Baka-Tsuki hosts a partially-complete translation of the Fate/Zero light novels, and I suppose I’ll read them at some point. I might’ve started earlier today, but, while looking through the associated media, I got to thinking.
Well, I’d already been thinking — specifically, about the things that define the reading experience, textual presentation and prior knowledge and such; I suppose that’s sort of my thing now. It occurred to me that the promotional and “peripheral” media associated with a core anime/manga work will often include information about the characters and setting, information that doesn’t show up in the work itself.
But to what end, I wonder?
Here’s a statistics page given for Kiritsugu Emiya in the first volume of Fate/Zero.
Height and weight I can understand; that’ll help us visualize the character, and it might be difficult to sneak specifics like that into the narrative. While not especially necessary, it’s at least not useless. But blood type? Birthday? If either of those becomes relevant to the story, it’d probably be easy to justify mentioning them in the story. Otherwise, why does it matter?
I assume the writers know they’re writing for a fandom that includes people who enjoy those minor specifics, so there is that. My question is, what do fans do with that information once they have it? How does it fit into reading? Do they simply acquire it, take enjoyment in knowing it or use it to bolster their e-peens, and that’s the end of it? That seems too simple to describe all cases. For my part, I might refer to it if it ever became relevant to the plot, but if I had to do that, I’d be a little resentful that they didn’t just present it during the narrative to begin with.
There’s also the matter of proximity to consider. The Kiritsugu page above is a light novel illustration; it’s actually a part of the text in question, bound together with the written narrative. We could say that it has a high degree of “canonicity,” more than promotional material and concept art — but, really, the reader decides what to value most. It’s at least more immediate to the reading experience, and perhaps we should treat light novel illustrations as part of the narrative itself. In that case, I’d simply call Kiritsugu’s blood type needless exposition on the text’s part, but then I’m not a hoarder of fictional trivia like I used to be.
I do have an example in mind that deals with material further from the text in question, but you’ll want to skip it if the prospect of Last Exile spoilers bothers you.
Here’s a bit of art Range Murata did for Last Exile. Though similar in setting to the ending, it’s a scene that doesn’t take place during the show; nevertheless, some fans assume the mostly-obscured Guild-uniformed character to the left is Dio, and point to this image as justification for his survival.
The show itself, however, presents overwhelming evidence in favor of Dio’s death. Could he have survived, by himself, in conditions known to wreck metal airships? Maybe, but it doesn’t seem likely. I suppose birds manage it, but Dio can’t fly.
It makes no difference which interpretation one prefers (I think the plot’s stronger if he dies, but whatever). I just find this kind of interpretation interesting in itself. The source of the peripheral material needn’t even be strict Word of God; Murata was only the character designer, as far as I know, and his role in the plotting would’ve been minimal (granted that the whole thing has a very Murata feel to it). This sort of thing seems especially prevalent in anime/manga fandom, though it certainly shows up elsewhere — in any very vocal, active fandom, really. Perhaps it’s that vocal and active nature that gives rise to the detailed supplementary (maybe “extra-textual”) material it requires, prompting promoters in the industry to appeal to it actively, and thereby rendering advertising a far more prominent concern in narrative consumption and meaning creation than I might’ve anticipated.
Ooh, Remembrance Day. That’s simply got to be significant!
Well, the Japanese have their whole deal with bloodtype astrology. So it’s a characterization device, though minimal. AB would be the unpredictable, fluctating type, I think, which may or may not be fitting for Kiritsugu. At the very least, it’s the blood type no one wants, and Kiritsugu is rather high on the anti-hero scale afaik, so I guess it’s something like that.
And as Owen noted, Remembrance day. You can also do all manner of funky things with Japanese birthdays, they can be small puns in and of themselves.
But then I think you’re probably mostly right in it being for the trivia-obsessed otaku. A step above their obsession with giving out B-W-H measurements, at least.
Also St. Martin’s day. I suppose we can do things with the birthday, if we want to.
I always forget about that blood type profiling. Still, if it were something we’d more readily recognize in the west, such as astrological sign (another use for the birthday I guess…me and Kiritsugu are rocking the Scorpio), I’d be inclined to call it extraneous anyway. But then I have my priorities as a reader; I like to see neat categorizations like that handily broken (which, granted, might work better if I know which categorizations exist to be broken).
I just think it’s interesting that, in some cases, this sort of information comes from all manner of material beyond the text (granting that a light novel illustration is a part of its text, so the Fate/Zero case is a little different), and it ends up working its way into readers’ understanding of the text anyway. That broad permissiveness stands out in many of the fandoms of things I like.
Tip in case you want to ruminate more on this text-paratext-pseudotext-fantext-whatevertext relationship: Touhou.
There canon and fanon are more or less useless terms. Doujins have more characterizing power than the actual games more often than not. etc.
I still haven’t figured out what sense or nonsense to make out of this phaenomenon, really, which is why my comments are so devoid in anything wortwhile.
Oh yeah, Touhou — what a can of worms that is. I have the games on my PC in anticipation of getting into it, but I haven’t done it yet. It’s intimidating; there’s probably enough material to think about there to fill out a Ph.D. dissertation.
On that note, I wonder how my Ph.D. applications would look if I proposed a series of doujin games and their associated fan media empire as a research topic.