| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The research project at the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies, Ritsumeikan University, involved the investigation of the contemporary Japanese contexts of play (i.e. game centers, entertainment districts, theme parks) and how the act of playing in these contexts is represented in popular media.
During the second year, I further progressed in the analysis of Japanese representation of play venues in Japanese digital games and other popular media texts (manga, anime, tv shows, drama), progressing further in time to the phase after the 2000s. I continued analysing the role, function and representation of these spaces in relation to the game dynamics and narrative setting.
I extended the ethnographic investigations of public places where play is performed (such as game centers, entertainment districts and game events), returning to venues analysed in the previous year, as well as extending the analysis to a new type of venue, theme parks and amusement parks (Tokyo Disneyland, Osaka Universal Studio – NintendoLand, Dragon Quest Island), analysing the interaction between people and place, the playful activities and sociocultural rhetorics.
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