Entry #6

IT'S DONE!

Which actually explains the long radio silence, but the website is more or less done, so here's a downloadable .zip file from my Google drive for now while I find a nice cozy place to hopefully upload it somewhere.

-> GRAB IT HERE! <-

Entry #5

Made big updates in terms of showing off how the webpages will look like if they have at least some basic content. While both chapters are unfinished (also I am restricted to only adding two chapters considering the character only has to interactive parts of its body), I have roughly coded what these section would look like and also how it would function.

For example I have included a mouse-over feature over in-text citations which reveals the full information my references. There is also a simple css bit of code which allows the reader to reveal the larger full-res images should the reader also hover over the thumbnails.

Entry #4

Earth in my Window is an essay piece written by Takashi Murakami and translated by Linda Hoaglund; this is more or less a bit of a reflection piece for one of my first articles for my analysis; the essay in itself is comprised of smaller chapters, some more relevant to my research than others especially when Murakami compares the aesthetic and visual compositions presented in Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira (as opposed to Tezuka's more dynamic style) and the result of Japan's downfall post second World War.

The most important part of the essay however and this is something I'll have to remind myself repeatedly to mention in my analysis is the difference between Otaku and what the West simply categorizes as 'nerdy'. It is not a simple case of Otaku being a Japanese term to describe a cultural body comprised of nerds. There is the air of obsession, their constant reference to a 'humiliated self' and of course the purely 'homegrown' aspect of what being Otaku actually means.

Subcultures being fashionable to some degree in the West (zoku), Otaku on the other hand the unfashionable indigenous black mark on the nation's map. 

"Otaku are mercurial, and embrace the internal contradiction of considering such definitions “un-otaku”"

Entry #3

During the holidays I have decided to look up tutorials so that I can teach myself some basic html and some basic css scripting so that I could create a really simple effect for the index page of my webpage/essay.

So far I've achieved a fairly rudimentary effect that does show off the function and look that I'm trying to aim for for my final product.

The only problem now is that all solutions I've tried for centering the content of my webpage has not worked. Which I aim to fix by the end of this week as well as tweaking other aspects of the page to make it feel better, like instead of a hard horizontal invisible line running through the character when you're hovering over the contents.

Entry #2

How to approach the Website:

By looking at Superflat's KaiKai and KiKi mascots, I have designed a quick concept on a character inspired by both of these figures (by conceptually bashing the two together) to be the visual guide for the website.

In regards to how I will be presenting the 'anatomy' of the website, I thought it would also be interesting to present this idea in the style of old-fashioned tokusatsu anatomy diagrams that were quite popular in the 70's and 80's (such as Keibunsha's Kaijū-Kaijin Daizenshū, published in 1972). 

 

Entry 01

Quick Primary Readings

What is Superflat and how does it tie in with the Otaku subculture and the country’s nationalism?

I figured it would be good to start the analysis off by just establishing what Superflat is and the impact it has on one of Japan's quirkier but popular subcultures. Otaku first and foremost originated from the 70's as an umbrella term that describes various imagery and post-war subcultures (such as tokusatsu/monster films, figurine and model collection, sci-fi and manga/anime).

The importance of Otaku in itself is not particularly because of the number of products emerging from said subculture that were internationally accepted wholly, but because of the way it had shaped the mentality of Japanese society (opening some sort of dialogue in regards to the country's conflicting nationalism and international standpoint).

Takashi Murakami was born in the early 60's, thus belong to what is considered the first generation of otakus, also personally experiencing the disregard of the subculture by academic intellectuals and critics (while often argued as a sociological phenomenon). From here we can see how and why Superflat's idealism and connotations had come about. "... devoid of perspective and devoid of hierarchy, all existing equally and simultaneously.", created by exploring the spatial dimensions created by combining traditional Japanese painting and the aesthetic of modern Japanese anime.

A rather interesting quote that I came across came from Shuichi Kato's A History of Japanese Literature: From the Manyoshu to Modern Times, "The history of Japanese literature can be described as a history of the multiplex expression of a process of challenge by external and transcendental worldviews to this indigenous worldview, which internalises them and at the same time secularises and 'de-transcendentalises' them."

This presents the nature of Japan's nature in emphasizing the empirical, that it is important to observe and appreciate 'here and now' as opposed to the West's emphasis on the transcendental.

"To be honest, I really just want to show how I'm feeling right now, at the moment this is where I'm at. I'm not talking about democratizing art or anything like that," said Murakami during an interview with the Japan Times.

How to approach Website

In terms of how I would design the website, I was thinking that it would be interesting to design a mascot/character of sorts that is inspired by Murakami's own KaiKai and KiKi.

The character will be prominent throughout the essay as a visual guide for the reader and I plan on using say the anatomy of the character as a way for the reader to navigate the website (head is the intro, torso will be split into chapters that comprise the bulk of the essay, etc).