AnimeQtr Event

Last week an Anime event has been held in VCUQ's atrium. The event was organized by a group of people, some were students from education city, and some others out of education city(they formed a group in FB long time before planning the event)  And I got the chance to participate in the event by selling my artworks/drawings.

The event mainly consisted of different events where people would gather and solve quizzes, play video games, or show their artwork or sell goods.

I noticed that at the event, people basically didn't know one another, yet they've interacted with each other as if they knew each other for a long time. I'm going to try to see it in a sociological way, and that these people bonded with each other without much thinking(which lead us to social interaction, a method of way people interact with one another.) They formed an in-group; group of people who share same interests(which is interest in Japanese animations and cartoons in this case.) and they're also classified as otakus(which is a term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly, anime, manga, and video games.)

I think these people were acting very friendly with one another because they shared the same social status or position at that event, they all got the chance to cosplay, participate in the events there of video game tournament and some quizzes. And also as fans. They probably wouldn't have acted the same way if they were around people of different interest(I know I wouldn't) they know that not everyone is interested in anime and even some people consider anime fans "weird"(I actually heard that from a classmate just before the event started, and I became defensive, because I'm also a fan of anime, so thats the solidarity that I felt with other anime fans) and I'm going to quote what that person said to another person while talking about the event, " I've never really seen an anime fan that's normal, they all act weird."
Since I participated in this event as a person who sells their work, I got to meet different people. It was really interesting to see that even though they all share same interest, they came to me with different motivations. Some people came to talk to me about business opportunities, while some others wanted to buy my work, and some just wanted to look at what I had. Even though they shared the same interest, they were all different.

Finally, I want to say that I think the event was a really successful one, it's the first of its kind in Qatar, even though it was not sponsored it was a success alhamdulel-Allah. Plus what I also think made the event succeed was the big number of people who gathered for it (I believe more than five-hundred people visited VCUQ that day/night) I think it's just that when people share the same passion+position, things can work out very well (though people were from different ages and professions, I believe that they were considered equal that day, because they gathered as fans that day, not as professors, students, nor anything else.)
I hope that in the future, more events like this one will be held. It's really nice to see people of the same interest interact with one another.

Taboos and Popular Culture

Your heart is closed and in my hand I’ve got so many keys.
Which secret key will ever let me open your heart?
Once I open your heart, tell me, will you accept me?
I can’t stop this TABOO, that undeniable TABOO.


Those words were written by the Japanese lyricist and artist Koda Kumi that simply shows how some of our instincts are incontrollable or to vulgar that the society can’t accept. TABOO, reaching number one in the Japanese Oricon Charts, is also the strictest and most highly regulated norm of all the norms. In this case, Koda Kumi lyrics clearly states that even though there are a lot of unaccepted sub-cultures in one’s society, there mighty still be some part that will open the society’s “heart by a key.” That is not true to all cultures because it’s affected by the history, the religious beliefs and other factors. With popular music, movies and culture, other cultures around the world start to accept these forms of taboo and might have an influence on the today’s and future generations.

Photo on the right: CD single of the #1 song TABOO by Koda Kumi.

Some of these cultures include people who believe they’re vampires; groups of homosexuals; groups of drug dealers; or groups that enjoy an unusual form of pleasure, like Rihanna likes to say it “but chains and whips excite me.” There’s a strong message in that song. It became popular and Rihanna has a huge fan base ranging from adults to teenagers to kids. The reason this is shown to the society now without having a lot of conflict or controversy is because it’s already accepted. How? By the over exposure of music videos and movies that contain such themes.
Picture on the left: Rihanna on the Cover of a 2010 G.O. Magazine issue promoting sexual images and themes.



The Simpsons, Ugly Betty, Family Guy, Six Feet Under; these are just a list of popular TV shows and top rated that shows either hidden or exposed themes of sexual jokes and humor, drugs, drinking and homosexuality. People become more addicted to this and keep watching while their subliminal mind starts to slowly accept taboos.

So, back to Koda Kumi’s song, TABOO, the media holds a lot of keys that slowly unlocks the “closed-minded” society’s heart. Not all societies are accepting yet, and some are still strict and reject but not as 3o years ago. More promotion happens and generations are affected. So the question is, how far will this acceptance go? Until when will this norm breaking habit continue? We don’t know but we can observe and witness the spread of acceptance and tolerance thanks to popular culture and popular media.

PS. TABOO is capitalized because that’s the official way of writing the song through its official profile on the website.

The video below is the music video of TABOO, where the general story shows Koda Kumi's interest in a man who later on disappears and she finds him with, not much of an interest to the opposite sex. But, unexpectedly, she smiles and accepts it. This message makes her fans accept this along with her as well.

Cosplay- A Lifestyle?

Anime and manga have a huge following all over the world, and a significantly large one in Qatar. Interestingly, those anime and manga subcultures that exist all over the world have their own subculture cosplay, which is when Otakus, fans obsessed with manga and anime, dress up as their favorite characters and live out the world in cosplay gatherings, conventions or even restaurants and bars. However, this particular subculture isn't one that exist all over the world and is mainly situated in Japan. While I myself am a fan of Anime and Manga I find the idea of cosplaying weird, yet I understand the reasons behind cosplay as a way to live the lives of your favorite characters, escape society and live out ones childhood.

This subculture is a very serious one in Japan, they have official photoshoots for cosplayers, contests, and roleplaying. To the naked eye this may simply seem like when people dress up as superheros in Comicon, after all it both involves a bunch of adults dressing up in costumes. However, it is far from a similar thing, in cosplay people don't simply dress the part but live the part. If two characters have a relationship in an anime, two people who dress as the character live the romance, even if they may not know each other or if two characters have a rivalry the two cosplayers will stage a fight.

Japan has a specific area known for cosplayers, such as the Akihabara District, as well as cafes, nightclubs and amusement parks specifically for cosplayers to meet, socialize and live out their fantasies. Furthermore, some cosplayers dress up as characters of the opposite sex, crossplay, in order to live out a certain fantasy. These crossplayers are a subgroup to cosplayers and have their own set of rules and hobbies.

These cosplayers have certain norms and regulations. For example, one more would be that when in battle, or a performance the cosplayer must never get out of character. A folkway would be that when in costume the costume must be true to the character. Cosplayers spend months perfecting their costume, the better the costume the more respect the person gets in his or her community.

In Conclusion, cosplaying is more than just a hobby, rather it is a way of life. Cosplayers gather socially in cosplay nightclubs, cafes and bars they have social networks related to cosplay for dating and friendships.

It Has to be Real

Cheryl Lynn was the first to sing the infamous disco number-one hit “Got to Be Real.” I heard it first the song, which I thought was an Mary J. Blige original, in the 2004 Dream Works animated film Shark Tale. However, in 2010, heard it again by a Japanese singer named Koda Kumi. I stopped and thought “Is she covering the song now?” I decided to Google it. Shockingly, I found out that it was a 70’s original . How can something 4 decades ago still live on to the 21st century? Who do we thank for this? The Art Worlds. Their collective activity made this one of the ultimate theme song for the Disco Culture.(Photo in the center: Cheryl Lyn in 2005 receiving an award for Dance Music Hall of Fame for the song Got to Be Real.)

How do we know that it’s popular? Well, other than its commercial success (that was conducted a Dance Music Hall of Fame), it is well liked and it’s iconic to the 70’s. Now every time I hear the instrumental I think of disco balls and lights and people “getting their groove on”. We can also agree that it’s authentic to the Dance and Disco culture, as that’s the group of people it belongs to; disco dancers. May believe that it is dead but “disco is still alive”.

So Cheryl Lyn sang the song, but there’s a whole team behind the song which makes the interlocking relationship for this cultural object. This interlocking relationship includes writers, producers, musicians, music video makers, dancers and every single person who contributed to create this cultural object. Written by Cheryl Lynn, David Paich and David Foster, they are still accredited today for the new covers because they made it happen. (Photo on right: shows the original writers on the booklet of the 2010 cover.)

We can’t deny that it is globally ubiquitous. As a matter fact many different cultures sampled the instrumental into their songs including Dominic Republic, South Korea, Japan, Australia, England and so on; they borrow the signature introduction of the song and the instrumental hook. There are also official covers where artists directly sing the song in their own way. The video below will show the different artist and their versions and you can find the list of the artists who sampled the song in this link.

Untitled from Juicyyification on Vimeo.

Nouveau... ou Dejavu?

“Do you want to listen to some Min’yo?” I asked my friend a while ago and just as I expected, he asked the questions “What is that?” I didn’t anticipate his acknowledgement about this specific genre of music. “What is that?” he insisted to know. “Well, it’s a genre in the Japanese traditional music culture.” So then I asked “Do you know Ayumi Hamasaki?” and he replied “Isn’t she that famous Japanese star?” and he was right. Ayumi Hamasaki is a symbol and an icon of the popular Japanese music culture, or in the correct terminology, J-Pop. We can say that J-pop is a sub-culture in Japan that is vastly popular around the world. The real question here is “how original is ‘J-Pop’?” When you hear Opera you directly think about Italy; when you hear “Frère Jacques” you immediately think of France, disregarding the name. But no one would recognize Min’yo nor Okinwan which both are Japanese traditional music.

Japanese pop, I would define, as music in the Japanese language but of the style of western music. You can’t deny the cultural diffusion and the effect of western clothing style, the over-all image and the music production on this specific genre of Japanese music. We can name a few things to blame but the first one is technology. Some companies, to promote their product, associate a song to it and produce a commercial film featuring a Japanese icon. In this case, Ayumi Hamasaki’s song “Sunset: Love is all” was used in an advertisement for Panasonic Lumix FX-60 digital camera. So therefore associating advertisement with a song leads for this product to have a “theme” song if you want to say and so when it goes international, different parts of the world that hear it. And let’s admit it that commercial songs can get addictive. This is how a product becomes appealing to other cultures because they use similar traits of music that are common in the world. So, this route through the Japanese music market associates culture to expand globally.

But the thing with Japan is that it knows how to level the cultures. Yes, Western culture is very appealing to them but when they take something they manage to twist it and make it their own. For example, as Valentine’s Day is approaching the world will be celebrating love and that is a cultural tradition. In Japan, however, the 14th of February has the name “Valentine’s Day”; however, their tradition is girls bake a chocolate cake by themselves and they offer it to a person as a confession of love and then that person has up to the 24th of March to either reject or accept the person’s love.
So, I conclude by saying that Japan does have the influence of the Western culture which might seem a bit “dejavu-ish” when you visit, however it is all absolutely new if a foreigner does visit the culture. You will definitely get a culture shock even though you’ll find similarities in the names and style. What do you think Japanese will do next? Take the Arab men’s head attire and produce a new fashion statement? Only time will tell what these creative minds will plan in the future.

A Clash of Cultures - Qatar Versus Japan.

On Friday the 21^st of January 16:25, two cultures clashed in the soccer field. Only the clash was not between the players but rather the fans. Supporting soccer teams is a very popular subculture in both the Qatari and Japanese cultures. Therefore, when they faced off in such an important game, Qatar could've made history the second time this winter. I knew there was no way I was going to miss such a high stake game and miss the chance to see how these two spectator heavy cultures collide.

In Qatar, supporting football, or to the American readers soccer, teams may just be one of the biggest subcultures within the culture. Every man, woman or child supports a certain club feel passionately about that said club. Usually the club chosen is passed from father to son or daughter. When watching the national team play it is a way for all of Qatar to unite and support the team. Some folkways that belong to the culture do not apply when involved with this subculture for example how one acts around a stranger or the idea of personal space. Once you're in the stadium the person next to you or behind you might as well be your brother. The subculture has its own set of norms and traditions, for example designing your car with flags and blasting loud music or honking continuously to celebrate victories.

I got to the stadium around 3:30 to find there were more Japanese fans than there were Qatari fans. Thankfully, 30 minutes before the game started the Qatari fans made a comeback greatly over numbering the Japanese fans. Both sides were equally enthusiastic with flags, instruments and costumes representing their respective countries, some however may have been confused or simply an effect of cultural diffusion.

Qatar supporters were very important to this match as the Qatari coach mentions in countless interviews. Therefore this subculture was as important as ever. The two cultures and their different norms and traditions were made very obvious when put in contrast. The game was very close with teams taking turns scoring goals with fans and players both going crazy after each goal till the final winning goal by Japan in the final minutes of the game crushed the hopes and dreams of the Qatar fans while simultaneously increasing the hope of Japan winning the cup a 4th time. The final goal created such a thick atmosphere with the blue side of the stadium cheering and the white and maroon side somber and searching for the exits to avoid traffic. Interestingly, once the team losses the cultural norms come back and the person next to you is back to being a stranger, winning is another story however.

Overall, it was quite interesting to see how the folkways can change due to certain subcultures and how according to the score they can easily be changed back. While the score was a disappointment, one hopes we have better luck in 2022.

Sources

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