This presentation examines the representation of women in Japanese videogames, situating the depiction of female bodies in terms of political discourse. Focusing on the online card-based wargame Kantai Collection, it analyzes how attributes of Japanese warships are reflected in the physical characteristics of women. At the same time, Kantai Collection is highly political in its theme, representation of women, and enactment of war memories. This presentation examines the game and related artefacts as part of a popular politicization of WWII by Japanese artists, also seen in the recent spate of blockbuster revisionist films, as well as Nazi imagery and narratives in anime and manga. It argues that the hyper-sexualization of women in Kantai Collection contributes to the exoticization of war as distant and unreal, in a continued context of controversial war memories in Japan. This event is part of the DIJ’s lecture series ‘Gender and Sexuality in East Asia’. Details and registration here

Speaker:
Rachael Hutchinson, University of Delaware