www.gimmevigor.com by Wil Lin
Pan-Pacific Robotech
An Analysis of a Japanese Animated TV
series on American Television
by Wil Lin
University of California Los Angeles
Film & Television 220
Professor Robert Vianello
March 22, 2002
“Robotech” is a syndicated
animated series imported from Japan that aired in the U.S.
between 1985-86. In order to comply with U.S. syndication
laws which requires a minimum of 65 episodes for broadcast,
“Robotech” consists of three separate Japanese
animated series which are moderately altered and re-edited to
form a single, continuous narrative, totaling 85
episodes. I am limiting my textual analysis of Robotech
to the first 36 episodes of the series which, in its original
Japanese incarnation is titled “Super Dimensional
Fortress Macross”. I will first contextualize Robotech as
it is presented on American television through an analysis of
its daypart and commercials. This will be followed by a
corresponding contextualization of Robotech as it is presented
in Japan (as Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, the Japanese
TV series.) I will address the show’s formal
ideology by examining Japanese television programming and
sponsorship practices that make possible Robotech’s
serialized (instead of episodic) form, and discuss
Robotech’s infusion of female melodrama into its
action/adventure narrative. In terms of Robotech’s
textual ideology, I will address the program’s discourse
on race and its representation of women. Referencing
Herman Gray’s model of TV representation of blackness, I
will examine Robotech’s racial ideology as it is
originally conceived in Japan to give a dominant reading for
the Japanese, and how that ideology is adapted to manufacture a
dominant reading by white Americans. Meanwhile, I intend
to address the representation of women in Robotech within the
context of the Japanese ideology of duty (giri), and how such
ideology overrides the patriarchal conception of femininity in
the show’s text.
Robotech in America
The Robotech series premieres in Los
Angeles on KCOP channel 13 on March 1, 1985. Consisting
of 85 episodes, the series makes two broadcast cycles (34
weeks), and is subsequently picked up by KTTV and re-runs for
another 17 weeks in 1986. The series airs weekdays during
the afterschool daypart at 4:30pm and is the last animated show
in the line-up of cartoons which includes Inspector Gadget, Heathcliff, and He-man. KTTV channel 11, KCOP’s only rival
in the afterschool daypart at that time has a similar line-up
of comedy and action-adventure cartoons which includes Plasticman, Voltron, Woody Woodpecker and the Flintstones.. The two channels appear to be going
head-to-head with similar types of animated shows with no
apparent emphasis on the placement of shows against each other.
TV Guide describes the debut of Robotech
as “an animated science fiction series about robotic
weapons defending earth from alien attacks,” and the book
Eastern Standard Time calls Robotech “A spacefaring spectacle
that...spanned galaxies and generations, with a cast of
characters in the dozens; it featured gigantic warships,
mysterious aliens and ultra-cool robot technology...with
complex storylines, believable situations, and realistic
characters in changing, organic relationships.”
Both descriptions aptly describe Robotech as far as its
general compatibility to the genre expectations of a
science-fiction/fantasy cartoon, which fits the general profile
of shows in the afterschool daypart, and I conceptualize the
show as targeting Boys ages 6-14. Similar to other
programs of the same genre (such as Transformers and GI Joe) which are
essentially vehicles to reach potential buyers for toys
manufactured by its sponsors, Robotech’s opening sequence
looks not unlike a toy commercial. It features an
impressive array of transformable robots prominently
displayed in static poses as sexy, gleaming machines of the
future, or performing amazing feats of combat, dodging showers
of missiles and impossible explosions all the while aiming and
firing at its foe. It is glorified action for boys at its
best. I will add that show skews the upper half of the 6
to14 demographic due to the presence of substantial amounts of
(visible) carnage, some semi-nudity, a major character who
appears regularly in drag in addition to deaths of main
characters. It is worth noting that placing the show last
on the roster of the afterschool daypart may reflect the
programmers sensitivity to the mature content in the
show. It is also worth mentioning that Robotech is
appropriately followed by a re-run of “The Dukes of
Hazard” at 5:00pm.
The target audience for the commercials
prove to be incongruent to my conceptualization of the
shows’ target audience as it appears to skew the
lower half of the 6 to14 demographic and slightly favors girls.
In the sample episode I examined the majority of the
commercials features products for young grade-school children,
with 2 spots for plush toys, one McDonald spot featuring a cast
of children similar to those on seen Sesame Street, and two 976
phone ads for pre-recorded stories about Easter pitched by a
talking bunny rabbit. In terms of commercials for older
children, spots for girls slightly outnumber those for boys,
with one spot for Barbie, one for Golden Grahms featuring a
teenage girl springboard diver, and another for a girl’s
exercise accessory called “Get in Shape Girl”.
For boys there are only two spots, with one for
“Thundercats” action figures and another for the
Nintendo game system. The disparity between
Robotech’s target audience and those of the commercials
may be indicative of the advertisers’ unfamiliarity with
the actual content of the program as well as the lack of direct
sponsorship by toy manufacturers to the show. There are
few, if any Robotech toys sold in stores during the
show’s broadcast period. Consequently, Robotech functions
mostly to provide a suitable environment for shows adjacent to
it in the program grid*, and for commercials not directly
related to the show itself, which is uncommon for shows of the
same genre.
Robotech in Japan
The history of Robotech as a Japanese TV
series is best represented by an examination of
Robotech’s original Japanese source, “Super
Dimensional Fortress Macross”, which accounts for
Robotech’s first 36 episodes. “Super
Dimensional Fortress Macross” premieres on MBS (Mainichi
Broadcasting Systems) and its local affiliates across Japan on
October 3, 1982. The show owes its initial popularity to
the enormous success of its tie-in merchandise, “the
Valkyrie”, a transformable robot sold in the form of
plastic model kits which the buyer self-assembles and
customizes to become a toy. Before the series’
premiere the kits are heavily promoted on television and in key
weekly teen comic magazines that have circulation numbers
comparable to national newspapers. Anticipating a large
middle school and high school viewership which represents the
typical demographic group who purchases plastic model kits, SDF
Macross is scheduled to air on Sundays at 2:00pm, an
unprecedented programming decision for TV animation in Japan.
The traditional daypart for Japanese animated programs is
between 5 and 8pm, a very inconvenient time for middle and high
school students who are typically in cram-school classes and
cannot make it home in time to catch animated shows.
MBS’s programming strategy allows this key
demographic who do not own VCRs at the time(this is in 1982) to
catch the show. This strategy proves to be enormously
successful. The show averages 7 gross rating
points— the primetime equivalent of around 20GRPs,
and the ratings occasionally spikes above 10GRPs.
The series is originally twenty-seven episodes long but
due to its popularity the MBS produces a prologue of an
additional nine episodes, which makes thirty-six episodes in
total. I am not able to obtain a sample of the
commercials aired during the show’s broadcast in Japan;
nonetheless, according to my earlier conceptualization of the
show’s target audience as boys 6 to14 with a slight skew
toward the upper end of the age bracket, I will surmise the
commercials consist of spots for the aforementioned
“valkyrie” model kits manufactured by the
show’s toy sponsor, ads for various snack food items such
as candy and instant noodles, and spots for other media related
to the show, such as records, CDs, (video)games and comic
books.
Serialization and the Infusion of Female
Melodrama in Robotech
The two most salient features in
Robotech’s formal ideology is its serialization and its
infusion of female melodrama—both are conventions derived
from Japan’s own unique method of television programming
and storytelling. Serialization has a long tradition in
Japanese TV animated melodramas (as romantic melodramas for
girls and sports melodramas for boys), but it is not a
convention employed in the science fiction/ giant robot genre
until the late 70’s to early 80’s. While
Robotech is amongst Japan’s first generation of
serialized giant robot cartoons, in its American incarnation
its serialized format is certainly revolutionary in contrast to
the episodic form which every afterschool cartoon takes.
A brief look at TV programming and sponsorship practices in
Japan will illustrate how serialization is achievable and can
be preferable for an animated show.
Robotech and many other original animated
programs on Japanese television are sponsored upfront by
advertisers for a limited season. It is usually a 26-week
commitment, and is sold at 13-week increments for one hours
shows. In other words, every half-hour animated series,
once it is approved by its sponsor and broadcaster is
guaranteed a 26 episode lifespan. Original shows are
often pitched with treatments of key episodes and a definite,
established ending. Accordingly, original serials such
as Robotech are written and produced with a linear, unbroken
narrative that spans 26 episodes or in episodic increments of
13 or 26 (39, 52, 65, 78...etc). This affords programs
that utilize the serial format the luxury to have intricate,
multiple plotlines that unfold over the course of many weeks
instead of being limited to simpler narratives and stories that
must resolve within a half hour. This also enables such
programs to produce multi-dimensional characters with his/her
own narrative arch that evolves over the span of the series.
Popular animated TV series such as
Robotech is almost always repackaged and made available in its
entirety on home video, laserdiscs or DVDs in Japan.
Serialization is in fact, the preferred and more
profitable format for shows with a second life as home videos.
With a serialized show, buyers are more likely to invest
in a complete collection in order to not break up the
series’ narrative flow, whereas with episodic shows one
will typically purchase single shows or “the best
of” anthologies.
The most prominent element in Robtech
which highlights its serial format is the conspicuous presence
female melodrama in its supposedly male-oriented, sci-fi /
adventure narrative. The series features an elaborate, meandering
love triangle between its male lead, Rick Hunter, and its two
female leads, Lisa Hayes and Lynn Mimay. Although the
show appears to advance according to the pace and narrative
needs of the sci-fi plot, the romantic element of the show
progressively eclipses the sci-fi storyline to become the
favored narrative strand. While the sci-fi plot concludes
at the show’s original 27th episode ending, the series is
extended for another 9 episodes to accommodate the resolution
of the romantic storyline.
For a female melodrama the series
uncharacteristically favors the male protagonist Rick
Hunter’s point of view. However, contrary to the
expectant representation of men in the science fiction/ action
genre, Robotech gives priority to the representation of Rick as
an object of romantic love above the display of his more
masculine attributes as the exhibition of his physical prowess
or his ability to fight. In battles Rick is not portrayed
as the most proficient fighter pilot, and between battles he
ruminates mostly about his romantic dilemmas rather than
plotting his next opportunity to engage in combat.
This infusion of a female genre into a
male show is apparently a strategy employed by the
series’ writers to diffuse the heavy-handedness of
previous successful serialized sci-fi TV cartoons such as
“Space Cruiser Yamato” which is thought to be
oppressively patriotic and “Gundam” which is
considered too dark and gritty. The mixture of genres in
Robotech while widening the show’s appeal to girls,
allows its male viewers to have the discreet pleasure of
enjoying a traditional female melodrama in the guise of a
technology laden, action oriented science-fiction series.
Robotech on Race
The ideological discourse on race and
ethnicity as it is represented in Robotech is distinctive in
the fact that even though the show is originally produced for
Japanese domestic consumption, it includes major characters who
are Caucasian and Black. This give Robotech the
appearance of a multi-racial, American text when the show is adapted for American
broadcast. While Robotech’s characters are
originally constructed in accordance to Japanese ideological
assumptions about race, the presence of racial minorities in
Robotech on American television inevitably lends itself to a
discourse on the representation of race in American terms. As
Herman Gray points out, when one looks at the representation of
race one must consider the “social, technological, and
institutional conditions in which [the racial representational
practices] are situated”. Therefore I will address
Robotech’s discourse on race as it is hypothetically
situated in America, and as it is originally situated in Japan.
I will first address how Robotech re-designates the
racial identities of the main characters to create a dominant
reading for American audiences:
The two lead characters, Rick Hunter and
Lisa Hayes are originally created to be specifically
Japanese. Although their appearance is at best,
ambiguously Asian, they each have uniquely Japanese names (Rick
Hunter is originally Ichijo Hikaru, and Lisa Hayes is Hiyase
Misa). Conversely, the
non-Japanese characters while having external characteristics
that are clearly un-Japanese, they also each have phonetically
Western or non-Japanese names that does not require translation
for the American audience; for example, the characters Roy
Fokker (Caucasian), Claudia Grant (Black) and Lynn
Mimay(Chinese) have names that are identical in English and
Japanese. Therefore, while the white and black characters
remain the same culturally and racially through the
translation, all Japanese nationals become white Americans, and
everyone else becomes minority Americans. With a now
predominantly “white” cast, the show’s text
becomes American and privileges the white American point of
view.
Once Robotech is situated as American, it
is then imbued with “the histories of conquest,
slavery...and struggle for justice that are central features of
US society” as Gray states. Accordingly, the
show’s representation of racial minorities can be
interpreted as “assimilationist” per Herman
Gray’s definition in its “complete elimination...of
social and cultural difference in the interest of shared and
universal similarity,” as all of Robotech’s
minority characters are completely oblivious to the existence
of cultural and racial differences in their interaction with
the dominant “white” cast, even though racial and
cultural specificity is evident in the characters’ names
and appearance. Interestingly, with two interracial
couples (Roy and Claudia, Rick and Mimay) the series may at
first appear to be multi-culturalist to Americans, resisting
the ideology of white dominance or homogeneity. However,
this is recouped when Roy is killed off rather abruptly mid way
through the series, and Rick (when posited as a white male),
chooses Lisa (a white female) over Mimay (a Chinese female) in
the last episode. Robotech in fact, can be interpreted is
extremely racially conservative, where characters who
transgress the taboo of interracial love is punished in the
narrative by death (in the case of Roy) or by desertion (in the
case of Mimay).
When Robotech is situated as ideologically
Japanese, taking into account Japan’s indigenous history,
experience and knowledge in regards to race, the series’
text and racial discourse is better interpreted as
“ethnocentrist” rather than Gray’s
designation as “assimilationist”,
“dualist” or “multi-culturalist”.
Japanese ethnocentrism assumes Japan’s cultural and
racial homogeneity and delineates otherness by nationality (the
definition of which by default also includes race).
Conversely, Gray’s catagorizations of
“assimilationist”, “dualist” and
“multiculturalist” texts assumes cultural and
racial plurality with parity in nationality. Accordingly,
Robotech reflects the incidental and rare presence of
naturalized foreigners in Japanese society, thus the presence
of national and racial others in Robotech can only be
interpreted as ornamental and bears no demographic relation to
the real racial composition (or the lack there of)in Japan.
This differs from Gray’s assumption of a sizable
and under-represented minority population as it exists in
America; a population that has an established history, culture
and political presence within the context of being American.
The Japanese ethnocentric ideology in
Robotech is evident in the series' designation and treatment of
inter-racial relationships. The two non-racially Asian
characters, Roy(Caucasian) and Claudia(Black), are selected as
a couple in the series. Ethnocentrism delineates
Roy and Claudia as “the other” both racially and
nationally, and as such they can only be available to each
other and not to the rest of the cast. The fact that Roy
and Claudia are in an inter-racial relationship is irrelevant
and not controversial because their relationship does not
contaminate the homogeneity of the (presumably Japanese) cast.
Meanwhile, Mimay, a lead female character of Chinese
descent is paired up with the show’s Japanese
protagonist, Ichijo Hikaru (Rick Hunter). This appears to
be resistant the ethnocentric ideology, but this transgression
is later recouped when Ichijo abandons Mimay in favor of the
show’s Japanese female lead, Hiyase Misa (Lisa Hayes).
Robotech thus gives two slightly different
readings in terms of its discourse on race, dependent largely
on the racial identities of the main characters in order to
determine the dominant racial group in the show. However,
it appears that the designated “other” remains
marginalized and punished by the narrative, regardless of which
racial group is privilaged, and which ideological position,
Japanese or American, one takes.
The Representation of Women in Robotech
In terms of Robotech’s discourse on
gender, the series assumes a patriarchal position where the
male characters are either authority figures or instigators of
action, and the female characters, however inclined to
masculine behavior or traits, inevitably seek happiness as
subjects of a man’s romantic love. However, this
gender ideological position is negotiated through the dominant
Japanese cultural ideology of duty (girì), which posits one’s responsibility to his
fellow men over one’s individual needs and desires.
As the series takes place in the midst of war, the
ideology of duty displaces patriarchy as the dominant and
favored ideological position. Consequently, a
female character’s transgression of patriarchy in
Robotech’s narrative can be recouped by conforming to the
ideology of duty. Conversely, her transgression of the ideology
of duty cannot be recouped by conforming to patriarchy. This is
evident in the narrative’s treatment of its two female
leads, with an older, behaviorally masculine military woman
going head to head against a young, ideologically feminine
civilian girl.
As a highly ranked and distinguished
military officer, Lisa Hayes is portrayed as an unyielding
professional woman who is not above reprimanding her male peers
for insubordination or incompetence. Her primary identity
is her unquestioned allegiance to her duty as a military
officer and her commitment to protect the civilian population.
On the one hand, Lisa’s transgression of
patriarchal norms (by taking on masculine attributes) puts her
in an unfavorable light in the narrative where she is
constantly derided for acting like a man and being called a
sourpuss and an old lady. On the other hand, the
narrative rewards her conformity to the ideology of duty by
bestowing her authentic romantic love in the show’s
conclusion, and a gradual physical transformation over the
show’s 36 episodes. Her devotion to her
responsibilities as a military officer pays off in the end as
she and Rick Hunter rides off to space on a mission as comrades
and lovers, and her appearance evolves from a sexless and dour
professional woman to one that is more akin to a demure and
attractive young wife-to-be. Lisa’s feminization,
however, does not mean that she abandons her commitment to her
duties—she remains at her post throughout her
transformation. It merely means she gets to have her cake
and eat it too. Conversely, Lynn Mimay, Lisa’s
romantic rival, conforms in many ways to the patriarchal ideal
of femininity. She expresses her desire to be married
early on and frequently throughout the series. As a
beauty pageant winner who subsequently becomes a pop singer,
Mimay is the series’ focus of male adoration and the
embodiment of feminine affectation. This does not save
her when she transgresses the duty ideology in her attempt to
convince Rick Hunter to give up his post as a military
commander to live an ordinary life with her as husband and
wife. The narrative appropriately penalizes her for her
selfishness by forfeiting her romance, with Rick choosing
dutiful Lisa over her. Just as Lisa is rewarded with a
beauty make-over in her conformity to duty, Mimay’s
transgression also manifest itself in a visual transformation.
Though she remains attractive throughout the series, her
girlish looks is redesigned to take on a more world-weary
quality. Her hair is restyled to resemble a shattered
woman, and her wardrobe grows progressively cheerless and
conservative.
One can argue that the ideology of duty
may just be another measurment of a woman’s conformity to
patriarchy. However, because the ideology also
applies to men, as male characters in Robotech are equally
punished by the narrative when they transgress the ideology in
seeking personal gain and glory, I will argue that duty is one
of those rare attributes that is gender-neutral, one which in
its practice does not benefit one sex over another, and in
Robotech, the pratcie of duty somehow enables a woman to become
more womanly and a man more manly.
Conclusion
My interest in Robotech, is by in large
attributable to my own interest in drawing and animation.
To me the series is the most exciting animated show on TV
both visually and narratively when it first aired in 1985.
What is not so apparent about my penchant for Robotech is
the way it reminds me of my country of origin, and the first
few years of my life as an immigrant in America. Japan
has a long history of exporting its animated TV shows
throughout the countries of Asia, and I am amongst those who,
without ever setting foot in Japan, identifies Japanese
animation as a part of my own national culture.
Therefore, watching Robotech just two years after I
emigrate to the United States means more than catching a show
that I appreciate for its intrinsic narrative and artistic
qualities. At the time it is extraordinarily exciting for
me, to say the least, to finally see some familiar images on
American television after two years of disinterest and
non-comprehension as I sit through episodes of the Flintstones,
Scooby-Doo and He-Man everyday after school. Watching
Robotech gives me temporary reprieve from American TV images
which seems at the time both foreign and uninviting, even after
I have achieved some level of proficiency in comprehending
English, and have some rudimentary knowledge of American
popular culture.
In an analysis of American fandom of
Japanese animation by Annalee Newitz in her article
“Magical girls and atomic bomb sperm: Japanese animation
in America”, she deduces such fandom for Japanese
animation as an American’s “textual dependence on
Japan, the only country which has the power to give him what he
wants—a good story,” I will say that for me,
as a first generation immigrant raised and weaned on Japanese
animation, Japan is the only country that can produce animated
texts that I know to be true—my story. In a very
oblique way, Robotech does just that.
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