In the Chinese context, "two-dimensional" refers to "two-dimensional Japanese"; American animation works represented by Marvel and DC are generally regarded as another subculture. Therefore, we must look for the past life and present life of the two-dimensional culture from the course of Japan's modern social and economic development. The historical accumulation, cultural background, demographic structure and economic development trajectory of China and Japan all have a lot in common; it is no exaggeration to sayWhat happened in Japan's cultural industry 20 years ago is likely to happen in China's cultural industry today.It's just that it will undergo some degree of transformation and evolution.

We roughly divide the Japanese dual culture into five stages, which almost coincide with the stages of Japan's economic development in the past 40 years.Before the 1970s, the concept of "quadratic dimension" had not yet been born.Animation and cartoons have not yet become the mainstream of Japanese cultural consumption, and games and light novels have not yet appeared on the historical stage. However, with the improvement of living standards, the trend of thought in Japanese society is diversified, and young people begin to show their personality and form subcultural circles in various ways. For example, "the season of the Sun" gave birth to the "Sun clan" who despised social order, and the popularity of motorcycles gave birth to "violent walkers" in pursuit of car racing. The high development of railway transportation has led to the birth of a minority group of "railway fans". It can be said that the soil of "two-dimensional culture" is already in place.

In the late 1970s, the Japanese media began to use the term "otaku" to refer to fans of the space battleship Yamato and Galactic Railway 999.The "two-dimensional culture" was officially born. Within the next few years, epoch-making anime works such as "Super time and Space Fortress", "Saint Seiya" and "City Hunter" came out one after another, and "the Warrior against the Dragon" created the territory of Japanese-style role-playing games. At that time, Japan's economy was in its most prosperous period, the aging problem was not too serious, young people had a strong spending power, and the creativity of Japan's cultural industry was also very strong, producing popular works every year. Today, China's secondary industry has not yet reached the level of Japan in the 1980s.

In the late 1980s, with the rapid expansion of the two-dimensional culture, the accompanying social problems became more and more obvious. In 1989, there was a shocking incident of Tokyo Saitama's continuous abduction of four young girls. The murderer who brutally killed four young girls was identified as an "otaku" by the media, and the two-dimensional culture was tarnished.With the bursting of Japan's bubble economy in the 1990s, the spending power of "otaku" was also greatly affected.Under the double blow of material and spirit, the two-dimensional economy has entered a low ebb. However, the Japanese cultural industry did not stop innovation during this period, "Shell attack Mobile team" and "Youyou White Book" have sublimated the theme of animation works.

In the late 1990s, the Evangelical Warriors of the New Century (EVA) greatly enhanced the philosophical connotation of the second-dimensional culture and intensified the "adulthood" of the second-dimensional audience.The two-dimensional works in this period are becoming more and more diversified, and the warm-blooded and maiden works of the 1980s no longer dominate the world.There are "the world system" such as "the final weapon" and the "air system" works such as "cool palace spring" series. Animation is no longer the absolute core of the second dimension, "Cherry Blossom Wars" created the way to adapt animation from the game, "all-metal frenzy" and "Twelve Kingdoms" put light novels into the two-dimensional territory. Two-dimensional culture has come out of the trough and has been accepted by the mainstream society.

Since the late 2000s, the two-dimensional culture has been accepted by the mainstream society in Japan, especially with the support of the government. The Japanese government has repeatedly proposed to make anime characters become Japan's "cultural business cards", and local governments have even put forward the word "cute revival". Two-dimensional images such as Kumamoto and Barisan have become official mascots. In Tokyo, Akihabara and Shibuya are full of shops related to animation, games and light novels. However, the two-dimensional "mainstreaming" does not hinder its diversification.The themes and types of contemporary Japanese two-dimensional works are very different, and there is no unified "two-dimensional fan" portrait:Anyone can be addicted to a two-dimensional work.

From the experience of Japan, we can see that at the beginning, the second dimension is a minority culture, which is the result of young people showing their personality and refusing to be mediocre, which is in line with the so-called "secondary two diseases" in Japanese; therefore, the protagonists of the two-dimensional works are often 16-or 17-year-old high school students, and the setting is often related to and different from the real world, emphasizing personal heroism and despising the existing order. However,With the social and economic changes, the two-dimensional works have become more and more mainstream, and the "minority works" 20 years ago may have long been recognized as classics.Therefore, binary fans are constantly dividing and evolving, and everyone wants to find their own new world. Among the works that can be accepted by all two-dimensional fans, there are only a few examples such as "Doraemon", "King of the Sea Thief", "Naruto" and so on.

The trend of two-dimensional works can be described as "Ten years of Hedong and Ten years of Hexi": in the 1980s, warm-blooded lines represented by "Seven Dragons Ball" and girls represented by "daughters of the Nile" were most popular, so that the routines of industrialization were formed. In the 1990s, the Shell attack Mobile team and the Evangelical Warriors of the New Century set off the trend of philosophical and even metaphysical thinking and reacted to the traditional routines. In the 2000's, abandoning the grand narrative and returning to daily life became the mainstream, and the works of "World system", "Daily system" and even "Air system" were very popular. Some people think that the two-dimensional culture has been divided into three branches: mansion, cuteness and decay.The second-dimensional audience shows the trend of full-age and full-time professionalization, so it is difficult to distinguish the specific trend.

Starting with the Strange stories of the Goddess and the Pill Theory, we can understand the two dimensions.

After reading the above, the reader will probably naturally ask: can we give a precise characterization of the "two-dimensional style"? We believe that the best way is to understand the two dimensions through typical works. Below, we analyze two two-dimensional works series that are popular in both Japanese and Chinese cultural circles: "the Strange Story of the Goddess" and "the Pill Theory". Both start with the game and gradually develop into a huge system covering animation and novels.

The stories of each generation of the works of the Goddess are similar: 16-or 17-year-old high school students accidentally enter a "different world" and acquire some kind of superpower to change the real world. The latest in this series, the Goddess 5, tells the story of several high school students in Tokyo who organize the Heart Troupe to sneak into the inner world of the bad guys to steal the treasure, thus prompting them to repent.The "different world" in the Strange stories of the Goddess is the embodiment of the human heart, so this series pays great attention to psychology.Combine Freud's psychoanalysis with tarot card divination to form wild, magnificent and wonderful settings and scenes. Although the protagonist of the work has a strong power, he has firm and distinct values, and the purpose is to uphold justice rather than bully the weak. Of course, the setting of this series is complicated and is often criticized by non-hard-core audiences.

On the other hand, it tells the story of a group of talented high school students who are forced to kill each other in a closed environment because of mysterious external forces, while looking for the mastermind behind it.The biggest highlight of this series is the human setting, and each work has a large number of characters with distinct personalities.For example, the important supporting role of "Pill Breaking 1" is the "super-high and intermediate rich son", with great wealth, handsome appearance and domineering personality; another supporting role is the "super-high-level swimmer". Good at sports, straightforward personality, like sweets. Among the four games, three animations and two novels produced so far in the series, at least 80 characters with detailed settings and fan base have appeared, and the audience's interest in the work has been maintained.

From the Strange stories of the Goddess and the three popular two-dimensional works series of Fate, which are very popular in China in recent years, we can find some common rules: their world views are "alienated real world", neither a complete reality nor a complete aerial; their protagonists are all 16-and 17-year-old high school students or trainees, these young teenagers have to shoulder extremely arduous missions. The number of their characters is so large that the main lines of the story include some kind of grand narrative; they all have distinct moral values, following the paradigm of "good versus evil" and "light versus dark" (with a slight exception in the Fate series).Outsiders often understand the second dimension as "the story of a group of junior high school teenagers saving the world".Although this understanding is one-sided, it has some truth.

Two-dimensional socialization: the "otaku" group organized by the mobile Internet

In both Japan and China, "Quadric" used to be a non-mainstream subculture, and it was fragmented internally. However, with the development of social networks, the "otaku" who were originally in an isolated state are gradually linked together to form an organized and interactive community. With the development of smart phones, more people can use the fragment time to watch the second dimension, and the camp of "otaku" is constantly expanding. Big data technology enables manufacturers to scientifically analyze the consumption habits of "otaku" and make targeted responses.Barrage, ghosts and livestock, party struggle, Yan Yi and other "two-dimensional typical behavior" are all developed after the birth of the mobile Internet.If there is no socialization, there will be no two-dimensional economy, whether it is the content side, the platform or the surrounding developers, all have to use the weapon of socialization to achieve monetization.

Although binary culture has become a popular term in China, the real "otaku" (hard core binary fans) is still a minority. In the first quarter of 2019, Bilibili, China's largest secondary application (including animation, games, on-screen comments, ghosts and livestock, etc.), had 100 million monthly active users on PC and mobile, covering only about 10% of China Mobile Limited's online population."otaku" can produce strong consumption power, not by quantitative advantage, but by consumption tendency and user stickiness.As the post-00s crowd enters the historical stage, the number of "otaku" may increase, because the highest application of the post-00s group TGI (target group index) is animation, that is to say, post-00s are far more partial to animation than ordinary people. At present, China's population includes 101 million post-1995, 163 million post-2000 and 165 million post-100.Although the demographic dividend is about to be exhausted, a large number of post-95-10 people are the solid backing of the two-dimensional culture.

Barrage and ghosts are unique social forms of two-dimensional culture. The so-called on-screen comment is the instant comment subtitle flying over the video site playback interface, through which viewers can complain about the plot, interact with each other and initiate arguments. The so-called ghosts and animals, is the original video material and audio editing, replacement, mixing, to form brainwashing effect or funny effect, to achieve the purpose of "re-creation". AcFun and Bilibili are the strongholds of on-screen comment and ghost and livestock culture, and there is almost no senior "otaku" who does not send on-screen comments or make ghosts. Yan Yi (meme) is also an interactive means invented by the otaku group, which has long been recognized by the mainstream culture.The above social forms blur the line between "content producer" and "audience" and enhance audience participation.

In recent years, Tencent video, iQIYI, Inc., Youku these three major video platforms are strengthening the procurement and distribution of secondary content. The three major video platforms all have special animation channels that regularly update authentic Japanese, European, American and domestic animation.Although the "quadratic attributes" of the three platforms are not strong enough and have limited appeal to hardcore fans, they all have strong social attributes:IQIYI, Inc. has a content-based "bubble" community, Tencent video is supported by Wechat and QQ, and Youku is inextricably linked to Taobao and Weibo Corp. For example, the "King of Navigation" ("King of the Sea Thief") circle of the iQIYI, Inc. bubble community has 718000 members, while "the forbidden World of Love" has 18000 members in just 11 episodes. The interaction around the content not only expands the mass foundation of the two-dimensional culture, but also further strengthens the user stickiness.

Weibo Corp, Wechat official account, Baidu, Inc. post bar, interest tribe (QQ tribe) and so on are also common social tools for second-dimension fans.For many years, Baidu, Inc. post bar has been an important distribution center of two-dimensional content, popular animation game content post bar often has millions of fans and tens of millions of posts. Although the decline trend of Tieba is obvious in recent years, there is still a high popularity in the post-90s-00 group, which coincides with the main force of the two-dimensional culture. The interest tribe is an open theme community launched by Tencent QQ in 2014, which connects and connects QQ groups with a common theme, making QQK users move from private to public. The interest tribes of "King of the Sea Thief" and "Naruto" have 3.36 million and 2.53 million followers respectively, while the domestic animation "Qin Shi Mingyue" also has 1.07 million followers. The developed social network not only makes the boundary between the secondary culture and the mainstream culture increasingly blurred, but also promotes the Internet giants' interest in the secondary industry.