I'd like to draw your attention to the exciting new book by one of the top scholars in Japanese popular culture studies.

It is for sale in paper and for free digital download--link below.


/The Ethics of Affect: Lines and Life in a Tokyo Neighborhood/

Patrick W. Galbraith

Stockholm University Press, 2021

Open-Access Link for Download: https://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/site/books/m/10.16993/bbn/

Abstract

Based on fieldwork in Tokyo, this book explores how and to what effect lines are drawn by producers, players and critics of adult computer games. Focusing on interactions with manga/anime-style characters, these games often feature explicit sex acts. Noting that the characters can appear quite young, legal actions have been taken in a number of countries to categorize and prohibit such content as child abuse material. While Japanese politicians continue to debate a similar course, adult computergame producers, players and critics are drawing their own lines between fiction and reality and orienting themselves toward the drawn lines of manga/anime-style characters. The book argues for understanding this everyday practice as an ethics of affective response to fictional characters. Occurring individually and socially in both private and public spaces, this response not only discourages harming human beings, but also supports life in more-than-human worlds.

Blurbs

A goal of cultural anthropology is to understand the "other," and what could be more other than a subculture of self-described "perverts" who enjoy pornographic /bishōjo /games? Are these young men engaging in harmless sexual fantasy or rehearsing for actual rape and misogyny? Debates surrounding the ethical and social implications of these games have thus far been conducted with minimal knowledge about the people consuming them. Thanks to Galbraith's audacious fieldwork, we are able to get past Western stereotypes about "weird Japan" and put a human face on the people at the center of a moral firestorm. This data does not end the moral debate about these games, but it does provide vitally needed perspective. - Joseph P. Laycock, author of /Dangerous Games/: /What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds/

Galbraith's newest book, /The Ethics of Affect/, explores the lines we draw between fiction and reality, 2D and 3D space, fan worship and true love, playful intimacy and simulated violence. Players of /bishōjo /games - "cute girl" games with explicit sexual content - are usually perceived as deviant and dangerous, "othered" in Japan and overseas. Galbraith shows these men as relatable human beings exploring sexuality in private and in public, finding shared affection and caring in the cold precarity of contemporary Japan. We follow Galbraith along the streets of Akihabara, into the cafés and production offices, cramped apartments and the massive Comic Market, ending up at a /bishōjo /rave where men scream cathartically, enjoining each other on parting to "stay safe." Galbraith's detailed descriptions of game content, and how the stories and images elicit powerful emotional and physical reactions, shed light on a game genre with extremely limited distribution outside Japan. An incredibly useful book to game researchers and anthropologists alike, /The Ethics of Affect/ shows how players are forced to make excruciating moral choices in games, where characters are variously cared for, hurt and abused. The self-reflection engendered by such gameplay creates an "ethics of /moe/," allowing players to "draw lines" between the acceptable and unacceptable, regulating their own feelings and actions. In contrast to the often violent and uncritical game modes of the first-person shooter, Galbraith argues that /bishōjo /games arouse a moral sense as well as a physical response. Well-researched and self-reflexive in its method, /The Ethics of Affect/ shows us an honest reassessment of the anthropologist's position vis-à-vis their subject, ending with a thoughtful elegy on Akihabara as production companies shutter in the wake of COVID-19. - Rachael Hutchinson, author of /Japanese Culture Through Videogames/**

Galbraith's book is an erudite and refreshing study of Akihabara's adult or erotic /bishōjo/ games industries. It tackles people's imaginary sex lives, sexual immersion and /moe /experiences with manga/anime-style cute girl characters. These types of relations require delicate analysis rather than a more convenient rush to moral judgment. The book offers a prime example of culturally informed and ethical scholarship about this highly contentious subject. It will be immensely valuable for academics, designers, fans, artists, activists and policy makers around the globe. Galbraith is a leading authority and ethnographer whose fieldwork and "peer-learning" methods of research are meticulous and uncompromising. The book gives a comprehensive overview of games, affective game design and game-playing, gaming events and raves, without at any point leaving behind the great sex wars and academic debates of our times. - Katrien Jacobs, author of /People's Pornography: //Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet/

About the Author

Patrick W. Galbraith**is an Associate Professor in the School of International Communication at Senshū University in Tokyo. His recent publications include /Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan /(Duke University Press, 2019), /AKB48 /(Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), /Erotic Comics in Japan: An Introduction to Eromanga /(Amsterdam University Press, 2020), /The Ethics of Affect: Lines and Life in a Tokyo Neighborhood/ (Stockholm University Press, 2021) and /Idology in Transcultural Perspective: Anthropological Investigations of Popular Idolatry /(Palgrave, 2021).