Publication: “Japan’s Contemporary Media Culture between Local and Global: Content, Practice and Theory” (Martin Roth, Hiroshi Yoshida and Martin Picard)

Martin Roth, Hiroshi Yoshida and Martin Picard (dirs.), Japan’s Contemporary Media Culture between Local and Global: Content, Practice and Theory, Berlin, CrossAsia-eBooks, 2021

Presentation

This anthology offers a wide range of research on contemporary media culture in Japan, situating popular media content and its associated practices and theories in the complex interplay between the local and the global. The chapters draw attention to several prominent phenomena, suggest new approaches to the study of media and media cultures, and emphasize the importance of positionality in this context. This volume documents the results of a series of doctoral workshops held in Kyoto and Leipzig between 2017 and 2019, and continues the discussions begun there.

Table of Contents

Martin Roth, Hiroshi Yoshida, Martin Picard Introduction

LOCAL SPACES

Martin Picard Gēmu Communities and Otaku Consumption The (Sub) Culture(s) of Videogames in Japan

Yasuo Kawasaki The Power of « Place » in Videogame Culture Focusing on Game Centers in Japan (Column)

Dorothea Mladenova Platformization in the Funeral Industry The Case of Online Funeral Discounters

Masako Hashimoto Beyond Character Consumerism A Manga Adaptation of Can’t be Howlin’ at the Moon and the Problem of War Poetry

Tani Levy Entering Another World A Cultural Genre Discourse of Japanese Isekai Texts and Their Origin in Online Participatory Culture

Zoltan Kacsuk Using Fan-Compiled Metadata for Anime, Manga and Video Game Research Revisiting Azuma’s « Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals » Twenty Years On

Luca Bruno A Glimpse of the Imaginative Environment Exploring the Potential of Data-driven Examinations of Visual Novel Characters

TRANSNATIONAL SPACES

Kyohei Ito Mystery of Plane Symmetry A Philosophical Approach to Mirror Image and Shadow

Stevie Suan Performing Virtual YouTubers Acting Across Borders in the Platform Society

Melanie Fritsch Ludomusicology meets Japanese Game Studies An experience report

Juhyung Shin Gaming Places Where We Play, Where We Learn (Column)

TRANSREGIONAL SPACES

Fanny Barnabé The Transformative Power of Speedrun Deconstruction and Recodification of Pokémon Games’ Communicative Structures

Konstantin Freybe How Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Obscures Moral Ambiguities

Peter Mühleder, Martin Roth Playing Out of Bounds? Cross-Platform Community Practice in and Beyond Dark Souls

On the Contributors