Study diary

So I finally finished Watanabe’s shota essay. Yesterday I met my former Japanese tutor S, who helped me with some of the passages that I hadn’t understood properly. It feels great to be able to add this important work to the study diary – and to Zotero, which I have now chosen as my reference manager of choice. I’ve only added five items to it yet though – it takes time if you want to do it right.

Yesterday I also had a Skype talk with my master thesis supervisor. Since I haven’t started my thesis proposal yet, I felt ill-prepared, but it turned out to be very helpful and I felt very inspired afterwards. Maybe this meeting felt so good because we missed out on a proper meeting during in-house due to logistical circumstances. Deadline in one month (20 December 2019).

On Monday, S took me to the Archenhold Observatory where we watched Mercury pass in front of the sun – the transit of Mercury! A small black dot in front of the big yellow sun – amazing! A small group of dedicated amateur astronomers had gathered to enjoy this event, which will happen next time only in 2032.

Jobwise we launched a new service this week, so I was quite busy with that and therefore ill-prepared (again!) for the two courses I’m taking.

Tonight I proofread a PhD research proposal.

Readings

Artistic Practice in Transcultural Contexts

Unit 2: Converging Zones between Art and Anthropology

• Unit introduction.
• Schneider, A. & C. Wright (Eds.). 2010. “Between Art and Anthropology.” In Between Art and Anthropology: Contemporary Ethnographic Practice, pp. 1–21. Berg Publishers.
• Schneider, A. 2008. “Three modes of experimentation with art and ethnography.” In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 171–94. Royal Anthropological Institute. (Only read 171–77 = the introduction and the first example of three, because not so relevant.)

Images, Race and Representation

Unit 4: Phenomenology of Blackness

• Fanon, Frantz. 1952. “The Fact of Blackness.” In Black Skin, White Masks, 257–65. Very touching.

Master thesis

• Watanabe, Yumiko. 1998. “Otaku no Sekushuariti 1: Shota no Kenkyuu.” In T. Okada (ed.): Kokusai Otaku Daigaku 1998-nen: Saizensen kara no Kenkyuu Houkoku: 31–55. Tokyo: Koubunsha.
• Barabantseva, Elena, and Andy Lawrence. 2015. “Encountering Vulnerabilities through ‘Filmmaking for Fieldwork.’” Millennium 43 (3): 911–30.
• Bataille, Georges, and Annette Michelson. 1986. “Nietzsche’s Madness.” October 36: 42–45.

Shota story

• 河本ひろし (Kawamoto Hiroshi). 2004. “ボクとヒロくん” (Boku to Hiro-kun). In 美少年の美学7: The 悪戯っ子, (Bishounen no Bigaku 7: The itazurakko). 松文館 (Shoubunkan).

Other

Anime

• 1995: Neon Genesis Evangelion. E8–9.

Film

• Traveling with Yoshitomo Nara (Toyoshima Hideki, 2009, 93 min)
• DET BLEV INGEN CD (Jonas Strandberg, 2019, 55 min)

I’m excited about the two courses that have started. The readings are really interesting and it’s a pity that I’ve only done them halfheartedly.

Instead I’ve spent a lot of time making my way through Watanabe’s shota essay. The first part was about shota’s history and definition. The second part dealt with the mentality of female shota fans and was based on an interview with an editor of a commercial shota magazine. It didn’t go into depth. The third and last part though is super interesting, as it deals with male shota fans, and the interviewed creators do not “come from loli”, as many male shota fans apparently do. Watanabe is surprised by what they say, but me, I nod my head as it all fits into my findings so far. I have a meagre three pages to go, but that means at least half a day so I couldn’t finish it this week.

The anime race has continued, it was a real nineties week (and late eighties).

Wataru (1988) and Granzort (1989) remind a lot of each other, since they were made by the same studio (Sunrise) and director (Iuchi Shuji). Wataru has rollerskates and Daiichi a skateboard. Wataru was seminal, but Granzort has the best music – I think I watched so many Granzort episodes simply because of that.

I will drop all the rest, except for Evangelion (1995), which is famous but which I hadn’t watched before, and Super Bikkuriman (1992), made to promote a candy bar but surprisingly charming.

Immersing myself in these animes to the extent that I dream about them is a way for me to try to understand shota on another level. I am convinced that there is knowledge that doesn’t come from texts, but which finds its way into you in more mysterious ways, and you need to open up for that possibility in order for it to happen. I feel … embodied!

On Thursday I went with S to a queer block of Interfilm, Berlin’s short film festival. Varying quality, but we both thought João Cândido Zacharias’s The Last Romantics stood out from all the rest by just being brilliant.

On Friday I had dinner with A and partied with my classmates at Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo and the punk bar across the street that was evicted 162 days ago according to the digital counter above the bar.

Saturday was 9 November 2019, so I biked with S to Brandenburger Tor for the Mauerfall 30 celebrations – we arrived just in time for the fireworks.

I booked flights for Christmas.

Readings

Artistic Practice in Transcultural Contexts

Unit 1: Situating Contemporary Art in Anthropology

• Foster, H. 1995. “The artist as ethnographer?” In The traffic in culture: refiguring art and anthropology, ed. G. Marcus and F. Myers, 302–09. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Upcoming presentation

• Ivy, Marilyn. 2010. “The Art of Cute Little Things: Nara Yoshitomo’s Parapolitics.” Mechademia: Second Arc 5 (Fanthropologies): 3–29.

Images, Race and Representation

Unit 3: The White ‘other’

• Dyer, Richard. 1997. “The matter of whiteness.” In White: Essays on Race and Culture. London: Routledge. (Read p. 1–6.)

Other

Anime

• 1988: Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. E4–6.
• 1989: Madou King Granzort. E5–7. (Ep. 5 raw)
• 1990: Yuusha Exkaiser. E1. Sweet.
• 1991: Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh. E3. Started liking it, now that I have placed Hyuuga Jin on Watanabe’s shotameter.
• 1992: Super Bikkuriman. E3. (raw)
• 1993: Nintama Rantarou. S1 E1 (Indonesian subs, youtube). I don’t see the relation to shota, except as an example of megane-ko.
• 1994: Yuusha Keisatsu J-Decker. E2.
• 1995: Neon Genesis Evangelion. E5–7. Fantastic!
• 1995: Romeo no Aoi Sora (Romeo’s Blue Skies). E1. Too perfect.
• 1996: Bakusou Kyoudai Let’s & Go!! E1. Too childish.
• 1997: Yuusha-Ou GaoGaiGar. E1.
• 1998: Grander Musashi RV. E1. A sports fishing anime! I wasn’t hooked though.

Articles

• CNN: AU faces backlash after terminating ambassador’s appointment
• Politico Magazine: Trump Pick Monica Crowley Plagiarized Parts of Her Ph.D. Dissertation (2017)
• Wired: The Future Face of High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor
• Siegessäule November 2019:
  • Looking for Freedom (cover story, print only)
  • Zwischen Trauma und Euphorie: Wie Schwule aus der DDR den Mauerfall erlebten
  • Kino Moviemento ist gefährdet
  • Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen Berliner Arzt: Verdachtsberichterstattung muss offline bleiben

Book chapter

• Eddo-Lodge, Reni. 2017. Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race.
  • 3: “What is White Privilege?”, pp. 60–77.

Film

• All Rites Reversed:
  • British born Chinese
  • Black snow

35th International Short Film Festival Berlin 2019

• SP 05: Queer Fever:
  • Lolo (Leandro Goddinho / Paulo Menezes // Germany, Brazil // 2019 // 13:40 min)
  • Eli – Ein Portrait (Lumen Nguyen // Germany // 2018 // 06:40 min)
  • Os últimos românticos (The Last Romantics. João Cândido Zacharias // Brazil // 2019 // 12:00 min)
  • Lila shel ahava (Night of Love. Omri Loukas // Germany, Israel // 2019 // 24:50 min)
  • Les lèvres gercées (Kelsi Phung / Fabien Corre // France // 2018 // 04:20 min)
  • Zapatos de tacón cubano (Cuban Heal Shoes. Julio Mas Alcaraz // Spain // 2019 // 17:00 min)
  • Revolvo (Francy Fabritz // Germany // 2019 // 08:00 min)

Podcast

Sveriges Radio Europapodden: 140: “Många uppskattar inte sin frihet”

Classes have begun and we have registered on a third online teaching platform in one year, as well as a third video conference system. I don’t feel inspired about the courses and I am very critical to the fact that the Qualitative Methods course has been discontinued, just because the lecturer quit. Qualitative Methods was described to us as the backbone of the programme, so what does it say about the programme that they decided to ditch it?

However, I am extremely excited about my own research. I’m immersing myself in relevant anime to literally watch the history of shota, as it is described in Watanabe’s essay, which I continue to decode, one page at a time:

As we saw last week, the “turning point” for shota was Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru (Sunrise, 1988).

Wataru’s “heirs” were Sunrise produced robot animes aimed at children: Madou King Granzort (Sunrise, 1989), Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh (Sunrise, 1991), Chou Dendou Robo Tetsujin 28-gou FX (1992), and Super Bikkuriman (Toei Animation, 1992).

In 1994, three important works added male shota fans to the previous female core: Akazukin Chacha (Gallop, 1994), Yuusha Keisatsu J-Decker (Sunrise, 1994), and Yamato Takeru (Nippon Animation, 1994). The shota characters in these works were more feminine.

Shota’s momentum can be seen in hits like Neon Genesis Evangelion (Gainax, Tatsunoko Production, 1995).

On Tuesday I and S went to the Einstein lecture at FU, where Catherine Heymans talked about dark matter and dark energy.

And tonight we went to a concert where S’s friend D played the violin.

I read another chapter in Eddo-Lodge’s book:

We don’t live in a meritocracy, and to pretend that simple hard work will elevate all to success is an exercise in wilful ignorance.

– Reni Eddo-Lodge, p. 56 (“The System”)

I googled why there are so many reaction gifs with black people in them, and found out that the phenomenon has been dubbed “digital blackface”:

There’s the “hilarious” Auto-Tuned neighbour meme, which plays into the stereotype of black people as natural-born, always-on performers and/or “welfare queens” (the fact that many of these clips – Charles Ramsey in Cleveland, Ohio, or Antoine “Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife” Dodson – originated as local news interviews with witnesses to horrifying incidents, seems to get lost somewhere in the process of meme-ification).

– Ellen E Jones in The Guardian

I had quite a dramatic work week.

And on Friday I had a couple of beers at Südblock with some of my classmates: L & C, K & M. J and his boyfriend O dropped by very quickly.

Anime

• 1988: Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. E2–3. Now with English subtitles.
• 1989: Madou King Granzort. E1–4. Loved this one! (Ep. 4 raw.)
• 1991: Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh. E1–2. Too childish.
• 1992: Super Bikkuriman. E1–2 (raw).
• 1992: Chou Dendou Robo Tetsujin 28-gou FX. E1.
• ↓ ↓ ↓
• 1994: Akazukin Chacha. E1.
• 1994: Yuusha Keisatsu J-Decker. E1. Very sweet.
• 1994: Yamato Takeru. E1–2 (raw, youtube). Key to understand male and female shota types.
• ↓ ↓ ↓
• 1995: Neon Genesis Evangelion. E3–4 (Netflix). Masterpiece, not least cinematographically.

Articles

• Wired:
  • Jack Conte, Patreon, and the Plight of the Creative Class
  • The On-Demand Economy Brings Us Something Useful: Nature
  • Zeynep Tufekci: All I Ever Wanted Was a One-Trick Pony
• The Globe and Mail: Who still hangs out on Second Life? More than half a million people (2017)
• The Guardian/Ellen E Jones: Why are memes of black people reacting so popular online? (2018)
• Teen Vogue/Lauren Michele Jackson: We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs (2017)

Book chapter

• Eddo-Lodge, Reni. 2017. Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race.
  • 2: “The System”, pp. 44–59.

Lecture

• 19th Einstein Lecture, Prof. Dr. Catherine Heymans: Seeing the Invisible – The Dark Side of the Universe.

Concert

• 20 Jahre concentus alius (Emmauskirche)

Video

• Zoe Glatt: LSE Digital Ethnography Collective NVIVO WORKSHOP
• Adobe Creative Cloud: Walter Murch: Making the Right Editing Choices & Switching to Adobe Premiere Pro CC
• Sven Pape/This Guy Edits:
  • Color Correction: How to Grade a Film
  • Top 5 Most Common Problems with Student Films
  • What We Learn From “BAD” MOVIES
• Studiobinder: How Kubrick, Spielberg, and Inarritu Stage their Scenes

The breakthrough this week is that I’m reading an academic text in Japanese. I “decode” only one spread per day, but it’s immensely satisfying. Basically I’m covering the early history of yaoi and shota in a unique essay from 1998 by Watanabe Yumiko.

Tonight I had a little anime festival with key titles from the 1980s (I’m amazed at how easy it is to get them – thanks Nyan!), which appeared in the text:

The 1981 anime Rokushin Gattai GodMars was part of the male + male boom and inspired further doujinshi creation.

The same year Shounen Jump started serialising Captain Tsubasa, which led to an explosion of yaoi – but it was also the breakthrough for shota.

The second half of the 1980s saw shota-style mainstream animes like Ganbare! Kickers (1986) and Mister Ajikko (1987).

However, shota as we know the genre today was triggered by the 1988 original children’s gag anime Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru (1988).

I recently watched a video on editing by “This Guy Edits”-Sven and Karen Pearlman. I mean what I said in my comment:

This video is fantastic. After wading through so many guys and dudes saying basically the same thing, this one took it to another level. I will rewatch to let all the points really sink in. I mean, it sort of completely altered what I think film “is”. And what a smooth and listenable conversation. Will check out the book with Karen’s chapter.

I read the “Afterword” to Walter Murch’s amazing book In the Blink of an Eye. Can’t be compared with the book itself (although it is just as long), but nevertheless interesting to learn about the technical history of movie editing.

I read the chapter “Histories” in Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race and was very moved by it. It inspired me to (re)watch Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing with S. Such a great film in so many ways.

I thought of taking a digital subscription for Tagesspiegel, since I know they have good coverage of bike related issues in the city, and since I don’t have The Economist anymore. But Tagesspiegel’s standard deal for digital only is 35 euro a month. I think that’s a mistake. They set the price as if the only thing you need is their newspaper, when we consumers want a mix of media, and we can’t pay 35 euro for each of them.

On Friday I biked Critical Mass with S, and yesterday we went to the opening of Contemporary Connections, where my friends R and K exhibited. A surreal experience.

Anime

• 1981: Rokushin Gattai GodMars. E1. I usually don’t like mecha and this was no exception.
• 1983: Captain Tsubasa. E1–3. Pretty entertaining, reminded me of Ginga e kickoffu, which I watched some years ago.
• 1986: Ganbare! Kickers. E1. Watched raw. A total rip-off of Captain Tsubasa, don’t see any reason to continue.
• 1987: Mister Ajikko. E1. An amazing food anime! Loved it!
• 1988: Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. E1. Watched raw, so didn’t get it all but slightly fun, a bit like Ranma ½.

Articles

• The Guardian: Home Office failing to erase gay men’s unfair convictions, critics say
• BBC/Nicholas Barber: Terminator Dark Fate review: Please terminate this franchise
• BBC: Boeing 737 Max Lion Air crash caused by series of failures
• Berliner Morgenpost: Oberbaumbrücke: So gefährlich sind die neuen Radwege
• Berliner Morgenpost: Sauberes Berlin: Hundekot auf dem Bürgersteig kostet bis zu 300 Euro
• Expressen Kultur/Isobel Hadley-Kamptz: I poddarna är det insidan som räknas

Book chapters

• Eddo-Lodge, Reni. 2017. Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race. “Histories”, pp. 12–43.
• Murch, Walter. 2001. In the Blink of an Eye. Second edition. Originally published in 1992. “Afterword”, pp. 73–146.

Film

• Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee 1989, 120 min)

Art

• Falk30: Contemporary Connections. Opening.

Video

With a backlog of some weeks:

• This Guy Edits:
  • 5 Things Film Editors Literally Do – According To Science (with Karen Pearlman) 👊👏⭐️❤️
  • Editing a NETFLIX ORIGINAL – A Crash Course
  • CASEY NEISTAT UNMASKED: His Editing & Storytelling
  • This One Thing Will Make Your Editing Better
  • The Science Behind Film Editing (with Karen Pearlman)
  • In the Blink of an Eye – Walter Murch’s Editing Theory Tested
• Casey Neistat: MY LiFE iN LA
• Marques Brownlee:
  • 2019 Microsoft Surface Family Impressions!
  • This Is What Happens When You Re-Upload a YouTube Video 1000 Times!
• Shutterstock Tutorials: 9 Cuts Every Video Editor Should Know | Filmmaking Tips
• Film Riot:
  • 6 Rules for Cinematic Editing
  • Meaning Behind Camera Movement
  • Add Depth to your Film using Visual Subtext
• Kauffman Foundersschool: Powerful Presentations: How to Tell Visual Stories
• Nicks Fort: The ART OF STORYTELLING for vlogs & filmmaking
• Alen Palander: How to Become a Better Visual Storyteller
• Peter Lindgren: Camera settings for cinematic video
• Nobel Prize: Announcement of the Nobel Prizes in Literature 2018 and 2019
• Jubilee: Do All Gay Men Think the Same?
• Nathaniel Drew: How I Rediscovered Books (In the Digital Age)
• Steven Fernandez: STEVEN FERNANDEZ THE TRUTH ABOUT ACCUSATIONS AND CASE!!!
• The Daily Show with Trevor Noah:
  • Edward Snowden – “Permanent Record” & Life as an Exiled NSA Whistleblower
  • Greta Thunberg – Inspiring Others to Take a Stand Against Climate Change
  • Your Moment of Them: The Best of Jaboukie Young-White

Podcasts

• Sveriges Radio:
  • Europapodden 137: Boris Johnson måste vinna allt nu
  • Så funkar det 29: Japanspecial
  • Så funkar det 30: Kis-My-Ft2 och andra pojkband

Last week of in-house classes ended with a very inspiring workshop on Queering the Gaze. I worked intensively on my assignment but in the end decided not to screen it in class. I had Monday off (because it was supervisor day and my group met ours the week before) and skipped another one and a half day; I’m more picky with the content now. We had a nice gettogether after class on Friday. A personal crisis came and went.

I’m thinking of maybe stopping these updates and start using a proper reading manager like Zotero instead.

Article

• Brianna Wiest: Why You’re Attached to Being an Inferior Version of Yourself

Book

• Murch, Walter. 2001. In the Blink of an Eye. Second edition. Originally published in 1992. Pp. ix–xiv, 1–72. (All except the Afterword. Amazing! 🌟 Recommended by both S and my supervisor.)

Film

• Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley 2018, 112 min)

Video

• Robin S. Kurz: Final Cut Pro X — What’s New in Final Cut Pro X 10.4.7? Speed, HDR improvements and much more!

Radio

• Sveriges Radio: Godmorgon, världen!

A week of in-house classes: Sonic Strategies for Field Research and Filmmaking For Fieldwork. I skipped Tuesday since I was exhausted from going straight from Japan to FU.

I met my supervisor and we discussed my final project, which I also presented to class on Friday. We continued discussing it along with my supervisee peers T and M on the u-bahn, s-bahn, and finally over Flammkuchen and beer at Freischwimmer, before joining the others at the graduation exhibition of Generation 10, where S also was.

My classmate A gave me some very valuable personal advice for my film.

On Saturday we screened anthropological films at Hosek Contemporary, a gallery and a boat. It was a completely student-run initiative, outside the programme. S was with me. I screened my Space and Place film Tiling, and people seemed to enjoy it – there was lots of laughter which I had not anticipated.

I hardly read at all. We’re watching part 2 of Disenchantment and sort of enjoy it despite we both think it could be better.

Book chapter

• Reni Eddo-Lodge: Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race. Preface (pp. 6-10).

Articles

• Alex Chen: The controversy of accessible type

Radio

• Sveriges Radio: Godmorgon, världen!