Technically, my major is “Individualized Study” and my degree plan is “Anime and Manga Studies,” but I’m super excited to share that I somehow managed to convince the committee that approves custom majors at my university to let me study anime!
I wrote my degree plan last semester, and it was a rigorous process involving a lot of self-reflection—I had to question my basic assumptions as to why I want to study anime in the first place and why anime is worth studying in an academic setting.
When I tell people about my major, they often assume that I’m learning how to make anime, and while that would be awesome, my degree is more rooted in cultural studies—I’m fascinated with the workings of fan cultures, and especially otaku culture. The central question of my degree plan is “How are anime/manga and otaku subculture, and especially otaku sexuality, politicized by processes of globalization?” “Politicization” here can mean anything from how the Japanese government does/does not acknowledge the sexual elements of otaku culture when promoting anime through Cool Japan, to the legal status of hentai in the West, to media representations of otaku, to debates in the West about the morality of lolicon.
One of my influences in generating my research question was this board—the discussions about waifuism and lolicon that I have seen (and participated in) on Yea Forums have helped me realize how important it is to study the controversies generated by otaku sexuality as anime spreads throughout the world.
Someday—perhaps for a PhD dissertation—I hope to uncover how moe/otaku sexuality works—studying the phenomenon directly as opposed to studying how people politicize the phenomenon. (My hunch is that part of the affect of moe is due to the centrality of narrative to the human experience)
It's good that you managed to make it work through passion, don't let the other miserable anons bring you down. They probably have never achieved anything in their sad lives.
Fake and gay. Also enjoy being another cog in the pozzed academia writing for the destruction of everything good on earth. I would kill myself if I was you.
Brayden Torres
user, you are supposed to live out of this shit, good luck though.
Christopher Nelson
How does Yea Forums do it? Even with all it's flaws it still manages to maintain a level of quality far above the other media boards.
John Howard
Nah, I will just order on the automated order machine.
Samuel Nelson
i'm sure every fortune 500 company will eventually have an anime specialist on their payroll analyzing anime for them
William Richardson
Since a lot of people seem to be questioning the usefulness of my degree, I want to make it clear: Although the academic job market is pretty competitive, the field of fan studies generally and the field of anime and manga studies specifically is thriving. There are people in universities who get paid to study fandom. (Well, mostly, they get paid to teach, but...)
My degree is basically an interdisciplinary humanities/social science degree where the thesis I write at the end is about anime. If you want to, think of it as an anthropology degree with more anime.
And fandom is worth researching--think of the economic, political, and social impact of fandom. Think of the personal impact anime has had on your own lives. This impact--billions of dollars of revenue (more if you look outside of anime), millions of dollars of Japanese government funding, and millions of people--means anime is absolutely worth studying.
The machine won't silently hate me and its existance when I refuse to tip their awful services and force them to live barely above the poverty line in section 8 housing.
I'll give you a freebie, moe is about the soul and heart, not lewd. Only degenerates who think with their dick all the time sexualize moe, and yes your pic is also moe.
Hahahahha you are replying to a copy pasted plebbit post and you are talking about how Yea Forums "Even with all it's flaws it still manages to maintain a level of quality far above the other media boards"
