Post by pauseandselect on Feb 12, 2020 20:32:28 GMT -5
I'm planning on doing a presentation (or a panel, if anyone is interested), in Japanese Apocalypticism, primarily post-war, with a specific focus on its trajectory. My aim is to start from Ishiro Honda's original Gojira (1954) as an example of burgeoning hibakusha (nuclear survivor) and how it informs a particular kind of nuclear imagination until we get into the increasingly postmodern apocalyptic imagination with Akira.
From then, I plan to look at the transition into the early Heisei apocalyptic imagination juxtaposed with the concept of endless everydayness, how we have two dominant streams of spatial and cultural imaginations in Neon Genesis Evangelion (in middle of the Hanshin Quake and the Aum attack) while at the same time generating Hitoshi Ashinano's Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. After that, I plan on moving into post-9.11 Koizumi apocalypses through the degenerated world-type (Sekai-kei, big 'S') stuff like Mirai Nikki, before ending it off with a wraparound to Gojira with Anno Hideaki and Shinji Higuchi's Shin Gojira, a post 3.11 work and how the Fukushima-Daiichi meltdown and Tohoku Quake shaped a new wave of Japanese apocalyptic aesthetics, up-to-and including manga and anime.
It's a really strict outline, but I'm more than happy to have other panelists if they wanna join me. We can work together from there. I've done this presentation before, and I have a pretty lengthy outline on Youtube about some of this.
From then, I plan to look at the transition into the early Heisei apocalyptic imagination juxtaposed with the concept of endless everydayness, how we have two dominant streams of spatial and cultural imaginations in Neon Genesis Evangelion (in middle of the Hanshin Quake and the Aum attack) while at the same time generating Hitoshi Ashinano's Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. After that, I plan on moving into post-9.11 Koizumi apocalypses through the degenerated world-type (Sekai-kei, big 'S') stuff like Mirai Nikki, before ending it off with a wraparound to Gojira with Anno Hideaki and Shinji Higuchi's Shin Gojira, a post 3.11 work and how the Fukushima-Daiichi meltdown and Tohoku Quake shaped a new wave of Japanese apocalyptic aesthetics, up-to-and including manga and anime.
It's a really strict outline, but I'm more than happy to have other panelists if they wanna join me. We can work together from there. I've done this presentation before, and I have a pretty lengthy outline on Youtube about some of this.
