Ryoko Suzuki

Like giant Barbie dolls for the modern Japanese male, Ryoko Suzuki’s two-metre-tall photographs of collectable female anime characters are shiny, sexy and the stuff of pure fantasy. A Japanese schoolgirl lifts up her pleated skirt to reveal her white underwear, a nurse in high-heeled white stiletto boots bends over to examine her patient, and a French maid offers service with a beguiling smile. At first glance, these voluptuous females who somehow blur the uncanny line between cute and erotic may pass for typical Japanese manga or anime images. But upon closer inspection, these digitally constructed works deliver much more than a new take on the complexities of the notions of kawaii or super-cute in sexually charged popular Japanese art.

As your eye travels up the long, curvaceous, plastic legs of these women in classic pin-up girl poses, it takes a moment to realize you are not looking into the eyes of a virtual character. It is the artist herself who gazes back at you. By superimposing her own face onto images of anime characters, Suzuki cleverly turns a Japanese pop culture practice on its head and provides an interesting avenue into understanding the notion of manufactured desire in contemporary Japan.

The idea for “Anikora,” a term that Suzuki coined by combining the word “anime” with the Japanese pronunciation of the English word “collage,” came from a growing trend in Japan known as aikora. An abbreviation of aidoru kora-ju, or in English, idol collage, aikora refers to the popular practice of making photographic collages of famous Japanese women, combining their faces with images of anonymous nude bodies.

Suzuki became interested in the proliferation of aikora alongside other pop culture influences such as manga and anime because of what these kinds of images have to say about male desire. In her first “Anikora” series, Suzuki superimposed her own face onto images of nude bodies that boasted exaggerated female features like those of anime characters. Using her own face with a “famous” body, Suzuki intended to poke fun at the notion of aikora by creating its exact opposite.

“Seifuku” is the second body of work in Suzuki’s “Anikora” series. The Japanese word meaning uniform, seifuku hold an important place in Japanese society. Largely bound up in notions of identity, certain uniforms can hold strong associations. For example the quintessential Japanese schoolgirl, which is linked not only to the cliché schoolgirl fantasy, but also to a particular sentiment of time as fleeting. Japanese women only wear those uniforms for three years, and Suzuki feels that men’s fantasy surrounding these uniforms is as much about a longing for their own youth as it is for women.

In fact, this longing is at the heart of the subject matter in Suzuki’s “Seifuku” series. While aikora images are composed of real women’s bodies, the women in the “Seifuku” series are actually collectable dolls known in Japan as figures. Collecting figures in the image of one’s favourite anime or manga heroine has become very popular among Japanese males. Suzuki explains that the typical Japanese salaryman very seldom breaks his routine of working long hours and returning home to a family he is responsible to support. With little time for play, these virtual figures offer a way into a different world void of adult responsibilities. Available in three sizes, including life-sized, these figurines may serve as stand-in lovers for some men, says Suzuki.

At first, angry about the spread of aikora and the collecting of sexualized prototype dolls, Suzuki later understood the phenomenon in a different light. Japanese people are extremely attracted to visual imagery, and she sees these visual themes as a way to both manufacture and control desire.

“Desire is very personal and pure,” says Suzuki, something that should remain autonomous. By digitally enlarging her Lambda prints to a height that reaches 228.6 centimetres, Suzuki seeks to make the viewer somewhat uncomfortable with these larger-than-life figures and demonstrate that desire in fact cannot be controlled.

Suzuki, who does not consider herself a feminist but an artist interested in gender issues in contemporary Japanese society, explains that her “Seifuku” works have as much to say about female desire as they do about male desire. In the same way that men’s fantasies become controlled by the enticing images in manga and anime, women too start to model themselves after these types of over-sexualized and stylized heroines in terms of body shape and clothing style. In turn this becomes linked to the economy.

The exhibition at Corkin Gallery was Suzuki’s first solo show in Canada, and was easily one of the highlights of Contact, Toronto’s Photography Festival. Standing in front of a giant playboy bunny image with her own face smiling down at us, the artist speaks animatedly about European and Chinese exhibitions planned for the fall where she’ll be showing to different countries a picture of Japan right now. ■

“Ryoko Suzuki: Anikora – Seifuku” was exhibited at Corkin Gallery in Toronto from May 3 to July 13, 2008.

Carla Harms is a writer based in Calgary. Her graduate studies in Art History focused on modern Japanese art.