As my content providing skills are on hold owing to my immanent move to Tokyo, here is a little something via an email from King Carl Gustav Horn.
Me (still in shock over the sixty dollar hardcover I’ve just seen at the bookstore in Japan Town): Have you seen the catalog for the Little Boy exhibit yet???!!!!
Carl: Just the web page. "Artist support for this exhibition has been
generously provided by Yoko Ono." I hope this isn't sour grapes on my
part for not being asked to contribute to the catalog, but I share your
view that this seems like another case of fine art trying to squeeze
the juice out of something people genuinely enjoy on their own.
Although Murakami gets top billing on the page, apparently these other
artists they mention--Anno, Otomo, Matsumoto--have had something to do
with this exploding subculture as well. Perhaps the show will explain
further.
And needless to say, the notion of Japan's post-war pop culture having
been an unremitting parade of cute is bunk--Ian Buruma could have told
them that twenty years ago. What are they trying to say--the Japanese
went straight from being the demon beast rapists of Nanking to Sanrio
figures? Bayonet dick or Hello Kitty, no options in-between? Are we
talking here about atomic mutants, or human beings? Don't shoot! At
least under Douglas MacArthur the Japanese were only regarded as
adolescents, not infants--things are clearly going downhill. What about
the pop culture of Koike, Ikegami, Kawaguchi, Miike, Takeshi, Fukasaku,
hell, Tora-san? Are they aware most people in Japan aren't even into
anime, let alone being otaku? That they watch nice normal dramas about
cops and doctors instead?
Also, the idea that today's cute culture somehow represents a reaction
to the trauma of the Greater East Asia War seems a little far-fetched.
As I said of BLOOD, the current generation of anime directors isn't old
enough to remember Vietnam, let alone WWII. These issues are by no
means without merit, but I think a work like Igarashi's BODIES OF
MEMORY handled them in a more convincing fashion.
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