Chinese Otaku Culture: Between Fandom, Market, and the State

Otaku culture entails an obsession with Japanese cultural products such as anime, manga, and video games. The arrival of otaku culture in China has led to the emergence of a distinct, national and cultural fan community. While Japanese in origin, otaku fandom – in its Chinese manifestation – has become embedded in intricate social contexts and shaped in distinctive ways by domestic actors including the Chinese government, national media and cultural industries, as well as by the Japanese otaku industry. Currently, scholars who study Chinese otaku fandom tend to focus on topics like fans’ cultural and aesthetic preferences, their consumption behaviour, and the relation between the fandom and China’s digital economy. The power struggles behind everyday fandom practices, which involve negotiation and conflict between fans and different political and commercial forces inside and outside Chinese society, have not been fully explored. To address this gap, this thesis uses qualitative research with the fan community and with fan-produced and commercial media texts to examine the complexities of Chinese otaku culture. In particular, I interrogate the interrelationships between Chinese otaku fandom, state, and industry actors. Through online interviews and participant diary entries, I engage with otaku fans in China who are familiar both with otaku cultural products and Chinese otaku fan communities. These fans’ thoughts, expressions and behaviour are combined with case studies of key media texts (such as popular Japanese animation series, short videos, and live streaming events) to provide an in-depth understanding of the ecosystem of Chinese otaku fandom and its interplay with intricate Chinese social contexts. Examining the complex power dynamics that shape the landscape of this local fan culture, the thesis explores the specificities of media fandom in non-Western societies while contributing to larger debates in global fan studies. I argue that Chinese otaku fandom is significantly affected by dominant political and commercial powers. Commercial and state influence over Chinese otaku culture and its fandom has not only radically changed the face of otaku cultural products in China, but has also contributed to divisions and imbalanced power distribution between different fan groups. In this way, the thesis responds to the call in contemporary fan studies to pay more attention to the diverse fandoms that lie beyond the traditional Anglo-European perspectives in fan studies.