{"id":4843,"date":"2014-05-22T13:18:33","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T21:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=4843"},"modified":"2014-05-30T04:51:25","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T12:51:25","slug":"the-prerequisite-for-cuteness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=4843","title":{"rendered":"The Prerequisite for Cuteness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
It’s been a while since I was in Japan. The last time I posted from Kawasaki, HAL-Con 2014 had not even begun\u2014 and in the weeks since elapsed, other, more imminent things have commanded my attention.But when I was there, man. Nothing commanded my attention in Japan more than Japan.<\/p>\n

There were the public service announcements. There was Chiba City, which was not nearly so exotic as it seemed in Neuromancer<\/i>.\u00a0 There was dinner with a US expat who told me interesting things about telecom’s whoring of its customer data to the US government.\u00a0 There was the store just outside the Tokyo subway station devoted to Snoopy memorabilia, and a Studio Ghibli store which, oddly, seemed to specialize in Moomin merch.<\/p>\n

There were the toilets, which really require a post\u2014 no, a research paper<\/i>\u2014 all to themselves.<\/p>\n

There were these Vocaloid<\/i><\/a> thingies, straight out of Idoru<\/i> (or vice-versa: Idoru<\/i> was explicitly lifted from the Vocaloid mindset, such as it was back in the nineties): synthetic performers who actually appear in concert<\/a> to hordes of screaming fans and who can sing beyond the vocal range of mere meatsacks. (They also pimp Toyotas<\/a>.) I did not meet Hatsune at the con\u2014 not even their awesome toilets had the requisite projection equipment\u2014 \u00a0but that’s where my hosts filled me in on the details.<\/p>\n

There was the con itself, which was especially scary for me on account of a language gulf greater than any I’ve experienced in Europe. I nearly curled up into a whimpering ball when I got turned around during a solo excursion into Tokyo (using their subway network is like trying to navigate a mammalian circulatory system). (Although to give me credit, the guy I was meeting\u2014 who’s lived there on and off for over a decade\u2014 told me to meet him at “the exit”, apparently unaware that Tokyo Station has eight of those.)<\/p>\n

Fortunately my hosts took excellent care of me, and a couple of life-saving transplanted Europeans kept me up to speed. There was an audience Q&A. There was a freeform discussion between myself and Dr. Hideaki Sena<\/a>\u2014 pharmacologist, best-selling SF author, and video-game inspiration\u2014 on the subject of consciousness and free will. There was a nifty little collection of some of my shorter works, illustrated by manga maestro (and fellow GoH) Hotaro Unno<\/a>.\u00a0 As I may have mentioned in a previous post, seeing my angsty benthogothic rifters rendered as manga characters gave me a whole new perspective. More on that later.<\/p>\n

There was a bit of a rabbit-hole moment during an exchange with my Japanese editor after my reading of “The Eyes of God”, when I think some of the nuance contained in our respective views on God, animism, and the Orch-OR model of consciousness got lost in translation. For a few minutes there I thought I’d managed to give religious offense in one of the most secular nations on the planet, but apparently everything was cool. (Or at least, that’s what everyone tells me. Maybe they were just being polite.)<\/p>\n

But you know what the real highlight of the con was? The dead dog party afterward.<\/p>\n

It was held in this cozy little hole in the wall just around the corner from my hotel, down a couple of bright narrow streets that looked like they’d been lifted right out of Deus Ex<\/i>. The place was called Pepperland, although I only glimpsed one or two bits of Beatles memorabilia in evidence. If there was any more, it must have been hidden behind the various models of Thunderbirds, Seaviews, Discoveries, and every goddamn iteration of the starship Enterprise ever committed to celluloid. The TV on the wall played an unending series of classic SF movies. Every centimeter of every shelf, every inch of wall space, was cheek-to-jowl with mementos of the best, the worst, and the ugliest that televised and cinematic SF has ever thought to offer up. Polite and formal guardians unwound<\/i> on all sides; we quaffed beer and stuffed an endless variety of meaty kabobs down our gullets.<\/p>\n

And I learned something really interesting about Japanese heroines. They have to be cute<\/i>. Apparently it’s kind of a prerequisite.<\/p>\n

And a prerequisite to cuteness, in turn, is peril.<\/p>\n

At least, this is how I understood it as the discussion unfolded. North American female protagonists are frequently strong, kick-ass, take-no prisoners. They can be tough and beautiful. Frequently all of the above. But cute<\/i>? Show me a N’Am heroine who’s cute, Hotaro said.<\/p>\n

I thought of Buffy, at least during her first and second seasons. Sixteen-year-old cheerleader, kinda pouty; I guess you could call that cute. Certainly Willow was cute, prior to her black-eyed veiny-faced phase at least.\u00a0 But then, Willow was more sidekick than protag. Which leaves\u2026<\/p>\n

So, Buffy<\/i>? I suggested. Maybe there were others, but I don’t watch Bitten<\/i> or Vampire Diaries<\/i> or any of those other paranormal-romance cheese-fests. So I wouldn’t know.<\/p>\n

Didn’t matter. Nobody at the table had heard of Buffy Summers.<\/p>\n

Female protagonists in Japanese genre productions have<\/em> to be cute, apparently. And cuteness is, I’m told, context-dependent. Big anime eyes and tiny pointed noses may be necessary but they are not sufficient. There must also be jeopardy<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I have to admit this makes limited sense to me. I can understand the eroticism of the whole damsel-in-distress thing. Diana Rigg dragged all that into the mainstream half a century back; the producers of The Avengers<\/i> couldn’t keep up with the demand for Emma Peel In Peril pics. But hot<\/i> and cute<\/i> are two different things, and the idea that the latter is a function not of an individual but of an interaction<\/i> seems odd. What about Hatsune Miku, for example? She would seem to embody the very essence of Anim\u00e9 Cute, but unless that vegetable she keeps swinging around is going to give her food poisoning I don’t see any peril in her environment.<\/p>\n

But that’s just me, and I’m not Japanese.<\/p>\n

I pointed to Hotaro’s interpretation of Lenie Clarke regarding herself, icy-eyed, in the mirrored bulkheads of Beebe Station. “Not cute.” I pointed to his rendering of Lenie exposed and vulnerable, threatened by some hypertrophic monster from the deep sea. “Cute. Right?”<\/p>\n

“Right,” he said. But our long-suffering translator, worn to exhaustion, had thrown in the towel and gone off to enjoy herself. So that’s where we left it.<\/p>\n

I don’t think<\/i> they were pulling my leg. Anyone have any insights on this?<\/p>\n

\n
\"Chiba<\/a>

Chiba City. Turns out the sky really *is* the color of television tuned to a dead channel.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"doors\"<\/a>

Helpful bilingual signs abounded.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"makeup\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Hatsune\"<\/a>

These things exist. Apparently they’ve existed for some time. Archer has never seemed more timely.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I think something may have been lost in translation. Even though it’s in English.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I don’t know what I’m doing here. Probably talking or something.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Tomoki<\/a>

Tomoki Kodama, my translator\/minder. Extra points for IDing the movie in the background.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Regina<\/a>

Regina Glei (from Germany), Hotaro, and me. No idea what Regina’s fingers are doing.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"One<\/a>

One of the more obscure entries in the Naked Gun franchise.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Cute<\/a>

Cute on the left, not-cute on the right. You figure it out.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The HAL-Con poster. I think it’s cute, anyway…<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Is<\/a>

Is this not the most awesome place?<\/p><\/div>\n

\"I<\/a>

I mean, LOOK at this stuff. That’s a Seaview, and a Flying Sub on the bottom. And that orange thing up top: does anyone but me even *remember* “Land of the Giants”?.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"I<\/a>

I didn’t even know they *made* a model of the Discovery.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Although<\/a>

Although of course, the Star Trek stuff was hardly unexpected.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"20140413_180726\"<\/a>\"plaque\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"But<\/a>

But “Thunderbirds”? I didn’t see *that* coming.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"mole\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"20140413_202441\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"I'm<\/a>

I’m pretty sure that’s not Hitler between the aviators, but I could be wrong.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"I<\/a>

I have no idea what this is.<\/p><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a while since I was in Japan. The last time I posted from Kawasaki, HAL-Con 2014 had not even begun\u2014 and in the weeks since elapsed, other, more imminent things have commanded my attention.But when I was there, man. Nothing commanded my attention in Japan more than Japan. There were the public service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-road","category-public-interface"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4843"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4929,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843\/revisions\/4929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}