asia exposure zeronendai presentation

8/3/2019 Asia Exposure Zeronendai Presentation

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Survive Style Cinema

The aim of this paper is to look at some of the ideas proposed by the Japanese cultural

critic Uno Tsunehiro in his 2008 book Zeronendai no Sozoryoku to see how

productive this is for understanding contemporary Japanese cinema. The actually

translation of the book title would be something like `Imaginary of the Noughties` butI think I will continue to refer to zeronendai instead of noughties - mainly because it

noughties sounds too corny.

The book collects a series of magazine essays written by Uno between 2007 and 2008

in which he tried to demarcate a paradigm shift between Japanese popular culture of

the 1990s (and particularly the period between 1995 and 2000) and that of the

zeronendai. Although he draws on other critics such as Azuma Hiroki, I think that this

is the most thorough and systematic attempt to identify such a proposed cultural shift.

In creating such a strict schism between the two periods, Zeronendai no Sozoryoku is

also a self-consciously polemical text taking to task those critics and cultural

producers still recycling cultural ideas from the 1990s.

In the first part of the paper I will simply try to illustrate some of the differences

between the cultural imaginary of 1990s Japan (associated with the term sekai-kei)

and that of the zeronendai (associated with the term sabibu-kei or sabibu-kan) --

It should be noted, however, that although Uno mentions many films, this is not a

book specifically about Japanese cinema but about trends in Japanese popular culture

more generally. With so many of the films mentioned actually adaptations of earlier

manga or novels, in the second part of the paper I will try to think about some of the

other implications of this schism for contemporary Japanese cinema. Here I will

consider the relevance of these concepts of sekai-kei and sabibu-kei for the work of

directors using original material such as Aoyama Shinji and Kurosawa Kiyoshi.

With Kurosawa and Aoyama, I suggest, still tending towards a sekai-kei rather than a

sabibu-kei logic, I question whether this dichotomy is not based simply on a temporal

shift but also a difference in philosophical approach.

First Part

So I will begin by trying to address the question of what is sekai-kei. It is interesting,however, that English-language texts using the concept just keep the term (sekai-kei)

without offering a translation. I think you could translate it as something like world-

relation (world sekai) (kei relation) and then sabibu-kei would literally be

survive-relation using the English word survive as a loan word. In the title and

abstract I think I used suffix style to sound flashier.

Sekai-kei is also not something invented by Uno but rather a widespread concept in

contemporary Japanese sub-culture studies. The paradigmatic example of a sekai-kei

text cited by Uno and indeed many other Japanese cultural critics is the animated

television series Neon Genesis Evangelion which was broadcast in Japan from

October 1995 to March 1996. The series was produced by Gainax studios and directedby Anno Hideaki.


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SLIDE NEONGENESIS

Anyone catching the first episode (or maybe even just the karaoke-friendly title

music) might think this was going to be a straightforward boys science-fiction

adventure series. Indeed the series begins with truculent fourteen year-old Ikari Shinjisummoned to the headquarters of covert military organisation NERV. Here he finds

that his father has been secretly working for the government to develop giant

Evangelion robots to combat invading aliens called Angels. Shinji finds that he has

now become vital to the world`s survival because he is one of only a select few able

to pilot one of the Evangelion robots, all of which are dependent upon forming

synapses with humans. (You will be pleased to know that we later find out that the

reason Shinji is suitable is because his dead mother`s DNA is in one of the

Evangelion which also turn out to be biometric organisms rather than robots)

Rather than focussing on either these plot twists or battle sequences, however, most of

the series is more concerned with the psychological problems of its many characters.After victory over the Angels, however, the series takes one more turn with the final

two episodes focussing on Shinji`s retreat from this earlier position as `pre-destined`

saviour of the world into self-absorption and withdrawal.

For many critics Shinji`s introspective detachment is emblematic of the decline of so-

called grand-narratives (with characters having no `special` place in the world). When

the self-doubting Shinji finally decides to participate in the world again (though

outside of the demands of either the government or his father) all the other characters

magically appear to applaud his decision as if the final episodes or perhaps even the

whole series has been an illusory, existential test.

SLIDE: NEON GENESIS END

What is crucial for Uno, however, is that Shinji nevertheless has a choice available to

him either to participate in the world or withdraw from the world. (This kind of

withdrawal is also linked to the figure of the hikikomori - those children who live at

home with their parents and choose not to work or sometimes go outside).

Some kind of example that Uno doesn`t mention that people might be able to relate to

is the Bong Joon-Ho sequence from Tokyo! where magical parental money allows the

protagonist to stay at home and never go out

SLIDE - TOKYO!

Now Uno, like many other cultural critics, also sees these cultural texts as expressions

of external events from the 1990s, most notably 1) Japan`s failure to recover from the

collapse of the bubble economy (also an example of the end of grand narratives) and

2) the Aum cult attack on the Tokyo Metro

SLIDE - TIME MAGAZINE AUM

Indeed for many Japanese intellectuals the Aum attack was read precisely as afanatical attempt to find meaning in a post-grand narrative, meaningless world. I think


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the Aum attack is really a big a deal in Japanese thought - as much as 9-11 is for the

United States - so it turns up a lot in theoretical debates.

Now the distinction that Uno wants to make between this cultural imaginary of the

1990s and that of the zeronendai is that this choice between participation and

withdrawal is no longer available. Instead there is no option but to participate, orrather the only option is between fighting and dying. This fight also seems unending

and also always producers victors and victims.

Amongst the paradigmatic zeronendai texts discussed by Uno are Battle Royale

(originally a 1999 novel by Takami Koushun before Fukusaku Kinji`s film version) as

well as Death Note (originally a manga series by Ohba Tsugumi before being adapted

into two films).

Uno also discusses the differences between the 1990s Kamen Rider series and 2002`s

Kamen Rider series (Kamen Rider - Dragon Rider) and also looks a little bit at my

favourite popular culture text at the monment, Liar Game (a manga by KaitaniShinobu before being adapted into a television series and film)

SLIDE - LIAR GAME - one side manga; one side TV/film

Now whereas the 1990s cultural imaginary is a response to post-bubble

meaninglessness and Aum cult fanaticism, the zeronendai cultural imaginary is linked

to the continuing downturn in Japan`s economy and the subsequent neo-liberal

reforms enacted as part of former Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro`s so-called

structural revolution begun in 2001..

SLIDE KOIZUMI

This structural revolution was a long list of deregulating, decentralising and

privatising initiatives which saw the sell-off of several state services including road

management and the post-office as well as labour reforms greatly increasing the

amount of time employees could be used as `temporary workers` before companies

were forced to hire them as permanent workers (3 years). This, of course, co-incides

with the growth of freetas, net cafe refugees, working poor etc.

Uno`s point is that in the context of these neo-liberal economic reforms, you do not

have the economic luxury of withdrawal (as in the Bong Joon-Ho sequence) and mustinstead compete and at the expense of others. In Battle Royale you must kill or be

killed. In Liar Game you must win and inflict crippling debt on others or face

crippling debt yourself.

In his analysis of Death Note, Uno notes how Yagami Light`s attempts to rectify the

wrongs of society increasingly become an authoritarian attempt to use the power over

life and death not as a means for justice but for self-preservation in the face of police

pursuit.

Whilst this distinction between sekai-kei and sabibu-kei seems an overly schematic

dichotomy, as mentioned at the beginning I think this is a pre-meditated provocation,with Uno also criticising those people still producing or analysing sekai-kei works as


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redundantly repeating their past activities. Whilst he himself doesn`t specifically

pronounce but I think is implicit in his criticisms is that sekai-kei works are turning

their back on the problems of Japan`s neo-liberal reforms.

Here something like Liar Game is really interesting as a form of critique of financial

capitalism with losing participants effectively losing their working lives to repayingdebts lost to the Liar Game Corporation.

Ok so all of the films I have mentioned above are actually based on pre-existing

source texts such as popular novels, or particularly, manga.

So I think one question is to what degree these ideas and distinctions are evident in

film productions outside of the manga system.

I think we can certainly detect sekai-kei themes in films such as Aoyama Shinji`s

Eureka and Eli Eli Lema Sabakutani

SLIDEas well as something like Kurosawa Kiyoshi`s Kairo,

There are also, of course, 1990s films which were quite obviously responding to the

events of the Aum Cult such as Kore-Eda Hirokazu`s Distance and Aoyama`s EM

Embalming.

SLIDE - DISTANCE

If we can see elements of sekai-kei in these works, then what about a Sabibu-kei logic

as we move into the zeronendai?

I think that we can also find some aspects resembling `survive-kei` in works such as

Aoyama`s Sad Vacation, and Kore-eda`s Kuki Ningyou (the latter is a manga

adaptation) with perhaps the best-fitting example Kurosawa Kiyoshi`s Tokyo Sonata.

SLIDE TOKYO SONATA

However, I would still question whether in these examples sabibu-kei is not only

mixed-in with sekai-kei, but subordinate to sekai-kei. I`m kind of thinking about the

existential endings of Kuki Ningyou and Tokyo Sonata in particular.

Whilst the likes of Aoyama and Kurosawa have been known to write in the same

journals as sub-cultural theorists such as Azuma Hiroki and now Uno Tsunehiro I

have so far struggled to find any points of explicit dialogue between them. As is well-

known, however, both Aoyama and Kurosawa are former students of Tokyo

University professor Hasumi Shigehiko whose own work, I suggest, draws more on

phenomenological traditions suited to sekai-kei themes than materialist traditions

suited to sabibu-kei themes.

I am here making a crude distinction between the way in which phenomenology deals

with issues of comportment towards the world and towards others as something that

precedes ontology or ontogenesis, which are generally starting point for materialistphilosophies.


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I think one interesting aspect is to think about the way in which Sad Vacation

articulates the issue of resistance which I think marks a little bit of a shift from

Eureka.

SLIDE - SAD VACATION

With a narrative philosophising about the priority of singularity above familial

relationships (which it shares with Eureka), Sad Vacation ends with a rag-tag bunch

of characters connected to the small trucking business at the heart of the story,

demonstrating some form of resistance to the threats of a local yakuza gang. In actual

fact what we see as the film ends is the image of five of them squaring up to five

yakuza.

Whilst a resisting oppression, this resistance is framed as a contingent coming-

together of individuals for an isolated cause, rather than, say, worker solidarity against

Japanese neo-liberalism (of which I would suggest organised crime is an integratedpart). Even if the world in Sad Vacation is one from which it is difficult to withdraw,

this presentation of politics is much more like the phenomenological approach evident

in Jean-Luc Nancy`s proposal of a fragile community of singularities than a wider

form of collective resistance evident, for instance, in various form of Italian thinking

about multitudes.

Whether this is intentional or not I also read Uno as a materialist for the way in which

his text shares aspects with Frederic Jameson, who is well-known in Japan and may

well be a hidden interlocutor in this book. Whilst other critics such as Azuma Hiroki

propose the end of narrative-based cultural production, Uno`s approach seems to

follow Jameson in reading narratives as condensations of the social totality, useful for

illustrating many of the totality`s contradictions. Whereas some Japanese Marxist

critics such as Karatani Kojin have seen both the proliferation of new media and the

fragmentation of any national audience as preventing such a Jamesonian approach,

Uno`s analysis of some of these popular multi-media texts seems to suggest that such

an approach still has its value.

Conclusion

In conclusion then I read Zeronendai no Sozoryoku as a provocative attempt to mark a

definitive shift in what cultural production shouldbe doing in the face of theredundant repetition of sekai-kei themes.

My own feeling, however, is that there is a great deal implicit in this work that Uno

does not address. I think, for instance, that he is motivated predominantly by political

urgency without thinking too deeply about the theoretical or philosophical questions

that this raises about the tension between phenomenological and materialist

philosophies.

However, I also read Anglo-American versions of Culture Studies as similarly unable

to adjudicate between various guises of phenomenology (Derrida, Nancy, Levinas)

and various guises of materialism (Foucault, Deleuze, Negri) with no ability, likewise,


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to reach any definitive conclusions. This is something that many may see as disabling

political practice.

Whilst Im not going to attempt to adjudicate on this issue either I think that young

UK audiences may find Liar Games zeronendai critique of capitalist debt-economy

of more immediate interest than a phenomenology of participation.

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