Mukokuseki
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Mukokuseki (Japanese: 無国籍, translated as "statelessness" or "nationlessness") is a Japanese term describing fictional characters in visual media (primarily anime and manga) who are depicted without a concrete ethnicity or nationality.[1][2] It is thought to be particularly significant in the context of foreign influences on Japanese entertainment properties as well as the subsequent marketing of such properties towards non-Japanese audiences.[3]
Analysis
One of the reasons for mukokuseki might have been the desire to market Japanese products worldwide without making it obvious that they are Japanese, due to troubled relation between Japan and the United States as well as many other Asian countries, particularly dating to the World War II era and issues such as attack on Pearl Harbor and Japanese war crimes, resulting in enduring anti-Japanese sentiment in those regions.[4]
Implications of the term in visual media can vary considerably between artstyles,[2] either employing culturally "neutral" elements or hybridizing multiple disparate cultural influences.[3][5] One author nonetheless argued that "[o]n closer inspection [...] the communication of cultural markers and characteristics is far more intricate than the mere display of Japanese facial features."[1] Notable examples of mukokuseki characters include Hello Kitty, Light Yagami from Death Note, and Asuka Soryu or Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion[citation needed].
In addition to the increased international appeal of culturally neutral properties, Brian Ruh paraphrased Susan J. Napier in describing mukokuseki as "a way for contemporary Japanese to playfully escape their own concepts of Japan and their own feelings of Japaneseness... fantasized mukokuseki anime bodies can be free from the cultural and societal baggage of physical bodies."[5] Other popular narratives have stated that, due to their fictionalized or aestheticized settings and "abstracted" representations of the human body, manga and anime are inherently divorced from real-life categories of ethnicities and that their characters are therefore all naturally mukokuseki.[5][2]
Criticism
Mukokuseki has particularly received some criticism in the context of the soft power it does or does not afford Japanese culture in the Western World,[3] with the lack of distinct Japanese values described as rendering the cultural capital of Japanese media "nothing but an illusion".[1] A writer for Comic Book Resources also criticized Western film adaptations for taking mukokuseki characters as an opportunity to whitewash lead roles in works such as Death Note (2017) or The Last Airbender (2010).[2]
See also
References
- ^ a b c Kato, Hiloko and Bauer, René. "Mukokuseki and the Narrative Mechanics in Japanese Games". Narrative Mechanics: Strategies and Meanings in Games and Real Life, edited by Beat Suter, René Bauer and Mela Kocher, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, via De Gruyter, 2021, pp. 113-150. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839453452-006
- ^ a b c d Altiok, Revna. "What Is Mukokuseki in Anime – And Why Is It Important?" from Comic Book Resources, 24 June 2022.
- ^ a b c Bîrlea, Oana-Maria. “Soft Power: ’Cute Culture’, a Persuasive Strategy in Japanese Advertising.” TRAMES: A Journal of the Humanities & Social Sciences, vol. 27, no. 3, July 2023, pp. 311–24. EBSCOhost via Wikipedia Library, https://doi.org/10.3176/tr.2023.3.07.
- ^ Siuda, Piotr; Koralewska, Anna (2014). Japonizacja: anime i jego polscy fani [Japonization: Anime and Its Polish Fans]. Kontinuum (in Polish). Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Katedra. p. 70. ISBN 978-83-63434-17-5.
- ^ a b c Ruh, Brian. “Conceptualizing Anime and the Database Fantasyscape.” Mechademia: Second Arc, vol. 9, 2014, pp. 164–75. JSTOR via Wikipedia Library, https://doi.org/10.5749/mech.9.2014.0164. Accessed 13 Dec. 2023.