Bad Touch Yakushi
Kage in the Making 👑
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So for my dissertation i'm writing a piece about Audience Reception and Fandom Culture. I had to write a segment on who decides what is 'canon' and realised i'm around people who do that everyday! Here's the NB segment of the essay, hope you enjoy haha
Anime ‘filler’ is the derogatory term given to story arcs that are put between what is considered the ‘main canon’ episodes. These episodes unlike the canon are not adapted from the original manga and therefore penned by other writers, for the meticulous and fact-loving Naruto fanbase for instance- these episodes are immediately discounted for this reason and considered void of any relevance, feats or even quality when this often is not the case.
Whilst other mediums and series have their ‘expanded universes’ or tie-in book series, TV series etc. Anime is truly unique in its audience’s notion of ‘non-canon filler’. The word ‘filler’ itself indulgently demerits it as a piece of entertainment- as if one text has more legitimacy than another, treating the source material as a biblical-like text. Similar to ‘Harry Potter’, it’s the mentality that only the books matter, everything else is denied due to outside influence. Yet this is the same community that constantly impose and suggest their own meanings and interpretations interestingly, I myself have even posited an alternative rewriting of series ‘Naruto Shippuden’ in the past- upon where I realised it was essentially the same process of fan-theorising. I genuinely wanted my interpretation of an existing work to be heard, injecting myself into the text in the process.
This is what truly engaging works have the power to do and is what led me to truly believe that all of us unconsciously, secretly are writers. Norman Holland contributed to this debate with his theory of ‘Identity’, stating that “My reading of a certain literary work will differ from yours or his or hers. As readers, each of us will bring different kinds of external information to bear. Each will seek out the particular themes that concern him. Each will have different ways of making the text into an experience with a coherence and significance that satisfies.” Texts are impregnated by the characteristics of the individual. Embedding our own patterns of desire and adaptation into them naturally through the process of reading.
The reader, as a role itself is a man without “history, without biography, without psychology” (as the author does) “he is only someone who holds gathered into a single field all the paths of which the text is constituted.” He was the one who suggested we truly interact with the work, injecting ourselves into the text and making the text part of our own psychic economy- forcing ourselves and our views into it. Popular cult series such as ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Naruto’ are thus, always growing.
Ironically though, even though there is a single name attributed to ‘Naruto Shippuden’, there has never just been one writer. From the contributions of his editors, confirmed inspirations and audience interaction, Masashi Kishimoto is a writer that plays to fan favourites, giving his audience what he thinks they would like to see- in a certain way, the audience as a collective were the writers of the actual story- the author was just the one who assembled these influences.
This is an almost literal example of Barthes’ point that no writing is original, Kishimoto is an author who blatantly conveys the world’s influences quite literally and celebrates them. The reception of ‘unholy’ non-canon is therefore bizarre, refuting entertainment for lore, trying to apply fact to fiction. This sub-culture is an extreme end of the spectrum, whilst the community surrounding fan-theories is the other.
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and if that wasn't funny enough for you then here's sasuke getting peed on (its canon)
You must be registered for see images
Anime ‘filler’ is the derogatory term given to story arcs that are put between what is considered the ‘main canon’ episodes. These episodes unlike the canon are not adapted from the original manga and therefore penned by other writers, for the meticulous and fact-loving Naruto fanbase for instance- these episodes are immediately discounted for this reason and considered void of any relevance, feats or even quality when this often is not the case.
Whilst other mediums and series have their ‘expanded universes’ or tie-in book series, TV series etc. Anime is truly unique in its audience’s notion of ‘non-canon filler’. The word ‘filler’ itself indulgently demerits it as a piece of entertainment- as if one text has more legitimacy than another, treating the source material as a biblical-like text. Similar to ‘Harry Potter’, it’s the mentality that only the books matter, everything else is denied due to outside influence. Yet this is the same community that constantly impose and suggest their own meanings and interpretations interestingly, I myself have even posited an alternative rewriting of series ‘Naruto Shippuden’ in the past- upon where I realised it was essentially the same process of fan-theorising. I genuinely wanted my interpretation of an existing work to be heard, injecting myself into the text in the process.
You must be registered for see images
This is what truly engaging works have the power to do and is what led me to truly believe that all of us unconsciously, secretly are writers. Norman Holland contributed to this debate with his theory of ‘Identity’, stating that “My reading of a certain literary work will differ from yours or his or hers. As readers, each of us will bring different kinds of external information to bear. Each will seek out the particular themes that concern him. Each will have different ways of making the text into an experience with a coherence and significance that satisfies.” Texts are impregnated by the characteristics of the individual. Embedding our own patterns of desire and adaptation into them naturally through the process of reading.
The reader, as a role itself is a man without “history, without biography, without psychology” (as the author does) “he is only someone who holds gathered into a single field all the paths of which the text is constituted.” He was the one who suggested we truly interact with the work, injecting ourselves into the text and making the text part of our own psychic economy- forcing ourselves and our views into it. Popular cult series such as ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Naruto’ are thus, always growing.
You must be registered for see images
Ironically though, even though there is a single name attributed to ‘Naruto Shippuden’, there has never just been one writer. From the contributions of his editors, confirmed inspirations and audience interaction, Masashi Kishimoto is a writer that plays to fan favourites, giving his audience what he thinks they would like to see- in a certain way, the audience as a collective were the writers of the actual story- the author was just the one who assembled these influences.
This is an almost literal example of Barthes’ point that no writing is original, Kishimoto is an author who blatantly conveys the world’s influences quite literally and celebrates them. The reception of ‘unholy’ non-canon is therefore bizarre, refuting entertainment for lore, trying to apply fact to fiction. This sub-culture is an extreme end of the spectrum, whilst the community surrounding fan-theories is the other.
---
You must be registered for see images
and if that wasn't funny enough for you then here's sasuke getting peed on (its canon)
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