Author | Ding Qianwen Edit | Fan Zhihui
The "Renaissance" of otaku culture cannot solve the dilemma of the times.
Since the broadcast of "Riding the Wind 2023" for more than half a month, Mei Yi Liya has once again become a representative figure of "Yeqing Hui" in China by leaving the classic stage reappearance of "Pure Land of Bliss" on the first stage, and has become the first popular voting fault outside the show, and has successfully become popular for the second time.
And "Pure Land of Bliss", an evergreen work that has harvested the second dimension for several years, has jumped to the top of the charts of major music platforms with multiple versions. For example, the original work "Pure Land of Bliss" has been entrenched in the 13th issue of the QQ Music Pop Index (as of May 18), ranking third at the highest; The Pure Land of Elysium Riding the Wind Stage version also entered the list for 9 issues (as of May 15), ranking sixth at the highest. So far, the two versions of "Pure Land of Bliss" are still listened to by tens of thousands of people on QQ Music every day.
And the popularity of "Pure Land of Bliss" not only made the two-dimensional ecstasy, but also pulled Mei Yi Liya, the once representative of the sky, "Maimi", back into the public's vision, and also re-examined the house dance culture that had been unpopular for a long time.
How did otaku-dance break the circle and rise?
Linking it to "otaku" means that it is inseparable from the Japanese ACGN culture. Generally speaking, "house dance" is a dance activity related to ACGN culture, and the description of "house dance" is also a short code name after the localization of Chinese mainland.
"Otaku dance" originated from the "踊ってみた (trial jump)" tag carried by some bloggers of the Japanese bullet screen video website Niconico around 2008, which can be understood as a "trial jump" video without subject matter restrictions and dance strength restrictions. The dance posture of these bloggers is also full of freedom and casualness, but the more unified point is that most of the music, clothing, etc. they choose are related to the second dimension.
In 2008, as Niconico blogger IKURA, known as "Nosebleed Hime", cast the SOS group dance video of the ending song "Good Mood on a Sunny Day" of the anime "Haruhi Ryomiya Melancholy" to the station, the door to the new world of "house dance" was also opened by this "originator", and the reproduction of anime dance became the main creative form of house dance. For example, the "SOS Group Dance" dance pop-up event once swept the two-dimensional world, and the "Lianggong of 100 million people" has also become a hot topic, pushing the house dance to a new climax.
Based on the characteristics of most of the characters' dance styles in anime, which are magical, change quickly, and are easy to imitate, whether it is the Conan opening dance of "Detective Conan" or the opening song "Platinum Disco" dance of "Pseudo Story", they are all given certain otaku dance attributes because they can provide replica value. These "magic dances" in anime have gradually gained channels that can be brought to reality due to the label of house dance.
On the other hand, based on the influence of the hit songs produced by virtual singer Hatsune Miku and Vocaloid, otaku dance has ushered in a period of creative upsurge. For example, free songs produced by Vocaloid, such as "Silent Anger" and "God Goes with the Flow", which do not involve copyright disputes, provide convenience for the free choreography of house dance.
At the same time, Niconico also ushered in the wind of fan art creation due to the emergence of the animation program Mikumiku Dance. Originally, this program was created by Vocaloid to promote video projects, but due to its simple model function, it was also used as a simple 3D animation software that allowed Hatsune's 3D models to dance freely. In short, Mikumiku Dance provides ready-made "point-and-shoot" models that allow users to perform their own "electronic choreography" of Hatsune Miku's 3D image without the need for knowledge of music theory.
Under this impact, the game "Hatsune Miku Project Diva", which is based on Hatsune Miku, combines virtual and reality, and uses motion capture technology to complete more exquisite dance movements. It is precisely because of this that Niconico's otaku dance culture has also been influenced, no longer based solely on hobbies or funny, but began to pay attention to professional and diversified work presentation.
The "test jump" video on Niconico then entered the fate of being "faced" by bloggers with certain dance skills, and even gradually got rid of the replica two-dimensional dance posture and entered the original stage of house dance, but it still has the cute vitality characterized by "moe" and the public stereotypical characteristics that are easy to learn.
For example, the "Luka Luka Night Fever" house dance, which was popular in Niconico, was produced by the blogger Ai Chuan Shu on the site, and this dance is also widely regarded as the "beginning" of the true sense of house dance because it is an original house dance.
It is worth mentioning that in 2010, the popular opening song "Love Cycle" of the anime "Pseudo-Story" was also easy to imitate because of the house dance created by Niconico blogger "Ma Qin", which attracted many bloggers to dance "bloodbathing" Niconico, and became a benchmark house dance work later. And "Pseudo-Story" was also fed back by this house dance and successfully launched a sequel.
After getting rid of the casualness of "trial jumping", house dance without exception walked into the "inner roll".
Professional dance ideas represented by Mei Yi Li Bud and others also came into being in time, bringing certain innovations and development to the house dance culture. In 2010, the idol group Harajuku BJ Girls began to submit on Niconico under the stage name Maria, and in 2012, she choreographed and submitted her solo work "Girls" with Miume and 217, which also "Maimi", once set off a boom on the site due to its high-level choreography and made her a representative of Niconico's dance scene.
In 2016, the "Pure Land of Bliss" created by the three people even pulled the house dance to a new height of phenomena with the dance, costume and highly toxic music of the flower kui elements, and was promoted overseas on a large scale, and "butterfly step" has also become a house dance movement that the mainland has been reproduced by the second dimension.
It can be said that it is precisely because of the influx of "professional players" that the creation of house dance has further moved towards diversification and diversity, and complex positions and ethnic elements can become part of house dance.
In the mainland, with the popularity of ACGN culture, house dance has also been carried across the sea by Chinese netizens, and this niche subculture popular in the Japanese two-dimensional world has quickly acquired certain circle attributes in the mainland. Especially under the development of station A and station B, the soil for nourishing house dance is also very fertile. In the "dance area" of station B, many UP owners closely followed the Niconico hot spots to reproduce and submit, and produced many popular videos, such as biting cat, tuberose, etc. are very representative house dance UP masters.
This craze has also affected the mainstream vision, with local idols such as SNH48 and SING girl groups imitating Japanese theater idols to add otaku dance to the performances; "Love Cycle" has been put on mainstream TV performances, parties, etc., and mainstream artists including Tenger have also been adapted to varying degrees. Under the impact of Japanese-style house dance, localized house dance has also appeared, such as relying on SING girl group's "Send Bright Moon", Yin Que Shi Ting and Zhao Fangjing's "Mangsang", seven duo's "Jade Smoke" and other Chinese style songs, are all representative works of local popular original house dance.
The output of house dance is, in a certain sense, also an important way to promote the wide dissemination of a large number of musical works, but also because of the gradual improvement of the required dance level, it has long ceased to be the original hobby and harmless "test jump", which also makes many fans at home and abroad "roll" and gradually break away from the army of house dance.
Why has otaku dance become "tears of the times"?
In the past ten years, otaku-dance has experienced a bumpy development from popular brilliance to a niche low-key subculture. The reason why it has become an "unpopular" creation is that Niconico and the B-station dance area, which are the core of its growing soil, have begun to see a boom based on K-Pop dance flips.
In recent years, with the globalization of K-Pop, the difficulty of K-Pop dance, especially the dance of girl groups, has been adjusted accordingly, mainly in the production form of complex positioning and diversified styles, focusing on the breadth of communication, such as the crab dance of Girls' Generation "Gee", the steam can dance of Crayon Pop's "Bar Bar Bar", the horse dance of PSY "Gangnam Style", and the gesture dance of Twice "TT" have set off a global imitation boom.
The huge flow of K-Pop dance breaking the circle has also made house dance bloggers try to use this to bless their own popularity and complete the attack to the public vision, which is also a popular compromise that house dance will inevitably experience. For example, Niconico's head otaku dance blogger Ma Qin formed the "FNSD" flip dance group with other otaku dance bloggers to flip the girl group dance, and based on its flip girlhood "Gee" was noticed by people outside the second dimension, and thus successfully appeared on Japanese mainstream TV programs.
Similarly, even some of the head UP masters who successfully entered the dance area of Station B with otaku dance have also changed their careers to replicate K-Pop dance steps. For example, the head UP master "Dance Little Meow" in the dance area with 1.48 million fans on Station B, the submission video of the Korean girl group AOA "Bing Bing" has reached 7.608 million views so far, while the house dance classics such as "Love Cycle" and "Taoyuan Love Song" have only one million views.
In addition to the fact that the heat exposure cannot catch up with the speed of K-Pop's out of the circle, the inability of UP owners who focus on house dance creation to effectively generate income is also the key. The output of a house dance video often has to consider costumes, props, music, choreography, venues and other aspects, when the income cannot keep up with the growth of input costs, this expensive expense is also difficult for many UP owners to bear for a long time, especially "small transparent" enthusiasts.
But at the same time, the quality of the house dance video is closely related to the number of views, and in order to survive, the bloggers of the Niconico website also came to the watershed first. In addition to the path of Mei Yi Liya who got out of the circle because of house dancing and successfully signed a record company to debut as a singer, Niconico, which is subject to the booming impact of the Japanese and Korean idol industry, has also taken the initiative to idolize the house dance bloggers on the site.
In 2009, Niconico launched the dance group "Danceroid" composed of popular otaku dance bloggers such as Ai Kawa, IKURA, Minka Lee, etc., but it is more like an idolized dance group than idols, and the members are extremely mobile, and this group created by the idol girl group also announced its dissolution five years after its launch.
In the unlikely stable revenue-generating environment, Niconico house dance bloggers have left YouTube or entered offline business activities and idol activities, which has also caused Niconico to quickly lose the atmosphere of the house dance community and face a large number of user losses. In 2021, NIconico House Dance Area even submitted less than 30 articles per day, and the number of fans of most house dance bloggers is also very difficult to exceed 10,000, even if the number of submissions in 2023 has warmed up, but video playback generally remains at 1,000 plays, and it is difficult to reach the level of easily breaking 10,000 or even millions in its heyday.
Although the mainland B station house dance UP owners rely on the station's creation incentives, fan charging, broadcast sharing, live broadcast rewards, advertising monetization and other ways to obtain some income, with the rectification of the content of the edge ball and the change of the revenue sharing terms of the B station, it has also ushered in the tide of commercialization after a short period of glory. Offline comic exhibitions and commercial performance activities are also due to the need to use performances to enhance popularity, popular cognition, and break the circle, but tend to use more and more above-ground and underground idols, K-Pop dance troupes, dance studios and even K-Pop "Furui Beast" control as the first choice for offline performance invitations, and the fan economy and traffic economy also squeeze the living space of house dance creators, further limiting the spread of house dance in the public domain.
It is worth noting that with the rise of short video platforms in recent years, many ACGN circle fans have brought "trial jumping" back to social platforms, sharing daily house dancing and dancing in an amateur posture, and there are no exquisite scenes, costumes, often simple clothes to dance to the camera, this "return to basics" also has a sense of reincarnation fate.
However, the development of Chinese and Japanese house dance is also facing the dilemma of creative bottleneck period, to put it bluntly, there are too many homogeneous works. Even though the mainland gradually pours out house dance works such as "Rainbow Beat" and "Sending Bright Moon" with the support of official platforms, on the whole, the mainstream of Chinese and Japanese house dance is still modeled on house dance bloggers on Niconico.
It is precisely for this reason that as the house dance works on the Niconico website are difficult to come out, and a large number of bloggers are moving towards the creation of female groups such as "sexy style" or "royal sister style" that deviates from ACGN culture, the change of house dance is also an inevitable end. Even in 2021, the dance work of "Supper Butterfly" jointly launched by the "top" Mei Yi Liya and Biting Cat in China-Japan House Dance is now only more than 1.6 million views on station B, which is far less than the more than 2.29 million views of the biting cat's previous dance of the girl group dance of "The Sun Never Sets".
Therefore, continuing to copy and paste the dance moves in anime has become a common choice in the house dance circle. For example, the "secretary dance" in "Miss Kaguya Wants Me to Confess", the ending song dance of "Spell Return", and the "Gangster Shake" of "Jojo's Bizarre Adventure" are all popular house dance themes in recent years.
Under this cookie-cutter content creation, naturally, the freshness of house dance has disappeared, and instead it relies on sensational titles and curious covers to attract traffic clicks. Therefore, even the creators of house dance who insist on it have to go with the flow. Just like on station B, the house dance UP masters have already entered the soft edge behavior of the ambiguous title and cover of the "volume".
But then again, even if the house dance culture can't set off the storm of the glory period, there is still a certain subcultural audience that is sticking to it, and it is also favored by some brands because of its simple and easy-to-learn characteristics, and is used as a "stepping stone" to break the circle of niche circles. For example, Michelle Ice City, China Merchants Bank, etc., have used house dance as a special shortcut to close relations in order to attract two-dimensional audiences. Of course, the grandeur of the whole people jumping is indeed difficult to reproduce.
epilogue
With Mei Yi Li Bud dancing "Pure Land of Bliss" again, the grand situation of house dance that swept the mainland Internet platform in the past has also quietly ushered in a wave of nostalgic "resurrection", and the recent team building in the B station dance area has triggered a wave of collective memory killing.
But this does not mean that the house dance craze can return to its former glory.
The most fundamental reason is that its original "trial jump" label has characterized house dance as content that requires public participation in creation, which is also the key to its development. Obviously, the house dance based on professionalism is also abandoned.
What's more, ACGN culture has gradually flowed outside the scope of the mainstream cultural circle in the mainland under the tide of the times, and the public's impression of all cultures in this field is not objective. And the house dance that wanders in the ACGN culture faces an unflattering situation at both ends.
On the one hand, the popularity of otaku dance has also brought relatively colored glasses, and statements such as edge rubbing and kitsch are still lingering labels; On the other hand, it also vacillates in professionalism and simplification, is too simple and easy to learn, and does not have too strict professional thresholds, and is also considered to be a "children's dance", which is out of place in the dance area irrigated by various professional dance types.
More importantly, the "new" house dance combined with K-Pop, C-Pop and other reintegrations has long been separated from the original intention of otaku culture in the eyes of the second dimension, and is more like a phenomenon of over-commercializing subculture in order to obtain traffic clicks. In all cases, the embarrassment of house dance has not changed, but it has been picked up and put down under the continuous washing of the wave of retro nostalgic culture, and has become a glorious pop culture staged "tears".
Perhaps the re-popularity of "Pure Land of Bliss" may not necessarily lead house dance back to the grandeur of national dance, but this "small sense of shock" from the second dimension is ultimately people's nostalgia for the era of cultural gushing that is not perfect but full of truth and no constraints.
In the end, it is just a small solace for romanticizing the past.
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