Beyond the layout: reading South Korean animations as affective-performative assemblages

ABSTRACT

Contemporary South Korean society is nowadays embodying potential social circumstances that could destabilise its ideal images of the family and gender relations, within the ramifications of socio-political, cultural, and historical changes. This study delves into how the fantasy of the ideal family in Korea has been established; why we need to invent new fantasies of familial kinship in neo-liberal contemporary Korean society; and in what conditions new fantasies can be imagined. Further, this study analyses the alternative fantasy of familial relationships depicted in Korean visual media texts; specifically, two Korean animations, TOBOT (2010–2015) and BIKLONZ (2014–2016). Both TOBOT and BIKLONZ suggest unconventional family lives anchored in affective bonds and kinship in a way that goes beyond the limits of normative family values. Proposing the notion that these shows affectively engage the viewers in the narratives that performatively embody images of the family and gender relations, I conceptualise animation as an affective-performative assemblage.

KEYWORDS:

• Family
• animation
• affect
• assemblage
• South Korea

Acknowledgments

I am thankful to Dr Louise Chambers, who offered her advice to me in developing this paper, and Elif Su Işık, Cansu Kutlualp, and anonymous reviewers, for their critical and inspirational comments have been a tremendous help to me in improving my analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Neo-Confucianism is a Chinese philosophy that seeks to examine the principles of the cosmos and human nature (Young-jin Koh 2003, 60–61). Its theories include the fundamental relational hierarchy between the ruler and the ruled; father and son; and husband and wife, which the founders of the Joseon dynasty applied to national politics to reconstruct the social order (Koh 2003, 62–63). The neo-Confucian transformation of the Joseon dynasty reached its peak in the course of the seventeenth century (Martina Deuchler 1992, 303), consolidating the patrilineal lineage system within society (Deuchler 1992, 284).

2. Young Toys’ new project, TOBOT V (2018-), which is not created by Retrobot, is outside the scope of this study, since its setting is completely different from that of the original series.

3. The surname Oh and the Sino-Korean word indicating number five sound the same as /o/.

4. Doun of TOBOT has paraplegia, Semo of TOBOT has a prosthetic arm and a leg, and Reo of BIKLONZ is unable to hear in one ear.

5. The title of the animation is italicised, whilst Tobot as a robot is written in roman.

6. Season 8, (00:50:53)-(00:51:00). (See Young Toys 2014a). This English script of the dialogue was offered by Dir. Lee.

7. Season 8, (00:55:28)-(00:55:56). (See Young Toys 2014a). This English script of the dialogue was offered by Dir. Lee. I slightly rewrote the last line of the given script to better convey the original meaning of the Korean version, under the permission of Dir. Lee.

8. Dir. Lee commented, however, that it is not Retrobot’s own philosophy; rather, he believes it is based on common sense.

9. The title of the animation is italicised, whilst Biklonz as a system-cum-organisation for warriors is written in roman.

10. Season 3, (02:11:03)-(02:11:43). (See Young Toys 2015). This English script of the dialogue was offered by Dir. Lee.

11. BIKLONZ might affectively burden the viewers doubly, since it is a story of warriors who are living under harsh conditions, unlike other heroes who do the right things without worrying about their livelihood.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Youngin Kang

Youngin Kang is an independent scholar whose research interests focus primarily on the unique characteristics of contemporary South Korean popular culture, which, although hybrid, are distinctively Korean. She attained her master’s degree in Gender, Media and Culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2018. She is going to begin her PhD Programme at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in August 2021. E-mail: [email protected]