라이트노벨 정체성의 계보학 - 자의식과 공감의 구조를 중심으로

Abstract

The Genealogy of the Identity of Light Novel - Focused on the Self-consciousness of its Texts and the Communication Structure with its Readers Yee, Sun-Kyung This study examines ‘Light Novel’, the representative narrative of ‘Otaku(オタク)’ culture, one of the original Japanese subcultures. Light Novel has a history of almost thirty years and is still on the process of the formation of its identity. In this context, this paper aims to display its diachronic transition points of 30-year Light Novel history focused on some watershed points of its process of development. In dealing with those wakes of its history, this article elaborates the changes of self-consciousness of its texts centered on the usage of first-person pronouns and the communication structure centered on the psychological empathy with readers. My attention is directed to the four conversion points of its history: Slayers series by Hajime Kanzaka from the late 1980s, Boogiepop and Others by Kouhei Kadono in the late 1990s, Suzumiya Haruhi series by Nagaru Tanigawa from the mid 2000s, and a series of works of Sugaru Miaki in the 2010s. Slayers series by Hajime Kanzaka, the starting point of Light Novel, had performed the girlish identity using a first-person pronoun ‘あたし(a-ta-si)’, which showed the endeavor to separate itself from conventional classical novels. Boogiepop and Others by Kouhei Kadono paraded a variety of first-person pronouns such as ‘僕/ぼく(bo-ku)’, ‘私/わたし(wa-ta-si)’, and ‘俺/おれ(o-re)’. The readers are left intrigued to deduce the big picture of the entire plot from each fragmented first-person pronouns’ stories. Suzumiya Haruhi series by Nagaru Tanigawa has employed two personal pronouns, ‘you’(they call themselves using the feminine personal pronouns such as ‘私/わたし’ or ‘あたし’) and ‘me’(俺/おれ). In so doing, Otaku readers are able to emphasize with the texts of Light Novel. A series of works of Sugaru Miaki in 2010s share the sensibilities of coeval Satori generation(さとり世代) in the present Japan: they discover the new surviving strategies from the deepest unconscious death drive. As we have seen, Light Novel will be predicted to keep their composing and flexible identities to the passing of times.