Stranger on a Train': Denshaotoko, Serialization, and Otaku Cosmopolitanism

Stranger on a Train': Denshaotoko, Serialization, and Otaku Cosmopolitanism

本文擬探討日劇《電車男》（Denshaotoko, 2005）如何投射出「仲間意識」（nakamaishiki）所聚合的「非自然」邊緣社群之想像型構。本文的焦點在於勾勒斷簡的超文本序列化（hypertextual serialization of fragments）與御宅族之機遇社群結構之間的關係。序列化的效應在於延長消費的時間與頻率、延滯消費者的滿足，導致對敘事的上癮與商業的獲利。此研究一方面似乎開啟了「序列化的經濟學」；另一方面，又可被解讀為集體或社群概念之解體可能。作為對於現代社群物化的反制，這般世界主義共同體之表現意識（performative consciousness）指明了某種非靜態、去中心的隸屬資格。從此觀之，這樣的社群觀與布朗修與儂曦之不定／解構共同體之「斷簡式寫作」（fragmentary writing）存有潛在的對話空間。觀照全球化語藝學的情境，網路聊天室與其他的虛擬社群尋求加強某種「部分代表全體」之轉喻邏輯（logic of synecdoche）。《電車男》所提示的日常生活敘事，聚焦於小事件的發生，同時將敘事瑣碎化與去中心化。超文本的溝通情境，與缺乏敘事的可確定性與終止感，可代表布朗修所謂的「無法約化成單位的一種肯定」（“an affirmation irreducible to unity”）。進一步說，解析《電車男》中獨特的電／視流動，可重新改寫判明班雅明的幻景與漫遊者概念，以及列菲弗爾的日常「生活空間」之理論。本文也將從全球化體系中社群流變的角度，來探討這部日劇中繁瑣的、小事件式的互為主體性之溝通模式。

This paper examines a popular Japanese television drama series Denshaotoko as a site of inflecting imaginary constitution of “unnatural” and marginal communities bound by nakamaishiki (仲間意識). The focus of this paper is an inquiry on hypertextual serialization of fragments and its relationship to the contingent formation of otaku community. The effect of serialization, signifying an attempt to extend the time and frequency of consumption, is the prolonged fulfillment of consumers, yielding both narrative addiction and commercial profitability. This inquiry seems to open up an “economics of serialization” on one hand, and requires a particular reading of the possible dissolution of the very idea of “collectivity” or community on the other. The performative consciousness of such cosmopolitan communities designates a non-static model of decentered grouping and membership in reaction to the reification of modern communities. On this issue, it engages in a dialogue among diverse “fragmentary writings” on indefinite/inoperative communities by Blanchot and Nancy. In light of the rhetoric of global dynamics, internet chatroom and other virtual communities seek to reinforce a logic of synecdoche, that is, parts signifying a whole. Everyday narratives such as Denshaotoko focus on incidental occurrences (in lieu of main transformational actions) and render the ways of story-telling fundamentally episodic and unfocused. The lack of narrative determinacy and closure, a condition of hypertextual communications, represents “an affirmation irreducible to unity” (Blanchot). Furthermore, in Denshaotoko, the process of such tele-visual “flow” facilitates and modifies Benjamin’s notions of phantasmagoria and flâneurie and Lefebvre’s theory of everyday “living space.” The fuzzy and incidental inter-subject communications in this television series will also be investigated from the perspectives of the shifting conditions of communities under the global system.