So far, in my posts, I have been writing about various kinds of anime fan behaviour and what goes on within the fan community.
Several scholars who look at fan behaviour have typically looked it through the framework of resistance (Matt Hills does a pretty good review of this approach in his book*). My own understanding is that this 'resistance' stems from fans refusing to interpret the media text in the way intended by the producers. This is a form of resisting the dominant code in the media text (I borrow this idea from Hall's (1980) # suggestion that the encoding of a message in a media text, i.e. the insertion of meaning in the media text, by producers is very much affected by dominant ideology).
While I agree that fans are active users in the way they interact with and interpret the media text, I see the issue as more of negotiation of meaning rather than resistance to dominant meaning. I see it as more of an issue of negotiation of the authority to interpret and add more layers of meaning rather than an issue of struggle for the power to decide what the text means. My personal observations suggest that fans do realise that they have limited power in what they can do to sway the direction of the plot of a media text. More often than not, one can see them lamenting the fate of a certain character in a show in forums (e.g. "Noooo! Why must XXX end up with YYY? I think XXX should have married ZZZ instead! What are the producers thinking??).
The concept of resistance also seems to suggest that producers and consumers are in two opposing camps. I do not really think that's the case. The respectful tone when referring to the original creators and the delight fans have expressed in being able to interview or talk with creators seem to suggest a great deal of love for the producers (until they threaten fans with legal action). I have to admit that fans do not seem to have much love for the middleman though (as can be seen in the torrents of negative remarks against Odex as well as possible collaboration between Viz and MangaHelpers). But that mistrust seems to have grown out of past unhappy dealings with the distributors. After all, Kristin Thompson noted the wonderful relations that the cast and crew of The Lord of The Rings had with fans.** Of course, it might have helped that Peter Jackson was a self-professed fan of The Lord of The Rings.
The fact that fans write in to producers pleading some plot change or the resurrection of certain characters, seem to me, to suggest an attempt by fans to negotiate plot development. Of course, if producers were to cater to every fan demand, then we could end up with a very weird television series or we could end up with fans being so satisfied with the main text then they probably will not explore other possibilities in fanworks. (Here I am assuming that fans engage in fanworks out of a desire to control the plot development. Of course, fans could probably engage in fanworks out of some other desire instead.)
Furthermore, it appears to me that the interpretation of characters and plots within the fan community (which in turn, affects how the characters are used in fanworks such as fanfiction, particularly in pairings) is very much negotiated by members of the fan community. Discussion threads devoted to individual characters or story arcs can be found on popular discussion boards where fans come together to offer their two cents worth on these characters or plot developments. Some fan interpretations have even gone on to become canon in the fan community and fan work. If we were to use the idea of fanworks as a manifestation of resistance of dominant readings here, then I would have to say it is pretty ironic that fans are adhering to dominant interpretations within the community itself!
Hence, to me, fan behaviour is really a negotiation of different types of readings of the media text rather than resistance to dominant readings. Of course, my research might prove me wrong and it could really just be an issue of resistance to power or I could unearth other issues that no one else has thought about.
* See Hills, M. (2002). Fan cultures between consumerism and 'resistance'. In Fan cultures (pp. 27-45) New York: Routledge.
#See Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In Hall, S.,Hobson, D., Lowe, A., & Willis, P. (eds.) Culture, media, language. (pp.197-208) London: Hutchinson.
** See Thompson, K. (2007). The Frodo franchise: The lord of the rings and modern Hollywood New Zealand: Penguin.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Rise and Fall of Anime Fansubs
A professional translator cum anime fan made a video last year on fansubs (anime that has been subtitled by fans). The video (which shares the same title on as this blog entry) is available on Youtube. Here's the link to part one of the video:
Here are the other parts: 2, 3, 4, 5
I think the videos should be taken together with an online interview with the videomaker which would give people watching the documentary more insights to the videomaker's intent and purpose.
My interpretation is that the videomaker, Paul 'Otaking' Johnson, was seriously making a cry of protest against the current state of fansubs. I don't really see much information on the rise of fansubs (maybe about one minute in the first part?) although there is plenty of lamenting about how terrible fansubs nowadays are. His main grouses seem to be that fansubs nowadays are flashy, retain too much Japanese (and then uses plenty of notes that take up lots of screen space to explain the Japanese words and the context in which they are used), distracts viewers from the visuals and essentially are a way for fansubs to show off their expert understanding of Japanese as well as their fancy editing skills.
I personally think that some of his criticisms are spot on-> the dazzling array of words at the opening and ending sequences of the anime which he term 'karaoke sequences' are indeed very distracting. However, there is no denying that Johnson's video seems to be rather subjective and a little biased. Johnson has only highlighted the flaws of current fansubs and the good points of professional subtitling as well as the good points of fansubs of yesteryear. Current fansubs are available a lot faster and visual quality is a lot better than fansubs of yesteryear. While this is due largely to technology, we need to take note that there has been effort made by fans to ensure that the subtitles are in sync with the audio and this requires great effort (trust me, I used to do video edits).
Moreover, Johnson's standards might differ greatly from the average anime fan's standards and expectations. Johnson tackles this topic with the view that anime ought to be localised when translated and ought to be accessible to as many people as possible. However, he seems to have forgotten that anime fandom remains very much a subculture (although anime is now available on mainstream television channels) and the anime fan community remains a closed one with some fans not being very eager to share anime with the general masses. In fact, according to Leonard (2005), this issue of whether to spread anime to the masses or to keep it to a closed group is not new and was present even in the early days of fansubbing. Not explaining the context is not very helpful to the average viewer or a person who simply views anime but is not very much aware of these undercurrents. After all, Geertz (1973)# noted the importance of context and how it is necessary to have "thick descriptions" of the situation and context for the audience to better understand and make sense of the situation. After all, a wink is just a twitching of one's eyelid and has no meaning unless one knows the context in which it occurs.
However, despite Johnson's evidence of the shortcomings of today's fansubs and his useful suggestions, I think it must be kept in mind that his video is laced with his own subjectivities. Perhaps he doesn't mean for his video to come across as objective or as a well thought out piece of research ( although I doubt that given that he mentioned he spent much time and effort on this with no monetary reward and the citations that he have of translation theories/theorists). Assuming that he does want people to acknowledge the effort he put in, I think he could have improve upon it (and reduce the amount of wrath he incurred from the fansubbers) by acknowledging his bias or at least show his attempt to reduce the bias his own interest might have generated in his analysis of fansubs, a challenge that Marshal and Rossman (2006)## noted that all qualitative researchers face. (yes, I consider documentary filmmakers qualitative researchers of sorts). It might be tedious but perhaps if Johnson had explained how he collected his data (especially the fansubs that he chose to analyse and raise as examples), his case might be more convincing. Fans were accusing him of selecting a biased sample and raised the fact that there are many fansub groups who create high-quality fansubs as well which he appears to have neglected.
Nevertheless, I must say this is an interesting video worth watching to get a (subjective) sense of the fansub scene for someone interested in anime. The fans' responses are also quite an interesting read on their own.
*See Leonard, S (2005) Celebrating two decades of unlawful progress: Fan distribution, proselytization commons, and the explosive growth of Japanese animation. UCLA Entertainment Law Review 12(2) 191-265
#See Geertz, C (1973) Thick description: Towards an interpretive theory of culture. In The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays (pp 3-30). New York: Basic Books
## See Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. (2006). The what of the study: Building the conceptual framework. In Designing qualitative research (4th ed.) (pp. 23-50). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Here are the other parts: 2, 3, 4, 5
I think the videos should be taken together with an online interview with the videomaker which would give people watching the documentary more insights to the videomaker's intent and purpose.
My interpretation is that the videomaker, Paul 'Otaking' Johnson, was seriously making a cry of protest against the current state of fansubs. I don't really see much information on the rise of fansubs (maybe about one minute in the first part?) although there is plenty of lamenting about how terrible fansubs nowadays are. His main grouses seem to be that fansubs nowadays are flashy, retain too much Japanese (and then uses plenty of notes that take up lots of screen space to explain the Japanese words and the context in which they are used), distracts viewers from the visuals and essentially are a way for fansubs to show off their expert understanding of Japanese as well as their fancy editing skills.
I personally think that some of his criticisms are spot on-> the dazzling array of words at the opening and ending sequences of the anime which he term 'karaoke sequences' are indeed very distracting. However, there is no denying that Johnson's video seems to be rather subjective and a little biased. Johnson has only highlighted the flaws of current fansubs and the good points of professional subtitling as well as the good points of fansubs of yesteryear. Current fansubs are available a lot faster and visual quality is a lot better than fansubs of yesteryear. While this is due largely to technology, we need to take note that there has been effort made by fans to ensure that the subtitles are in sync with the audio and this requires great effort (trust me, I used to do video edits).
Moreover, Johnson's standards might differ greatly from the average anime fan's standards and expectations. Johnson tackles this topic with the view that anime ought to be localised when translated and ought to be accessible to as many people as possible. However, he seems to have forgotten that anime fandom remains very much a subculture (although anime is now available on mainstream television channels) and the anime fan community remains a closed one with some fans not being very eager to share anime with the general masses. In fact, according to Leonard (2005), this issue of whether to spread anime to the masses or to keep it to a closed group is not new and was present even in the early days of fansubbing. Not explaining the context is not very helpful to the average viewer or a person who simply views anime but is not very much aware of these undercurrents. After all, Geertz (1973)# noted the importance of context and how it is necessary to have "thick descriptions" of the situation and context for the audience to better understand and make sense of the situation. After all, a wink is just a twitching of one's eyelid and has no meaning unless one knows the context in which it occurs.
However, despite Johnson's evidence of the shortcomings of today's fansubs and his useful suggestions, I think it must be kept in mind that his video is laced with his own subjectivities. Perhaps he doesn't mean for his video to come across as objective or as a well thought out piece of research ( although I doubt that given that he mentioned he spent much time and effort on this with no monetary reward and the citations that he have of translation theories/theorists). Assuming that he does want people to acknowledge the effort he put in, I think he could have improve upon it (and reduce the amount of wrath he incurred from the fansubbers) by acknowledging his bias or at least show his attempt to reduce the bias his own interest might have generated in his analysis of fansubs, a challenge that Marshal and Rossman (2006)## noted that all qualitative researchers face. (yes, I consider documentary filmmakers qualitative researchers of sorts). It might be tedious but perhaps if Johnson had explained how he collected his data (especially the fansubs that he chose to analyse and raise as examples), his case might be more convincing. Fans were accusing him of selecting a biased sample and raised the fact that there are many fansub groups who create high-quality fansubs as well which he appears to have neglected.
Nevertheless, I must say this is an interesting video worth watching to get a (subjective) sense of the fansub scene for someone interested in anime. The fans' responses are also quite an interesting read on their own.
*See Leonard, S (2005) Celebrating two decades of unlawful progress: Fan distribution, proselytization commons, and the explosive growth of Japanese animation. UCLA Entertainment Law Review 12(2) 191-265
#See Geertz, C (1973) Thick description: Towards an interpretive theory of culture. In The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays (pp 3-30). New York: Basic Books
## See Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. (2006). The what of the study: Building the conceptual framework. In Designing qualitative research (4th ed.) (pp. 23-50). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Hitler Goes To Japan
That's the cover for the Japanese manga version of Mein Kampf, the book originally written by Adolf Hitler. The manga version has apparently sold over 45,000 copies in Japan and is being published as part of the Manga de Doukuha series (except I'm not sure how many people would really think of Mein Kampf as a literature classic).
The publisher's attempt to 'reformat' classic works* into manga form reminds of how television programme formats, instead of content, are being sold to foreign markets. This is mostly seen in reality or variety television programmes. Take for instance, the success of UK's sale of its Pop Idol format to many other countries. We see this happening in Singapore too when MediaCorp sold its Project Superstar format to Malaysia and Vietnam.
In the case of the manga Mein Kampf though, what changes is the format rather than the content. Nevertheless, I feel that these 2 sets of happenings highlight one thing in common, which is how there is a need for change in order for cultural products to cater to an audience from a different culture. Some changes might not be extensive such as mere translation, others require tweaking the format (such as the Mein Kampf manga to appeal to Japanese readers) while others require retaining the format but tweaking the content to contextualise it (another example would be the many versions of Ugly Betty). I personally think this boils down a lot to how culture shapes our understanding as noted by Clifford Geertz# who saw culture as something that functions to help us make meaning.
Changing formats or content helps capture the varied nuances that are expressed differently in different cultures and reduces the loss of meaning that can occur through mere direct (and usually thoughtless) translations. [which is likely why manga fans prefer fan translations because usually more thought about context and nuances are put into fan translations than the 'official' translation by licensees or distributors].
Of course, there are other issues involved such as costs incurred and also the concerns about cultural imperialism as cultural products from certain countries become more widespread. But those really are issues that I shall (hopefully) tackle in another post.
*Borrowing that phrase is more out of convenience's sake rather than out of any firm belief that all the works that the publishers are 're-publishing' in manga format are objectively classic works.*
#See Geertz, C (1973) Thick description: Towards an interpretive theory of culture. In The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays (pp 3-30). New York: Basic Books
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