The World and Japan: Animated Anxiety in a Global Age

The World and Japan: Animated Anxiety in a Global Age

全球化表現之一就是通俗文化從一個國家擴散到另一國家。日本動漫與漫畫在美國的重要性日趨明顯；它不再是僅為日本市場的產品，不僅是為此一特定文化的消費，這些事實顯示出它將自身置於一全球化世界之中並且視其自身為此一世界之一部分。一方面來說，動漫自我定位於更大世界，對於其創作者與其特定文化，有其一定優勢，亦即提供日本在世界的一個發聲地位。但另一方面，儘管動漫在世界上的擴張以及全球化潛在的收穫，在動漫敘事本身之內，持續存在著揮之不去的焦慮與疑惑，針對不斷強化的經濟與文化的全球化。在動漫之中，如邪惡的跨國公司以及常見對於非人性質的網路﹝《攻殼機動隊》（Ghost in the Shell）與《玲音》（Serial Experiments Lain）﹞，其中我們看到針對經濟的統整與文化的匯合對於格人與國家身份的威脅之恐懼。本論文分析針對文學作品（村上春樹的小說）中有關全球化愛恨交織（敘事與意象）的再現，同時亦將論及其他更通俗形式，如動漫；再者，論文將援引社會學家魯曼（Niklas Luhmann）系統理論，以便能夠探討敘事如何能表達對於全球系統在此全球化年代對於他們個人以及其身份形成之衝擊的焦慮。

The spread of pop cultural productions out from one country across the world is the very expression of globalism. The significance of Japanese anime and manga in America is becoming increasingly apparent; that it is no longer simply a product for the Japanese market, for the exclusive consumption of its particular culture, means that it has placed itself within and recognized itself as part of that globalized world. On the one hand, the positioning of anime within the larger world has its advantages for its writers and the culture at large, by providing Japan a voice in that world. On the other hand, despite anime’s spread across the world and the potential benefits of globalization, within the narratives of anime itself there persists a strain of anxiety and suspicion regarding the prospect of increased economic and cultural globalism. In anime’s villainous multi-national corporations and its frequent depiction of a de-humanizing internet (Ghost in the Shell, Serial Experiments Lain), we see a fear that the integration of economy and the melding of culture threatens identity at the level of the individual and the nation. This essay analyzes the ambivalent representations (narratives and images) of globalism in literature (the novels of Haruki Murakami) and also more popular forms of culture such as anime; and it considers both in light of sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, in order to explore how these narratives articulate their anxiety about the impact of the global system on the individual and about the formation of identity in a global age.