Exploring The Force of The Moving Image

23 / Jakob Bæk Kristensen ISSN: 2245-9855
Jakob Bæk Kristensen:
Exploring the force of the moving image: A

comparison between live-action pornography
and Japanese adult animation
RESUMÉ
Denne artikel udforsker forskellene mellem live-action pornografi og japansk
animationsporno. Målet er at vise, hvordan det levende billedes kraft virker i
samspil med de obskure temaer og indhold i japansk animationsporno, samt
hvordan dette er med til at skabe et særligt tilskuerforhold, der er
gennemgående forskelligt fra traditionel filmpornografi. Artiklen forsøger
samtidig at give et overblik over, hvordan animationsstudier med Thomas
Lamarre og pornostudier med Linda Williams teoretisk kan bringes sammen i
målet om at forklare animationsfilmens pornografiske potentiale. Hvorfor kan
animation tilbyde en særlig pornooplevelse?
ABSTRACT
This article explores the differences between live-action pornography and
Japanese adult animation. It aims to show how the forces of the moving
image are employed in conjunction with the highly unusual content of adult
animation, thereby constituting a viewing position that differs from that of
live-action pornography. It also provides an overview of some of the
important stances in both animation studies, drawing upon Thomas Lamarre,
and porn studies, drawing upon Linda Williams, and how these fields can be
understood in relation to one another when seeking to explain the
pornographic potential of animation. Why does animation offer a particular
pornographic experience?
EMNEORD
Pornografi, animation, Japan, mediets potentiale, tilskuerforhold
KEYWORDS
Pornography, animation, Japan, medium potentiality, viewing position
Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

pornography and Japanese adult animation
Introduction
What is it we wish to see when we watch pornography? It is evident from the

sheer diversity one finds in the bulk of pornographic productions now
available on DVD or streamed over the Internet that pornographic
preferences depend greatly on individual tastes. A general assumption is that
pornography is closely associated with the direct, graphic display of other
people’s naked bodies (Williams, 1990, 2). But what about animated
pornography? When the body is drawn instead of recorded, what is the result
for the pornographic experience? And how are the filmic forces of Japanese
adult animation instrumental in structuring this experience?
This article seeks to outline how animation harnesses the force of the moving
image when dealing with the subject of pornography and how this is done
differently than in live action. This article concentrates exclusively on
Japanese adult animations mainly because films within this genre have
gained great popularity over recent years (Ortega-Brena, 2009, 19).
Consequently, the study is located between two sub-fields of film studies
(porn studies and animation studies) and attempts to comment on both fields
independently.
It is important to do justice to Mariana Ortega-Brena (2009), who has already

discussed the viewing experience of adult anime. 1 However, Ortega-Brena
downplays the importance of the technological base of the production of
Japanese animation, and although some of the notions here might coincide
with those of Ortega-Brena, this article will present a completely different
approach by focusing on how adult anime utilises the forces of the moving
image.2
Specifically, this article takes a technological perspective to compare the

general assumptions presented by Linda Williams (1990) about live-action
1 Japanese adult animation goes by many names (e.g. hentai, ecchi, or adult anime) as it is not
a defined genre. In this article, I choose to use the term ‘adult anime’.
2 The term ‘force of the moving image’ covers the potential offered by the film medium. This
was originally presented by Thomas Lamarre, with the purpose of focusing on the
technological base of production without succumbing to technological determinism.
(Lamarre, 2009).

pornography with Thomas Lamarre’s (2009) theory of how Japanese

animation employs the forces of the moving. I propose that adult anime offers
a fundamentally different film experience than that provided by live-action
pornography, and I locate this difference at the site of technological
determination in accordance with Thomas Lamarre’s conceptualisation of
Japanese animation.
First, this article seeks to outline the points of departure within both porn
studies and animation studies in order to illustrate how the technological base
of production influence the creative potentials of each area respectively
(animation in general and live-action pornography). Second, Lamarre and his
concepts of anime aesthetics are introduced to provide an understanding of
the affordances realised by the particular techniques for creating movement
and image in anime. Third, a discussion of Lamarre’s notions through the
Deleuzian concept of the time-image is brought forth in order to attribute the
animation techniques of anime to a more general force of the moving image.
Fourth, the article considers some examples of conjunctions between the
animation techniques and pornographic content found in adult anime. This is
done by analysing selected scenes from the adult anime series Cool Devices
(1995). For a conclusive discussion, the article arrives at Ortega-Brena and her
concept of the double voyeur, which she regards as summing up the viewing
position imposed by the adult anime genre. This article suggests a different
viewing position offered by the genre, which can be fully explicated by
comparing the technological base of live-action pornography and adult anime
and how the force of the moving image is directed differently within to two
categories of pornography.
Finally, the article includes a short presentation of a few other cultural

phenomena related to adult anime that resonate well with the suggested
viewing position.
What is the problem with animation?
The headline might be slightly suggestive, but it is important to note that

animation as a medium-specific mode of production has generally been
overlooked in film theory. One of the major reasons for this is that many
renowned theoreticians who have pondered the general essence or
phenomenology of cinema have either not considered animation as belonging

to true cinema or have located animation as nothing more than a specific style
within cinema. The former tendency includes such classic authors as André
Bazin (1958) and Siegfried Kracauer (1960) whereas the latter consists of many
of the modern writers, such as Noel Carroll (1996), David Bordwell (2004),
Kristin Thompson (1980), Torben Grodal (2009), and even Gilles Deleuze
(1986) to name a few. 3 A good example is Noel Carroll’s famous article
‘Defining the Moving Image’ (1996), which spends a great deal of time
explaining the difference between cinema and binoculars but does not offer
the slightest clue as to how animation might fit within his definition of the
moving image. The point would indeed be debatable and even more so
because Carroll seeks to define ‘the moving image’ and not the more
historically determined ‘cinema’.
In this article, I intend to place great emphasis on the technological base of

animation, which is completely different from that of traditional cinema.
Trembling confessions: The point of departure in porn studies
Animation studies and porn studies may be sub-fields of film studies that
have not yet become official academic disciplines, but there is still a
considerable amount of literature concerning both subjects, which means that
one must be precise in determining a certain point of departure. In this
section, I will outline the specific theoretical framework that will be used in
the subsequent analysis and discussion.
Pornography is intrinsically connected to the human body. This is rarely

disputed and is therefore the starting point of Linda Williams’ concept of the
frenzy of the visible, which she introduced in her seminal work Hard Core
(1990). Williams, in her studies, draws heavily on feminist, Marxist, and
psychoanalytic frameworks as well as provides a technological and medium-
specific approach, which can be used separately. The frenzy of the visible is
3 It is not that none of the names listed above mention animation, e.g. Torben Grodal (2009)
explains why animation is especially appealing to children, Gilles Deleuze (1986) mentions
that animation relies on a Cartesian rather than a Euclidean geometry, and Kristin
Thompson (1980) has even delved into the question of why animation is such a petite genre
within cinema. But what they all have in common is that they treat animation as a style or
genre that adheres to the same rules and characteristics as the whole of mainstream cinema.

seen by Williams as a logical outcome of an ever-increasing development of

technologies, which help to accurately document visible phenomena,
culminating in the invention of cinema (Williams, 1990, 36). This leads the
way to looking at pornography in relation to its historical context as well as
the medium-specific forces that drive its production. With the frenzy of the
visible as the base for pornographic production, Williams argues that the
genre’s rhetoric is to convince the spectator that he/she is watching an
indexical, measurable moment of true pleasure (Williams, 1990, 268).
Although it employs a wide variety of cultural elements, gender roles, and
narratives, live-action pornography is rooted in a technology with the power
to show real bodies, real movement, and real pleasure.
“Hard core desires assurance that it is witnessing not the voluntary

performance of feminine pleasure, but its involuntary confession.
The woman’s ability to fake the orgasm that the man can never
fake (at least according to certain standards of evidence) seems to
be at the root of all the genre’s attempts to solicit what it can never
be sure of: the out-of-control confession of pleasure, a hard core
‘frenzy of the visible’” (Williams, 1990, 50).
Drawing on Edward Muybridge’s photographic experiments with moving

bodies (1886), Williams marks the link between the film cameras’ ability to
show true, scientifically accurate movement and live-action pornography,
which uses this ability to display the uncontrollable bodily movements of
orgasmic women. Of course, this promise of uncontrollable spasms is not
necessarily upheld in a single film, but it is the attempt of the genre to solicit
the confession of sexual pleasure from the female body in the same way as it
does with the male body, which is why male ejaculation in pornography is
called the money shot (the promise that you get your money’s worth).
As Noel Carroll notes, one should be careful, when imposing a medium-

specific perspective, not to reduce the spectacle of the medium to the
mechanical simplicity of a Phillips screwdriver (Carroll, 1999, 324). In this
article, I view the indexicality of movements and involuntary confessions of
bodies not as necessarily resulting from the administration of the cinematic
apparatus but instead as a force of the moving image used specifically and
intentionally in live-action pornography. This avoids the claim of

technological determinism, which deemphasises the creative choices made by

filmmakers of individual films.
Taking porn studies from behind: The point of departure in animation

studies
In order to understand the role of adult anime within porn studies, it is

productive to read Linda Williams from the perspective of animation studies.
Animation studies is a sub-field of film studies but is nevertheless a field with

a number of major publications that have, over the years, created some
defining borders around the subject of animation outside of mainstream film
theory. Maureen Furniss (1998), Paul Wells (1998), and Alan Cholodenko
(1991) are among the main contributors, and they have all been concerned
with the question: What is animation? This question, however, is mostly
posed as a means of better categorising the great variety of films that combine
animation techniques with photorealistic cinema production, e.g. puppet
animation, CGI, rotoscoping, motion capture, etc. In this article, I will not rely
much on the results of these discussions, as it is widely accepted (Thompson
(1980), Furniss (1998), Wells (1998), Lamarre (2009), Cholodenko (1991)) that
the drawing of figures and scenery onto paper or cells with the intent of
creating moving images can be placed in the category of animation and that it
therefore relies on a production technique that is fundamentally different
from that of traditional cinema. To illustrate the main point of this difference,
I will invoke the famous quote from Norman McLaren: “Animation is not the
art of drawings that move, but the art of movements that are drawn. What
happens between each frame is more important than what exists on each
frame” (Furniss, 1998, 3). This is where the point of departure of animation
studies within porn studies becomes apparent. Although McLaren’s quote is
quite simple (and perhaps even oversimplistic), it raises an utterly important
point as it overturns the understanding of movement that Linda Williams so
strongly ties to the force of the moving image in live-action pornography. The
important aspect of Muybridge’s series of photos showing a horse trotting
with all four legs above the ground is not the photo itself but that the
movement was recorded and not created. Hence, a drawing depicting the same
horse in the same position would not have served very well as evidence. So in
Williams’ understanding, the will to expose the uncontrollable movements of

the female body, which drives the production of live-action pornography,

must ultimately lose some of its power when introduced into the production
of animation as the viewer knows from the start that the promise of truly
uncontrollable spasms, true sexual pleasure, can never be upheld.
Creating movement in Japanese animation
McLaren’s emphasis on movements that are drawn elucidates an important

point of departure in animation theory. However, to capture the full picture
of the forces of animation, the concept must be expanded. Thomas Lamarre,
with his book The Anime Machine (2009), has supplied a theoretical work that
conceptualises how (especially postmodern) Japanese animation and what
has become known as ‘anime’ channel the force of the moving image in a
unique way. The theoretical focus lies on the technological base of production
and the link between technology and the aesthetic properties of anime.
Although Lamarre is careful not to succumb to technological determinism, his
approach has been criticised by researchers such as animation scholar Ian
Condry (2013). Condry suggests that Lamarre’s focus could be overly
technological and ignore some of the cultural perspectives surrounding the
industry and the general mode of production of anime in Japan (Condry,
2013, 42). However, Lamarre’s approach is fitting for this article since the
purpose here is to explore how the technological differences between live-
action and animation contribute to (rather than determine!) a specific
pornographic experience offered by anime.
Anyone who has seen anime – especially the more lo-fi, cheap productions –
will have noticed that it is not animated in the same way as the typical Disney
feature animation. Stylistically, anime is often associated with images that are
more static or with only part of the image in motion, much as in the old North
American The Flintstones and Top Cat cartoons (1960;1961), where only the
characters change, while the same background is used over and over.
According to Lamarre, anime is indeed characterised by taking limited
animation4 to the extreme, which is also referred to as hyperlimited animation.5
4 The type of animation that often involves fewer than 12 frames per second.
5 Hyperlimited animation is specifically associated with Studio Gainax and director Anno
Hideaki, who most famously created the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995).

But this is not just a less expensive way of creating animation, although the
low cost is indeed a motivating factor. Something is amiss, for words like
static, lo-fi, still image, and limited seem unable to describe the evident
dynamism and soaring popularity of anime productions. A huge part of
Lamarre’s theoretical project consists of a thorough analysis of how anime
deploys the force of the moving image in a certain way, by means of both
special techniques and artistic designs.
Where live-action cinema is usually created by recording 24 images per

second through the monocular lens of a camera, animation is often made
using an animation stand, a device that allows the animator to place a number
of drawings on a flat surface and record a single frame with a fixed camera.
Typically, the animator records between 6 (hyperlimited animation) and 18
frames (full animation) per second. What Lamarre emphasises are the
affordances created by the multiplanar image of the animation stand, where the
different elements or layers of the image are separated onto individual planes,
which can then be moved independently. 6 The space between the planes of
images is called the animetic interval. As Lamarre says of the animation stand:
“It channels the force implicit in the succession of moving images into the gap
between the planes of the image – through the animetic interval” (Lamarre,
2009, 303). Disney has traditionally sought to close the gap between the planes
of the image, thereby creating a more photorealistic animation style, whereas
anime, according to Lamarre, more often blows open the gap by moving the
different planes or elements of the image more loosely, thus contributing to a
dehierarchised image. For anyone less familiar with anime, the same technique
is used most obviously in the intro of The Simpsons (1989 - ), where the
foreground and middle ground move in an eerily cartoonish and autonomous
way.
In anime, movement is not always created by drawing the movements of the

characters but much more often by moving the characters across planes or
dragging planes past characters to produce the sense of relative motion. For
6 Concretely, this separation of planes corresponds to the different layers of transparent

celluloid stacked on top of each other in traditional cel animation, but conceptually, the
same thing happens in contemporary digital animation.

all Japanese animation, this technical determination has produced an obvious

tendency toward characters flying, gliding, floating, or hovering in the air.
This article will specifically be concerned with the loosely constructed and
dehierarchised image offered by the technical traditions of anime, which will
be paired with the Deleuzian time-image and discussed in greater detail in the
next section.
The time-image and bodily relations in adult anime
As mentioned above, the role of the body in films and especially in

pornography has been extensively analysed and debated. Linda Williams
makes the analogy between hard-core pornography and Hollywood musicals
as they are both concerned with “moving bodies” (Williams, 1990).
One must tread carefully when analysing the role of the body in adult anime.
As Joanna Bouldin (2004) has illustrated, using the film phenomenology of
Vivian Sobschack (1992), the “somatic intelligibility” of the viewing
experience can be aligned with the embodied film experience, which is why
the animated body should not be disregarded as something without corporeal
effect on the viewer. We can experience the sensation of warm lips when
watching two animated characters kiss. On the other hand, we should not
stress the unity of animation and live action created by the subjective film
experience, thus running the risk of completely subsuming animation under
the category of cinema.
As in live-action pornography, the focus in adult anime is on the sexual

pleasure of the female body, which means that much of the content of adult
anime consists of women trembling and moaning. But as I emphasised earlier,
this trembling in animation does not have the same origin as in live action
because the movement is created and not recorded. I therefore propose that
the excitement involved in the viewing experience of adult anime is derived
from a different channelling of the force of the moving image than the one
used in live-action pornography, which relies on indexicality and recorded
movement.
Within animation studies, Lamarre ascribes Japanese hyperlimited animation

to the Deleuzian concept of the time-image (Lamarre, 2009, 185). As Deleuze
associates the emergence of the time-image with the end of WWII and the

beginning of Italian Neorealism, so Lamarre sees full animation as classic,

pertaining more to the movement image and limited animation as modern,
more strongly tied to the time-image (Lamarre, 2009, 200). A way to better
understand Lamarre here is to compare his assertion with Deleuze’ analysis
of Michelangelo Antonioni’s films. 7 I draw here on the Deleuze scholar
Richard Rushton:
“One of the key issues Deleuze points towards is that we never get
to know Antonioni’s characters from the inside. Instead, we only get
to see them in parallel with other objects of the landscape:
Buildings, streets, the stock exchange, a nuclear power station (…)
and so on. The humans here are composed as objects, as though
they were merely other objects in a world full of objects” (Rushton,
2012, 66).
This way of seeing the time-image as an image of parallel objects is very

similar to Lamarre’s notion of the aforementioned dehierarchised image,
where objects are spread out across the image. According to Lamarre, anime
often employs what is called an exploded view (Lamarre, 2009, 120). The
exploded view is what serves to dehierarchise the elements of the image and
spread them across its surface, like an instructional drawing that shows how
to put your newly purchased cupboard together. Although the image may
create the impression of depth, it is a truly flattened image, where all of the
moving forces are brought right to the surface of the screen.
Films that invoke the time-image have a less clear direction for the viewer, in
contrast to the movement-image, where the film is always moving toward a
unitary conclusion. The autonomy of the image caused by the exploded view
and the dehierarchised image is very similar to Deleuze’ notion of “a ‘camera
autonomy’ where it stops following the movement of the characters or
directing its own movement at them, to carry out constant reframings as
functions of thought” (Deleuze, 1989, 24). The way the camera serves to break
relations between screen elements in the time-image, as mentioned here by
Deleuze, can be seen as analogous to Lamarre’s adoption of the time-image
7 Michelangelo Antonioni was an Italian film director referred to by Bordwell and Thompson
as one of the great auteurs of the years following Italian Neo-realism (Bordwell, Thompson,
2010, 392).

for the hyperlimited animation of anime: “The time-image is the nonrelation

at the heart of all cinematic relations and relationality, which opens them to
thought” (Lamarre, 2009, 199).
So, within the technological perspective of this article, the openness created
by the specific camera aesthetics of the time-image in live-action cinema can
be introduced into animation as openness created by certain manipulations of
the multiplanar image, which are evident in the exploded view and
dehierarchised image. In this way, adult anime creates an image that is much
more open to the engaged viewer and simultaneously encourages him/her to
explore the world of the fiction on his/her own terms.
During the remainder of this article, I will explore how this distinction within
animation studies can be introduced into the field of porn studies and thereby
further illuminate the force of the moving image in adult anime.
Narrative complexity, fantastic elements, and Japanese culture
Perhaps more noticeable than anything else is the fact that the narrative in the
average adult anime series often goes beyond the rigid and minimal
narratives of live-action pornography. Torben Grodal calls these minimal
narratives “spicy teasers”, which often employ stereotypical gender roles like
nurse/patient or the fabled pizza delivery guy (Grodal, 2009). In adult anime,
however, the viewer encounters a great variety of fantastic and sometimes
almost overly complex narrative settings and characters.
Episode 8 of the adult anime series Cool Devices (1995) is set in a world where
young women from earth are teleported to a planet in a strange galaxy far
away to be used for sexual experimentation. The protagonist Maya is bought
on the market by a Darth Vader-like man/robot hybrid, who wants to make
her a sex slave. She then discovers that she is in fact a legendary druid warrior
destined to save the galaxy but only if she can resist the advances of the evil
empire and its ambition to make her a sex slave.
Even though some live-action porn movies employ slightly sophisticated

narratives, they rarely employ as many fantastic and otherworldly elements
as do Cool Devices and many other adult anime series (e.g. Bible Black (2001);
Legend of the Overfiend (1989); Twin Dolls (1994); Ride of the Valkyrie (2006)). One
explanation is that the adult anime genre evolved more naturally from

regular anime and therefore has a tendency to adapt many of the typical
characters and settings of regular anime productions. Live-action
pornography, as Williams noted, evolved out of so-called stag films, which
originated more from a desire to show the shapes and functions of that which
is usually unseen than as an artistic mode of production (Williams, 1990, 59).
It is important to note that both adult anime and regular anime have strong
ties to Japanese culture in general. Ortega-Brena notes how the old erotic
painting tradition called Shunga can be seen as a natural forerunner to adult
anime. Furthermore, she illustrates how Shinto religion and other animistic
beliefs can be found directly within the sexual discourse of many narratives in
adult anime (Ortega-Brena, 2009, 20). There are important cultural aspects –
especially concerning religion, gender roles, and censorship – that have been
influential in shaping adult anime production, but this is outside the scope of
the present article and will not be addressed further. The technological
perspective brought forth here thus does not imply causality between the
technological base of production and the actual content. The narrative and the
mise-en-scène are not determined by how the force of the moving image is
applied, but this article argues that the content in some cases becomes
engendered and positively reinforced by the specific animation techniques
mentioned above.
These complex narratives, with their fantastic elements, do not serve as just a
frame around the subsequent pornography; they have consequences for the
mise-en-scène of the explicit sex scenes. In Episode 8 of Cool Devices, Maya
never has intercourse outright but is instead repeatedly tied up and
penetrated by mechanical tubes, which serve as a surrogate penis. According
to Williams, this “dehumanizing” of the male actor is not at all unusual in
pornography, as the male actor functions as a surrogate for the male
audience. One might say that this surrogate male actor is taken to the extreme
in adult anime.
Tentacles and other surrogates
Many – including Torben Grodal, Slavoj Žižek, and Linda Williams – have
noted the prominent role played by individual sex organs in pornography.
Žižek mentions how hard-core pornography is able to break the unity of the
body by focusing on the individual actions of body parts and thereby

constituting the autonomy of the organs. (Žižek, 2002, 152). Here, Žižek and
Williams come together in their notion of “the speaking sex.” Žižek claims
that the autonomous organ is able to speak the inexorable truth about itself, a
point with which Williams agrees, illustrating it with the ‘money shot’, which
takes a special position by showing not the subjects’ understanding of sexual
pleasure but by speaking the unquestionable, absolute truth of the bodily
action (Williams, 1990, 3). Again, the ability of the money shot to produce this
definite proof of sexual pleasure is why it has taken on such an important role
in live-action pornography. Williams treats the money shot as an important
aspect of live-action pornography’s goal of eliciting sexual pleasure, which is
why this section will explore how adult anime deals with the role of male
genitalia.
The money shot has nowhere near the same status in adult anime as it in
mainstream pornography. This makes sense considering my earlier assertion
of movement that is created and not recorded, with the result that animation
fails to produce the proof of pleasure that empowers live-action pornography.
I will now explore how other partial objects are engendered in adult anime in
such a way that they can be seen as substitutes for the money shot.
Indeed, the use of tentacles seems to be one of the most curious and recurring
elements in adult anime. We see images of women being grabbed, having
their bodies turned upside down and twisted into extraordinary positions
while massive waves of tentacles penetrate every orifice and encircle the
breasts in the manner of a genuine boa constrictor. One of the classics of adult
anime Urotsukidöji: Legend of the Overfiend (1989) employs a lot of this kind of
tentacle sex, since the story includes numerous demon characters, who are
explosively transformed into pulsating heaps of tentacles every time they get
too excited.
There is a certain quality in the tentacle play that seems to resonate well with
the flatness of the exploded view and dehierarchised image. This effect is
most obvious in scenes in which the female body is spread across the screen
and held in almost suspended animation while the tentacles explore every
inch of her. The limited animation in these cases works very well to create
images that are both dynamic and intriguing, by having characters dragged
across the screen instead of having their movements drawn. This also
corresponds with Lamarre’s notion that the inactivity of characters found in

the time-image of limited animation does not afford stasis, but rather, a new
kind of dynamism (Lamarre, 2009, 200).
In adult anime, the surrogate penis seems much more mobile and flexible
than in live-action pornography. It can be attributed to any kind of tentacle-
like object, be it a mechanical tube, an octopus, or even a snake. It can also be
a more abstract version of an actual penis, as in Episode 1 of Cool Devices,
where a man’s genitals are represented as a shining rod of pure light. This
mobility is taken to the extreme when the surrogate penis becomes attached
to the woman, not simply as a kind of artificial paraphernalia but as a
functioning penis. In a shocking twist at the end of Episode 8 of Cool Devices,
the protagonist Maya is subjected to a series of grave electroshock treatments
and out of her agony grows a penis. Maya can function as both man and
woman, all depending on what the specific situation implies. From the
perspective of traditional porn studies, this kind of doubling of the gender is
rather remarkable for heterosexual porn. Yet this is not at all uncommon in
the adult anime genre. Every time the animator needs the service of a male
actor, he/she will just have a woman sprout out a penis (a particularly
recurring element in e.g. Bible Black (2001) and Legend of the Overfiend (1989)).
The use of tentacles and attachable penises lies at the core of how adult anime
implements the time-image in pornography. The scene in which Maya grows
a penis shows the arduous procedure by exhibiting many different shots, e.g.
close-up of eyes and mouth, illustrating Mayas affective responses to the
treatment. The scene seems to resemble a perverse inversion of traditional
intercourse, where instead of being penetrated by a penis, one grows out of
her. It even concludes with the ejaculation of the penis, thus making the
indiscernibility between male and female pleasure complete. Like the
indiscernibility of positive/negative outcomes for the characters in
Antonioni’s films, we find in Cool Devices many scenes where it is not entirely
clear whether Maya is experiencing agony or pleasure. As Deleuze notes,
even the films of Antonioni that have tragic endings do not put the world as
such in a negative light; rather, it is an objectified cinema that serves to
reinstate our belief in the world (Deleuze, 1989, 204). The argument of this
article is that the forces of the exploded view and dehierarchised image serve
to lay bare the flat yet information-saturated world, where the truth of
pleasure is found not in the measurable confession of body parts but lies

within the mystique of the vibrating pools of light in the eyes of the animated
character while he/she is being dragged slowly across the screen.
Viewing position and pornographic experience
So what is it that the spectator of adult anime seeks?
My final arguments only partly agree with those of Ortega-Brena in

determining the viewing position for adult animation. As she concludes:
“This teetering indeterminacy between spaces, the desire and its

source, ultimately constitutes an experience of erotic tension that,
titillating and pleasurable as it could potentially be, also
relentlessly announces our fantasizing onanism to our face”
(Ortega-Brena, 2009, 29).
In sum, Ortega-Brena stresses that the animated image is more open to the
viewer’s imaginative participation as well as that the viewer takes on the role
of a double voyeur, of watching the pornography through the eyes of the
animator watching himself/herself drawing his/her own pictures. And
therefore, according to Ortega-Brena, the watching of adult anime: “Requires
a ludic sense of humor as well as an acute sense of irony” (Ortega-Brena, 2009,
29).
I propose that the viewing position and the pornographic experience are not
so strongly determined by the double voyeur. This is not to say that there is
no self-consciousness involved in watching adult anime, only that it imposes
itself no more on the viewing experience than it does in live-action
pornography, meaning that you need not possess an acute sense of humour
and irony to have a full pornographic experience. As Žižek has noted,
pornography, unlike, say, a medical documentary involving sex organs,
openly returns the gaze to the viewer, thereby making him/her conscious of
his/her voyeuristic position (Žižek, 1997, 227). According to Žižek, there is
something fundamentally comical about pornography. The intimate sex act
brought forth completely exposed necessitates an engaged viewer in order to
avoid appearing comical (Ibid, 225). Live-action pornography might thus
demand as much humour and irony as does adult anime.
Of course, it is possible for adult anime to incorporate situations that

explicitly return the gaze, for example by having a character suddenly

address the viewer in the middle of a sex scene. However, the act of looking
into the camera is done even more frequently in live-action pornography. A
close up of the woman’s eyes is a recurring shot in adult anime, but the eyes
are rarely directed at the viewer, instead inviting him/her to actively
transpose all of his/her own thoughts and fantasies onto the vibrating play of
light on the screen.
The introduction of the time-image is important to make a distinct critique of

Ortega-Brena. The time-image lends a more positive characteristic to adult
anime, as it can be seen as creating an image that is truly open to thought, in
contrast to Ortega-Brena’s notion, where the openness of adult anime seems
to become closed around itself by the reflectivity of the double voyeur
position. In the dehierarchised image, in which the force of the moving image
is brought to the surface by sliding and gliding the animated (mostly female)
bodies across the screen or held floating in suspended animation, the viewing
position is less that of a voyeur and more that of a participator. A participator
in this sense means that the spectator is not following a story or observing a
specific situation but is instead using the images to create his/her own world.
And the dehierarchisation of elements in the exploded view is what supports
this, as it helps to break down the immediate relationship between spectator
and animator. As Lamarre has also noted, some anime productions create
images that pertain to “personalizable” worlds, which encourage the
spectator to, almost literally, pick apart the images and stich together their
own fantasy (Lamarre, 2009, 147).
So how does the more participatory, personalisable, and less voyeuristic

viewing position of adult anime compare to live-action pornography in terms
of the specific sexual pleasure sought by the spectator? To answer this
question, the notion of the time-image should be taken further within both
animation studies and porn studies. Ortega-Brena’s assertion that adult anime
“announces our own fantasizing onanism to our face” seems located within
implicit parameters of the movement-image. This happens because she does
not consider the animation-specific forces that serve to create a more
autonomous dehierarchised image rather than one structured by a closed,
goal-oriented viewing position. The time-image created by adult anime must
be reintroduced in porn studies and compared to Williams, which means that

the concept of the indexicality of the image native to live-action pornography

must simultaneously be read back into the animated time-image. The
Deleuzian time-image relies as much on indexicality and photographic
realism as does live-action pornography, and the effect of the time-image
must thus be reevaluated within the animation perspective. One of Deleuze’s
most famous remarks about the time-image is that it, in its openness, has the
potential to “restore our belief in the world” (Deleuze, 1989, 182). Most simply
explained, the restoration of belief in the world arises out of the openness of
the time-image, in which the spectator is freer to believe in the world
presented, in contrast to the movement-image that tells the person what to
believe.
The proposal of this article is that adult anime restores our belief in the image
instead of our belief in the world and that that is what lies at the core of the
pornographic experience offered by the genre.
To return to Williams and live-action pornography: Here the pornographic

experience is closely tied to the indexical referent, which is the actor/actress’
sexual pleasure. As shown in the earlier discussion, animation is at a natural
impasse when it comes to reproducing the sensation of indexicality often
exploited in live-action cinema. On a more positive note, the technological
base of animation frees the animated pornographic image from reliance on
the indexical referent found in live-action, a freedom of which adult anime
takes full advantage. The aforementioned concept of a ‘mobile penis’
illustrates this point as it serves as an example of how the usual indexical sign
of the penis can be used more freely, detached from its male possessor. The
dehierarchised image and exploded view conceived by Lamarre suggest an
image employed by adult anime that does not seek to emulate live-action
cinema vis-à-vis movement but instead presents something that should be
viewed and understood independently. The medium potential harnessed by
the technological base of animation as well as by the specific techniques often
employed in adult anime can be used to argue that adult anime offers a new,
different kind of pornographic experience. When it is said that adult anime
has the potential to restore our belief in the image, what is meant is that it
makes the image of the woman the actual object of desire instead of simply a
representation of the object of desire. This suggestion should be seen in sharp
contrast to Ortega-Brena, who construes the image in adult anime as more of

an ironic musing over the situation that it represents.

As both the world and the movements within it are created rather than
recorded and as the movements pertain particularly to inactivity and
suspension of motion within a generally flat, dehierarchised frame, so the
adult anime image creates its own world. This world should be understood
only on its own terms and therefore demands that the viewer make the
presented world his/her own. It is an exhibition of 2D images that were never
meant to signify more than themselves and can thus become a virtual
plaything for the viewer.
Conclusion and further perspectives

In exploring the difference between typical live-action and Japanese animated
pornography, this article has focused on the medium-specific and
technological conditions for this very difference. As mentioned above, these
should not be seen as mechanisms that determine the production of adult
anime but rather as forces of the moving image that have been instrumental in
structuring the reception and viewing position of adult anime alongside
cultural, narrative, and economic influences.
The perspective offered by this article, which considers the technological

bases of production of both live-action pornography and adult anime, can,
however, be used to assert a more complete pornographic experience than
does Ortega-Brena, whose final conclusion somewhat dismisses adult anime
as only capable of providing a scattered experience. Considering the growing
popularity of adult anime as well as a number of recent cases of extreme
affection toward drawn images of women, it might be possible that the
sensation delivered has potential to create much more than just an ironically
charged and fragmented pornographic experience.
As a means of offering further perspectives for research, I will here mention a

few spectacles that can be directly related to the findings of this article.
Activities like adult anime dress-up games 8 are being churned out by the
dozen, and even more peculiar phenomena have evolved out of this trend,
such as the city of Atami just outside of Tokyo. 9 Here, men can book a hotel
8 http://www.i-dressup.com/girls/Hatsune_Miku_in_Vocaloid.php
9 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703632304575451414209658940

vacation with their favourite virtual anime character, who will be with them
the entire stay and simulate actions that are typical of real couples. On the 22nd
of October 2008, a man named Taichi Takashita set up an online petition for
the right to marry animated characters. What is particularly interesting about
Takashita is how he stressed the right to marry 2D characters and not a doll,
figurine, or the like (Condry, 2013, 186). This suggests an utter fascination
with images, which further points toward a very significant pornographic
experience caused by images that are nothing more than images.
Bibliography:
Bazin, André. 1958. Qu'est-ce que le cinema. Paris: Éditions du cerf
Bordewell, David and Kristin Thompson. 2004. Film Art: An introduction, New
York: McGraw Hill
———. 2010. Film History: An Introduction: Third Edition: University of

Wisconsin - Madison. McGraw Hill.
Bouldin, Joanna Rose. 2004. The animated and the actual: Toward a theory of
animation, live-action, and everyday life. Michigan: UMI Dissertation
Services
Carrol, Noel. 1999. “The Specificity Thesis.” In Film Theory and Criticism, 6th
ed., ed. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 332–38
Cholodenko, Alan.1991. The illusion of life: Essays on animation. Sydney: Power

Publications
Condry, Ian. 2013. The soul of anime. USA: Duke University Press
Deleuze, Gilles. 1989. The time-image. London: The Athlone Press
———. 1986. The movement-image. London: The Athlone Press
———. 2013 (originally 1969). The Logic of Sense. London: Bloomsbury
Focault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality: Volume I, The Will to Knowledge.
London: Allen Lane
Furniss, Maureen. 1998. Art in Motion. Sydney: John Libbey & Company Pty
Ltd

Grodal, Torben: Embodied Visions (2009), New York: Oxford University Press
Kracauer, Sigfried. 1960. Theory of film: The redemption of physical reality.

Chichester: Oxford University Press
Lamarre, Thomas. 2009. The Anime Machine. Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press
Napier, Susan. 2000. Anime: From Akira to Princess Mononoke. New York:
Palgrave
Ortega-Brena, Marianna. 2009. Peek-a-boo I see you_ watching Japanese hard core
animation. Sexuality & Culture: Volume 13. Issue 1: 17- 31.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12119-008-9039-5
Rushton, Richard. 2012. Cinema after Deleuze. London. Continuum

International Publishing Group
Sobchack, Vivian. 1992. The Address of the Eye. Princeton. Princeton University
Press
Thompson, Kristin. 1980. Implications of the cel animation technique. The

cinematic apparatus. London: Macmillian Press: 106 – 120
Well, Paul. 1998. Understanding Animation. London: Routlegde
Williams, Linda. 1990. Hard Core. London: Pandora Press
Žižek, Slavoj. 2004. Organs Without Bodies. New York: Routledge
———. 1997. The Plague of Fantasies. London: Verso
Films:
Groening, Matt. 1989 - . The Simpsons. USA: Gracie Films And 20th Century
Fox Television
Hanna-Barbera Productions. 1961. Top Cat. USA
Hanna-Barbera Productions. 1960. The Flintstones. USA
Hanebu, Sho. 2001. Bible Black. Japan: Milky Studio
Kan, Fukumoto. 1994. Twin Dolls. Japan: Daiei Motion Picture Company

Kotoyoshi, Yumisuke. 1995. Cool Devices. Tokyo: NuTech
Muybrigde, Edward. 1886. Sally Gardner at a Gallop. Leland Stanford
Takayama, Hideki. 1989. Legend of the Overfiend. Japan: Anime 18
Toshiharu, Sato. 2006. Ride of the Valkyrie. Japan: Himanjin Planning
Online:
Hatsune Miku, Dress-up game. Visited 28th February 2014.02.28

http://www.i-dressup.com/girls/Hatsune_Miku_in_Vocaloid.php
Wakabayashi, Daisuke. 2010. Only in Japan, Real Men Go to a Hotel With Virtual
Girlfriends. Wall Street Journal Online. Visited 28th February 2014.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870363230457
5451414209658940

View publication stats

Exploring The Force of The Moving Image

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Exploring The Force of The Moving Image

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Exploring The Force of The Moving Image

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

23 / Jakob Bæk Kristensen ISSN: 2245-9855

Jakob Bæk Kristensen:

Exploring the force of the moving image: A

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

What is it we wish to see when we watch pornography? It is evident from the

It is important to do justice to Mariana Ortega-Brena (2009), who has already

Specifically, this article takes a technological perspective to compare the

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

pornography with Thomas Lamarre’s (2009) theory of how Japanese

Finally, the article includes a short presentation of a few other cultural

What is the problem with animation?

The headline might be slightly suggestive, but it is important to note that

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

In this article, I intend to place great emphasis on the technological base of

Trembling confessions: The point of departure in porn studies

Pornography is intrinsically connected to the human body. This is rarely

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

seen by Williams as a logical outcome of an ever-increasing development of

“Hard core desires assurance that it is witnessing not the voluntary

Drawing on Edward Muybridge’s photographic experiments with moving

As Noel Carroll notes, one should be careful, when imposing a medium-

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

technological determinism, which deemphasises the creative choices made by

Taking porn studies from behind: The point of departure in animation

In order to understand the role of adult anime within porn studies, it is

Animation studies is a sub-field of film studies but is nevertheless a field with

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

the female body, which drives the production of live-action pornography,

Creating movement in Japanese animation

McLaren’s emphasis on movements that are drawn elucidates an important

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

Where live-action cinema is usually created by recording 24 images per

In anime, movement is not always created by drawing the movements of the

6 Concretely, this separation of planes corresponds to the different layers of transparent

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

all Japanese animation, this technical determination has produced an obvious

The time-image and bodily relations in adult anime

As mentioned above, the role of the body in films and especially in

As in live-action pornography, the focus in adult anime is on the sexual

Within animation studies, Lamarre ascribes Japanese hyperlimited animation

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

beginning of Italian Neorealism, so Lamarre sees full animation as classic,

This way of seeing the time-image as an image of parallel objects is very

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

for the hyperlimited animation of anime: “The time-image is the nonrelation

Narrative complexity, fantastic elements, and Japanese culture

Even though some live-action porn movies employ slightly sophisticated

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

Tentacles and other surrogates

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

Viewing position and pornographic experience

So what is it that the spectator of adult anime seeks?

My final arguments only partly agree with those of Ortega-Brena in

“This teetering indeterminacy between spaces, the desire and its

Of course, it is possible for adult anime to incorporate situations that

Exploring the force of the moving image: A comparison between live-action

explicitly return the gaze, for example by having a character suddenly