Perhaps no other place is as tied to the global imagination of technological dystopia as Japan, and perhaps no persona as much as “otaku.” Though roughly comparable to cult fans, Japanese otaku are described as “children of media and technology” (Grassmuck 1990: 5), “socially inept but often brilliant technological shut-ins” (Greenfeld 1993: 1) or “pathological-techno-fetishist” (Gibson 1996: 88). Even Sherry Turkle, long known for her more hopeful outlook, has recently started to wonder if technology might be alienating humans from one another (Turkle 2011). Since the turn of the new millennium, fears have intensified that humanity will be lost to the onslaught of technology. So does that between material reality and the image making we rely upon to see, know, and interact with our world(s).” “As machines become embedded ever more deeply into life and even flesh, the line between human and nonhuman increasingly blurs. Keywords: Bishōjo games, dating simulator games, technology, Martin Heidegger, shōjo, Japan, popular culture. These interactions are also with the machine, contributing to the formation of “techno-intimacy” (Allison 2006) and opening up possibilities of “becoming” with a technological “companion species” (Haraway 2003). The paper concludes with a discussion of LovePlus, a bishōjo game for portable devices, which offers open-ended interactions with a virtual girl. This theory is applied to a close examination of bishōjo games, with a focus on how gender and identity come into play. To this end, the paper introduces Martin Heidegger’s philosophy, and interpretations of it by Thomas LaMarre, who argues that the imaginary girl or shōjo is “a new god” capable of grounding a free relation to technology. These games and their so-called otaku players provide an opportunity to think critically about human being with technology. This paper offers an in-depth analysis of bishōjo games for the personal computer, which run the gamut from conversation to pornography, and comprise a huge industry in Japan that blurs the line between direct, mediated and purely machine contact. Bishōjo Games: ‘Techno-Intimacy’ and the Virtually Human in Japan by Patrick W.
0 kommentar(er)
