The
direct connection between narrative reformation and
technological manipulation of media is perhaps one of
the reasons that spirit-enhanced cyber-world fiction
is so popular in Japanese culture (Poitras).
The Japanese fascination
with ghosts inhabiting technology is apparent in
nearly all Japanese science fiction and in the postmodern
urban surrealism of writers like Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World, A Wild
Sheep Chase) to the imaginary worlds that Japanese
artists and writers create for their anime and manga
techno-narratives that range from the film-noir techno-spiritualism
in older works like Akira to the pastoral bildungsroman
Shinto-corporatism of narratives like Spirited Away
(Drazen).
This obsession with the spirit
world and technology is most clearly evident in the
recent Japanese hit horror film, Ringu, in
which an evil spirit “lives” in a video
tape and projects itself into our world through the
television screen every time the video is played. But
claiming this obsession with ghosts and technology as
a particularly Japanese one would be improper however
as nearly any examination of the narratives from a technology-dependent
culture will often
reveal a clear interest in how the use of technology
interacts with the spirit world (Aitchison
& Lewis). |
