Conference presentation 学会発表

On August 4, 2022, I presented online for the Japan: Pre-modern, Modern, Contemporary 9th International Conference (hybrid) hosted by the “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University, Bucharest. Participating in a panel titled “Craft, Leisure, and Sport in Modern and Contemporary Japanese Religions” I presented under the title “Butchering Cuties: The Violent Religious Symbolism Found on Votive Tablets from Pilgrimaging Anime Fans.” I wish to extend my deep gratitude to the organizers and to my fellow panel members.

ハイブリッドで開催された第9回国際学術大会「Japan: Pre-modern, Modern, Contemporary: A Return Trip from the East to the West, Learning in, about and from Japan」（於 “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University, Bucharest）にて「Butchering Cuties: The Violent Religious Symbolism Found on Votive Tablets from Pilgrimaging Anime Fans」というタイトルで2022年9月4日に発表しました。

The abstract for my presentation follows:

Butchering Cuties: The Violent Religious Symbolism Found on Votive Tablets from Pilgrimaging Anime Fans
It has become commonplace for the artists producing anime (animation) to draw upon real-world places and scenery. As a cultural by-product, fans search out and travel to the locales that function as the
inspiration for an anime’s setting. Fans often refer to this activity as seichi junrei 聖地巡礼, literally
sacred-site pilgrimage, investing it with a degree of socio-religious significance.
Beginning with a game that later developed into an anime series, Higurashi-no-naku-koro-ni ひぐらしのなく頃に (hereafter, Higurashi) exemplifies how an anime can generate a pilgrimage. Higurashi’s
pilgrimage emerged around 2007 in conjunction with its first television airing. Fans started visiting the
modeled village of Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its
rustic and nostalgic atmosphere. Similar to fans at other anime pilgrimage sites, Higurashi fans gathered
at a real-world Shinto shrine located in Shirakawa, where they began dedicating wooden votive tablets on
which they penned prayers to and illustrations of the Higurashi characters.
Such fan activity may be welcomed by communities hoping to increase their tourist draw and invigorate their local economy, but the fan presence at Shirakawa was not well-received by locals. The reason perhaps lies with the Higurashi storyline which follows a group of students who become entangled in a run of mysterious murders. Murders that are depicted in the series with bloody brutality. While most
fans illustrated their votive tablets with a cute and innocent likeness of the Higurashi’s characters, a
number of fans chose to deliver images of those same characters in their psychotic and butchering alter
ego. In this paper, I will focus on these darker artistic renderings and associated motifs in an effort to
elucidate the nature of religious devotion offered by fans to the Higurashi world.

The Faithful’s Graffiti: Senjafuda 参拝者の千社札

Visitors to shrines and temples sometimes commemorate their visit by pasting a paper bearing their name (千社札 senjafuda) on the shrine and temple buildings and gates. Some shrines and temples treat this as a form of graffiti and warn against it. Nonetheless, the faithful seemingly do so as to receive some efficacy and as a way to say, “I was here.”

Here are some photos from the famous Eiheiji (永平寺) Buddhist temple in Fukui prefecture of a shrine covered with senjafuda.

Graffiti? Or a symbol of devotion?

New article: “To be Seen, not Just Read”

Title:

“To be Seen, not Just Read: Script Use on the Votive Prayer Tablets of Anime, Manga, and Game Fans”

Abstract:

This article proposes one social explanation for the occurrence of graphic variation in contemporary written Japanese by examining a heretofore unexamined context of writing. Embracing the material culture approach, I explore the ema (votive prayer tablets) dedicated at Shinto shrines by fans of popular culture media productions (Sengoku Basara 戦国BASARA, Rakudai Ninja Rantarō 落第忍者乱太郎, Natsume Yūjinchō 夏目友人帳). Fans pen text on the ema that follows aesthetics of manga as well as online communication, incorporating features that are usually limited to print and online writing. Analyzing upwards of 2,000 ema from three shrines, this article proceeds to dissect a writing style composed of a mix of syllabaries and symbols using ‘thick description’ to evince the emotion behind fans’ calculated efforts to construct text that is not simply to be read, but to be seen. Seeking to answer the question of what fans attempt to achieve by writing on the ema in the way that they do, I will reference folklorist Elliott Oring’s ‘appropriate incongruity’ to put forth an argument that fans, harnessing a sense of play and endeavoring to animate the text on the ema, intimate by means of the visual presentation of writing-restricted variation a questioning of the perceived division between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds.

“To be Seen, not Just Read: Script Use on the Votive Prayer Tablets of Anime, Manga, and Game Fans” Japanese Studies, 2022, pp. 1-22.

Link to journal:

https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2022.2031138

Hand and foot shrine 手足の神社

At the Mikata Ishi Kannon Shrine in Fukui prefecture, people offer prayers to cure various ailments connected to hands/arms and feet/legs. They write their names and prayers on minature wooden votives in the shape of an arm or leg. In the past they would have offered their own hand carved votive. But now the votives are supplied by the shrine. Crutches on display attest to the healing power of the enshrined deity. Some visitors even dedicated their prosthetic limbs.

Paper theater 紙芝居

Although it is now an uncommon form of entertainment, the kami shibai 紙芝居, or paper theater, was a popular and widely accessible form of street-side entertainment.

Delicious うまい

Painting hanging on the wall of a yakiniku (barbeque) restaurant.

The Votive Art of the “Your Name” Anime Pilgrimage 『君の名は』のアニメ絵馬（痛絵馬）

The highly successful anime “Your Name” (Highest worldwide grossing anime film)  has given birth to a new anime pilgrimage. Fans astutely discerned the real-world places that were drawn into this anime production. They then quickly embarked on a journey to some of the sites. Thus inaugurating what fans term as a seichi “holy/sacred site”.  One such place that gained the attention of fans is Suga Shrine (須賀神社) in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward.

Hedge car 珍百景の車

Truck Art デコトラ

The truck is king of the road in Japan. And there is a special breed of truck that is both distinctively fearsome, yet elegant: kind of like Las Vegas on wheels. These trucks are called decotora, which is a melded abbreviation of the words “decorated” and “truck”.  Decotora can be seen all throughout Japan though it is said that the original decotora was driven by a trucker from Aomori prefecture.

Itasha (Anime Cars) 痛車

Anime Cars, known as itasha 痛車 (compound of the word itai 痛い meaning “pain” coupled with the sha 車 meaning, in this case, “auto”). Itasha are automobiles decorated with manga and anime logos, characters, and so forth. The meaning of the name itasha then is in effect expressing the idea that the cars being so unabashedly adorned actually hurt the sensibilities (of even the otaku, fan).