Let me now talk about masks. Human beings have invented various things because they want simultaneously to be something apart from themselves and be themselves in several ways. I think puppets and masks are the two great inventions which have developed not only for humans to transform themselves but also as instruments and devices used by humans. I consider this to be an empirical analysis rather than a logical one. Thus, both masks and puppets are used in theater which cannot be realized without humans becoming something apart from themselves. For Funabiki Takeo to go out as Funabiki Takeo is all right in a speech meeting hall, but if he were to become Hamlet or Ohboshi Yuranosuke, that is to say, if Funabiki were to become someone who was not Funabiki, he would use acting skills as well as instruments as a means. Here I think puppets and masks were the great things that humans invented. I mentioned how the act of imbuing a soul in puppets is feared in Europe, but masks are surprisingly not feared. I have not studied this in detail yet, but it seems that masks are not as feared as much as puppets and are discussed more. In Judaism and Christianity, puppets are feared due to the constant feeling that puppets lead to an offence of idol worship and the sense that anthropomorphizing something without a soul fails to realize the essence of God. Therefore, idol worship is avoided in Judaism and Christianity. There are no idols in mosques and the Greek Orthodox Church too prohibited idol worship. They were also often prohibited during the medieval times.

 On the other hand, masks have been discussed and used in various places since the Greek myths in a different way to idols. Masks have continued to exist in contexts other than religious ones. Just as the term 'persona' came to mean personality, Europeans seem to have thought a long time about masks. In a book called The Interpretation of Masks, Sakabe Megumi writes that 'a mask is not something that hides the real face'. Both Roland Barthes and Sakabe often discover 'what is not'. So it is common sense in philosophy today that it is not a simple matter of there being the real person, me, Funabiki Takeo, for example, and if I put on a mask, Funabiki Takeo will no longer be the real self or person. In other words, the fact that Funabiki Takeo is Funabiki Takeo is treated with skepticism. Common sense in philosophy today is that no such definite and permanent self-identity as Funabiki Takeo exists as an entity.

 There is obviously a difference between Funabiki Takeo for others and Funabiki Takeo for my wife. The entity 'me' is determined within relationships with others, and there is no self-identity that persists as an unchanging entity. Therefore, it is not that Funabiki Takeo will cease to become Funabiki Takeo and become a demon if he puts on a demon's mask. If I may explain further, 'the mask has a meaning that is not meant'. That is to say, even if I put on a demon's mask, this will not mean a demon, since I will not become a demon. However, if I put on a demon's mask, it will mean something. Sakabe further puts forward an interesting point that 'shadow is one's "alter ego" as well as "the other"'. In Japan, we use the term shadow (kage) to refer to visage (omokage), darkness in the heart (kokoro no kurai kage), and reflection (kage) of one's face that is seen on the surface of water or in a mirror, besides the black shadow created by light. In many cases, it means something that reflects 'I', or something through which 'I' is known. Sakabe expresses this in very difficult words: 'Shadow reflects and transfers back ・・・like human beings and their dream'. To introduce briefly what he says about the post nineteenth century situation in the section about masks and shadows, we do not know whether the contents of our dreams are real or whether what we are doing now is real, and that from childhood we do not have so-called entity. I think this discussion on masks and shadows will be useful in this seminar for thinking about human beings. What is said about 'shadows being our "alter ego" and "the other"' is interesting. In other words, human beings exist, and there are water surfaces and mirrors and shadows behind the light that reflect us. We know that we exist by seeing that shadow. If we consider this as alter ego, I think this would be closer to puppets and characters rather than masks. The same thing was written in Sakabe's book so I quoted it. In any case, Sakabe and I are thinking along similar lines.

 We often talk about the loss of the logic of substantial identity and so forth, and though it sounds difficult, we quite often actually experience this in our lives today. What Sakabe writes in his philosophical article about '"I" who can only be established in the differences from the pre-existing others' perfectly fits the following example. One student entered Tokyo University at the age of eighteen and got into depression. The reason was that he could not establish his character. For the students, establishing their characters in the class in the first one to two months is a very important issue. If they cannot establish their characters, they cannot fit into the class and lose their place. This is probably the same in junior high schools and high schools. Any character will do, for example, a funny person. But whatever it is, the students are very concerned about 'establishing a character'. In other words, who they are has to be clearly acknowledged by others. As a result, they will be called for parties and asked to come and eat together. If they do not stand out, they will be gradually forgotten in the class and lose their place. In the past, there was a nineteenth century type of self-identity in which one thought 'I am myself' in contrast to pre-existing others. The fact that a different and opposite idea later came about because the idea of self-identity cannot adjust to various situations, and the way in which the Japanese youth worries about themselves match perfectly. That is why they are very concerned about what others think of 'me' and how they should behave to make others acknowledge the entity 'me', more than thinking about 'I am myself'.

 I suddenly ask the students during the interview for joining my seminar group: 'What kind of a person are you?' Girls think nothing of this and say 'I am such and such'. Boys seem to suspect that it is a trick question, or may be because they have never been asked such a question, say, 'Should I answer this?' When I say, 'I don't know about you so you please answer', they say, 'Everyone says that I'm funny'. When I say, 'Please answer what you think what kind of a person you are and not what everyone else says', they say, 'Me? I've not thought about it but since I'm told I'm a funny person・・・?' In this conversation, what Sakabe puts in difficult words '"I" who exist only in the differences from the pre-existing others' is represented in reality. In relation to the Seminars on Character Creativity, we can say that one's existence is acknowledged by placing oneself amongst others as a 'character'. So one cannot assume the strong attitude 'I am what I am'. It is interesting to see that 'character', which is the topic of this seminar, and 'establishing character' overlap.

 When the book Men Who Cannot Be Aroused was published, I thought it would become a big best seller, but it didn't. I was a little sad to think that may be I am a marginal being in today's society. This book writes about many things. For example, men like the sailor suit because they want to be girls in sailor suits. They want to become girls in sailor suits and become bodies that are loved. This is often found in people who could only perceive their bodies as dirty since the age of fourteen to fifteen, and some men like sailor suits even when they are forty years old. They think that their own bodies are dirty and cannot like themselves. They believe that the sailor suit will make their bodies lovable. At the same time, the sailor suit has the image of a pure body, 'a body to be loved', and not 'body that has been loved'. These seem to be the reasons why some people like sailor suits. I think this is a similar situation in a sense to when we say 'establishing character', '"I" who only exists in differences from the pre-existing others', 'bringing to life something that has no soul by infusing a soul', and moving puppets in puppet joruri. In other words, becoming a girl in a sailor suit is a fantasy, or buying and wearing a sailor suit, whatever it is, is not becoming a girl in a sailor suit but gesturing as one. These men do not really expect to go outside as girls in sailor suits by completely erasing their actions and gesturing as girls in sailor suits. As I understand, they gesture as girls in sailor suits in front of the mirror in their homes, or importantly, they perform these gestures in the world of 'you and I'.

 What I mean by the world of 'you and I' is a place like the comic market where people dress up as all kinds of characters, and I think you all know more about this than I do. Men go there in sailor suits. They don't care even if they do not resemble beautiful girl characters and they think it's alright to go there in that outfit. In other words, it's alright even if it is obvious who they are. This is because in the context of the world of 'you and I', there is an understanding that you and I can have both gestures and actions revealed. If a third person came across a man dressed in a sailor suit when walking on a street for example, he would probably say 'Oh, there is a man walking in a sailor suit! That's interesting! That's weird!' or 'What's that?' because the mutual understanding of 'you and I' is absent. But in a world where everyone is otaku, it is permitted in the world of 'you and I' that both gesture and action can be revealed at the same time. In other words, it is alright if the puppet has no soul, and it is alright that the body of the girl in a sailor suit is not a body of a real girl. As an outsider of the world of characters, it seems to me that characters can be understood by similar interpretations, that they are established in two worlds, one in front of the mirror and one in the world of 'you and I' and are complete inside these worlds.

　

 My interpretation of otaku is as follows. The word otaku means 'your house'. It refers to 'you' and definitely not to a third person. Otaku probably does not mean 'you' (watashi) either. At least we can say that it is not a society where third persons meet but a place where the world of 'you and me' is already formed. In such situation, I think when otakus meet each other at offline gatherings in parks etc., one otaku will check another by asking 'What otaku are you (Who are you)?' and introduce himself.

 There are two kinds of second person pronouns 'we'. When we say wareware (we) in Japan, if A is 'you', A will not be included in wareware. 'We' in Japanese and 'we' in English exclude 'you'. So when someone says, 'We the Japanese', it means you are not Japanese. However, at least according to my research, in various countries of the Pacific, there are two kinds of 'we': one meaning 'us' and another meaning 'you plus me'. In regions where you and me are we, you are already included in us, and it is perceived that you are not in opposition but in a sense together with us. So I think 'you' used by otaku refers to 'you' who is a part of 'us'.