Japanese Animation and New Media
Week Twelve: Chapter Twenty: The Spiral Dance of Symptom and Specter
In sum, the VCR in the manga Video Girl Ai brings with it a form of interaction with images that is not based primarily on perception and perceptual positioning. Something similar happens in Cellphone Girl Heaven, which conjures up a scenario reminiscent of Chobits but in a lewder fashion. This manga deals with humanoid cell phones, and the boy has to figure out how to interact with his girl cell phone. The first pages establish the girl cell phone as an object of the male gaze with familiar pornographic poses. Read right to left.
Yet the problem for the boy is not primarily one of looking at her, but of touching her. When it comes to touching her, the boy is suddenly conscious of the world looking at him. What is more, we learn that there is something odd about this cell phone: she isn’t functioning properly.
This scenario recalls that of Chobits: the problem for the boy is not one of looking at the gynoid PC or cell phone. In fact, because these ‘girls’ are mechanical devices, their status as objects seems assured. They can’t threaten the male position. Touching, however, poses a problem.
But from the outset Chobits plays the situation differently than Cellphone Girl Heaven. Because CLAMP does not want to offend girls’ sensibilities, Chobits is not as explicit in its pornography. As such, Chobits makes readers aware, even self-conscious, of the fact that pornography (in the sense of images sexually objectifying women for male pleasure) is a social norm, computerized or not. It is somehow normal for boys to see women presenting themselves sexually for him — visually. But actual contact, which implies the possibility of ‘physical’ sex acts, is presented as an important barrier, allowing not only for a distinction between body and soul, but also for perverse possibilities within domestic life. Cellphone Girl Heaven, at least initially, seems to have less consciousness of girl sensibilities and ‘souls.’ But you’d have to read more to figure out what’s happening with this variation on the ‘girl who is not one.’
