1. If these New York Subway “spoiler alert” signs aren’t a necessary public service, I don’t know what is.

2. Dictators certainly have questionable taste in interior design.

3. It’s that time of the week where I have to choose just one Geekosystem link to share. Aw, how about two? For $10 a month, somebody will tell you you’re awesome and a time lapse of a game being programmed from start to finish.

4. Now that’s an interesting way to use books:

Sandwiched within and between the reclaimed and decomposing books are several edible species of mushrooms like oyster and winecap, an intervention that highlights the living, ephemeral and cyclic character of these artefacts.

5.  So you’re a gamer AND a feminist? Then you better read these two essential posts on Olivia Munn.

6. This week in weird celebrity news: Slate does an “interview” with Kanye West based solely on his tweets, and Snooki helps handbag brands wage warfare against one another.

7. And last, the most famous girl on the Internet immortalized in art. I bet that you’ll be surprised to recognize her!

One more thing before I go: You should really check out Japanator today. I have not one but SEVEN posts going up today in celebration of International Cosplay Day, spanning from 11 AM to 11 PM eastern. Enjoy!

After finishing Strike Witches, I was stuck on the way that, when performing magic, the girls developed cat ears and tails for no apparent reason. The Strike Witches producers knew what decades of anime has already confirmed: cat ears on women are cute.

For the past two weeks, I have been trying to dig a little deeper. We already know that catgirls (and catboys) are adorable, but why do we feel that way? And why are they so prevalent in anime? So far, I have three theories:

1) Cat ears appeal to our animal instincts. Sure, we’ve come out of our caves and we wear clothes now, but our brains still have their instinctual residues like the fight or flight response. Maybe we think catgirls are the manifestation of a woman who follows her animal brain, her immediate needs and desires. We find the idea of an impulsive woman unbarred by modern rules and morals attractive.

2) Cat ears resonate with ancient human mythologies. There were the cat gods, worshipped by the ancient Egyptians, including the fierce and beautiful Bastet. More closely tied to anime was the Japanese bakeneko, a cat demon who could disguise itself as an alluring woman. According to the Catgirl Research Foundation, there are also more catgirl myths from Britain, Ireland, and South Africa.

3) Catgirls can be guiltlessly objectified. This fits in with the moe anthropomorphism I discussed in my fan service articles. When we combine women and girls’ bodies with non-human elements, like computer or, in this case, animal parts, they appear less human to us. Therefore, we do not feel the obligation to treat them with the respect we’d offer other humans, and can lust after them without worry.

However, I haven’t yet been able to find much to support or disprove my claims. I’ve tried the forums of the Catgirl Research Foundation, contacted Kittenplay.org, posted a call for suggestions on the Livejournal kitty_ears community, even reached out to a few anime academics.

So far, only the fantastic aniblogger Scott of Anime Almanac has responded to my call. As a self professed “expert in catgirl appreciation,” he had a lot of insight on the subject.

Scott was quick to differentiate the catgirls we see in anime from the Western women who dress up as sexy cats for Halloween. “It’s not about animal lust,” he told me in an email. “It’s far more innocent than that.”

Instead, he tied it to the attitude of real-life cats toward their masters, in that anime cat girls are both independent and affectionate. Scott said this style, “Selfish and spoiled one minute, and then sweet and affectionate the next,” already meshes well with one of the most established female personality types in anime — the tsundere — who extremely appeals to otaku.

But in a nutshell, Scott said that he thinks otaku are fans of catgirls because they are so easy to please. While some female characters, whom he refers to as having dog or puppy personalities, need a man to protect and care for them always, catgirls are more hands off:

“The catgirl, on the other hand, doesn’t need a man to run her life for her. She can do just fine all by herself. But when she is ready for some love and attention, she’ll nuzzle up to that guy, sit on his lap, knead her paws all over him, and purr with a satisfied look on her face,” he said.

And now I open up the debate to readers. Whether or not you’re a fan of cat ears, what do you think is their appeal? And if you’ve heard of an academic study on the subject that you think I’ve missed in my research, please let me know!

Last week I had the opportunity to be interviewed for filmmaker Jeff Clark’s documentary on American otaku.

Jeff and I met through Anime USA. Since, I’m temporarily filling in our press position there, he wrote to me to inquire about filming at the convention. After I approved him, he checked out my website and asked if I’d be interested in being part of his project. Obviously I was more than happy to help!

We talked about my documentary work at conventions as a fan and an observer, and he asked me some fascinating questions that I hadn’t given much thought to before and really helped me see my work with new eyes. The answers, of course, will be in the final film.

I admit it was difficult for me to loosen up and speak naturally in front of the camera. I’ve done a lot of filming, but very rarely have I been filmed myself! I am feeling a lot of new respect for my interview subjects over the years.

Six months in the making, the documentary as of yet doesn’t have a release date. But I’ll be sure to announce it when it does!

1. “Freezing Han” by Thomas B. The tattoo is a nice touch. (via the Daily What.)

2. I love nerdy documentaries (and I was even featured in one recently – more on that later!) so I am eager to watch Get Lamp, which is all about text-based adventures. (via boingboing.)

3. How video games are strengthening the U.S. economy. More quality reporting from Geekosystem.

4. How to engineer a viral hit. Looks pretty accurate to me.

5. I’ve been enjoying boingboing guest blogger Liz Ohanesian‘s series of posts on cosplay and fandom. Check out “When Cosplay Gets Remixed: Shogun Vader,” “Spreading the Word about New Anime through Cosplay” and “Fan Conventions: Getting Through the Hype” for starters.

6. Burlesque dancers must be a very nerdy bunch. First there was Star Wars burlesque, and now Doctor Who themed burlesque! And we can’t forget about Cosplay Burlesque, the troupe you’ll be able to see at Anime USA this year.

7. And last: Lady Gaga’s Poker Face, as read by Christopher Walken. (via kottke.)

Yesterday, we talked about fan service in Strike Witches, an anime with a heterosexual male audience. Today: how does an equally popular anime tap into its female audience’s desires? Once again, we will be looking at excessive fan service interpreted through dress, age, objectification, and amount and sexuality of partners.

Black Butler

Since it’s designed for a female audience, I thought I would enjoy Black Butler more (and I did, but that isn’t the point of this post). Designed for women, the show enacted a slightly subtler sort of fan service.

Sexuality of partners. In Black Butler, an attractive male butler, Sebastian, serves his equally handsome prepubescent master, Ciel, in a version of Victorian England that resembles Wonderland crossed with Visual Kei. A romantic relationship between the two is implied throughout. This romance, also known as boys’ love, is considered the easiest type of fan service to get away with. To TV producers, compared to a flash of women’s underwear, a homoerotic hand hold is nothing. It’s far from explicit but equally sexy to its audience.

Dress. Dress is an important part of fan service in Black Butler. But unlike Strike Witches, the “sexy” outfits often have the characters wearing even more clothing than usual. Cross-dressing is a huge hit. Like with the homoeroticism mentioned before, the taboo of men wearing womens’ dress is a constant fan service employ.

Age. As in Strike Witches, apparent character age is a huge point of interest here. While Sebastian appears to be in his early 20′s, Ciel is suggested to be 12 or 13. If you’re willing to take the leap with me that this doesn’t mean all female viewers are pedophiles, I’d say that Ciel is purposely young so female viewers can relate to him. He is feminine and frequently so weak he needs Sebastian to save him — in short, he is what viewers would expect from a female lead. Women can imagine themselves in his position in order to more clearly yearn for Sebastian.

Objectification. Ciel is a vessel for viewers. With his adorable outfits and frequent helplessness combined, he’s just as much an object as the moe-anthropomorphisms of Strike Witches. Ciel, whom is often shown literally being dressed by Sebastian, is doll-like. And while Ciel’s personality is intended to be forward, he’s shown in so many instances of vunerability that it cancels out — he’s something viewers can take ownership of. Viewers can use Ciel’s physical appearance into which to project their own feelings.

Number of partners. Far from a harem style, Black Butler employs “emotional porn.” Basically, there are no other main contenders for Sebastian or Ciel. They’re made to be together, and that’s it. While this is a common plot in shows for women, it is completely at odds with harem shows for men. Fan service for women, it seems, falls into a Harlequin romance “we’re meant for each other” trope. A lot of emphasis is put on Sebastian’s undying devotion to Ciel.

Conclusion

From character design to plot, both shows are developed entirely to entice viewers. Let’s go over the five areas of fan service observation once more:

Dress – purposeful outward appearances are essential for tapping into audience desires. For a male audience this means as little clothing as possible, while for a female audience it’s the opposite — intricate Victorian suits and elaborate cross-dressing. Both highlight the characters’ outward charms.

Age – in the male audience anime, younger characters are more moe. In the female audience anime, younger characters serve as female surrogates, all the easier to project oneself into.

Objectification – in both cases, objectifying characters — whether through mechanical parts or doll-like outfits — takes away the guilt of reducing one’s view of the characters to mere lust and desire for their outward appearances.

Sexuality of partners – homosexual relationships between the characters in both anime serve to imply the audience’s intimacy with a character without introducing elements of jealousy in the form of competing characters of audience gender.

Number of partners – depending on audience tastes, either one true love or a harem of desirable partners is introduced.

There is so much more that can be said about this, and I’ve only scratched the surface. For example, what are the ethics of designing a show ultimately to appeal to an audience’s basest intimate desires? How have the tenants of fan service changed over the years? A lot more deserves to be observed.

And finally, I’m aware that my study of these two anime does not take into account a homosexual audience’s gaze. I plan to delve into this in a later post.

How would you feel if your favorite show gave you exactly what you wanted?

Maybe you’ve always thought that Jack and Sawyer from Lost should kiss, even though their personalities and sexual orientations didn’t mesh. Or perhaps you wanted to see Joan from Mad Men inexplicably strip naked. In anime, this is called fan service, and it happens all the time.

For the duration of my life as an anime fan, I’ve tended to avoid series advertised to be heavy on the fan service. But after my stint into moe, I’ve found that in recent anime it’s more prevalent and notable than ever. I decided to dive head first into two of the most fan service-filled shows of last season, Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) and Strike Witches.

Though Kuroshitsuji targets female viewers and Strike Witches targets males, both shows have been so successful that they are each in the midst of a sequel this season. However, the way they deliver what their fans want is completely different.

I assumed this would be the case, to an extent. Fan service targeting heterosexual men would show a lot of nude women, I predicted, and fan service targeting straight women would depict nude men. But based on these two shows, fan service by gender might as well have two different definitions. After watching the entire first season of each show, I found that each show employs four main tenants of fan service, but in surprisingly different ways:

Strike Witches

1. Dress.

The tenant of “less is more” has never been more accurately obeyed than in Strike Witches. Whether at work or at school or in full military garb, the Witches never wear pants. And of course, the camera reminds viewers frequently of this fact; even aerial combat scenes focus closely on panty shots.

2. Age.

I’m not implying that panty-shots are anything new, or that the construction of a pantsless society is sinking any lower than usual to show them off (which anime doesn’t have a hot springs or beach vacation episode just for the bikini factor?) What separates Strike Witches from its older predecessors is, aptly, age itself.  The main character (and therefore, the person whose panties we see the most) begins the series at 14 years old. She’s moe – and I use the “budding” or “adorable” definition of moe here.

Everything about the art and design of the Strike Witches led me to think the show was more about moe than about fan service. I’m new to the term, but I thought that today’s moe itself IS the fan service. Not so with Strike Witches, which couples the uber-cuteness of moe girls with overt and unavoidable womanly sexuality.

3. Objectification.

The show also provides a variation on moe, moe-anthropomorphism, to service viewers. The Witches, with their combat leg extensions, appear to be cosplaying WWII fighter jets. From girls dressed like Gundams to female versions of videogame consoles, this concept is especially appealing (or disturbing, your pick) because it merges women with objects. If your Playstation came alive in the form of a sexy girl, you wouldn’t concern yourself about objectifying her. And today, when men are finally forced to see women as people, sexy objects provide a loophole. Also, the girls also develop furry ears and tails when using magic, further reducing them to less-than-human status. I’m not taking an ethical stance on this; just pointing out that it’s a type of fan service in the show.

4. Number and sexuality of partners.

Strike Witches also adheres to the harem, a fan service trope where one person has multiple love interests to choose from. The one person, in this case, could either be the viewer or Miyafuji, whose sexual interest in the other Witches is constantly on the horizon. The uneven number of Witches in the show keeps the viewer from pairing Miyafuji with any one partner. Providing only female love interests, of course, has a similar appeal to male viewers as that of lesbian porn.

Style of dress, objectification, age, and amount and sexuality of potential partners all come back in Black Butler, but in surprisingly different ways. Part 2 goes up tomorrow.

This week, I’m only linking to one site: my new gig, Japanator.

I’ve been an editor at Japanator for a week now, and it’s finally time to make it official by announcing it here. Now, in addition to updates at Otaku Journalist three times a week, you can expect a daily article from me over there.

You’re probably wondering how the heck this happened. Well, after I mentioned Japanator in my post, How serious is anime journalism? they took note, looked at my work, and reached out to me. I met with the staff at Otakon and things were settled after that. Hurray for another non-paying job!

Despite that, I’ve been having a great time. The staff has been very friendly, sharing kind words (and eye-bleeding hentai images) with me since day one. They’ve encouraged me to go beyond regular news reporting with in-depth features and analysis — my favorite. Plus, they get thousands of daily hits and it feels amazing to have that many people reading my work.

The feature I’ve been working on so far deals with International Cosplay Day. I have been compiling a gallery of Japanator readers’ cosplay, doing interviews with the cream of the crop, and am working on a story about my interview with the talented Erika Weatherbee, director of the 2011 release Cosplay: The Documentary. It’s not too late to submit your cosplay photos, either!

Here are some of my articles so far:

CNN thinks Japanese street fashion costs $$$$

What defines America’s Greatest Otaku?

The Ultimate Otaku Diet Roundup

Share your eroge escapades with your friends on Twitter

If you followed me over from my blog at LaurenRaeOrsini.com, you know that I just split up my online persona this week. As an unemployed journalist looking for work, I thought it was important to separate my portfolio from my hobbies. After all, many of the jobs I am considering don’t involve fandom at all.

For the new LaurenRaeOrsini.com, I endeavored to find the most minimalistic possible WordPress theme out there, and I found that, fittingly, in a theme called Minimalist. From there, I cut even more features and content from the code to snip it down to almost an empty page. The point? I want the web design to almost disappear, and serve as a blank canvas for my portfolio pieces. (Of course, I still retained my signature color palette.)

I never liked how, on my previous site, you would have to scroll through each section of my portfolio in order to see my complete range of skills. On my new portfolio, each skill set has its own subpage.

I think the split is ushering in a new era for both my identity as a professional and as a fandom journalist. Rather than feeling divisive, I think it strengthens my internet persona in both areas. I feel it was the right decision.

After several months of keeping this project under wraps, I am happy to finally show you this year’s Anime USA prospectus. You can download the full document by clicking on that link.

When John and I found out that Anime USA has been in need of a prospectus for years, we decided to make it our top priority as director and vice director of marketing. So we recruited our talented friend Chris Goulait to build the prototype and write the copy, John got hold of the statistics, and I designed the layout in Adobe InDesign CS4.

This prospectus will be used to attract potential advertisers and sponsors to the convention. Anime USA is a 501 (c) (3) educational non-profit, so that kind of support is essential to our growth. Having a specific document to present to companies will help us stand out from other non-profit organizations. I’m so proud of my team for recognizing this and getting it done.

Download the prospectus and let me know what you think!

As an added incentive to get everyone relinking to the new domain, I’ve prepared an extra-large version of my usual weekly links. Enjoy a double-rainbow sized helping of Internet oddities!

1. “You got your Firefly in my Star Trek!” Photo above says it all.

2. A hotel marketed specifically toward train otaku. That’s right, a huge model train set in every room.

3. Magic: The Gathering for Inception fans. I love how true to the game these are!

4. A house made totally out of books.

5. Ever have a moment where you’re having a great time and you think, “This would be an awesome tweet”? You’re not alone.

Back in the 1950s, the sociologist Erving Goffman famously argued that all of life is performance: we act out a role in every interaction, adapting it based on the nature of the relationship or context at hand. Twitter has extended that metaphor to include aspects of our experience that used to be considered off-set: eating pizza in bed, reading a book in the tub, thinking a thought anywhere, flossing.

6. For the desperate: What the F*ck is my Social Media Strategy?

7. Ready for an upgrade? Here’s the top 10 free WordPress 3.0 ready themes. (via Nubby Twiglet.)

8. Videogame spoofs of the famous British WWII slogan (and hipster favorite) “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster. (via The Daily What.)

9. Flowing Data‘s Nathan Yau did an amazing infographic on Firefox:

Once every blue moon I like to freelance as a short break from school work, and a few months back I got an email from Mozilla that basically said, “Hey we’ve got a lot of data. Do you want to do something with it?” Luckily, the scheduling worked out, and this was the result.

10. If you missed the Anime Journalism panel at Otakon (like I did), you can still watch it online.

11. I always knew Maryland was the geekiest state! First they make jousting the state sport, now they’re naming September 21st Sid Meier Civilization Day.

12. And last: How do you really feel about Badminton?