The Anime Machine This page intentionally left blank T h e A n i m e M a c h i n e A Media Theor y of Animation THOMAS L AMARRE University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London Part I reworks material previously published in “From Animation to Anime: Drawing Movements and Moving Drawings,” in Between Cinema and Anime, special issue of Japan Forum 14, no. 2 (2002): 329–67, and “The Multiplanar Image,” Mechademia 1: Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 120–44. Part II includes sections based on “Otaku Movement,” in Japan after Japan: Rethinking the Nation in an Age of Recession, ed. Tomiko Yoda and H. D. Harootunian (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006), 358–94. Part III reworks an argument initially presented in “Platonic Sex,” animation: an interdisciplinary journal 1, no. 1 (2006): 45–60 and 2, no. 1 (2007): 9–25. Copyright 2009 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lamarre, Thomas The anime machine : a media theory of animation / Thomas Lamarre. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8166-5154-2 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8166-5155-9 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Animated films—Japan—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Title: Media theory of animation. NC1766.J3L36 2009 791.43'340952—dc22 2009026475 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer. 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The damming of the stream of real life, the moment when its flow comes to a standstill, makes itself felt as reflux: this reflux is astonishment. —Walter Benjamin, What Is Epic Theater? This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Preface ix Introduction: The Anime Machine xiii Part I. Multiplanar Image 1. Cinematism and Animetism 3 2. Animation Stand 12 3. Compositing 26 4. Merely Technological Behavior 45 5. Flying Machines 55 6. Full Animation 64 7. Only a Girl Can Save Us Now 77 8. Giving Up the Gun 86 Part II. Exploded View 9. Relative Movement 103 10. Structures of Depth 110 11. The Distributive Field 124 12. Otaku Imaging 144 13. Multiple Frames of Reference 155 14. Inner Natures 166 15. Full Limited Animation 184 Part III. Girl Computerized 16. A Face on the Train 209 17. The Absence of Sex 221 18. Platonic Sex 234 19. Perversion 242 20. The Spiral Dance of Symptom and Specter 252 21. Emergent Positions 265 22. Anime Eyes Manga 277 Conclusion: Patterns of Serialization 300 Notes 323 Bibliography 351 Index 367 PREFACE T HIS BOOK PRESENTS A THEORY OF ANIMATION, unabashedly cen- tered on Japanese animations, which are commonly particularized and grouped under the loose heading “anime” or even “Japanimation.” At the same time, this book is about “how to read anime.” In fact, it was the dif- ficulties that I confronted trying to read anime that led me in the direction of animation theory. When I began teaching courses on Japanese mass culture in the early 1990s, not only were there few Japanese animation titles available on video with sub- titles but also research on animation and anime was relatively rare. In the course of the 1990s, the situation changed dramatically. Animation surged on a number of fronts with the rise of digital animation; the increasing use of computer imag- ery in films; tie-ins and overlaps between video games, film, and animation; and, needless to say, the global boom in popularity of Japanese animations, launched in part through the exchange of VHS copies among fans internationally and then spurred with the rise of the Internet and file sharing. Research on anime has appeared in the wake of this surge in the popularity of Japanese animations, coeval with a new awareness of the ubiquity and centrality of animation. It is not surprising, of course, that research and scholarship follow cultural booms. It is the nature of criticism to follow, and the question of criticism is how to follow and where to intervene in the flow. What has surprised me about research on Japanese animations and anime is the general lack of interest in animation as such, in animation as moving im- ages. The bulk of anime commentary ignores that its “object” consists of moving images, as if animations were just another text. Such a treatment of anime as a ix