自由論題［投稿論文：研究論文］

Inhabiting the Exhibition Site ThroughDōjinshi
The Role of Fan Works in Place-Making

同人誌にみる物が住まう展示会場
二次創作が場所形成に果たす役割

Estelle Rust

Doctoral Program, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University

ラスト エステル
慶應義塾大学大学院政策・メディア研究科後期博士課程
Correspondence to: erus@keio.jp

Abstract:

The changing and malleable exhibition space is one regularly considered fromthe perspective of curator and audience. This paper brings forward an alternate one:that of the object. Such a perspective is revealed in analysis of exhibition dōjinshi (fanworks) inspired by Japanese popular culture: in particular, those written by the female
fanbase of the franchise ‘Touken Ranbu’. Their works imagine Japanese swords
as social inhabitants, and bring a new perspective to the discussion of exhibition
spatiality and purpose of display, centring the object and rendering the exhibition a
communicative space between humans and non-humans.
展示空間はしばしばその姿を変えていくが、これまでは主にキュレーターと観客の視点から考察されてきた。これに対し、本論文は物それ自体のパースペ
クティブをとるべきことを提案し、日本のポップカルチャーの影響を受けた同人誌、特にゲーム「刀剣乱舞―ONLINE―」と関連作品展開についての女性
ファンによる二次創作に着目する。そこでは日本刀が展示空間に住まう社会的存在として想像されており、展示を人間と非人間のコミュニケーション空間
として想像すべきという意味で、展示の空間的性格に関する議論に新しい視角を導入する。

Keywords: exhibitions, fan communities, popular media, heritage, place-making
展示、ファン研究、ポップカルチャー、文化遺産、場所形成

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1Introduction
Across towns, regions, and even countries, exhibitions frame their objects ofdisplay in similar ways. Large rooms, with nondescript walls in solid colours,
emphasising artworks or artefacts; conversation is quiet, so as to not disturb others.
Objects sit static in their cases to be examined, as visitors move around them before
eventually moving on. While one might linger in a particularly emotively designed
space, ultimately, the exhibition site is one to be moved through and not dwelledwithin. As exhibition contents change, and the objects displayed are rotated throughothers in the collection, it remains to the visitor a temporary space.
But what if considered from the perspective of the object? How does it view theplaces it has been, past and present? How does it feel towards its display, and theobjects around it? What happens when it is no longer in the exhibition room - can thespirit of an object wander the museum, free from the restrictions on movement placedon visitors?
These questions may seem fanciful, but ask for consideration of the meaning of
exhibition sites and displays beyond those held by curator or visitor. These questions
are not drawn from theoretical musing: rather, they come from ideas presented increative works produced by visitors to Japanʼs sword exhibitions. These works fallunder the umbrella of dōjinshi, and are made by the largely female base ofcontemporary Japanese sword enthusiasts. Dōjinshi [同人誌], meaning ʻlike-mindedpublicationsʼ, are a common creative product of pop-culture fan communities. Those
made by sword fans are inspired, in large part, by the pop-culture franchise Touken
Ranbu [ 刀 剣 乱 舞 ] (DMM GAMES, 2015-, https://www.dmm.com/netgame/feature/tohken.html), a series that transforms Japanese swords into human forms.
These human-shaped characters express memories, emotions, and experiences
gathered while they were still in sword-form. As these characters are based on realworld swords, frequently displayed in Japanʼs historical and artistic exhibitions, fanauthors use them to explore what it means to be an object inhabiting a site of display.
Dōjinshi are designed to be shared, and not simply made and read but negotiatedby their respective communities. For the exhibition, Touken Ranbu dōjinshi reveal an
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understanding of the exhibition site from the objectʼs perspective. They connect
spatially distant sites, through a swordʼs movement between inhabited collections;they question typical evocations of historical time; and they expand the social
dimensions of exhibition visitation to include the sword alongside the human visitor.
In examining these perspectives, we are asked to consider what exhibition sites mean
for the objects they display, and the implications this holds for exhibition practice.

2

Aims
I propose that, through dōjinshi and other fan works, exhibitions are framed associal places for the objects within them, which disrupts the assumed experience andpurpose of exhibitions as sites of display. Here, I use ʻexhibition siteʼ to refer to boththe typical museum or gallery, as well as the various heritage sites that host displays
in Japan. Through this, I use an anthropological approach to space and place tointegrate experiences of the ʻfanʼ and their ʻfan creationʼ within broader humanexperience.
ʻPlacesʼ have long been of interest to social researchers. I draw onanthropological interpretations of place as one inhabited by actively present,interactive social beings. This framing, proposed by Ingold (2006), does not requirethat social beings be human - rather, it is one that directly draws non-human actors
into the process of habitation, and acknowledges their ability to designate meaningfulplaces. In the dōjinshi I will discuss, swords appear as this kind of social being,
inhabiting exhibition sites and rendering them into places.
Place as determined by an inhabiting being has been explored by otheranthropologists. For example, natural landscapes have been understood by tourist
visitors as places, due to oneʼs embodied inhabitation of them (Tilley and CameronDaum, 2017). Similarly, various aspects of place-meaning, from the natural, to thematerial, to the metaphorical, have been seen through their convergence on the beings
that inhabit them (Dripps, 2005; Lavoilette, 2011). Place and inhabiting being areboth aspects of the social world, and give and derive meaning from each other. In
examining dōjinshi, I propose that the social world crafted by fan authors exists

76Inhabiting the Exhibition Site Through Dōjinshi

within this process of meaning making for the subject of the sword and the exhibition
it inhabits.

3

Methodology
To examine this form of place-making in the context of fan works, I have chosen

to focus on those related to the franchise Touken Ranbu. Touken Ranbu is amultimedia franchise originating in 2015, with adaptations ranging from online
games to animation, stage productions, and ﬁlm. In these works, famous Japaneseswords are personified into human warriors. This franchise, and its female target
audience, has the potential to reveal an understanding of exhibition sites and fan
activities that have been overlooked by previous studies of dominantly male fancommunities, particularly as historical exhibitions are largely assumed to target
middle aged and older men (Okamoto, 2015; Sugawa, 2017). Touken Ranbu fans,being interested in historical swords, are frequent exhibition visitors who exist
outside of this assumed context.
I aim to expand upon existing investigation involving female fan communities.
This previous research has combined material elements of fan activities withimagined constructions of historical ﬁgures in the historical sites they visit (Sugawa,2017). This previous research, on franchises such as the Warring States-set Sengoku
Basara, or the numerous retellings of the late Edo periodʼs famed Shinsengumi,
includes drawings and notes created by fans at historical sites in their imagining ofpast peoples. I expand this scope to not only include fan works set outside thehistorical heritage site, such as contemporary exhibition spaces, but to consider how
this designation of place is mediated when the subjects in question are not long-deadhumans, but rather, still-present and tangible objects.
This paper focuses on the analysis of dōjinshi and other fan works featuringpersoniﬁed swords as they relate to the interpretation of real-world places. Touken
Ranbu fans are proliﬁc creators of fan works. Production company Nitro+ provides
additional guidelines regarding the creation of these works, indicating a particularinterest by fans to Touken Ranbu in comparison to others under their oversight
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(Nitro+, 2017). However, there are methodological considerations that must be madein an analysis of fan works. One consideration lies in access for the non-fan. The
term ʻdōjinshiʼ covers a constantly shifting and expanding library of independently
created works. Nitro+ʼs guidelines for production has limitations for the quantities anauthor is able to print and distribute (Nitro+, 2015). In addition to these limitations,
dōjinshi are typically distributed at fan-organised, irregularly scheduled, in-person
events, further contributing to their scarcity and diﬃculty for non-fans to access.
As well as access, an examination of dōjinshi must pay attention to legal
concerns. While Touken Ranbu fan works are accepted under speciﬁed guidelines,
not all producers share this view. Recent legal proceedings on the use of copyrighted
characters in “obscene” derivative works has prompted the need for additional
caution in research (Sawada, 2021, p. 40). This ambivalent acceptance of fan works
requires caution lest the researcherʼs work negatively impacts the fan community.
With these diﬃculties in mind, I present my analysis both as a researcher, and as
one positioned within the fan community, who is capable of navigating it, andstriving to present this social phenomenon whilst ensuring its community is protected.
This paper deals with analysis of thematic elements, rather than the direct quotationof speciﬁc works. The themes analysed were identiﬁed through gathering physicaldōjinshi published between 2018 and 2021, as well as sustained engagement over2020-2021 as an anthropological researcher with the online fan community and fanwork producers. In conjunction with this thematic analysis, I have provided my own
examples of visual fan works common to the Touken Ranbu context, providing
illustration in a form that will remain accessible (ﬁgs. 1-3, in later sections of thispaper). As dōjinshi are constantly produced and circulated, new works willundoubtedly enter the fan community from hereon after, providing further examples
for the curious reader.
To supplement this analysis, I have included responses from female fan visitors
at exhibitions. Dōjinshi are an expression not only of the authorʼs experiences, but
feed into wider understandings circulated throughout the fan community. As such, I
have included the thoughts and experiences of fans gathered at exhibition sites across78

Inhabiting the Exhibition Site Through Dōjinshi

Japan. I draw on unstructured interviews recorded immediately through written notes
with ﬁfteen visitors to Mitoʼs Tokugawa Museum, conducted on-site after exhibition
attendance. These responses have been chosen due to their relevance to the topic ofdōjinshi, as well as their resonance with responses from other fans at six exhibitions
across Japan. This has been further supplemented by my own visits to exhibition
places, as I relate the experience of visiting exhibition sites with knowledge of theseplaces gained from analysing dōjinshi. In doing so, I aim to situate Touken Ranbu fanworks and the communicative space of sword fans together in the examination of
exhibitions as places beyond sites of display.

4

Results and Discussion

4.1

Dōjinshi and the Negotiation of Fan Works
Before examining exhibitions as seen in dōjinshi, it is important to discuss

dōjinshi and fan works themselves. Colloquially referred to as ʻsecondaryʼ orʻderivativeʼ works (二次創作), dōjinshi and other fan works are creations inspired byan original ﬁctional work. They utilise the characters, visuals, and concepts derived
from this pre-existing original in the production of fan-made narratives. Dōjinshi andtheir creation have long been discussed in fan and media studies. I present thisprevious work as a base from which further insights can be gained in their inclusionas aspects of social negotiation in anthropological discussions of place-making.
While dōjinshi ʻderiveʼ from an original work, their production, distribution, andnegotiation are strongly tied to independently organised activities of fan communities.
Dōjinshi trace their place in Japanʼs media landscape to the post-war period(Murakami et al., 2013). From this early period, the production and consumption ofdōjinshi has coincided with like-minded fan communities, where these fan works
largely exist on equal footing (Wilson, 2003). A panel discussion between
contributors and creators of early dōjinshi collections of the 1960ʼs-1980ʼs,emphasised community as an important aspect for dōjinshi authors and readers(Murakami et al., 2013, p. 126). This was particularly evident in the experiences ofyoung female fans, with the difficulties they faced in accessing large-scale events
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(Murakami et al., 2013, p. 139). Dōjinshi, from these early stages, have been the
products of dedicated, like-minded communities as well as those deriving from aninspiring work.
Dōjinshi are typically circulated at fan-organised market events such as the biannual Comiket (Lamerichs, 2018; Wood, 2006). Works made for women became
increasingly visible from the 1980ʼs, and at the time of writing, it is estimated around
60% of authors at Comiket are women (Ishikawa, 2020). Their modes of participation
highlight the social realm of fan communities as separate from that of the original
work. For example, the display and promotion of female-oriented dōjinshi is
described by Ishikawa (2020) as deliberately “difficult to understand”, utilising
specialised textual and visual elements that are “understood by those who understandit” - in this case, the female fan (Ishikawa, 2020, pp. 307-308). Fan works havebecome further specialised as they are increasingly published online, rather thanphysically, requiring existing knowledge of an author and their work (Ishikawa, 2020,
p. 308). This online sharing has increased access to dōjinshi on a global scale (Ogura,2000), revealing the expansive, yet still specialised, nature of fan creator
communities. Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, online communities
allowed for distribution while in-person events were suspended, ensuring the ongoingexchange of ideas.
Dōjinshi specialisation reveals them as products of a speciﬁc community, andnot merely as the by-products of an inspiring franchise. They are ﬂexible, not onlychanging in setting, style, and media formats, but are works open to the explorationof social norms (Wood, 2006). There is further flexible acceptability in what
constitutes a fan work, which is negotiated by the fan community itself. Adherence tospecific elements of the inspiring franchise can determine wider fan acceptance(Hahn, 2007). However, this does not mean that the most acceptable fan works arethose that seamlessly mimic the original narrative.
The negotiation of accuracy is largely tied to a fan workʼs use of the original
workʼs conceptual elements. In the case of Touken Ranbu, its licensed works rarelyreference the present-day exhibition of swords. Regardless, they are a common theme80Inhabiting the Exhibition Site Through Dōjinshi

in dōjinshi. Touken Ranbuʼs fan works are particularly flexible, inclusive of nonfiction research and place guides as well as typical fictional narratives (Teikyodo,2020). This flexibility has perhaps been helped by Japanʼs ʻMedia Mixʼ (Benson,2018). Here, popular franchises are adapted across diﬀerent media forms by licensed
actors, without necessarily remaining ʻtrueʼ to the original narrative, instead
maintaining the workʼs core concepts in exploration of further possibilities. While theMedia Mix is largely used to describe licensed adaptations, its characteristic use ofconcept-based negotiation is similar to the production and fan mediation of dōjinshi.
Touken Ranbuʼs originating work, the 2015 online game, has thin story andcharacters that appear more as concepts than narrative participants. Rather thandiminishing adaptive potential, the concept-framework of this game provides highly
flexible elements for both licensed and fan works. The flexibility found in official
adaptations is ampliﬁed when taken to the even more malleable realm of dōjinshi.
Touken Ranbu is not a single historical narrative featuring personiﬁed Japaneseswords in a strictly deﬁned historical setting. Rather, it is a concept-based frameworkthat highlights swords as beings with consciousness, allowing both authors andaudience members to view any number of social experiences from their perspective.
In this sense, it is an example of a media franchise where the choice of utilising
speciﬁcally conceptualised characters and settings determines which narrative themes
are further explored. For the licensed Media Mix, the concept framework of Touken
Ranbu is largely explored in historical ﬁction. For the wider scope of fan works, thisflexible framework allows authors to utilise their own interpretations extending
beyond historical narratives, exploring settings and experiences not covered bylicensed works, such as the museum or exhibition site.
It is for this reason that I focus on the franchiseʼs character concepts as they
impact on exhibition-related fan works. Touken Ranbuʼs characters are primarily
defined by their conceptual design, rather than a set historical narrative. Thesedesigns are directly inspired by the artefact of the sword, and serve as the primaryvisual connection between the physical exhibition space and the fan community,
separate from the franchiseʼs own narrative context. The characters of Touken Ranbu
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are understood as having particular historical associations with people, places, andevents, gathered in the life-history of the sword. These characters are employed in fan
works to signify the visual, voiced perspective a sword might have towards its
display, as mediated by fan authors. This is an employment of franchise visuals inassociation with experiences of exhibitions.
Thus the exhibition site, wherever it may be in Japan, is drawn into a social
process of exploration and negotiation by the fan community, inclusive of theperspective of the object. This diﬀers from other examples of fan visits to historicalsites, often strictly associated with a speciﬁc historical event or actor (Sugawa, 2017),
as the tangible sword and its intangible character concept can be introduced in any
context of exhibition, regardless of longstanding historical place-connection. Touken
Ranbu fan works thus combine the specialisation and independent creation of fanworks with the ﬂexibility aﬀorded to works derived from a conceptual, rather thanstrictly narrative, franchise. Through the creative products of Touken Ranbu fans, thedepiction of exhibition sites and their displays reveals a conceptualisation of theworld in which the object is a social being in its own inhabited place.
4.2

Inhabited Exhibitions

4.2.1

Places in the Historical and Cultural Landscape

Exhibitions are largely situated within places. Museums, galleries, and historicalsites are a kind of place recognised as landmarks or cultural institutions. Landmark
sites are recorded by overseeing authorities, and supported by tourists and visitors
who, in choosing to visit, validate their place-value. This conventional practice has
informed aspects of dōjinshi. As the established museum appears on oﬃcial tourism
maps and guides, so too do fans make maps outlining signiﬁcant places for their own
communities (Okamoto, 2015). Typically, such maps are of the places in which theﬁctional work is set. The exhibition dōjinshi of Touken Ranbu go further, with thevariety of guides made of a single swordʼs diverse place relationships connecting
spatially distant places. Here, the exhibition site is given meaning via theunderstanding of a sword as an inhabiting being.

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The sword as inhabiting being is one with its own identity and history. It has
moved between various sites and come under the ownership of various individuals
and collections, accumulating associations with places as it does so. Fans recognise
the movement, and subsequent place ties, of swords in their dōjinshi, implicitly
recognising place associations gathered in oneʼs life history. Fan guides do notnecessarily reﬂect where a sword is displayed now, but where it has been in the past
events of its life. In this case, the object itself does not need to be present in a display
at all. Castle ruins, shrines, temples, and other common sites of Japanese historicalexhibitions are given meaning not for what they display, but for what is not displayed.
These sites may be present in conventional municipal tourism guides, but fan authors
highlight potential new cross-city and cross-prefectural connections in their dōjinshi,
based on their understanding as significant places for a sword. The sword is nottreated as a conventional object, but with the status of a historical ﬁgure.
I will explain this through the sword Shokudaikiri Mitsutada, and its
representation in dōjinshi. This sword is currently on display at the Tokugawa
Museum, in Mito City, north of Tokyo. The Museum describes it as forged in the 13th
Century by the smith Mitsutada, subsequently owned by the Warring States (14671615) warlord Date Masamune, and eventually gifted to the Tokugawa family. Whilein their collection, Shokudaikiri Mitsutada was damaged in 1923ʼs Great Kanto
Earthquake. In 2015, Shokudaikiri Mitsutada gained new signiﬁcance after the launchof Touken Ranbu, with a rapid increase in female visitors searching for the sword
they admired. In Touken Ranbu, Shokudaikiri Mitsutada is designed as a reﬁned, suitclad man with a distinctive eyepatch, a visual cue to his former owner, one-eyed Date
Masamune. Due to fan attention, the sword Shokudaikiri Mitsutadaʼs damaged form
was restored and placed on long-term display (Tokugawa Museum, 2017).
The first thing of note is how this biography relates to Japanʼs landmark
historical landscape. The brief biography traces the swordʼs historical movements,from the site of its forging, to its historical ownership, and ﬁnally the context of its
current collection. For the sword fan, these are not separate places, but connected
through their relationship with Shokudaikiri Mitsutada. The township of Osafune in
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south-west Japan, where the smith Mitsutada worked, becomes signiﬁcant as the area
the sword is ʻfromʼ. Former Date lands, often represented by the city of Sendai innorth-east Japan, are also signiﬁcant, emphasised by the characterʼs design relating it
to Date Masamune. The sword fan is prompted by this biography to draw implicit
connections between the two places, where conventional constructions of thehistorical landscape would render them as unrelated. Conventional landmarks, suchas those of Osafune as related to sword-smithing and those of north-east Japan as
related to Date Masamune, are re-contextualised through fan guides, derived from theunderstanding of Shokudaikiri Mitsutada not as a possession, but as a past inhabitantof these distant places.
It is this understanding of swords as capable of inhabiting broader places, as
humans are, that reveals the second point of signiﬁcance highlighted by fan works:that is, their emphasis on the exhibition room. Mito and the Tokugawa Museum are,like Osafune and Sendai, signiﬁcant places related to Shokudaikiri Mitsutada. While
museum and gallery buildings are conventional cultural landmarks, just as important
for the fan is their interior. This is signiﬁcant as, particularly in the Japanese context,
the interior of these landmark sites is one regularly rendered impermanent. For
example, even the permanent sword and metalwork exhibition room of the Tokyo
National Museum frequently changes its displays throughout the year. Smaller
museums and galleries, with limited interior space, often operate on seasonal
exhibition schedules. Despite this conventional temporary nature, the interior of alandmark museum, gallery, or historical site remains signiﬁcant in the fan productionof object-inhabited places. It is the interior that the sword inhabits, and thus, is vitalin their non-conventional framing of place.
The biography of Shokudaikiri Mitsutada highlights its time with the Tokugawa
family, and informs the fan visitor of the context of its current display. Its gifting,restoration, and subsequent exhibition are not overtly present in the licensed works of
Touken Ranbu. However, these are signiﬁcant events in fan works, and draw modernday Mito and the museum interior into their discussion of Shokudaikiri Mitsutadaʼs
associated places. Narrative dōjinshi have the ability to make place-connections not

84Inhabiting the Exhibition Site Through Dōjinshi

through the designation of landmarks, as guidebooks do, but through the emotionalframing of interiors such as the exhibition room. Works featuring Shokudaikiri
Mitsutada regularly reference its display room in connection with emotional
narratives detailing its movement from one collection to another. Rather than, as
described in its museum biography, a simple act of gift-giving between prominent
families, Shokudaikiri Mitsutadaʼs journey to its current display is framed in terms ofdeparture, arrival, and the emotional weight of leaving behind other object-beings as
it does so. In these narratives, Shokudaikiri Mitsutada is not just a sword: it is a being
with emotions, departing one home for another.
Its new home is depicted in a number of ways. Some dōjinshi may merely
mention Mito by name, with the implicit understanding of the emotions present inseparating the sword from its long-known home and family in the Date domain. In
other examples, fan authors utilise visual cues to depict the Tokugawa Museum andits exhibition rooms. These images can be as large-scale as the Museumʼs exterior, oras small-scale as the swordʼs display case. These visual depictions are not necessarilylabelled, and as with the mere mention of Mito, rely on an assumed understandingthat those reading are familiar with the Tokugawa Museum as the current home of
Shokudaikiri Mitsutada.
Fan works use the exhibition site in communication that is “understood by those
who understand it” (Ishikawa, 2020, pp. 307-308). That understanding is one thatutilises the intimate interior of the exhibition space, as much as it does the large-scale
historical sites of Osafune or Sendai, in designating Shokudaikiri Mitsutadaʼsinhabited places. Further to this understanding is the assumption by authors as to thenormative activities of fellow fan readers, such as visiting exhibitions and their ability
to recognise these related places.
As reading narrative dōjinshi evokes emotions as to a swordʼs life journey, so
too are these emotions present in exhibition visitors. The Tokugawa Museum hasreceived consistent support and visitation from sword fans since 2015, and although
exhibition attendance has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, three visits
made to the Museum between 2020 and 2021 revealed a signiﬁcant portion of current
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visitors as fan travellers. Some had brought merchandise depicting the swordcharacters Shokudaikiri Mitsutada had been separated from as it moved from one
place to another. Others spent significant time with the sword itself, leaning in as
close as its protective case would allow, examining the burned blade that undertook
these journeys: a unique appearance of the sword often depicted in dōjinshi. Amongst
these fans, only one stated that they were not a regular visitor to the Museum. The
others framed their repeat visits as one to visit the sword in its current home. Here, aswith in dōjinshi, the exhibition site is not just one of display, but a place where one
social, inhabiting being—the fan—recognises another in the sword.
The signiﬁcance of the object as an inhabitant should not be understated. Places
related to a swordʼs inhabiting presence, from historical domains to the intimate
exhibition room, are specific destinations for fans that are subsequently shared intheir fan works. The prevalence of these works has further impacts on conventional
place-making. Years of independent fan travels, supported by fan guides and madeemotionally resonant in fan narratives, solidiﬁed connections between Shokudaikiri
Mitsutadaʼs exhibition room at Mito to other related sites in Japan. This has beenrecognised by large-scale tourism organisers, with the East Japan Rail Travel
Corporation running a limited train Special Express Shokudaikiri Mitsutada [特急燭台切光忠] between Mito and the former Date city of Sendai (East Japan Rail Travel
Corporation 2018). The strength of this campaign is not necessarily on the typical
historical and cultural designations of place, but on the significance fan travellers
place on Shokudaikiri Mitsutadaʼs current home. Here, the exhibition room—as a siteof habitation, and not merely one of display—has had significant impact on thepositioning of the landmark place in Japanʼs cultural landscape.
4.2.2Time and Artefact in the Inhabited Exhibition

Exhibition dōjinshi are situated in the present. For the sword fan, the present iswhere they can inhabit the same places (exhibitions) as object-beings such as
Shokudaikiri Mitsutada. The focus on the present in fan works is a departure from thehistorical fiction framing of Touken Ranbu, and further highlights the objectʼs

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perspective in regards to its collection and display.
Time in the historical exhibition is evoked primarily towards the past. Museum
and gallery displays of artefacts such as swords are done so to prompt the visitor tothink of past stories, and past peoples (Svašek, 2007, p. 146). This mode of display
recognises an objects ability to “[make] the observer think of both here and there, of
oneself and others” (Strathern, 1990, p. 160). This evocation of thinking, combinedwith the context of the purpose-built exhibition room, prompts an imagining of a life
separate, both spatially and temporally, from the visitor.
Preserved historical sites play with similar notions of time, primarily through asense of habitation prompted by thinking of people of the past (Prough, 2018). One
such example is Kyotoʼs Teradaya, a building once inhabited by the historical ﬁgure
Sakamoto Ryoma. This site evokes time by preserving a sense of the structure as it
was in the late 1800ʼs, when Ryoma experienced it, as well as displaying mementos
left by visitors throughout the twentieth century (Prough, 2018, pp. 571-573). These
displays ask visitors to think of those who once inhabited, as they now inhabit, thesite. This process has been noted in connection with fan tourism as a linking acrosstime (Tamai, 2016), as the present-situated visitor is asked to think of inhabitants ofthe past.
What if the museum exhibition is inhabited, as preserved historical sites are?
Unlike ﬁgures such as Sakamoto Ryoma, or past visitors to Teradaya, swords do notexist through memory or imagination. They remain tangibly present. Inhabiting
objects as seen in fan works do not provoke thought to the distant past, but rather,draw attention to their current context.
Instead of separating the ʻmuseumʼ from the ʻheritage siteʼ, both are portrayed in
dōjinshi as the same kind of inhabited place. These places are inhabited not bymemory or evocation, but the objectʼs direct presence. First is in the depiction of
exhibition sites, carefully reproduced in dōjinshi artwork. This artwork makes note offloor plans, layouts, locations of display cases, etc., re-contextualising thesefurnishings of display as furnishings of an objectʼs home. The sleek cases of a modern
gallery or the antique ones of a shrine or temple are depicted with the same narrative
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meaning: these are the structures that make up not the ʻhousingʼ of object display, but
the ʻhomeʼ of an inhabiting being. These details of display are conventionallydesigned to be minimised, unseen, and secondary to the displays themselves. To
depict the inhabited exhibition place, they are rendered visible. As Teradayaʼs features
are preserved to prompt visitors to think of Sakamoto Ryoma, so too are the featuresof exhibitions preserved as the living context of their own inhabiting beings.
Exhibition dōjinshi utilise the character designs of Touken Ranbu in their
depiction of exhibitions as object homes. Alongside this they carefully depict the
tangible sword, with the two images understood by readers as diﬀering aspects of thesame being. The human-shaped depiction may sit in its display case, alongside its
sword form (ﬁg.1); in other instances, fan creators superimpose illustrations of thecharacters over photographs of their respective exhibition sites (fig.2). In these
depictions, the characters of Touken Ranbu are visual representations of the objectʼs
invisible, inhabiting being. They are often labelled in terms of spirit, such as ʻreiʼ[霊], with the object beside them labelled as ʻbodyʼ or ʻhontaiʼ [本体]. In conventional
display, objects prompt the imagining of a past being that is not present. In the realmof dōjinshi, display signiﬁes one that is, even if its ʻspiritʼ can not be directly seen.
These inhabiting beings, rendered as object-spirits, are not restricted to theircases. They can be drawn within them, lounging inside, or stepping outside to visit

Fig. 2 S
 word spirits at Tokyo National
MuseumFig. 1 A sword spirit with its display

88Inhabiting the Exhibition Site Through Dōjinshi

other inhabitants of the museum or historical site. They might do so after hours,
noting the typical display function of exhibitions and the responsibility the objectspirits have to participate in it. It should be noted, however, that this responsibility is
not the objectʼs entire purpose, as one might assume with typical exhibition curation:
it is merely one aspect of their current-day lives.
Fan work depictions of long-term displays make effective use of present-day
exhibition rooms. Particularly distinctive cases and layouts become recognisable evenfor those who have not yet visited, readily associated with the objects that inhabit
them. One example is in the large-scale case that displays the spear Nihongō at the
Fukuoka City Museum, with its spirit frequently depicted lounging inside it; anotheris the free-standing, antique cases of Kyotoʼs Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, where thespirit of their sword Higekiri (also called Onikirimaru) sits politely, surrounded byvisitors. The repeated depiction of such sites by fan authors makes them recognisable
as present-day homes for objects, even for fans who have yet to visit for themselves.
This framing of exhibitions not as sites of display, but as an objectʼs home,
impacts on how one visits and experiences exhibitions themselves. The exhibitionsite becomes the context of an objectʼs everyday life. I experienced this for myself
while undertaking ﬁeldwork at Kyotoʼs Daikakuji, which annually displays the sword
Hizamaru. Hizamaru, also known as Usumidori, is said to have been owned by the
famed warrior family the Minamoto (Daikakuji, 2022). In Touken Ranbu he isdesigned with a simple, military-esque silhouette. When employed in dōjinshi set at
Daikakuji, this warrior past combines with the peaceful ambience of the present. At
times, his design is modiﬁed by fan authors, swapping military dress for styles suited
to the Templeʼs ambiance and the swordʼs current social context as an artefact owned
by a religious institution. Across two visits to Daikakuji, I recognised features of thetemple complex as depicted in dōjinshi about Hizamaruʼs present-day life (ﬁg.3). As
the fan creates and reads works depicting Hizamaru wandering the complex, its
hallways, lakes, and gardens, so too can they experience their own visit to theTemple. The emotional dimension of the exhibition is not only related to choices
made in the specifically defined site of display, but is supplemented by the fanʼs
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experience of the entire complex. As
Sakamoto Ryoma once inhabited
Te r a d a y a , H i z a m a r u i n h a b i t s
Daikakuji: and through this, its
display becomes evocative of presentday experiences, and not only thoseof the past.
Dōjinshi construct the exhibition
Fig. 3 Hizamaru and the lake at Daikakuji

as home for the objects inside them.
Rather than the now-and-thenevocation of visitor-focused display practices, the object-perspective as seen in
dōjinshi may be more aptly described as one of the now-and-now, with display as anopportunity for visitors not to imagine a past ﬁgure, but to come face-to-face with apresent-day one.
4.2.3

Encounters in Inhabited Place

So far, I have looked at how both large-scale sites and small-scale exhibition
rooms are rendered inhabited places in dōjinshi. I now turn to how this sense of
habitation further frames them as places of social encounter. Exhibition-related
dōjinshi, as both ﬁctional narratives and non-ﬁction reports, emphasise the meetings
had with objects that inhabit them. By framing exhibitions as places of encounter, fanworks further highlight the objectʼs perspective and role in regards to its own keep
and display.
To examine the signiﬁcance of the objectʼs perspective, we should ﬁrst consider
the motives of exhibition displays. In contemporary Japan, swords are displayedlargely due to their historic and artistic value, as possessions of famous ﬁgures andexamples of traditional craftsmanship. Their presence in national museum displays isreminiscent of practices established in the 1800ʼs, where objects were framed withartistic status and importance inspired by contemporary practices in Europe andAmerica (Pai, 2013). Swords displayed for their craft and past ownership imply value

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derived from being objects belonging to high-status peoples of the past, highlighting
the determining authority of the organising institution (Svašek, 2007). That they
appear in institutional displays validates not the status of the object, but the status ofits makers and former owners.
We might also consider the exhibited sword in terms of pop-culture exhibitions.
In these exhibitions, as with historical ones, a particular authorial voice curates theobject's value. The exclusion or inclusion of supporting information and primaryauthorial voice negotiates the ʻcorrectʼ information for fans to consume, as seen in theuse of George Lucasʼ approval in exhibitions regarding the status of the Star Wars
franchise (Herrera and Keidl, 2017). In both the historic exhibition and the popculture one, object's value is determined by how their display can validate those who
owned or crafted them.
However, objects are not merely representations. They are evocative of
subjective emotions that may deviate from those desired by exhibition display(Strathern, 1990). The inhabiting sword is not representative of a past person, owner,or craftsman: it is representative of itself. Thus, its display as depicted in dōjinshi
does not aim to validate curatorial narratives, but rather, is an exploration by fansemplacing the sword in its social context. The interpretive space of dōjinshi, notdetermined by institutional curatorial or authorial voice, allows for the objectʼs social
perspective to be made primary in consideration of exhibition displays.
This is not to say that fan authors do not value the history and craft of swords.
Exhibition dōjinshi, particularly those written as reports, take care to note thecraftsmanship of a sword and its provenance. However, there is an additional
component present: encounters with these individual, inhabiting objects. Swords in
exhibition dōjinshi are objects that take up space in exhibition displays both
physically and socially. Examining this social inhabiting allows the fan to dissect
exhibition planning, based not on overarching curatorial theme, but on the encountersobjects have with each other.
A common setting for object encounters is the Tokyo National Museum. In
dōjinshi, this collectionʼs swords are depicted as familiar with each other and the
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display-case furnishings of their home. Fan narratives draw on this social familiarity:
who is in which case? With whom do they share it with? Who is not on display?
What might they be doing, free from their responsibilities? The exhibition layout ishere a social setting, and not just one for visitorʼs ease of movement. This is not
restricted to single collections, but is assumed across sites of display in Japan. It isseen in fan works made in response to temporary exhibition announcements—
examples include those made in response to the planned 2021 display of Sano Art
Galleryʼs collection at Ehime Prefectural Museum, or Kyoto National Museumʼs2018 exhibition Swords of Kyoto—focusing on the anticipation and excitement hadby swords as they prepare to travel from one place to another, to meet with fellow
objects from spatially distant collections. Such works rarely make note of the overall
intent or messaging of a particular exhibition: what is important is the objectʼs desires
to engage in social meetings, facilitated by planned exhibitions.
As encounters are imagined in narrative dōjinshi, they are equally as present in
non-fiction, report-style works: here, not between object and object, but between
object and visitor. Such reports are where one is most likely to encounter theconventional value-framing of swords as historical artefacts. However, suchinformation is paired with the authorʼs personal experiences, which regularly use
language of meeting between the sword, inhabiting its case, and the visitor, looking
inside it. Reports may be illustrated, as other fan works are, with the Touken Ranbu
character alongside its corresponding sword-shaped artefact. In these instances, thevisitor is depicted coming into direct contact with the object and its social aspect,
shifting the value of the sword purely from its historical qualities towards its social
ones—that is, its responsibility to meet with those who have so eagerly travelled tosee it.
Exhibition sites are social places for the human visitors that move through them
(Black, 2005). Exhibition report dōjinshi include the artefact into this understanding.
First-person reports recounting a single travellerʼs journey emphasise their encounterswith swords; likewise, essays are produced to assist other fans on their own journeysof encounter (examples can be seen in Teikyodo 2020). At six sword-related

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exhibitions held across Japan, ranging from Ibaraki to Kagawa Prefectures, I spokewith a number of solo travellers, who identiﬁed themselves as regular visitors to theirclosest exhibition sites. In doing so, they used language of meeting, emotional
expectations, and thankfulness to be able to encounter the swords that inhabited them.
At these exhibitions, a fanʼs travelling group ranged from one to more than fivepeople. Regardless of the number of participants in oneʼs travel group, visiting theexhibition site remained a social experience through the understanding of objects notas passive displays, but as active, inhabiting participants. Dōjinshi here act as meansof orienting the fan experience, not just through maps and guidebooks, but in thesocial expectations and motives of exhibition visitation, where it is assumed theobject is an equal participant.
It may be tempting to assume that an object understanding display as a
responsibility of meeting with its visitor is an imposition of ﬁctional character overhistorical artefact. However, it may be more apt to consider how this expands, rather
than imposes, upon the exhibition experience. Fan desires, whether of historicalﬁgures or virtual characters (Sugawa, 2017; Annett, 2015), have been explained interms of intangibility, placing fan motives purely in the realm of the imaginary. But
swords on display are not imaginary. They embody exhibitions physically, as well as
intangibly. Exhibition dōjinshi explore this physicality through the use of character
images and real-world objects, while communicating the potential exhibitions hold assites of encounter. Here, the exhibition site is not simply one of curated display, but isbrought forward as one of social habitation.

5

Implications & Conclusion
I have here described one fan community, that of Touken Ranbu, and a single

genre of its fan works. These works are part of a larger whole of creative output
mediated by Touken Ranbu fans, and only a small section of the independent creative
community in Japan. Nonetheless, this focus brings to light the ways in which fanʼscreative output is not restricted to the realm of pop-culture, but extends to multiple
aspects of oneʼs social life.
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The fan works discussed here are those related to exhibitions, and produced interms understood by their intended readers. They reveal an experience of exhibition
sites where the objects on display have their own emotional and social capabilities. It
is in this recognition that the exhibition is reframed: if an object has an emotional,social experience, how are we to understand its place of display?
First, it is important to note that the producers of these works are largely women.
They are specialised for the Touken Ranbu fan audience, and arise in the post-2015
context of renewed interest in Japanʼs swords. As such, the framing of these fanworks—of the exhibition as seen through the emplaced perspective of the sword—is
one that arises alongside standard curation and exhibition design. As such curation
has typically been aimed at an older male audience, the viewpoints of fans and fan
authors regarding the valuable aspects of display, provides an opportunity to expand
upon established practice.
One such way lies in the consideration of objects as taking up social space inexhibitions. This is not the first or only instance of object-based perspectives indisplays: the Musée du Quai Branlyʼs exhibition Persona deliberately invokes “alien
encounters” across the “uncanny valley”, in questioning the human/non-humanbinary in the exhibition space (Grimaud, 2020, p. 78). However, such use of
disruption to unsettle audienceʼs assumptions stands in contrast to the sense of
normalcy regularly depicted in exhibition dōjinshi. Instead of an unsettling
juxtaposition, dōjinshi present swords as an inhabiting being that has long understoodits various states of use and display—such as the sword Hizamaru, with its social
shift from a past weapon to a current Temple resident, or the various swords of
National Museum collections, comfortable in their museum homes.
Fan works thus provide two means by which to re-consider the exhibition site: aspace as seen and experienced by a newfound audience, and one that is inhabited by
objects as part of their current, everyday social context. This latter recontextualisation is one that ﬁrmly shifts the evocation of time from looking to thepast to being experienced in the present. The object is inhabiting this exhibition placeat this time. As much as the sword has a historical past, it has an equally relevant role94

Inhabiting the Exhibition Site Through Dōjinshi

in the present. Part of this role is in its display, understood as its current social
responsibility. Alongside this is an imagining of what a sword does when it is not on
display, expanding the exhibition visitorʼs conceptualisation of the museum or gallery
to be inclusive of its entire encompassing space. Here, the transient and distancing
potential of exhibition sites is minimised, as the visitor is positioned to think of
exhibitions not as a temporary holding, but a permanent ʻhomeʼ for the object within.
The swordʼs ability to inhabit further re-contextualises the concept of the object
collection. While fans are well aware of Shokudaikiri Mitsutadaʼs presence at Mitoʼs
Tokugawa Museum, they are equally aware of the places it inhabited in the past, andthe social ties it maintains with them. Dōjinshi and fan works make visible these
networks of past homes and past social connections, including the fan community inthe negotiation of significant historical sites in Japanʼs contemporary culturallandscape. In doing so, the ʻcollectionʼ becomes not only a part of its individual
museum, but is understood in relation to others throughout Japan. From the single
exhibition room, fans expand an objectʼs value and meaning to be inclusive of an
expansive network of related historical and cultural sites.
I do not argue for exhibition curation to be subordinate to the ideas of a popculture franchise. Rather, I ask for consideration in the possibilities these newperspectives can bring to the exhibition experience, and the framing of exhibition
spaces. The typical sword exhibition, aimed at the assumed male audience, may
represent the perspective of the warrior class: however, an exhibition where thesword has its own perspective expands to be inclusive of viewpoints outside of thisnarrow social group. Fan workʼs interest in contemporary places expands thispotential further still, where the ʻhistoricalʼ sword exhibition becomes capable ofcommunicating the contemporary, current-day experience of a social sword and its
collection.
Exhibitions in dōjinshi are places of potential, negotiated by independent
creators who are themselves outside of typically assumed audiences, familiar with
communication that is open to consideration of vastly diﬀerent interpretations. They
make visible the imaginative and emotional experiences had at exhibition sites, where
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objects are social, as well as the visitor. Through the object-based perspective of thefan, and the production of fan works, the exhibition transforms from site of display tofamiliar, inhabited place.
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