Refining the Refined

This past week, I have mainly put off doing my research to re-write my literature review and methods. Although I improved on them a lot, I still have a few more things to do. The largest thing that I changed within my literature review was adding my sample size into the literature review. In the literature review I tried to link Cowboy Bebop, Dragon Ball Z, and Spirited Away to the rise of anime within American popular culture. All three of the shows were important in exposing different demographics of the American population to anime. I attempted to show how that there is no clear demographic that links anime because these three anime opened up the industry to different populations of the American audience. 

The largest improvement that I need to do is in my methods. Although I made a few things, such as “internal homogeneity” and “external heterogeneity,” a little clearer in my revised methods, some things are still uncertain. Much of this stems back to the fact that my methods is entirely qualitative and my research question is exploratory. However, two large problems present themselves in my methods. First is how I will reclassify any disagreeing themes between my original coding and my re-coding. This will have to be solved when I actually see the disagreeing themes in front of me, only then can I go back to my methods and clearly list out my steps. 

The second problem is whether I am finding the actual change between the Japanese and American anime, rather than just listing the two different versions side-by-side. I think that alleviating the problem lies in how I assign the codes. Once I finish collecting the data, I will be assigning each change a code. These are the codes that I will then categorize into themes. Rather than trying to use the code to show how the change happened, I can use each code to show the essence and significance of the change. I believe that by changing the way I code will also result in the change in the way I categorize each code and create themes based off of them. Hopefully, this will be able to solve the problem, if not, I can use my discussion to make the inference on what the change is and why it is significant. 

An ocean of uncertainty awaits me.

Overall, I am behind schedule, but that is not a big worry. I only did two more additional episodes of Dragon Ball Z, but right now my main concern is finishing my Lit. Review and Methods.

Word Count: 428

So Far...

I have recorded the changes in 8 different Dragon Ball Z episodes. The transcription process is going very smoothly so far. But, it is a process that has proven to be a lot more tedious than I previously thought. First, I expected to finish each episode in 1 hour, but then I realized that it takes almost an hour and a half to analyze each episode, especially since I have to often go back and forth within the episodes to correctly transcribe the change. The episodes themselves have quite a few changes to record. At first it took me even longer to record all the changes because I was recording every small change, even if a few words were switched around. When doing this, I found myself writing down practically every line of dialogue in the episode. I realized that I have to distinguish between purposeful changes and simple translation errors.

I am finding quite a few interesting changes. For example, like I mentioned in class, one pattern I have noticed is that the American version often talks about time as a precious commodity whereas the Japanese version does not address time as often. However, I know that the toughest part is still to come, because it will be very difficult to group all of the different changes into themes. After reading over the data collected so far, I found that many of the changes either had multiple different elements to it, while some have no obvious thematic difference between themselves. As I collect more data, hopefully I will be able to make better connections between the changes.

"Cheer up! The worst is yet to come." --Mark Twain

Regarding the schedule, I am behind, mostly because analyzing the episodes took a lot longer than previously expected. But I am not worried, because even if I can not watch two episodes per day now, I am confident that I will be able to catch up when we get out of school in two weeks. Further, I originally planned the schedule with One Piece in mind, and One Piece had almost 50 episodes just in its first season. Now that I have switched over to Cowboy Bebop, I have a little bit more wiggle room since there are only 26 episodes in the whole show. Still, though, it is very important that I catch up with the schedule. Overall, however, the research has gone pretty well. Although there are a few challenges, there is no large problem that has came up with my research and I’m excited to see what I find.           

Word Count: 420

                                                                                                                                                       

Madness to the Methods

The methods critique was quite helpful in helping me see some large, glaring holes in my methods that I hadn’t foreseen. Although there are quite a few important improvements to be made in my methods, the largest hole was my explanation for choosing my samples. I chose One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, and Spirited Away as the anime shows I would watch.

My lack of a clear justification for choosing either was partly due to the fact that there are not any clear, academic sources that show which anime was the most popular or influential in America. Therefore, in class, during the discussion, we came up with the using number of manga sold worldwide as the metric. In terms of the most number of manga sold, One Piece topped the list and Dragon Ball Z came third in. However, manga are the “comic book” versions of anime shows and I realized that a manga series’s popularity does not translate to the anime show’s popularity. After looking more into One Piece, I found that One Piece is the most popular show in Japan but has not reached the same level of popularity in America.

Rather than looking at manga sales, I decided to shift to another measure and look at one channel: Cartoon Network. According to Danielle Rich of the University of Iowa, “Cartoon Network pioneered regular blocks of programming comprised of both Japanese and U.S. animated shows” and Cartoon Network was responsible for making anime popular to the general viewing audience in America (25). There are two separate anime blocks, one aimed at children and teens (Toonami), and one aimed at adults (Adult Swim). Therefore, I thought it would be more interesting if I chose the most popular anime series from each of these blocks. Dragon Ball Z had the highest view ratings among the anime on Toonami. In the Adult Swim block, an anime show named Cowboy Bebop takes the top prize (Rich). When Dragon Ball Z and Cowboy Bebop aired in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s their popularity made Cartoon Network’s anime blocks successful. As a result, other television stations also began to air anime on their channels. Dragon Ball Z and Cowboy Bebop are important because these two shows introduced anime to mainstream American popular culture. Accordingly, I have decided to replace One Piece with Cowboy Bebop, while still keeping Spirited Away and Dragon Ball Z.

Cowboy Bebop originally aired on Adult Swim of Cartoon Network.

A benefit to taking this new approach is that by analyzing three different animes: one for children, one for adults, and one for theatrical release, I can make more interesting connections/comparisons between the different thematic changes I find in each of the three animes. However, my concern is whether adding these comparisons drifts away from the original purpose of the question and makes my paper even more confusing. Another pro is that now I can show the importance of Cowboy Bebop and Dragon Ball Z to anime in America.

There is a lot I need to still fix in my methods. Some of the problems are there because my question is exploratory, so right now it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how I will carry out a few steps of my method. But, hopefully (fingers crossed), this blogpost has at least addressed my sample problem.

Words: 544

Citation:

Price, Danielle. "Global Fandom: The Circulation of Japanese Popular Culture in the U.S."Iowa Research Online. The University of Iowa, 2011. Web. 16 Jan. 2017.