Trainman: lie or copy?
Jul. 11th, 2005 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusIt's business as usual over on Neomarxisme: American St Georges are crusading to free Japan of its dragons, even when these "dragons" consist of the entire population of the country and all its institutions. Yesterday's dragon victims were the credulous Japanese public and the PR-driven publishing and media companies that lie to them. Marxy turned his attention to Densha Otoko, the "Trainman" story which began as an advice thread on BBS 2-ch, became a best-selling book, is now a film and a Fuji TV serial, and will soon see manga and, inevitably, porn spoof spin-offs. Trainman is a 22 year-old otaku or hikikomori type who's never dated a girl. He saves one from the attentions of a drunk on a train, and starts a 2-ch thread asking for advice on what to do next, very much as Allan in Woody Allen's Play It Again Sam solicits advice from an imaginary Humphrey Bogart. Well, thanks to the thousands of Bogarts giving him advice on the bulletinboard, the nerdy Trainman transforms himself into a cool dude and wins the girl in the end.
It's always interesting to read Marxy's pieces on Japanese pop culture (although readers of Jean Snow's excellent site learned about the Trainman saga eight months ago) but unfortunately there comes a moment in each one when he climbs atop a soapbox and delivers a sermon, an editorial, a complaint or a jeremiad concerning Japan's "original sin" or "termial decline". This usually involves a conspiracy of some kind, a lie by the authorities, or an idiocy on the part of the public. Sure enough, this time Marxy is irritated that the Trainman story is being presented as "a true story". He suspects that the whole thing was fabricated. In order to help him (and his many Junior St Georges, like the American who suggests, in the comments, that Marxy should alert the New York Times Tokyo bureau to the fraud, which would otherwise be covered up by the complicit Japanese media), I've gone through the Trainman plot stage by stage, assigning probabilities to each twist in the form of percentages. (0% = I think this didn't happen, 100% = I think it happened.)
1. Chance encounter in the train. May have happened, or may be a figment of Trainman's imagination. I'll give it 50%.
2. Saves girl from a drunk. A lot of chikkans and drunks abound on Tokyo trains, 90% likely.
3. Receives a set of Hermes teacups from her as a thank-you gift. Japanese do give a lot of gifts, but I find this somewhat excessive. 35% likely.
4. Obsesses online on whether or not to telephone her and ask for a date. More and more Japanese obsess online, 99% likely.
5. Finally plucks up the courage to call her and they agree to meet for dinner -- his first ever date with a woman. A 22 year-old hikikomori seems plausible to me. I myself didn't really have a proper date until I was 21, and I left home, which is more than these hikis do. 72% likely.
6. With the advice of his online supporters, he gets a stylish new haircut, buys new clothes, and decides to get contact lenses. I've seen a lot of Hair and Make salons, clothes shops and contact lens shops around Tokyo, I'll give this 100% on the credibility scale.
7. They have another dinner date, at which a friend of hers checks him out. Friends do tend to check you out, and are useful as chaperones if the fellow is too impatient, or conversation partners should he be tongue-tied. 87%.
8. They start exchanging cell-phone messages daily. 10,475,630 cell-phone messages fly across Japan daily, this is 100% true, I feel.
9. In April they have tea together at her home using the gift teacups. I smell a fish, didn't she give the teacups to him? So what are they doing at her home? 25%.
10. In May he goes shopping with her for a computer. May is a busy time at Sofmap, I'll buy that at 68%.
11. Later that day in a park he confesses his feelings to her and she reveals that she returns them. Pure otaku wish-fulfillment. This isn't a Yon-Sama melodrama, you know! Get back to your porn sites! 25%.
12. They kiss for the first time. Oh honestly, who would believe that? Wouldn't the birthrate be higher if this sort of thing were so easy? 7%.
Okay, perhaps I made my point. Art is "the lie that tells the truth", and the moment we write anything down for entertainment purposes, it becomes art. That doesn't stop its archetypes—boys meets girl, Bogart guides nerd—from remaining deeply true.
It's impossible, and pretty pointless, to disentangle truth from fabrication in a cultural product, just as it's impossible, often, to attribute ownership to a big archetypal idea, an idea that comes out of common lived experience. But, deep in the epistemological morass of the "truth v. fiction" angle, Marxy has missed a shot at one of his favourite themes, Japanese pakuri or plagiarism. Someone called Steve Stratton signed Jean Snow's comments page in April with a claim to have written "Densha Man" with the same title and same plot , based on his own experiences in Japan, ten years ago. Stratton claims to have published extracts on the web six years ago. "Be assured," he says bitterly, "when the movie goes into production, my lawyers will be hunting for the Japanese clown who wrote the utter piece of crap Densha Otoko."
I look forward eagerly to the day Mr Stratton's gaijin Trainman replaces the Japanese copy on Japanese screens, and Marxy writes a tubthumping piece about how the American Trainman is hoodwinking Japan.
It's always interesting to read Marxy's pieces on Japanese pop culture (although readers of Jean Snow's excellent site learned about the Trainman saga eight months ago) but unfortunately there comes a moment in each one when he climbs atop a soapbox and delivers a sermon, an editorial, a complaint or a jeremiad concerning Japan's "original sin" or "termial decline". This usually involves a conspiracy of some kind, a lie by the authorities, or an idiocy on the part of the public. Sure enough, this time Marxy is irritated that the Trainman story is being presented as "a true story". He suspects that the whole thing was fabricated. In order to help him (and his many Junior St Georges, like the American who suggests, in the comments, that Marxy should alert the New York Times Tokyo bureau to the fraud, which would otherwise be covered up by the complicit Japanese media), I've gone through the Trainman plot stage by stage, assigning probabilities to each twist in the form of percentages. (0% = I think this didn't happen, 100% = I think it happened.)1. Chance encounter in the train. May have happened, or may be a figment of Trainman's imagination. I'll give it 50%.
2. Saves girl from a drunk. A lot of chikkans and drunks abound on Tokyo trains, 90% likely.
3. Receives a set of Hermes teacups from her as a thank-you gift. Japanese do give a lot of gifts, but I find this somewhat excessive. 35% likely.
4. Obsesses online on whether or not to telephone her and ask for a date. More and more Japanese obsess online, 99% likely.
5. Finally plucks up the courage to call her and they agree to meet for dinner -- his first ever date with a woman. A 22 year-old hikikomori seems plausible to me. I myself didn't really have a proper date until I was 21, and I left home, which is more than these hikis do. 72% likely.
6. With the advice of his online supporters, he gets a stylish new haircut, buys new clothes, and decides to get contact lenses. I've seen a lot of Hair and Make salons, clothes shops and contact lens shops around Tokyo, I'll give this 100% on the credibility scale.
7. They have another dinner date, at which a friend of hers checks him out. Friends do tend to check you out, and are useful as chaperones if the fellow is too impatient, or conversation partners should he be tongue-tied. 87%.
8. They start exchanging cell-phone messages daily. 10,475,630 cell-phone messages fly across Japan daily, this is 100% true, I feel.
9. In April they have tea together at her home using the gift teacups. I smell a fish, didn't she give the teacups to him? So what are they doing at her home? 25%.
10. In May he goes shopping with her for a computer. May is a busy time at Sofmap, I'll buy that at 68%.
11. Later that day in a park he confesses his feelings to her and she reveals that she returns them. Pure otaku wish-fulfillment. This isn't a Yon-Sama melodrama, you know! Get back to your porn sites! 25%.
12. They kiss for the first time. Oh honestly, who would believe that? Wouldn't the birthrate be higher if this sort of thing were so easy? 7%.
Okay, perhaps I made my point. Art is "the lie that tells the truth", and the moment we write anything down for entertainment purposes, it becomes art. That doesn't stop its archetypes—boys meets girl, Bogart guides nerd—from remaining deeply true.It's impossible, and pretty pointless, to disentangle truth from fabrication in a cultural product, just as it's impossible, often, to attribute ownership to a big archetypal idea, an idea that comes out of common lived experience. But, deep in the epistemological morass of the "truth v. fiction" angle, Marxy has missed a shot at one of his favourite themes, Japanese pakuri or plagiarism. Someone called Steve Stratton signed Jean Snow's comments page in April with a claim to have written "Densha Man" with the same title and same plot , based on his own experiences in Japan, ten years ago. Stratton claims to have published extracts on the web six years ago. "Be assured," he says bitterly, "when the movie goes into production, my lawyers will be hunting for the Japanese clown who wrote the utter piece of crap Densha Otoko."
I look forward eagerly to the day Mr Stratton's gaijin Trainman replaces the Japanese copy on Japanese screens, and Marxy writes a tubthumping piece about how the American Trainman is hoodwinking Japan.
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Re: in the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king
Date: 2005-07-12 03:18 pm (UTC)You manage to alienate a lot of people with your smugness about your own Nihongo skills, you know? A mutual acquaintance told me "What's up with that guy? Within five minutes of meeting him he was insinuating that his Japanese was much better than mine. So competitive! What a pain!" It's not actually very Japanese to boast the way you do. And if you know Japan well, it may not surprise you when I say that many Japanese also prefer gaijin who don't speak their own language well to those who do. Maybe we're more "cute"!
Re: in the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king
Date: 2005-07-12 03:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-12 03:54 pm (UTC)i say: you're right. i'm not surprised. i am aware of this group. they need to wake up and smell the 21st century.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-12 04:11 pm (UTC)you say 'potato,' i say 'french fries'
Date: 2005-07-12 04:35 pm (UTC)but this is tangential, no?
rewinding...you say (and rightly so) that there is a group of "japanese [who] also prefer gaijin who don't speak their own language well" which means that they prefer people who can't communicate in japanese...now we both know that since english is the 'lingua franca' of the 20th/early 21st century, the default setting implies that they will be speaking in english. fine...if both parties are incapable of speaking in another MUTUALLY UNDERSTOOD language.
otherwise, isn't this a rather cloistered situation in terms of communicative principals? i'm sure wittgenstein is turning over in his grave right now, as is franz fannon, for different reason, of course, but the point stands. the group of japanese people that you rever to with this disposition for prefering non-japanese NOT to speak japanese (read: English) display an insidious interest in a kind of "reverse empowerment" which in and of itself SHOULD be a telling lesson for you on the nature of the japanese id AND its darker side...
and just stating the obvious here, but when i'm speaking with a japanese person one-on-one, and their english is better than my japanese, i ALWAYS speak in english. if it is a group situation, different rules apply.
Re: in the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king
Date: 2005-07-12 10:51 pm (UTC)Are you perhaps abusing the old and broken idea that "gaijin simply cant understand Japanese" by re-inforcing your hosts stereotypes about guests? Afterall, a person who is incapable of understanding their surroundings or expressing needs beyond the basic and bodily is definitely more cute than one who can.
As always, prove me wrong here in country rather than with abuses of English.
Re: in the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king
Date: 2005-07-12 10:53 pm (UTC)Re: in the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king
Date: 2005-07-13 12:37 am (UTC)Someone who speaks Japanese well (more than intermediate) and knows a lot about the culture and society is a threat because they are unpredictable; will the foreign devil act like a goofy white man that we've seen on the BS channels? Will he act like a Japanese? Will he be wise to my inherent linguistic duplicity?
Japanese LOVE foreigners who cannot speak English because they are MUCH easier to take advantage of. If Momus finds that exploitation pleasant, than who are you to say that it's a bad thing? I found that whenever I rattle off in Japanese, Japanese I am meeting for the first time are turned off and become wary of talking to me in either language.
Re: in the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king
Date: 2005-07-13 02:48 am (UTC)If you truly feel your lack of a language is holding you back in some way, then learn it. If not, don't worry about it!
Re: in the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king
Date: 2005-07-13 12:33 am (UTC)Even me, an ethnic mix, can't get much respect in the honne sense with my Japanese, no matter how good it is.
So Robert is pointing at matches while his own ass is aflame. Excellent work, mate.
Re: in the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king
Date: 2005-07-13 09:45 am (UTC)Chris_B