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- Convenor:
-
Antonio Loriguillo-López
(Universitat Jaume I (Spain))
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Dolores Martinez
(SOAS)
- Discussant:
-
Shiro Yoshioka
(University of Newcastle)
- Stream:
- Media Studies
- Location:
- I&D, Piso 4, Multiusos 2
- Sessions:
- Friday 1 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
Regarded as highly commercial art forms by their belonging to the production committee based media mix, storytelling in anime and gēmu has generally been overlooked as formulaic. We present a multidisciplinary overview of complex storytelling within the prolific entertainment industries of Japan
Long Abstract:
This panel focuses on the narrative complexity in contemporary Japanese commercial light novels, animation and video games. Regarded as highly commercialised forms of mass art by their belonging to the production committee (seisaku iinkai) based media mix, the storytelling devices at play in these products have been overlooked by some scholars as formulaic.
The introduction of digital tools in the production routines of commercial Japanese industry has helped to reach a new peak of high-volume production of new anime and video game titles and, within it, a growing sample that challenges the stereotypical light novel/anime/gēmu experience by defying the conventional storytelling in the fashion of postclassical storytelling. This global trend —developed within commercial media since the 1990s encompasses puzzle films such as Memento (C. Nolan, 2000), complex TV dramas such as Lost (ABC, 2004-2010), complex ludofictions such as the Silent Hill franchise and the refinement of Young Adult SF fiction— demands new approaches towards the study of light novels, anime and gēmu. Through different disciplinary perspectives and combining different research methodologies the panellists will address key questions to the scholarly study of popular titles such as the adult-oriented gēmu Catherine (Atlus, 2011), the hard SF light novel All You Need Is Kill (Sakurazaka Hiroshi & Yoshitoshi Abe, 2004) or the anime adaptation of the visual novel Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (C. Kon, Studio Deen, 2006) as complex audiovisual texts, a necessary task in order to think how can we interpret the perceived rise of complex narration in commercial audiovisual productions.
We will inquiry different factors that may enlighten this industrial, commercial, consumer and cultural evolution. For instance, whether the increasing experimentation is a concession appealing to a more demanding otaku audience guaranteed through niche markets —especially profitable in the vast spectrum of genres in Japanese entertainment industry— or, in the case of anime, if its engagements complexity should be seen as a new episode of mediaphobic reaction from film and television mainstream producers under the threat of interactivity and video games.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 1 September, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses anime adaptations of visual novels. We seek to produce an approach from narratology to how the branching narratives and multiple endings of visual novels are adapted within the linear conventionalism of the classical plot structure at the base of commercial anime.
Paper long abstract:
Anime adaptations of visual novels are appealing cases to study the structural differences between the storytelling patterns of two different yet closely related media: video games and anime. The branching narratives and multiple possible endings of these typically Japanese gēmu genre confront the conventional three-act structure linear plot at the base of commercial fiction by means of the particular torsion of the syuzhet in order to hint all the possible endings featured in the visual novels to the spectators.
This paper proposes their animated versions as paradigmatic texts within the growing number of Japanese animation films and television series that present complex narration in the fashion of puzzle films and complex TV, emergent trends of complexity within commercial film features and television drama. Particularly, we refer to the complex narration in the adaptations of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (C. Kon, Studio Deen, 2006) and Steins;Gate (H. Hamasaki & T. Sato, White Fox, 2011). In both cases, the characters in the diegesis are forced to repeat a fatal destiny ad nauseam that, in order to accommodate the time travel fabula, results in a pattern of narration that alludes to the setback punishments of video game mechanics. Significantly, the only way out of the agonizing loop is the reconstruction of a linear plot, a condition that requires the prevalence of one of the possible endings of the visual novel over the rest.
As a conclusion, we ponder over the narrative innovation and true crossmedia coordination in the production of contemporary audiovisual fiction—what Henry Jenkins defined as co-creation— involved in the visual novel adaptations to anime in comparison to the mere implementation of the right-to-left transcription model —informed against by Ōtsuka Eiji— prevailing in the adaptations of the media mix iterations.
Paper short abstract:
"All You Need Is Kill" is a Japanese sci-fi novel with manga and film adaptations. It explores basic game mechanics—having to repeat a stage until the player learns to overcome the obstacles. The sum of these media renderings of a mechanistic premise results in a view of ontology as indeterminate.
Paper long abstract:
Do complex issues and transcendental questions necessitate complex narrative strategies? The straightforward nature of many myths belies such notion. Nevertheless, imaginative efforts aiming at exploring alternative modalities of conscience and of existence tend to rely on narrative strategies designed to suit the new epistemological coordinates associated with such ontological leaps. That is the case with the exploration of disembodied consciences, hive minds, and brain diving in works by creators such as Masamune Shirō and Oshii Mamoru.
This is also the case with "All You Need Is Kill," a novel by Sakurazaka Hiroshi that has been adapted to manga by Takeuchi Ryōsuke and Obata Takeshi, and adapted to film by Doug Liman ("Edge of Tomorrow"). The story sets a premise that alters our commonsensical understanding of life as a single timeline. The protagonist is smack in the middle of a battle to the death between humanity and an alien invader. Every time he dies, he wakes up on the very same morning of the very same day in the past. Thus, we have an unusual case of "syuzhet" complexity being mostly a reflection of a complexity already present in the premise of the "fabula" and its successive turns after each consecutive reset. We will analyze the formal and content differences amongst the three versions of "All You Need Is Kill" to illustrate how they achieve different aesthetic and epistemological conclusions, and their degree of success in replicating the gaming experience.
The parallel reading of these materials provides an alternative to univocal explorations of sci-fi premises that contemplate only one possible journey and outcome for the characters. Not only does this offer an engaging alternative to the trite "expanded universe" resource, the narrative exploration of the three "All You Need Is Kill" renderings achieves the opposite result that the plot axiom would imply. While the rot memorization of game mechanics that inspired Sakurazaka equal a deterministic view of the universe and the laws of Nature, the ensemble reading of these three media explorations constitutes a complex and nuanced refutation of the Laplace's Demon thesis.
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses the strategies for ludonarrative complexity in games created by metalepsis, including transdiegetic characters, the Brechtian distancing effect, nesting narratives, and the Borgesian "counter-text", all of them commonly found in commercial geemu such as Silent Hill or Catherine.
Paper long abstract:
The nature of the fourth wall has been widely discussed in Game Studies, expanding it with variations like a "circular fourth wall" (Planells, 2010) or the "recapture" of mediality (Harpold, 2007) to account for the dialog between player and system. In this paper, we move beyond these descriptions to explore how metalepsis creates new possibilities for (ludo)narrative complexity.
We consider four narrative devices: transdiegetic characters who cross the wall freely; the construction of hypodiegesis or nesting narratives (Bal, 1981) that reframe the previous one adding a new layer of meaning; the distancing effect (Brecht, 1961) that separates player from avatar; and, following Borges, "counter-text", that is, the inclusion of an opposite meaning within the possible configurations of the same cybertext. In Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis, Tertius, Borges wrote: "A book that does not include its counter-book is considered incomplete". Geemu often include alternative endings that negate their story and even their tone, as the popular "UFO endings" of the Silent Hill series (Konami, 1999-2016).
These devices can be used in many narrative and expressive strategies, like the inclusion of the game designer as a character, the narrative chaining of consecutive playthroughs, or self-parody. In addition to Silent Hill, we study Catherine (Atlus, 2011), in which a framing device redefines the whole narrative setup of the game and the role of the player; Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (Capcom, 2010), where the amnesiac hero trope is played for maximum narrative uncertainty (Costikyan, 2013); Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (Kojima Productions, 2010), which presents numerous instances of deconstruction through additional missions; NieR (Cavia, 2010), a game that has to be played several times to access its "true" ending; and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (Konami, 2005), where failing at an early stage opens an alternative timeline where the player controls a different avatar to defeat the (now fallen) hero of the main story.
All these strategies depend on the particular nature of diegesis in games and on a complex ludonarrative structure that includes many detours in its critical path, something commercial geemu, as we argue here, have been doing regularly for years.