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The digital sublime in Naruto : a fictional Japan as metaphor for ...
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Short Description: Mukokuseki: modernity and traditional values in Naruto ... I believe that the idyllic village of Konoha (in which Naruto is set) is then a ...
Content Inside: The digital sublime in Naruto: a fictional Japan as metaphor for the terror and attraction of digital technologies Landi Raubenheimer Mukokuseki: modernity and traditional values in Naruto In his book Recentering globalization (2002) Koichi Iwabuchi discusses the issue of globalization and the role that Japan is playing in this phenomenon. Iwabuchi (2002: 28) ascribes the popularity of Japanese exports to a phenomenon he calls mukokuseki, an odourlessness or lack of cultural specificity. I would like to investigate his theory with comparison to Naruto1. I would like to refer to the environment, or `scenic surroundings' depicted in the series as an instance of a particular viewpoint of Japan. Such a viewpoint exists in the Western popular imagination, where Japan is the site of anxiety around exotic attraction and uncanny repulsion. This relationship is perhaps echoed by the Western relationship to digital mass media in the context of modernity and post-modernity. I believe that the idyllic vil age of Konoha (in which Naruto is set) is then a specific metaphor for the Western relationship to Japan, and in some instances the digital mass media. Before one can discuss notions of interaction between the West and Japan it is necessary to clarify these concepts. The West is loosely understood here as parts of the world that fol ow Eurocentric or American-centric ideologies and lifestyles. The West is not a geographical location, but rather a reference to worldviews relating to the concepts of Enlightenment, modernity and postmodernity. Japan as concept is tinged with exoticist myths. For the purposes of this paper it refers to geographic location and the Western imaginary conception of it, evidenced in art (Japonism) and critical theory (Orientalism)2. Fig. 1.3 Iwabuchi's assertion that products such as anime4 lack cultural specificity may perhaps be seen in the appearance of anime characters, their big eyes and coloured hair which do not seem Japanese or Asian in appearance. Naruto himself has yellow hair and blue eyes that may denote an Arian appearance rather than Asian (fig. 1). While anime such as Naruto may be premised on erasing cultural signifiers from its appearance, as Iwabuchi asserts, this mukokuseki appearance is strangely what has become known as Japanese in the West. It is paradoxically Naruto's more European appearance that seems thoroughly Japanese to the Western viewer. There are also Japanese cultural 1 An animated series by Masashi Kishimoto, released as manga in 1999,and anime 2002. 2 Wichmann (1985) discusses this phenomenon in nineteenth century Western art in the relationship between Western painters and Japanese printmakers in his book titled Japonisme: the Japanese influence on western art in the 19th and 29th centuries. Edward Said (1978) is known for his thesis on Orientalism as a romanticizing of the Western conception of the "East". 3 NARUTO © 2002 MASASHI KISHIMOTO 4 Anime is the term used to refer to poplular animated Japanese "comics" (Brehm 2002: 16).
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