Newtypes, Angels, and Human Instrumentality: The Mecha Genre and its Apocalyptic Bodies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21900/j.jams.v4.1186Keywords:
Neon Genesis Evangelion, gundam, postmodernism, Database Animals, Hiroki Azuma, Mobile Suit Gundam, fandom, history, Anime History, grand narrativesAbstract
This paper argues that the mecha genre is fixated on psychedelic and abstract imagery of supernatural human bodies, the destruction or transcendence of which often have bring about new political and social epochs. In making this argument, I build on the writing of Hiroki Azuma, and his understanding of classical mecha texts functioning as ‘substitutes’ for political grand narratives. Two major mecha texts are analyzed: Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), and Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995). I suggest that Gundam’s occultic ‘Newtypes’ bridge the series’ grand narrative space opera storyline with themes of New-Age mysticism, itself reminiscent of Azuma’s writings on the role of spiritualism in postmodernity. In my section on Evangelion, I argue that its imagery of bodily re-organization mirrors its fixation on reimagining its world and characters. I term the mecha genre’s supernatural archetype ‘The Apocalyptic Body’, and argue it is key to understanding the genre’s mixing of occult and technological themes.
References
Ashbaugh, William, “Contesting Traumatic War Narratives: Space Battleship Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam” in William Ashbaugh, in David Stahl and Mark Wiliams, eds., Imag(in)ing the War in Japan: Representing and Responding to Trauma in Postwar Literature and Film (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 327–353.
Azuma, Hiroki, Otaku: Japan’s Database Animal (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).
Ballús, Andreu, Torrents, Alba G., “Evangelion as Second Impact: Forever Changing That Which Never Was,” Mechademia, 9 (2014): 283–293.
Clements, Jonathan, Anime: A History (London: Bloomsbury, 2016).
Dominguez, Anthony, “Mechapocalypse: Tracing Gundam’s Global Appeal and Fandom,” Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, 3 2022: 240–263.
Drazen, Patrick, “Review: The Shock of the Newtype: The ‘Mobile Suit Gundam’ Novels of Tomino Yoshiyuki,” Mechademia, 2 (2006): 174–177.
Lunning, Frenchy, “Between the Child and the Mecha,” Mechademia, 2 (2007): 268–282.
Moore, John D., “Turn A Gundam and the Problems of (Dark) History,” Mechademia conference, September 25, 2016.
Napier, Susan, Anime From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
Ortega, Mariana, “My Father, He Killed Me; My Mother, She Ate Me: Self, Desire, Engendering, and the Mother in ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion,’” Mechademia, 2 (2007): 216–232.
Ôtsuka, Eiji, Steinberg, Marc, “World and Variation: The Reproduction and Consumption of Narrative,” Mechademia, 5 (2010): 99–116
Ôtsuka, Eiji, “Foreword: Otaku Culture as ‘Conversion Literature,’” in Patrick W. Galbraith, Thiam Huat Kam and Björn-Ole Kamm, eds., Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan: Historical Perspectives and New Horizons (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), xiii–xxix.
Stojnic, Betty, “Boy with Machine: A Deleuzo-Guattarian Critique of Neon Genesis Evangelion,” Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, 2 (2021): 27–56.
Tatsumi, Takayuki, Bolton, Christopher, "Gundam and the Future of Japanoid Art,” Mechademia, 3 (2008): 191–198.
Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Ethnic Engineering: Scientific Racism and Public Opinion Surveys in Midcentury Japan,” Position: Asia Critique, 8 (2000): 499–529.
Tomino, Yoshiyuki, (trans. Frederik Schodt),
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Awakening (Houston: Del Ray, 1990).
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Escalation (Houston: Del Ray, 1990).
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Confrontation (Houston: Del Ray, 1991).
- “The Shinjuku Declaration,” translated by Sean Chapman, Jonathan Lack, accessed via Twitter, April 25, 2023., https://twitter.com/JonathanLack/status/1647056838683398144 (accessed April 20th, 2023).
Filmography
Ultraman, dev. Tsuburaya Eiji (Tsuburaya Productions, 1966)
: A Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968)
Space Battleship Yamato, dir. Matsumoto Leiji (Academy Productions, 1974)
Mobile Suit Gundam, dir. Tomino Yoshiyuki (Sunrise, 1979)
Space Runaway Ideon, dir. Tomino Yoshiyuki (Sunrise, 1980)
Space Firebird 2772, dir. Tezuka Osamu, Sugiyama Taku (Tezuka Productions, 1980)
Neon Genesis Evangelion, dir. Anno Hideaki (Gainax, 1995)
End of Evangelion, dir. Anno Hideaki (Gainax, 1997)
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 River Seager
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.