The ANU Japan Institute Seminar Series showcases cutting-edge research by leading and emerging scholars based primarily in Australia and Japan. It aims to promote networking among Japan Studies scholars in the two countries and will feature innovative research on the bilateral relationship.
Click bait, bikers, and dystopian politics
When Tokyo was announced as the host of the 2020 Olympics in 2013, certain parts of the internet were flooded with images of the 1964 Olympic logo, mutated and distorted in the style of 1988 dystopian film, Akira. Set in the summer of 2019 before the 2020 Neo-Tokyo Olympics, Akira follows two members of a delinquent biker gang as they are pulled into a shady government plot (highlights also include cults, drug use, gang violence, the aftermath of World War III, and the end of the world).
In June 2019, 147 days before they were due to start, the 2020 Neo-Tokyo Olympics were cancelled due to a World Health Organisation recommendation.
In July 2019, my cosplay partner Amy and I entered the World Cosplay Summit preliminaries with a 2 minute and 30 second skit based on Akira. I was sick with ‘con flu’ (a general flu like malaise often spread in crowded environments like anime and pop culture events) and instead of talking in our introduction video, held up a piece of cardboard with the words ‘I have plague Don’t be ME’ scribbled in black marker before coughing myself off camera. We had no idea how prescient our skit would be.
This paper will look at practice-based research in the emerging field of Cosplay Studies and in the Humanities more broadly. It will introduce and interrogate the source text and surrounding meta, discuss the cosplay skit construction progress, while also considering how my teaching is increasingly research lead.
Speaker:
Interested in most things dark and twisty, Emerald L King is Lecturer in Humanities at University of Tasmania. Her research interests include violence in text, masochistic theory, kimono in Japanese literature, costume representation in anime and manga, and cosplay in Japan and Australia. Her work ties these disparate areas together with an overarching interest in costume and word. Her most recent work on cosplay and gender is guided by her experiences as an award-winning cosplayer. Since 2017 she has volunteered as a translator and interpreter at the World Cosplay Summit (WCS) championships in Japan, and in 2020 she was named a WCS Support Ambassador. Emerald is the current Australian WCS Representative.
Image from the film Akira (1988) directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
The seminar is followed by light refreshments.
Contact the ANU Japan Institute Seminar Series Convener: Dr Andrew Levidis at andrew.levidis@anu.edu.au
Sign up to the ANU Japan Institute mailing list.
The ANU Japan Institute Seminar Series is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Japan Foundation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
