Paper short abstract:

Scene hunting in anime pilgrimages reflect the media literacy of its practitioners. I compare the skills demonstrated by butaitanbou practitioners to the indicators of Media and Information Literacy (UNESCO). The results show that these communities are paradigmatic of the contemporary prosumers.

Paper long abstract:

Japanese commercial animation has become one of the most popular forms of audio-visual entertainment. Concurrently with the growing numbers of international visitors, anime-related tourism has given rise to several "meccas" around Japan for both foreign and Japanese fans. Places traditionally left out of tourist itineraries have turned into high-profile destinations thanks to the spontaneous development of seichijunrei, fan pilgrimages to the places that inspired the background settings for popular anime series. Anime pilgrimages generate eloquent communicative expressions that reflect the degree of media literacy of its practitioners. In this proposal I delve into a particular interest within seichijunrei: butaitanbou, or scene hunting. Butaitanbou has given rise to the production of comparative photomontages combining photographs of the original locations and still frames from their animated version. For these creations, fans need not only to test their ability to gather information about the location scouting of the animation studios, but also to demonstrate both their skills in composition and the use of postproduction software and, of course, their capacity to disseminate their expeditions through the butaitanbou communities. My approach concentrates in a comparison between the skills demonstrated by two of the most active English-language butaitanbou websites and the indicators of Media and Information Literacy established by UNESCO. The results of my research show that these communities are paradigmatic of the contemporary prosumers as they demonstrate technological capability, critical reception and active expression. By means of this novel approach, I aim to address the impact of informal interests on the media literacy of active niche subcultures.