Graduation Term

2018

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

School of Communication

Committee Chair

Phil Chidester

Abstract

In this project, I analyzed two seasons of the Pokémon anime to discover patterns of cultural “odor” management employed by the show’s producers and editors. In the first season of Pokémon, the producers of the anime included many symbolic representations of Japanese cultural artifacts within the visual features of the show. However, between the Japanese and US versions of the season, most instances of Japanese linguistic text were either “scrubbed” from scenes entirely or replaced with English text. These techniques struck a careful balance between including and excluding Japanese specificity within the first season, subtly expressing to non-Japanese audiences the Japanese origin of the show. However, in the twentieth season, producers removed symbolic representations of Japanese culture almost entirely – replacing these instead with symbols indicative of Hawaiian culture. This study traced the patterns of techniques used within these two seasons to manage this cultural “odor” to implicate the ways in which aspects of culture in television shows can prompt audiences toward developing interests in other cultures.

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

DOI

http://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2019.Raes.N

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