Fanning the Flames

Trenchju

Description

Fanning the Flames examines the worlds of fans in the exuberant and commercialized popular culture of contemporary Japan. The works collected here profile denizens of all-night rap clubs; sumo stable patrons; passionate fan clubs of a professional baseball team; enthusiasts of traditional rakugo storytelling; a club of middle-aged female fans of a popular music star; youthful followers of Japan's longest-running rock band; vinyl record collectors; and a thriving community of girls and women who produce and devour amateur comics. Grounded in close, often extended fieldwork with the fans themselves, each case study is an effort to understand both the personal pleasures and political economies of fandoms. The contributors explore the many ways that fans in and of Japanese mass culture actively search for intimacy and identity amid the powerful corporate structures that produce the leisure and entertainment of today's Japan.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Locating the Fans
William W. Kelly

1. B-Boys and B-Girls: Rap Fandom and Consumer Culture in Japan
Ian Condry

2. Letters from the Heart: Negotiating Fan–Star Relationships in Japanese Popular Music
Christine R. Yano

3. Buying Intimacy: Proximity and Exchange at a Japanese Rock Concert
Carolyn S. Stevens

4 Sense and Sensibility at the Ballpark: What Fans Make of Professional Baseball in Modern Japan
William W. Kelly

5. It's a "Gottsan" World: The Role of the Patron in Sumo
R. Kenji Tierney

6. Rakugo Fans at Play: Promoting the Art, Creating Community, Inventing Selves
Lorie Brau

7. Vinyl Record Collecting as Material Practice: The Japanese Case
Shuhei Hosokawa and Hideaki Matsuoka

8. Girls and Women Getting Out of Hand: The Pleasure and Politics of Japan's Amateur Comics Community
Matthew Thorn

Glossary of Japanese Terms

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Popular culture
• Sociology

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791485385
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

FANNING THE FLAMES

Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan

Edited by William W. Kelly

Fanning the Flames

SUNY series in Japan in Transition Jerr y Eades and Takeo Funabiki, editors

Fanning the Flames Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan

E DITED BY W ILLIAM W. K ELLY

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State Universit y of New York Press, Albany

© 2004 State Universit y of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State Universit y of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Kelli Williams Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fanning the f lames : fans and consumer cult ure in contemporar y Japan / edited by William W. Kelly. p. cm. — (SUNY series in Japan in transition) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6031-2 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-6032-0 (pbk. : alk.paper) 1. Popular culture—Japan—History—20th century. I. Kelly, William W. II. Series.

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Letters from the Heart: Negotiating Fan–Star Relationships in Japanese Popular Music Christine R. Yano

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Contents

Introduction: Locating the Fans William W. Kelly

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List of Illustrations

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Acknowledgments

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Sense and Sensibilit y at the Ballpark: What Fans Make of Professional Baseball in Modern Japan William W. Kelly

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Rakugo Fans at Play: Promoting the Art, Creating Communit y, Inventing Selves Lorie Brau

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It’s a “Gottsan” World: The Role of the Patron in Sumo R. Kenji Tierney

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B-Boys and B-Girls: Rap Fandom and Consumer Cult ure in Japan Ian Condry

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Buying Intimacy: Proximit y and Exchange at a Japanese Rock Concert Carolyn S. Stevens

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Vinyl Record Collecting as Material Practice: The Japanese Case Shuhei Hosokawa and Hideaki Matsuoka

Girls and Women Getting Out of Hand: The Pleasure and Politics of Japan’s Amateur Comics Communit y Matthew Thorn

Glossar y of Japanese Terms

Contributors

Index

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Table 1.1

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Illustrations

“Music I Like” (Urban College St udents), 1990

The Alfee.

Two sisters with homemade dolls of The Alfee for presentation to the group.

The right-field bleacher fans at Koshien Stadium.

A Private Association drummer in the right-field bleachers at Koshien Stadium.

The raised sumo ring surrounded by the front-row “sand-covered” seats.

A view of the Kokugikan Hall in Tokyo during a sumo tournament.

A meeting of the rakugo circle “Sharaku.”

Front page of an issue of the fanzineYose suzume (Yose Sparrow).

A yaoi parody of the popular television seriesKamen RaidaKuga(Masked Rider Cougar) by Urata Satoko

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Acknowledgments

The initial idea for this volume was hatched by Christine Yano and Carolyn Stevens, who organized a panel on “Intimacies, Identities: Fandom as Consumer Cult ure in Japan” at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Asso- ciation in Washington, D.C., on November 27, 1997. The coherence of the pa- pers and the reactions of the audience then prompted me to organize a follow-up conference with several more contributors at Yale Universit y on September 18–20, 1998. We are grateful to the Council on East Asian St udies at Yale for pro- viding ver y generous funding from its Sumitomo Endowment to cover all ex- penses of the conference. All of the presenters at the conference are indebted to the thoughtful and supportive commentaries of Ted Bestor, Takie S. Lebra, Jen- nifer Robertson, and Merr y White. At the Japan Anthropology Workshop meet- ings in Osaka in March 1999, several of us heard the presentation by Shuhei Hosokawa and Hideaki Matsuoka, which was so close in spirit to the other cases that we asked them to join us in this final volume. In preparing the final version of the manuscript, I benefited enormously from the assistance of Allison Alexy. Finally, the authors and I appreciate the work of SUNY Press in producing this volume, especially Jerr y Eades, series editor, Nancy Ellegate, senior editor, and Kelli Williams, production editor.

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