Love in the Time of COVID-19: The ‘New Normal’ in the TV Series #rimorabu (“Remote Love”)

11.03.2021 12:30 - 14:00

A virtual u:japan lecture by Nora Kottmann (DIJ) & Elisabeth Scherer (HHU Düsseldorf).

| Abstract |

Television series in Japan frequently deal with life plans and life choices of (young) adults and, in so doing, serve as a way to negotiate societal normality. Often, one focus of these series is on unmarried women (‚singles’) of different age groups. One such example is the recent television series #rimorabu. Futsū no koi wa jadō (#remote love. Ordinary love is a wrong course; NTV 2020) which aired from mid-October to late December 2020. The series is situated in the context of the ongoing pandemic and discusses how calls for self-restraint and the avoidance of ‘the 3Cs’ – closed spaces, crowds and close contact situations – affect the dating- and love-life of unmarried individuals. In our talk, we address challenges on the production side, critically discuss depictions of a ‘new normal’ in the context of current single- and gender-discourses in Japan and show that the series, while being extremely up-to date on the one hand, falls back on old narrative patterns on the other hand.

| Bio |

Elisabeth Scherer is a Japanese studies researcher and e-learning professional at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. Her areas of research interest include popular culture, intermedia, rituals and gender studies. She is the editor of Reconsidering the Cultural Significance of NHK’s Morning Dramas (special issue of East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, 2019).

Nora Kottmann is Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo. Her research focuses on issues related to gender, intimacy, mobility, space, and (not) belonging. Recent publications include the co-edited volume Studying Japan. Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods (2020; with Cornelia Reiher).

| Date & Time |

u:japan lunch lecture | s02e02
Thursday 2021-03-11, 12:30~14:00
max. 300 participants 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact bernhard.leitner@univie.ac.at or
florian.purkarthofer@univie.ac.at.

Organiser:

Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften - Japanologie