Fukunaga 2006 FL literacy development using Anime ... - Oncourse

aware of how Japanese expressions are translated.
Thus, watching anime becomes a reinforcement
of Japanese knowledge. Some anime students
might extend this cycle by digging into subcultures
such as Japanese music, manga, and video
games.
Individual differences
Each participant in this study had a different relationship
with Japanese popular culture and language
learning. Emily told stories of how she
began watching anime with her best friend in
high school while showing me a photo of her collection
of Sailor Moon toys (see Figure 5). This
photo symbolizes her relationship with the friend
with whom she collected anime toys. In contrast
to these happy memories, Emily also told some
stories of her fear of not being understood by
other students in her college dormitory. In her reflection
paper on the interview conversation,
Emily expressed her uncomfortable feelings:
My friends before I met the anime club people were
just the people who were there—my roommate, and
neighbors on my dorm hall. They were nice enough
most of the time but we didn’t share many interests
at all and they thought I was weird because I liked
anime.
Emily had been looked down upon and ridiculed
by others for being “strange” and “weird” because
she watches “cartoons” and reads a lot of fantasy
novels, including some manga. On the other
hand, Emily often used the words weird and
strange in positive ways when she explained the
content of some anime shows during the interview.
Emily also used these words to describe her
anime friends and herself. She suggested that it
was good for “anime friends” to be weird and
even to use the word to describe one another because
they all knew they were weird. Emily used
the word weird several times in her interview.
216
“Those anime students”: Foreign language literacy development through Japanese popular culture
I mean these people are weird and very accepting
people because they know they are weird and you
know...you know...and [because] everyone has the interest
that people outside of the interest think it’s
weird, you have more of the connection to each other.
Because...they don’t see you as weird for liking that
stuff. (Emily’s written response)
The word weird in this case empowers Emily and
her anime friends. The word weird has different
meanings depending on who uses it to describe
whom. That Emily takes an active role in calling
herself weird implies that she is aware of her
agency, instead of being passive about being
viewed as weird by others. It seems as though
Emily has been searching for some alternatives in
her life and she found one by constructing herself
through social activities within an anime community.
Ted has a clear vision of how Japanese will
be part of his future. He wants to be a translator
of anime and video games, so he takes Japanese
classes and East Asian literature classes seriously.
To answer my question about whether or not anime
influenced his future, Ted explained, “I think
it definitely impacted, I guess, where I think my
career is going. Because I liked anime so much so
I decided to translate to English.”
Sean started playing Japanese video games
when he was in fourth grade, and he decided to
study Japanese to be able to play the original
Japanese games when he was in seventh grade.
Then, when he started watching anime, he realized
that there were many shows not imported to
the United States, so he started taking private
Japanese lessons from a Japanese woman.
It’s really funny but in the meanwhile, I really got interested
in Japanese itself and I kind of lost interest in
the video games. So it was like that video games were a
stepping stone into the study of Japanese language
and culture, so...but I still get kind of nostalgic when I
think back on it now.... (Sean’s interview transcript)
Sean told me enthusiastically about traditional
and historical Japanese cultural events in which
he participated. In a way, Sean is shape-shifting
his portfolio as a Japanese learner (Gee, 1996).
JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT & ADULT LITERACY 50:3 NOVEMBER 2006