The Game’s The Thing: A Cultural Studies Approach To War Memory, Gender, And Politics In Japanese Videogames
The Game’s The Thing: A Cultural Studies Approach To War Memory, Gender, And Politics In Japanese Videogames
| dc.contributor.author | Moore, Keita | |
| dc.contributor.department | Asian Studies | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2019-05-28T19:30:26Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2019-05-28T19:30:26Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2017-05 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10125/62157 | |
| dc.title | The Game’s The Thing: A Cultural Studies Approach To War Memory, Gender, And Politics In Japanese Videogames | |
| dc.type | Thesis | |
| dcterms.abstract | This thesis establishes a framework for analyzing Japanese pseudo-historical ludic media within the Japanese ideo-cultural context from a Cultural Studies perspective. It examines how discourses of war memory, gender, and politics inflect the texts of Onimusha (2001), Sengoku BASARA (2005), and Metal Gear Solid (1998). As artifacts of a demonized militarism and societal pacifism, these games justify ludic violence with player-avatars who have defensive masculinities. Through interactivity, however, this mechanism interrogates pacifism. In this questioning, these games take on transformative potential as cultural technologies. Onimusha and Sengoku BASARA seek to foreclose upon this potential through narrative denunciation and parody. Conversely, Metal Gear Solid leaves this potential open. As a game whose narrative supports a progressive political agenda, it unintentionally endorses an ultraconservative conception of both politics and history—thereby constituting a nationalistic argument. In sum, this research suggests that videogames are imbricated in processes of imagining Japanese nationhood. | |
| dcterms.description | M.A. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017. | |
| dcterms.language | eng | |
| dcterms.publisher | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa | |
| dcterms.rights | All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner. | |
| dcterms.type | Text |
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