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.

Book Review for “Emoticons, Kaomoji, and Emoji: The Transformation of Communication in the Digital Age”

A book review by Zibi Huang for Elena Giannoulis’s and Lukas R. A. Wilde’s Emoticons, Kaomoji, and Emoji: The Transformation of Communication in the Digital Age in which I have published “From Digital to Analog: Kaomoji on the Votive Tablets of an Anime Pilgrimage”. My article focuses on the Higurashi-no-naku-koro-ni (ひぐらしのなく頃に) fan tablets.

international-journal-of-communication-142020-book-reviewDownload

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

Workshop presentation ワークショップ発表

On January 24, 2021, I presented at the online VIII – International Research Workshop “Mutual Images” hosted by Ryukoku University Kyoto. The workshop theme was “Japan Pilgrimages: Experiences and motivations behind cultural and spiritual peregrinations from and to East Asia.” My presentation title was “Ghostly Musings: When Anime Fans Traverse into the World of Natsume’s Book of Friends.”

I extend my deep gratitude to the organizers and to my fellow participants.

オンラインに開催された第8回国際学術会議「Mutual Images (ミューチュアル・イメージズ)」（於 龍谷大学）にて「幻を追う思いー『夏目友人帳』の世界に渡るファンたち」というタイトルで2021年1月24日に発表しました。

Intensive Course at Kwansei Gakuin University 関西学院大学の集中講義

I have just completed an intensive course at Kwansei Gakuin University’s Graduate School of Sociology (Folklore and Anthropology Department) from February 24th thru the 28th. Over the course of fifteen lectures, the graduate students and I explored various topics under the broad themes of Japanese shamanism, Japanese rural society, Rites of passage, and Anime pilgrimages. My gratitude goes out to Prof. Shimamura Takanori for his kind invitation for me to lecture, as well as the graduate students who untiringly engaged with me throughout the 6 hour lecture days.

2月24日から28日までの関西学院大学社会学研究科（民俗学と人類学）での集中講義が無事に終わりました。 講義の中で日本のシャーマニズム、日本の農村社会、通過儀礼、アニメ聖地巡礼、ディジタル・フォークロアなどの幅広いトピックに関して講義をしました。 関西学院大学の島村恭則先生、そして大学院生の皆さまに大変感謝しております。

 

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.

2016 学会発表 Conference Presentation

I presented at the 75th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Association of Religious Studies on September 11, 2016. The translated title of my presentation is as follows: “Are Japanese Youth Self-centered?  A Look at the Supplications of Anime Pilgrims (Fans)”

私は2016年9月11日に日本宗教学会の第75回学術大会　(於　早稲田大学)にて　「若者たちは利己主義者なのか―アニメ聖地巡礼者の祈願を事例に―」というタイトルで発表しました。