A Cross-Media Analysis of Sh\u014djo<\/i> in the Sekaikei <\/i>and Survivekei<\/i><\/p>\n
Introduction<\/p>\n
In recent decades, the otaku<\/i> culture has become one of the most influential Japanese cultures both within and outside of Japan. This culture has actually existed for half a century and has built up a rich diversity. Its media include anime, manga, computer games, light novels (a style of Japanese novel targeting primarily a young audience) and many more. It also takes in many genres, such as sh\u014dnen manga<\/i> (boys\u2019 manga), sh\u014djo manga<\/i> (girls\u2019 manga), yaoi <\/i>(a genre which features male homosexual love stories created by women for women) and lolicon<\/i> (a genre focusing on the attraction to young or prepubescent girls). These media and genres were developed in the years when they were demanded by the audience. In doing so, they are a reflection of the respective times in contemporary history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Miyadai Shinji, a Japanese sociologist, claims that sometime around 1996 all Japanese people became a kind of otaku,<\/i> and calls this phenomenon \u201ctotal otaku-ization<\/i>\u201d (Miyadai, 2011, p. 249). Okada Toshio, a co-founder and former president of the production company Gainax, appreciates the great creativity of the otaku<\/i> culture and considers that it is only in it that Japan is the center of a field of culture (Okada, 1997, p.7). Since the 1990s, the otaku<\/i> culture has also been admired in the USA. American journalist Douglas McGray emphasizes the importance of Japan\u2019s cultural influence over the world and calls it a \u201ccultural superpower\u201d. Cultural offers, by which he means, are pop music, fashion, consumer electronics and of course also anime (McGray, 2002, p.44). Another American journalist, Roland Kelts, believes that many Americans find in anime a vision of the future, a fresh way of telling stories and interpreting the world (Kelts, 2006, p.7). Susan J. Napier, an American researcher of Japanese studies, notes that intellectually sophisticated anime were appearing by the 1990s, and thereafter, Western researchers began to research anime (Napier, 2000, p.18). All these statements indicate that the otaku<\/i> culture is now recognized on a global scale.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One of the anime works, which Napier calls \u201csophisticated\u201d, is Shin Seiki Evangerion<\/i> [Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/i>], which appeared in 1995 and became a representative work of the otaku<\/i> culture. Sait\u014d Tamaki, a Japanese psychiatrist and critic, maintains that among all cultural fields in Japan no other work has more power and capacity for \u201cmobilization\u201d than this work. Sait\u014d uses the term \u201cmobilization\u201d with regard to the work\u2019s impact on both the economy and discourses about culture and society (Saito, 2008, p. 11). The tremendous success of Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/i> triggered the production of a series of similar works, which are called sekaikei <\/i>(world type).[1]<\/a> This became a successful genre of stories about fighting girls who must save the world nearly alone and boys who are only watching and narrating those struggles. After several years, however, a countermovement to sekaikei <\/i>occurred. It was called survivekei<\/i> (survival type), telling about survival fights by both girls and boys. Since the beginning of the 2000s, this has also become a popular genre.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n