Abstract
This paper analyzes the political implications of aesthetic mimicry in the popular mobile game, Onmyoji. Created by the Chinese company, NetEase, Onmyoji takes advantage of the expansive network of signifiers revolving around the historical Japanese figure, Abe-no-Seimei, and co-opts this network to display a recognizable Japanese popular aesthetic. By remixing elements of Japanese culture, Onmyoji presents a commodifiable and mediated image of Japanese cultural authenticity that is recognizable globally. Mimicry and the co-opting of another nation’s cultural signifiers initiates a negotiated process of ambivalent national self-empowerment that has since resulted in shifting labor flows within the digital entertainment industries in East Asia. The malleability of cultural signifiers allows for the purposeful framing of global media texts. Such multivalent encodings of recognizable symbols emerge from the provocative slippages between media boundaries. This, in turn, engages with the dialectical processes of nation branding within the framework of transnational co-production models.
On 9 May 2018, the Sino-Japan Film Co-Production Treaty was authorized, with the aim of “fortify[ing] exchange of film-making associations between Japan and China . . . to expand efforts for co-production of films between them” (METI, 2018). This was a landmark treaty between these two nations, as it was a first for Japan to formalize a co-production treaty on a national level (Brzeski, 2018). From a historical standpoint, this treaty also corresponded with the forty-year anniversary of the 1978 Japan–China Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which was meant to encourage peaceful negotiations and cultural cooperation without the threat of establishing a hegemonic positionality in the Asia-Pacific region. This arrangement has led to an increase in transnational collaboration between the two nations, exemplified by filmic projects like Wish You Were Here and Cook Watanabe.
Aside from the formalization of this treaty, it is already well documented that co-production between regional players has been a strategy employed by many national media industries in order to bolster production values, expand the global reach of content, and engage in technology and skill transfer across national and cultural boundaries (Keane et al., 2007; Kong, 2014; Miller et al., 2005; Selznick, 2008). In recent years, China has used co-production strategies as a means of addressing its “cultural trade deficit” (Keane, 2007: 116) and the ambivalent manner in which global audiences understand China, its cultural and political image, and by extension the production processes that support its robust economy. In comparison, Japan has been lauded for its ability to utilize “soft power” and pop culture diplomacy in order to diminish anti-Japanese sentiments on an international scale, using anime, music, trendy dramas, and kawaii culture to appeal to the younger global demographic (Daliot-Bul, 2009; Iwabuchi, 2004). Often, the production of anime content in particular requires co-production in the form of outsourcing more menial animation work to different regional countries like South Korea, China, and Vietnam (Hayashi, 2009). The potential for regional collaboration between these two nations may exemplify the ability to address individual national interests, as Japan uses the export power of their 2-D anime culture to make further inroads into the Chinese market, while the Chinese animation industry takes advantage of the global star power that the Japanese anime industry has garnered in order to gain global success and recognition for their own media productions.
When thinking about the potential for transnational collaborations within media production, it is often the case that such relationships are characterized by what Joseph Straubhaar has conceptualized as “asymmetrical interdependency.” In such partnerships, there is a spectrum in which nations may find themselves on an unequal footing with respect to their collaborator, but still possessing “variable degrees of power and initiatives in politics, economics, technological capability, and culture” (Straubhaar, 2007). When applying this framework to the transnational production of anime and digital games, one can observe a distinct shift in the kinds of industrial labor asymmetries that currently exist within the regional market. From the 1980s, China was an important node in the international outsourcing of labor for the development of Japanese anime (Mori, 2011). Outsourced labor proved to be more cost effective and would later become a necessity for the Japanese anime industry as more titles were released in shorter time frames in order to meet increasing consumer demand. Similar to other examples of runaway production, the labor that is often contracted to studios outside of Japan falls in line with the hierarchized division between cerebral and manual labor (Kim, 2014). Within such hierarchies, there is a privileging of cerebral labor, that often coincides with global creative recognition, such as the director, while anonymized manual labor, like animation “in-betweeners,” is often relegated to studios outside of Japan (Nippon.com, 2017). Such patterns reinforce what Toby Miller calls the “New International Division of Cultural Labor,” where content ownership and creative recognition is given to nations generally associated with the global North, and developing nations are exploited as sources of menial labor. While there are still benefits to engaging in these collaborative projects for the developing nation, such as education and profit, such benefits often come at a discount, as collaborating can simultaneously foster and reinforce asymmetrical dependent relationships (Kraidy, 2005; Miller et al., 2005).
While this was the context in which the Japanese animation industry utilized outsourced labor within the past couple of decades to sustain their anime and 2-D image industry, there has been a recent, notable shift in labor dynamics with the advent of globally popular mobile games like Azur Lane, Girls Frontline, and Onmyoji, where Chinese game developers have taken central roles as directors and designers, while outsourcing other types of performative labor to Japan in order to expand the global appeal of their content. Such games take heavy inspiration from the image networks fostered by Japan’s anime culture and replicate visual and sonic signifiers that have long been associated with “Japaneseness” in the global cultural imagination. This provides interesting case studies where Chinese mobile game developers are co-opting certain aesthetic patterns popularized by Japan in order to attract established global fan communities and further the international success of content that is created by Chinese companies. This transitional moment demonstrates interesting tensions around what it means to utilize the success of another’s media culture to enhance and develop one’s own and how such tactics may lead to forms of economic and cultural subversion within the context of transnational media co-production.
In this article, I analyze the way that engaging in aesthetic mimicry aids China’s mobile game industry in enhancing the media product’s global appeal, particularly focusing on the ways in which the enormously popular Chinese mobile game Onmyoji utilizes transnational co-production relationships to adopt a cultural network of signifiers that encourages perceptions of “Japaneseness.” I engage in a textual analysis of the game, looking at the way that game developers have introduced globally familiar iterations of the Japanese nation brand through the replication of the anime aesthetic, cultural symbols, sonic elements, narrative, and imagery. While co-production embodies a wide variety of collaborative relationships between various national industries, in the case of Onmyoji, co-production with Japan primarily comes in the form of Japanese talent engaging in performative vocal and musical labor, while Chinese producers and designers shape the narrative and interface designs of the game. A more indirect form of co-production, however, is the collaborative formation of transnational narrative networks, whereby former media products dealing with similar characters and narratives act as a familiarizing agent in order to encourage further consumption of that narrative universe. I argue that the manner in which Chinese production companies attempt to imbue their anime-inspired game texts with a sense of authenticity is through foregrounding narratives with signifiers of Japanese collaboration, which can then be used to distinguish themselves from the potentially detrimental perceptions associated with mimicking on the international stage. For Onmyoji, the deployment of internationally renowned Japanese vocal and musical talent, and the proliferation of high-quality anime imagery and tropes that have become familiar in the global mediascape become important characteristics that discourage assumptions that the mobile game is merely a secondary copy of another’s media culture. The reason for focusing on this particular game is based primarily on the scope of its adoption of the anime aesthetic network and the diverse strategies that are utilized to gain a sense of “authenticity,” and the consequent enormous global success that these strategies have brought the game.
I connect the case of Onmyoji with the broader study of shanzhai, a mode of production that utilizes mimicry, imitation, and counterfeiting to enhance the appeal of local consumer products. This practice extends deeply into China’s media landscape and ICT development, and has become a phenomenon that can be perceived as an alternative form of innovation that subverts the more Westernized understanding of innovation as perpetual novelty, stemming from a distinctly Silicon Valley ethos (Dirlik, 2006; Han, 2017). Academic scholarship regarding shanzhai has often focused on the popularity of shanzhai phones, luxury items, subversive television programming, and other forms of technology, pointing to the mobility of branding and its relation to globalized desire and cultural capital (Cui, 2012; Jiang and Shan, 2016; Keane and Zhao, 2013; Liao, 2017; Zhang and Fung, 2013). While mobile games like Onmyoji do not enact shanzhai in the same manner as counterfeiting a corporate-branded product, I argue that the spirit of co-opting a recognizable aesthetic that stems from another’s nation brand retains much of the same dynamics and tensions between the desirability associated with the original and the reception of the replica.
Despite the game’s global success, I argue that the ambivalent modes of production whereby the labor of Chinese production companies is utilized to proliferate the potent signifiers that stem from a set of nation-branded imagery associated with their collaborator echo former asymmetrical relationships that characterized earlier regional industry dynamics. When one engages with and replicates this network of signifiers ever more closely, it brings into question who ultimately benefits from this strategy: the original creators of the nation-branded image network or those who exploit that network and expand it further outward. However, unlike in the past, the valued cerebral labor remains firmly in the hands of Chinese directors and producers, and the transnational processes that reproduce these internationally familiar image networks may ultimately work in China’s favor, as co-production relationships may aid in decentering Japan as the perceived global producer of anime content.
Mimicry and co-production strategies enact processes that reveal the malleability of aesthetic networks and the provocative slippages between media boundaries as strategies of copying confound paradigms of domination and subordination in relation to global media flows. Such concepts become increasingly muddy in the process of transculturation, and as the potential for co-production continues to grow between China and Japan’s media industries, the elusive nature of origins and the multiplicity of constructed national brands continue to be central in the production of these media texts.
Cultural odors, aesthetic networks and nation branding
Before reflecting on how recognizable nation-branded aesthetics may be co-opted by other regional players, it is important to first consider how such patterns and tropes are established and the role of the media in influencing and reinforcing a nation brand. Nation branding remains a highly visible, but nebulous concept, where it is loosely understood to be “a compendium of discourses and practices aimed at reconstituting nationhood through marketing and brand paradigms” (Kaneva, 2011). While some of the logics of corporate branding may be applied to the process of nation branding, the results often differ in praxis as nation branding “concerns a country’s whole image, covering political, economic, historical, and cultural dimensions” (Fan, 2006). While nation brands exist with or without the intervention of the nation in question, the brand image can be manipulated in order to achieve certain outcomes. For example, Peter Van Ham (2001) uses the concept of “brand-states” in order to exemplify the postmodern turn of national boundaries, where nations are investing in image maintenance, so as to inspire certain emotions and values in an increasingly cosmopolitan audience of consumers. Earlier scholars often conceptualize nation branding from either an instrumentalist or constructivist perspective, whereby such processes are often pursued for economic and political gain in the former, and where nation branding may influence and articulate the politics of national identity formation within the latter (Anholt, 1998; Aronczyk, 2008; Gilboa, 2008). It is critical to note here, however, the difference between national identity and a nation brand. While the formation of the nation brand may influence understandings of national identity and vice versa, they are not one and the same. National identity is the set of characteristics, affects, and psychological ties that bind a nation’s people together, whereas a nation’s brand identity is the image and associations propelled outward to the rest of the world, often in the form of iconography, aesthetics, and ideologies, in order to influence how the nation is perceived by outsiders. The process of trying to mobilize a singular, unified national image is exceedingly difficult, and what often occurs is a fragmentation of paradoxical and contradictory narratives that vie for representational hegemony on the international stage. Within this unstable network, polysemic imagery and iconography become the currency in which these narratives can be propelled outward cohesively, even as elements of what is signified may actively contradict one another.
In thinking about how recognizable aesthetic networks and image cultures are established in the global imagination, the work of Koichi Iwabuchi (2002) and his concept of cultural odors is generative in thinking about how certain products may aid in the development of nation brands. Iwabuchi defines cultural odors as “the way in which cultural features of a country of origin and images or ideas of its national, in most cases stereotyped, way of life are associated positively within a particular product in the consumption process” (Iwabuchi, 2002). When a product’s appeal is directly associated with these nationally oriented images or ideas, such odors can become a “fragrance.” These fragrances are not automatically bestowed upon products by virtue of being created in certain places, but are often discursively formulated by both the nation producing this content and those that consume it.
For example, government-backed initiatives like “Cool Japan” utilized youth culture, which was largely associated with Japanese anime, pop music, digital games, fashion, and merchandise to prompt an attractive national image that would increase the international demand for this content and be a source of symbolic influence. There were economic and legislative reforms made under the title of Chitekizaisan Suishin Keikaku, or the Intellectual Property Strategic Program, where the promotion of these products abroad was akin to exporting national symbols (Daliot-Bul, 2009). Anime characters like Doraemon have been appointed as cultural ambassadors of Japan, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the “Japan International Manga Award” in order to reward overseas manga artists for their cultural contributions to the medium. These initiatives aid in reinforcing the relationship between anime culture and Japan’s nation brand within the global imagination. In turn, the establishment of certain aesthetic patterns that stem from these products, be they visual, narrative, sonic, or conceptual (such as kawaii or moe), would become associated with the nation, like a scent. It is critical to note here the importance of image cultures in nation-branding strategies, precisely because images retain polysemic, interpretive flexibility, yet retain enough structure to create cohesive, discernible patterns. Taking anime as an example, the kinds of narrative interpretations that anime provides in relation to what may constitute “Japanese culture” in the global imagination often widely differ and contradict one another. Anime can be seen as “provocative, audacious, and countercultural,” as much as it can be used to reinforce cultural stereotypes and self-exoticization (Daliot-Bul, 2009). The same symbols may connote vastly different meanings simultaneously. However, what ultimately persists across this visual media network is the database of multivalent aesthetic tropes that, with repetition, become associated with the nation.
While there is no guarantee that global consumers will necessarily catch on to these branding initiatives, anime did become positively associated with Japanese culture, as the global fandom “pulled” anime to their national shores, enticed by a “slew of fantastic imagery and incomprehensible language” (Leonard, 2005). In this manner, despite the fact that anime and certain genres of games like “JRPGs” (Japanese role-playing games) are created through various transnational and global processes, when these aesthetic elements appear, they are imbued with a particular scent that is understood to be associated with or inspired by Japanese popular culture.
The iterability and derivation of iconography, narratives, tropes, and visual and sonic cues construct a kind of network in which the repetition of these various elements brings to mind the mythos of the nation brand. Simultaneously, however, once these tropes are established, they can also be borrowed and utilized by those who may not necessarily be associated with the nation. As Fan (2006) accurately observes, “the distinctiveness and exclusivity of a nation brand is hard to protect, as the nation has no monopoly on the precise qualities it is seeking to promote.” While anime is often associated with Japanese popular culture, creators around the world can co-opt these tangible visual and sonic signifiers in order to imbue their own texts with the scent of that particular subculture. Media franchises like the Boondocks, Neo-Yokio, or Avatar: The Last Airbender take tropes that have been familiarized as anime, such as the prevalence of large eyes and stylized fighting sequences, and place them within new cultural contexts. The implementation of these stylizations within a different cultural context creates hybridized iterations of what cosmopolitan audiences may perceive as being anime-inspired. However, when conceptualizing cultural odors as a kind of aesthetic network that can be projected as a feature of a nation brand, there is a range of products that can exude this scent and this ability is correlated with how closely one replicates this network. It is the ability to replicate these stylizations ever more closely that can also aid in a more complete adoption of these aesthetic networks and allow another nation’s cultural fragrance to mask that of one’s own.
Shanzhai and co-opting the nation-brand image
As noted previously, shanzhai practices tend to be associated with the mimicry of corporate brands; however, the advent of games like Onmyoji reflect how such practices can be applied to the notion of the nation brand as well. As many shanzhai scholars have already noted, the term translates as a “mountain hideaway for outlaws,” and, in many ways, the origins of this concept reflect the bottom-up, grassroots nature of this form of imitation practice that attempts to escape various forms of authority and hierarchy through parodying cultural artifacts and the various meanings that they retain (Zhang and Fung, 2013). Shanzhai is a mode of imitative creation that often takes inspiration from pre-existing global brands, and makes cost-effective counterfeit iterations of these brands, often illicitly, in order to respond to the desires of the lower class. Within this process, Chinese producers take advantage of popular international brands like Apple iPhones, Adidas, and Sony, and transform them into HiPhones, Adivon, and Sqny (Chubb, 2015). Shanzhai producers use the global knowledge of these popularized brands and their brand narratives in order to gain an edge in the consumer attention economy (Leng and Zhang, 2011). They utilize the explicit elements of the brand, such as design, iconography, slogans and more in order to enhance consumer association between the replica and the pre-established original. Shanzhai functions as a “good-enough” mode of innovation, where the products are often reliable enough with low-enough prices to attract the growing number of the middle- and lower-class consumers who often do not have the means to purchase the original products (Chen et al., 2013). However, to narrow this phenomenon simply to the production of shoddy counterfeits would be discounting the innovative potential of this mode of production.
The discourse surrounding shanzhai has generally been split into three categories. There are those who euphorically champion shanzhai as a unique form of Chinese innovation, which questions the validity of using a Westernized Silicon Valley ideal as a measure for how creative an industry is (Han, 2017; Ho, 2010). Often, these accounts draw from historical and ideological threads that seek to differentiate Western innovation from Eastern interpretations of creativity, where “not creation, but iteration, not revolution but recurrence, not archetypes but modules determine the Chinese technology of production” (Han, 2017). Such practices lead to the pattern of imitation, then innovation, where copying is integral to the process of mastery and expansion. The second category provides a more balanced account that sees the practice as a kind of resistant and subversive response to forms of global hierarchy and authoritarian regimes of power. However, shanzhai is never quite able to shed its neoliberal foundation, in which the desire for these copies is in itself a product of global capitalism and hierarchization (Chubb, 2015; Cui, 2012). Finally, there are those who are critical of the practice, as a form of resistance, from the perspective of value, and as a kind of national brand that may result in a “loss of face” for China on an international level (Wallis and Qiu, 2012; Zhu and Shi, 2010).
It is undeniable that shanzhai has led to forms of technical and cultural innovation that are more specifically tailored to the needs of the local population. Perhaps the most renowned example of shanzhai’s innovative quality is the extra features that were added to imitative mobile phones (shanzhaiji), such as software to aid in detecting counterfeit currency, dual sim card accommodations, and more. The addition of these affordances gestures towards how shanzhai can potentially surpass the original product in terms of functionality. However, despite these exemplary modes of innovation, there is always an element of complicity in shanzhai practices, particularly as mimicry tends to simultaneously reinforce the desires associated with the original through the expansion of a variety of familiar imagery and iconography, even as certain counter-narratives are heaped onto these symbols through these replicas. Even as these clever doubles expand upon the capabilities of their original, shanzhai practices exist in order for the working class to engage in various forms of brand consciousness (Jiang and Shan, 2016). These ambivalent tensions between resistance and complicity, subversion and reinforcement, continue to be a common thread in many shanzhai practices, as this phenomenon extends beyond consumer products into journalism, ICT development, media and celebrity cultures, and more (Chubb, 2015).
As noted previously, the co-opting of an element of a nation’s brand image is not strictly shanzhai, in the way that there is a counterfeit in relation to some sort of original; however, the leveraging of explicit aesthetic features associated with a cultural other in order to foster desire for a product reflects a similar dynamic to the broader ideology of shanzhai. The existence of a pre-established consumer base that engages with Japanese anime and fosters desire within their global community aids in popularizing media products that utilize this form of strategic mimicry. The mobility of a nation-brand image supports Iwabuchi’s skepticism relating to whether there is anything inherently Japanese regarding the “Japaneseness” that is constructed within these popular cultural exports like anime; however, the perception of origins and authenticity is a discursive formation that is created between both the creator and the consumer, the nation and those who perceive it. Because of this, it would be difficult to state with any degree of certainty that there is a dissociation between aesthetic forms like an anime-style and Japan, which utilizes it as a tool for nation branding and economic and cultural development. In thinking about how these aesthetics are then taken up by other nations like China, the co-opting of this symbolic influence raises the question of whether the mobile nature of nation brands as aesthetic networks can move the perceived nation of origin from its central place in the global imagination. Indeed, as the production process of anime and other 2-D entertainment goods like mobile games exemplifies, the creation of such content is a pan-Asian and transnational procedure, though rarely thought of as such by those who consume and discursively shape the medium’s “Japaneseness.”
Part of the subversive nature of shanzhai is that it often revels in its inauthenticity, as exemplified by the parodying of various brand names. While there may be an initial element of imitation and replication, it rarely stops there. Relentless cost-cutting and a spirit of experimentation allows for shanzhai to retain a faster forward momentum than may be possible for companies that produce the original products that have inspired the shanzhai replica (Chen et al., 2013). It is this flexible acceptance of various gaps and the ability to innovate within these margins that allows for more effective products to emerge that respond to the desires of local communities. While the familiar branding of the product may aid in catching the eye of a consumer, those who purchase shanzhai products ultimately do so for the functional features, as opposed to the brand name (Jiang and Shan, 2016). However, as noted previously, shanzhai remains a contentious practice, and not one that is uniformly accepted as a mode of production that yields quality products or sustainable innovation. The ability then to seamlessly replicate a quality product’s image and functions in order to ease the possible frictions of uptake beyond the local context is also a viable strategy that falls adjacent to the umbrella practice of shanzhai. It is within this mode of mimicry that I find the strategy of adopting cultural signifiers from another’s media culture to be ambivalent, both in the nature of what is being expanded outward in relation to the global imagination and the potential lack of perceivable differences on the surface level of the product itself in relation to the original aesthetic network that the creators are drawing from.
Mobile games like Onmyoji exemplify this tension, as the producers actively leverage common narrative and stylistic tropes established in anime, utilize internationally renowned Japanese vocal and musical talent, and engage with officially licensed Japanese anime characters within the game world in order to become a seamless node in the aesthetic network that has been branded as something Japanese. The game found overwhelming success globally, boasting well over 200 million players worldwide, and won the Apple App Store 10 Best Games of the Year, Google Play Best of 2017 Most Competitive Game, Facebook’s 2016 Game of the Year for Best Mobile Games, and the IMGA Best in Category, Best Online Game, and Best Aesthetics awards. It is an often-cited example of a successful Chinese intellectual property(Baidu, 2019; NewsWire, 2018). However, part of this success is drawn from the game’s ability to de-Sinicize, and to meet expectations that have been shaped by cultures elsewhere. Onmyoji’s thorough adoption and emulation of the aesthetic network exemplifies the potentially mobile nature of nation brands and the ambivalent ways in which their adoption can empower both the perceived originator and the one who replicates it within the structure of co-production relationships.
Onmyoji and adopting the signifiers of Japanese image cultures
The mobile game’s replication of the network of signifiers for anime culture and the ability to create a product that is ambiguous in origin focuses on three primary strategies: the first is utilizing potent orientalizing symbols that immediately evoke ideas of a globally oriented “Japaneseness.” The second is through expanding upon an existing network of a mix of media media products that revolve around the famous Japanese historical figure, Abe-no-Seimei, and becoming a validated node within that particular narrative universe, to which many Japanese creators have already contributed in the form of film, anime, manga, and literature. The third is through heavily engaging with Japanese vocal and musical talents, as well as collaborating with licensed anime characters that already have a significant presence within the global anime fandom. The result is a product that exudes a constructed kind of “Japaneseness,” which has already proven to aid in the successful global uptake of animated media products.***
Created by the Chinese production company, NetEase, the premise of Onmyoji demonstrates a potent sense of essentialized orientalization, as the mundane is abandoned for the exoticized appeals of the occult. The game follows the existence of Japanese spirit channelers, who are themselves the eponymous onmyoji. Onmyoji practice the spiritual art of onmyodo, which is “a syncretic form of esoteric cosmology and divination . . . evolved in the late seventh century from a mixture of Taoist, Buddhist, and incipient Shinto beliefs and rituals” (Miller, 2008: 33) This practice allowed the practitioners to channel spiritual servants called shikigami: folkloric figures that would aid in advancing the onmyoji’s goals. The shikigami within the Onmyoji mobile game are largely inspired by Japanese folkloric spirit figures (yokai), such as the kappa, an amphibious river imp spirit, kitsune, Japanese fox spirits, karasu tengu, crow spirits, and more. Cosmopolitan anime fans would be familiar with these yokai as they often appear in other popular Japanese franchises. Other inspirations for shikigami are personified icons that are significant to Japanese culture, such as sakura cherry blossoms, kingyo gold fish, and momo peaches. One such recognizable aesthetic choice that speaks to Iwabuchi’s transformation of a cultural odor to a fragrance is the frequent beautification processes that the shikigami spirits go through within anime franchises. Folkloric creatures, such as kappa and tengu, that are referenced by name in the game have extensive histories of being portrayed as creatures that are often unpleasant, misshapen, or reptilian; however, within the game, characters go through extensive transformations from their normative appearances to look more like beautiful humanoid spirits (Figures 1 and 2). The humanizing and beautifying of folkloric creatures is a commonly featured trope in Japanese-originated anime, and this process helps in attracting potential players, regardless of cultural background, who have often lauded the mobile game for its beautiful graphics (Serene, 2018).
Kappa in traditional Japanese folklore.
Onmyoji’s rendition of kappa.
Beyond the representation of shikigami, NetEase deftly incorporates tropes that have become familiar in anime, such as the incorporation white-haired mystics, character archetypes (i.e. tsundere), Shintoist ritual practices and the altering of traditional clothing for more contemporary tastes. The shamanistic setting of a mythic Heian period emphasizes a remixed approach to history and folklore, maintaining an Orientalized fantasy that can remain within the bounds of a commodifiable, yet “authentic” Japanese image culture. While the strategic use, by a non-Japanese corporation, of a Shintoist setting may be an opportunistic co-option of an appealingly exoticized image of Japanese culture, this does not alter the fact that many of the objects, backdrops, narrative moments, and characters shown in the game reflect the everyday rituals and symbology of contemporary Japanese life. For example, within the courtyard of Seimei’s shrine, which is inspired by the shrine of his namesake in Kyoto, we see ema plaques, which are used to record the wishes of shrine goers, torii gates, which connote the spatial boundaries of temple grounds, and a hitogata paper doll, offering an omikuji fortune reading, a common practice in many Japanese shrines. A large sakura cherry tree grows right in the middle of the shrine, a symbol that has become synonymous with the fleeting and delicate beauty that has inspired much of Japan’s artistry. Throughout the backgrounds of the game, Japanese hiragana, katakana, and kanji characters can be seen sprinkled throughout and are not translated for the player, which adds to feelings of a fetishized cultural authenticity, even on the level of linguistic incomprehensibility for a non-Japanese speaking player. The dreamlike worlds that the spirits exist in are rife with symbolically meaningful images of Japanese culture. For example, in one backdrop, Mount Fuji can be seen looming behind the characters, while in another, enormous koi fish languish lazily in the air. The AP (action point) meter is measured in ikura sushi, while manekineko (welcome cats) and kitsune and oni (demon) masks act as icons to access the in-game mall and one’s shikigami respectively. At every turn, NetEase has carefully placed cultural signifiers that have become recognized as Japanese by global audiences into the aesthetic dimensions of the game.
Beyond the symbology incorporated into the game, the choice of using the protagonist, Seimei, was also a strategically effective maneuver for representing “Japaneseness.” Seimei is inspired by the historical figure, Abe-no-Seimei, who was a leading practitioner of the onmyodo arts during the Heian period. The game follows Seimei as he aids both humans and spiritual figures in finding missing objects and people, a skill that the game draws upon to introduce various missions to the protagonist. Due to the “media-mix” mode of production and marketing, Seimei, as a historical and literary figure, already has an extensive network of iterable signifiers that revolve around his being. “Media mix” refers to the synergistic use of multiple media forms in order to expand a franchise and encourage consumption across the network of content. When someone consumes one node of this network, it aids in supporting the other nodes through exposure without a sense of centralization within that network (Steinberg, 2012). For example, in the literary world, the figure of Seimei is seen as a character in Heike Monogatari, Sousei no Onmyouji, Nurarihyon no Mago, and Teito Monogatari among many others. His figure has also been subject to adaptation for kabuki plays, animations, and manga. The network of Seimeis created within this cultural web reflects Seimei as protagonist, as a minor character, as a wise man, as an antagonist, and more, all adding multitudinous contours to the legend of Seimei proper. The iteration of Seimei that inspired the Chinese mobile game most was the novel that was released in 1988 by the author, Baku Yumemakura, who portrayed Seimei as a handsome, young man who exists side by side with spirits during the Heian period in Kyoto. This novel inspired a manga adaptation by the comic artist, Okano Reiko, named Onmyoji, which “sold 5 million copies and won the Tezuka cultural grand prize in 2001” (Miller, 2008: 34). After seeing the massive success of both the novel and the manga, a television series, two feature films, console games, and documentaries were created. Within each node of the narrative network that defines the figure of Seimei, additional networks form around certain works, such as the emergence of physical goods, which are themselves imbued with the aura of the collective iterations of Seimeis. Beyond the hazy boundaries of fiction and non-fiction, the figure of Seimei is also associated with particular places that could be visited, such as the Seimei Shrine in Kyoto, which was founded in the year 1007. The decentralized and diffuse nature of the network that surrounds Seimei gives overseas companies that wish to glom onto this network in order to enact a kind of cultural authenticity the means to do so. Seimei, both as a “real” historical figure and through all of his fictional iterations, provides many avenues for NetEase to adapt this appealing narrative, so scented with different, disparate aspects of Japanese traditional and popular culture, and create their own product.
The scents of this aesthetic and narrative network are further transferred onto NetEase’s mobile game, particularly when the text focuses so closely on the smaller details that defined Seimei’s ritual existence. For example, in order to summon one’s shikigami, the player must trace the Wu-Xing defined star-shaped pentagram mon (emblem), which is the historical Seimei’s own identificatory symbol. Likewise, the clothing that the characters don is remarkably detailed: the game depicts the same kinds of headpieces, ceremonial garb, and accessories as other Japanese anime renditions of the onmyoji figure. However, while the visual symbols exist in order to display authenticity, the clothing is remixed in order to exude a more attractive and eye-catching aesthetic. This includes the use of brighter colors, shorter hemlines, and the eroticizing of both male and female spirits, a common visual trope found within anime imagery. In an interview, the producer of Onmyoji Jin Tao (Lou, 2016) specifically mentions the sophisticated design of the characters’ garb as a feature that was inspired by the “Japanese style.” This reveals that while anime has become a transcultural style that is co-opted in the pan-Asian context, it is undeniable that the cultural form is still largely understood as a unique feature of the Japanese mediascape and has been coded thus globally. Because of this, the use of these visual citations and its appeals benefit NetEase due to the already established success of anime abroad.
Beyond the visual signifiers that are used throughout the game to connote “Japaneseness,” the audio soundscape is also noteworthy for its ability to leverage this cultural scent. The original soundtrack was written by Shigeru Umebayashi, an award-winning Japanese composer who worked with prestigious directors like Wong Kar-Wai and Zhang Yimou. It is critical to note that Umebayashi also composed the soundtrack to the 2001 Japanese filmic rendition of Onmyoji and its sequel, Onmyoji 2. Utilizing his work for the mobile game further legitimates this product as a valid node within the Seimei media-mix network and lessens the distance between the Japanese renditions of this narrative and the Chinese game. Much of the Onmyoji soundtrack showcases traditional Japanese instruments, such as koto, an instrument widely associated with the Japanese traditional arts and kagura suzu, a kind of bell used in Shintoist rituals. These features once again reiterate the historical and mythic qualities of this rendition of “Japaneseness” on the level of the soundscape, encouraging further associations with the Japanese nation brand.
Further, despite the game’s Chinese origins, NetEase recruited many of the Japanese anime industry’s top vocal talent, many of whom already have extensive transnational fan bases due to the global spread of anime. The voice talent is a major attraction for the game, and the centrality of the actors’ position is evident at the level of the interface, as each time we are introduced to a new character or go to the character’s profile page in the game, the name of the voice actor is clearly displayed next to the avatar. The advertisements for the game often have the names of the voice actors displayed, sometimes in much larger font than the names of the characters themselves (see Figure 3). These marketing ploys emphasize the game’s ability to garner these top vocal stars from abroad, further increasing its sense of legitimacy. The transference of the voices of animated characters, which inherently lack a stable referent, allow anime enthusiasts to feel the familiar landscape of their fandom through the game’s soundscape, and NetEase actively works to reinforce these associations. For example, in an advertising post made on the Onmyoji official Facebook page, Seimei’s voice actor, Noriaki Sugiyama, was introduced with the note that Sugiyama had also voiced the enormously popular character, Sasuke, from the globally renowned anime Naruto. This form of reinforcement effectively allows players to remain seamlessly plugged into the network of signifiers that Onmyoji is drawing from, and which gesture towards the anime subculture more broadly. This strategy is further enacted through the use of cameos from special licensed characters that are already part of the anime universe, such as the popular characters Inu-Yasha and Sesshomaru from the franchise Inu-Yasha, among others. These cameos within the game world effectively allow the game to touch and overlap with native Japanese anime texts that already have significant clout with the global anime viewership. Much like the positioning of famous vocal talent, these collaborations with popular Japanese franchises further legitimate Onmyoji and potently fragrance the work with Japan’s brand image.
Banner for Onmyoji starring names of voice actors.
In the case of shanzhai culture, mimicry serves as a kind of subversion where the gap between authenticity and derivation remains apparent in a mode of playful self-mockery that negotiates agency with the larger hegemonic influences that impact global consumer desires (Chubb, 2015). It is through these differences that it becomes possible to simultaneously adopt the cultural webs of symbols while remaining steadfastly unabsorbed by them, lingering at the edge of indeterminate possibility and limitation. The efficacy of Onmyoji in co-opting the cultural networks which have legitimized anime as a simultaneously global and Japanese medium affords the game many benefits that come with that cultural format. However, it begs the question of whether there is a gap perceived between the “original” and the derivative that wishes to be enfolded into that cultural web. If there is no such gap, the subversion inherent to shanzhai, as a mode of production that can destabilize symbols and create additional meanings may no longer be applicable.
The transience of image cultures allows replication to be possible, untethered from national origin. As each iteration continues to borrow from others, the gap between the nodes of the symbolic network continues to diminish. This is particularly the case when co-production relationships further reinforce proximity. If there is no such perceived separation, the manner in which the mimic becomes subsumed and merged into that very web itself, may ultimately further popularize the nation brand of the major global influencer, in this case, Japan. The centrality of the global imagination and the manner in which it aids in defining conceptions of cultural origin continue to impact the flow of capital. In this particular case study, while the flow of capital certainly benefits NetEase, which could in turn strengthen China’s cultural entertainment production markets, it does so through bolstering the aesthetic popularity of a nation brand that has already established itself as “quality” content within the global gaze.
Despite this, however, there is evidence that shows that these global influences and local initiatives can synergistically improve and support the development of local industries, particularly as similar media-mix modes of production expand outward within the Chinese context. As this media mix further expands, there may be more leeway for Chinese developers to further bolster their presence within this transnational narrative network and shift the perceptions of origin towards a more regional framework. For example, Onmyoji’s popularity led to partnerships with other large Chinese companies, such as the release of Huawei’s Honor V9 phone, which they marketed as the “officially recommended hardware for Onmyoji [which] . . . will improve gamers’ experience with Onmyoji” (SuperData Research, 2017). Framing the development of a phone for the express purpose of optimizing play for Onmyoji boosts Onmyoji’s position as a valuable national brand. Simultaneously, the success of the game contributes to the enormous technology powerhouse, Huawei, which uses Onmyoji to exemplify and signify the quality of their own brand. Through the marketing rhetoric of Huawei’s line of V9 phones, these two companies are able to siphon off and transpose value onto one another in a nationally insular production system that benefits from the aesthetic of the Other in a grand show of synergy between the global and the local. Beyond technological development, Onmyoji’s success in the local market led to the development of various popular stage plays in China and anime renditions for global consumption, further establishing nodes within the transnational media-mix network for this particular instantiation of the narrative.
Co-production, pan-Asianism and strategic hybridization
As exemplified through the case study of Onmyoji, the tensions between the possible benefits and detriments of engaging in shanzhai practices on nation-branded image cultures remains rather ambivalent, even as this strategy may lead to the increased exposure of the product. Transitions in the cultural imagination often shift at an unequal pace to the changing dynamics of regional media production, and as such, the possibility of decentering Japan in the discourse revolving around anime image cultures remains challenging. As noted previously, the New International Division of Cultural Labor complicates the benefits associated with co-production, as asymmetries of global power often allow more influential nations to retain visible and coveted roles in the media industries, as well as ownership rights, while the less dominant nations are relegated to more invisible and “below-the-line” labor. While this certainly rings true in the current global network of labor, Onmyoji and the Sino-Japan co-production relationship that fostered its international success challenges the concept of ownership as it is perceived by Miller. On the one hand, valued roles like directors, producers, and developers are firmly within the Chinese labor pool, as well as the rights to production and further expansion. Because of the control that is given to Chinese laborers in shaping this narrative, Onmyoji is a clear exemplification of the shift from “Made in China,” where China is seen merely as a global factory that labors on behalf of another’s genius, to “Created in China,” where innovative and globally valued content is produced within the nation for international consumption. However, this is complicated by the fact that the ownership of the aesthetic and narrative network that the game “borrows legitimacy” from is internationally understood as Japanese (Chubb, 2015). This reveals the ingenuity of soft power and in the efficacy of utilizing these recognizable image networks as a nation-branding tool on Japan’s behalf. Despite this complication however, this shift in ownership and labor structures, where contracted labor is now given to Japan for the benefit of a Chinese production, may have the potential to decenter Japan as the primary producer of anime culture, and direct the global imagination towards an understanding of this aesthetic network’s pan-Asian quality.
While I have explored the variant ways in which the formal features of the game have utilized the cultural scent of “Japaneseness,” in order to purposely make ambiguous the origins of production, there are still modes of flexible strategic hybridization that happen at the local level through various discursive practices that resist an unambiguous open reception to Japanese cultural influences. For example, while Onmyoji is the title of the globally distributed iteration of the game, the Chinese title is pronounced Yinyang Shi, in accordance with the pronunciation of the title’s Chinese characters. Similarly, it is customary for Japanese talent to adopt the Sinicized pronunciation of the kanji characters in their Japanese names when promoting their work in the Chinese market, purposely decreasing the “Japaneseness” of this signifier in order to better appeal to Chinese consumers. Of course, fans and consumers remain aware of the media talent’s nationality, but these practices may aid in reducing the friction of these cross-cultural contact moments. Such practices reveal more resistant threads of hybridization that bend the influence of more dominant media cultures to the desires and expectations of the local community. Simultaneously, the flexibility of this mode of discursive hybridization, where the “Japaneseness” of the text’s title and names can shift depending on locale and context, aids in further reinforcing a more pan-Asianist appeal for the game, as opposed to one that strictly originates from a Japanese sensibility. Producer Jin Tao notes that the aesthetics of the game was inspired between a hybridity of Japanese and Chinese features, in order to evoke feelings of a more ambiguous “oriental culture” (Lou, 2016). While this may have been the intention, it remains curiously disjunctive with the strategies outlined above, which seek purposefully to use the cultural scent of “Japaneseness” to woo cosmopolitan consumers. Yet it is perhaps on the level of discourse that such hybridizations become more apparent.
Conclusion
While strategies of mimicry and the use of cultural signifier networks have yielded economic success to the Chinese mobile game industry, issues of whether this strategy continues to reinforce the hierarchical nature of the global imagination persist. Through the near-perfect mimicry of an “other,” NetEase confounds perceptions of origin and assumptions that may be associated with a nation brand. However, through this mimicry, one may question whose cultural network is being expanded upon: China’s, Japan’s, or a more nebulous “oriental culture” (Tao, in Lou, 2016).
Though we are in the early stages of the Sino-Japan Film Co-Production Treaty, it will be interesting to see how both national industries continue to navigate one another’s presence on the global stage within the context of co-production, and what strategies will be used to preserve or subvert the expectations of the international audience. The expansion of certain image networks into other national contexts may yield a pan-Asian aesthetic that is not necessarily rooted within the nation-state but works through the hybridization of multiple Asian nations collaborating with one another on more equal footing. Though this may not be achievable purely through strategies of mimicry, the potential for such developments persists through these collaborative modes of production.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
