTWS Abhe

Otaku Talk Toshio Okada and Kaichird Morikawa, moderated by Takashi MurakamiAV7-b—D PSXMI—AR Ale ALLA

On the Battlefield of “Superflat”Subculture and Art in Postwar Japan Noi Sawaragi

A-N—PSy hESC HEROYTAILF + —LRH AERER

Beyond the Pleasure Room to a Chaotic StreetTransformations of Cute Subculture in the Art of the Japanese Nineties Midori Matsui

REIL—-LPSAAACHR\_OFKASRMICEVSDBSVt IAFr-—ORB mHtHeoO

Introducing Little Boy Alexandra Munroe

(URILER—-TISRPULEF FPLOUY F>-tYO0—

Murakami’s Manhattan Project Tom EcclesHEMOVNY PYJOVeFh bh TILK

In the Air Katy Siegel

ASET TAF4-7

Further Readings Midori Matsui,Tom Looser, and Reiko Tomii

MBVAr MHSOO, bL-O-+—-. BARS

Catalogue Staff List

AFOF-ASy¥IIUAR

Japan Society

Officers and Directors of Japan Society, Friends of Arts & Culture, and Art Advisory Committee

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Plate 2fCosmic Entertainers Fair,

Costume pageant that gathered“the best in the universe”

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2ghio Okada addressing

four hundred attendees atadinner party

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DAICON IV Opening Animation wasfirst shown at the openingceremony of the 22nd Japan SF Convention held in Osaka in 1983,

Created by DAICONFilm, a group of amateur animators, this five-

minute 8mm film was a sequel to the group's debut work, DAICON /I/

Opening Animation, which premiered at the 1981 conference(also in

Osaka). DAICON stands for “Osaka Convention,” using an alter-nate pronunciation (dai) for the first character in “Osaka.”

The annual SF (science fiction) convention, inaugurated in 1962,

remains an event by ofaku for ofaku, predating the term ofakuitself,

which did not enter public discourse until the late 1980s. Science

fiction is intimately linked to ofaku culture. The creators of such

olaku-favored genres as “robot anime” and tokusatsu (special

effects) films drew heavily on sciencefiction; the anime classic

Mobile Suit Gundam (pl, 30), for example, was inspired by Robert

Heinlein's 1959 novel, Starship Troopers. Before the full emergence

of otaku culture, fans of fokusatsu and anime TV series created

for children could further satisfy their appetites only by turning to

sciencefiction,

DAICON Film was formed by Toshio Okada, Yasuhiro Takeda,Hideaki Anno, Hiroyuki Yamaga, and Takami Akai (among others),

who were then college students in the Osaka area. They subsequently

formed the anime studio Gainax, which made its name with Neon

Genesis Evangelion (pl. 33) in 1995, a landmark of ofaku culture.

Their DAICON animations reveal two characteristics that appeal

to ofaku, First, they contain abundant references to elements of thesubculture that would later be called ofaku subculture, including

Godzilla and Space Battleship Yamato(pls. 7, 27). Second, even though

10

these hand-drawn, 8mm animefilms are extremely short at fiveminutes each, they demonstrate an extraordinary artistic and tech-

nical level that exceeds expectations for independentfilms: not only

is the quality of the animation high, but the DAICON animators were

able to integrate the picture and the music seamlessly and deploy

such sophisticated techniques as multiple exposures far more skill-

fully than “professionals.” Indeed, DAICON'sfilms, imbued with a

tremendous amount of energy and the ambition of these amateuranimators, jump-started the evolution of anime subculture into full-

fledged otaku culture.

In the final sequence of DAICON IV Opening Animation, the theme

of “destruction and regeneration” is imaginatively reinterpreted.The

energetic flight through the sky of a girl in a bunny costume is followed

by the explosion of what could only be described as an atomic bomb,

which destroys everything. In a pink-hued blast, petals of cherry

blossoms—Japan's national flower—spread over the city, which is

then burned to ashes, as trees die on the mountains and the earth is

turned into a barren landscape. When the spaceship DAICON, a

symbol for ofaku floating in the sky, launches a powerful “ofaku"

beam, the earth is covered with green, as giant trees sprout instantly

from the ground. The world is revived, becoming a place of life where

people joyously gather together.

Finding something liberating in the devastating power of destruc-

tion, the DAICON animators announcedtheir revolution in pictorial

form, paying little heed to the conventions of political correctness

that surround the atomic bombings in Japan.

2d

Plates 2f,gScenes from DA/CON IV:22nd Japan SF Convention,held in Osaka, 1983, fromOfficial After Report of 22ndJapan SF Convention DAICON IV(DAICON IV Committee,August 1, 1984), pages 24(right) and 40

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MIR.

Mr. (b, 1969) is something of an ofaku, A genuine “Iolicom" (Japanese

shorthand for “Lolita complex,” and those possessing it), he is

also a trash collector and an ex-biker, After failing theentrance exam

for Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music four years in a row, he

studied art at Sékei Art Schoolin Tokyo (whichhas no entrance

exam). Mr. is not even good at drawing manga-like pictures of lolicom

subjects. To be blunt, he is a misfit and a lolicom.

Yet Mr. found a meansof turning these negative elements into

something positive when he decided to borrow the nickname "Mister"

from Shigeo Nagashima, the superstar third-baseman of thepost-

war Yomiuri Giants. His new name, “Mr,” intimates the artist's

determination to bear the burden of being Japanese (emulating the

beloved sports icon), to position himself as an “artist-entertainer”

(like Nagashima, who had a popular and prolific second career

on TV), and to exploit his negative qualities (as so many Japanese

comedians do).

This uniquely Japanese artist with a knack for entertainment

initially created works from the trash he collected, following the

examples set by Robert Rauschenberg’s assemblage PopArt

and the Italian avant-garde movement Arte Povera, Mr.,however,

practiced “poorart" simply because he was too impoverished to buy

painting supplies, Arising out of sheer necessity,his junk art was

still nothing more than an imitation of other artists” work,

One day, Mr. decided to explore the imagery of lolicom girlsthrough

illustration, imbuing the subject with an ample dose of olaku fan-

tasy, Drawing on the backs of convenience-store and supermarket

receipts that he had been hoarding for ten years, he realized that

this method somehow echoed Jonathan Borotsky's “numbered

drawings,” for both artists were attempting to enumerate the details

of their reality. Mr. quickly went throughall of the receipts, and this

body of work helped him gain confidence in his art, prompting him to

work with various materials. When he was dating a woman whose

family owned a sushi restaurant, he borrowed a Japanese sword left

by her late father, for use in his performances. Althoughthis girl-

friend is long gone, the sword has remained in Mr.'s hands. Highly

private episodeslike this inform his work, a fact that makes Mr. part

of today’s ofaku generation.

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SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO

Space Battleship Yamato originated as aTV anime series broadcast

in Japan in 1974-75; it also aired in the U.S. as Star Blazers in 1979.

The story is set in the year 2199, when Earth is attacked by Gamilus,

an evil stellar empire. Nuclear pollution caused by the Gamilon bomb-

ing threatensto kill all remaining humans within a year. The desperate

earthlings receive a message from the friendly planet Iscandar, 148

thousand light years away: to save themselves, they must retrieve

Iscandar's radiation neutralizer, “Cosmo Cleaner.” Using the blueprint

sent with the message, the embattled humansbuild a “Wave Motion

Engine” capable of traveling beyond the speedoflight, and install it

on the sunken Japanese battleship Yamato—Japan's last hopein

World War |l—which they salvage from the dried seabed and refit

for the mission to save their planet.

Above all, Yamato was instrumental in the rise of the new

subculture of ofaku. Theseries initially suffered low ratings, in part

because its theme and setting were too complexfor its intended

audience of elementary-school children, and also because it was

broadcast opposite He/di, an immensely popular anime series. When

the series was rerun, however, Yamato began to draw attention,

prompting independent screenings. With the blockbuster success

of the film version, released in 1977, Yamato marked a milestone

in the history of animation, spawning sequels both on TV and

on film. The young people who supported Yamato were the

original otaku, or “adults unable to grow up.”

Yamato also caused a paradigm shift in animation. Departing from

the usual plot of “good vanquishes evil” so commonin children’s

programming, it acknowledged the enemy's necessity in attacking

Earth: the Gamilons must relocate, as their home planet is doomed

to die. The highly realistic design of “mecha” (meka)—mechanical

vessels and weapons—also set the standard for the genre of ‘“mecha-

robot anime.” Without Yamato there would have been no Gundam or

Evangelion (pls. 30, 33).

Also significant was the influence Yamato exerted on Aum

Shinriky6 (Aum SupremeTruth), a notorious religious cult that

carried out arguably the worstterrorist attack in postwar Japanese

history by dispersing deadly Sarin gas on theTokyo subwaysin 1995.

Aum produced a Yamato-like anime film for their proselytization

efforts, and named their own air purifiers (which supposedly

protected them from enemy attacks with poisonous gases and

biological weapons) “Cosmo Cleaners.” This fact alone demonstrates

the profound impact made by Yamato on Japaneseculture.

Notably, this landmark animestill relied on the idea of radiation

as a key narrative device. Thirty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

the Japanese experience of the atomic bombings was beginning to

fade into the past, but the memory could not be forgotten.

70

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26-episode TV anime series

Original concept and planning:Yoshinobu Nishizaki

Director: Leiji (Reiji) Matsumoto

Broadcast by Yomiuri TV Network© 1997 Tohokushinsha Film Corporation

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NEON GENESIS EVANGELION

Neon Genesis Evangelion, an anime masterpiece, began as alV

series written and directed by Hideaki Anno and produced by Gainax

in 1995-96. The production companyGainax gotits start as DAICON

Film, a group of amateur animatorswho created DAICON IV Opening

Animation (pl. 2) in 1983, andits affiliate, the science-fiction store

General Products; essentially agroup of otaku elites, they were

professionally incorporated as Gainax in 1984 upon production of

the feature-length anime The Wingsof Honneamise (released in 1987).

Evangelion became an explosivehit when it was first broadcast.

Caughtupin the cult-like fervor surrounding the work, fans willingly

accepted the controversial and irregular release of the subsequent

film: unable to completeit on time, Gainax showed an unfinished

version to paying audiences inMarch 1997 and released the

final version a few months later.The original TV series and the

subsequentfeaturefilms attracted not only anime fans but also

young culture-lovers and anime veterans who had outgrown otaku

obsessions. Evangelion is an unsurpassed milestonein the history of

otaku culture.

The storyis set in 2015, fifteen years after the Second Impact, a

deadly cataclysm of global magnitude that originated in Antarctica.

“ThenewthyCiTdkysBisSuidanlyattackedby “Angels,” unidenti-

fied enemies that take various forms including biomechanical giants

and a computervirus. NERV, a special U.N. agency charged wit

h

fighting the invaders, deploys Evangelions, all-purpose humanoid

weaponspiloted by three specially chosen fourteen-year-old kids

(Shinji, Rei, and Asuka). A complex amalgam of sciencefiction and

human dramain the form of robot anime, Evangelion showcased

Gainax’s skillful animation, alongwith Anno’s bold use of white-on-

black subtitle graphics and speedy, almost subliminal constructio

n

of action sequences. In many ways, Evangelion is a meta-otakufilm,

through which Anno, himself an otaku, strived to transcend the otaku

tradition. This superbly crafted work was infused with intriguing,

often cryptic terms and ideas adapted liberally from sources a

s

disparate as Judeo-Christian mysticism, biology, and psychology

.

Such elements include the devastating weapon “Spear of Longinus

”

(derived from the legendary spearused to pierce the crucified Jesus)

and the “AT (Absolute Terror) Field” (essentially, a mental barri

er

separating a person's ego from the outside world).

While dutifully paying homage to the pop- and otaku-culture

landmarks that precededit, Evangelion pushedits depiction of the

psychological and emotional struggles of the young motherles

s

pilots to the extreme. The controversial final two episodes of theTV

series, which unconventionally mix anime scenes with drawings an

d

video footage, focus on Shinji, thecentral character among the pilots

,

and his paintul search for what nis iemeans both as a person and

as an Evangelionpilot. With the purposeless Shinji's interior drama

taking center stage, Evangelionis the endpoint of the postwar

lineage of otaku favorites—from Godzilla to the Ultra series to Yamato

to Gundam (pls.7, 9, 27, 30)—inwhich hero-figures increasingly

question and agonize over theirrighteous missionsTotererd‘he

earth and humanity. Shinji's identity crisis, apparently a reflection

of

the director Anno’s own psychological dilemmas, epitomized th

e

difficult obstacles faced by postwar Japan, a nation that had

recovered from the trauma of war only to find itself incapable

of

creating its own future: like Shinji, Japan is probing the root caus

e

of its existential paralysis.

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