Live Concerts by Voice Actresses/Characters as State of Exception: The Affect and Subjectivity of the Audience as Necessary Conditions

No analysis of recent anime about idols would be complete without considering live concerts by voice actresses who play the parts of anime characters. For instance, there was a lot of buzz around the farewell live concert of μ, which took place over two days from March 31 to April 1, 2006. Needless to say, μ is the name of a band founded by a group of high school girls within the world of the very popular anime (or media mix) titled Love Live!. In recent years many other voice actresses put on live concerts in real life using the voices of characters from games and anime such as THEIDOLM@STER, K-ON!, and Milky Holmes. Not all of these are anime about idols.

In this article I analyze the characteristics of such concerts, which I call live concerts by voice actresses/characters (seiyū kyara raibu).¹ In particular, I ask what sort of pleasure the audience derives from a live concert in real life, rather than one in the two-dimensional space of anime and games. This relates to recent debates about 2.5-dimensional (2.5D) culture. I am not directly concerned whether such concerts are part of the 2.5D phenomenon or not, but I argue that the desire to experience these live concerts parallels the desire to enter a 2.5D space. While keeping this parallel in mind, I will move on to the main analysis below.

The Desire for Pilgrimages to Sacred Anime Locations

First, I offer one perspective on the nature of the desire for live concerts by voice actresses/characters. This desire stems from the desire to live in and experience the world that unfolds in anime and media mix. In other words, it is the desire to experience as real a world that is fictional.

It is the same desire that also drives people to participate in pilgrimages to sacred anime locations. Going on a pilgrimage to an anime location requires identifying and travelling to the real-life background used as inspiration in anime scenes. This practice is driven by the same desire to live in and experience (tsuitaiken) the world of the anime with one's own body.

Going on a pilgrimage means going on a trip. Through traveling, one leaves quotidian life and connects to a new world. Such trips could be one-day trips within Japan or international trips. For instance, K-ON! The Movie, directed by Naoko Yamada (2011), contains detailed London scenes because the protagonists (members of the After School Tea Time band) go to London for their high school graduation trip. In fact, fans have identified the exact London locations depicted and there are accounts of people who went all the way to London on pilgrimage. Also, the anime series K-ON! frequently uses as background the northern part of Kyoto and often inspires pilgrimages among fans.

In the film Love Live! The Second Idol Movie directed by Takahiko Kyogoku (2015), the members of μ travel to New York to give a live concert. That is why fans update their blogs with travelogues and posts about trips not only to Tokyo locations such as Kanda Myōjin (a Shinto shrine) and Akihabara but also to New York. There are even websites with databases of locations used in anime. Fans can use the information shared online in their pilgrimages.

In pilgrimages, fans can experience the world of anime by strolling along the streets where anime characters walked, by staying in a hotel where characters spent the night talking, or by using the same subway line as the characters. The pilgrimages enable fans to live in the same world as the characters and be close to them. Not only do pilgrims experience traces of characters' lives, they experience these locations as places where characters currently exist. So pilgrims imagine themselves to be in the same place (iawaseru) as the characters. Blogs often contain pictures of fans going on pilgrimages accompanied by figurines of characters or stuffed dolls. By carrying such figurines...