What is forgotten in the current pop culture and digital culture are the problems of the “body”. The way of speaking as if the human brain was be directly connected to cyberspace, or the whole universe was be transposed to binary data, is nothing but a kind of metaphor. The actual problems always and already arise inside our “bodies”. New media makes “samplings” of the real world in new codes, and make new relations between the body and the world. That means that media is an extension of the body. However, to extend the body does not mean anything more than driving a car, or a becoming an invincible hero in fighting games. Our daily life does not always consist of such attached devices. The extended body produces new experiences of the world by catching the it in new media and new codes. It is said repeatedly, but true. However, is this extended “second reality” (the virtual reality) a mere representation of reality, or the completely different new “realities”? Or is it discovering the new aspect of reality hidden so far by experience in different codes?

I will consider the “Otaku” (nerd) culture or the pop culture in Japan. Otaku gives a greater importance to the delusion or dream produced from animation or comics than to reality. They think their two-dimensional world drawn by the simple lines is more “real” than the three-dimensional real world and think that it is a superior domain, which brings about an experience much denser than reality. This resembles the literary youth from the old days, which “threw away” reality and felt more real in the novels and movies. This leads only in the direction of constructing the virtual/fictional world, which will not return to the actual society or the actual historical situation, and is intently developed only in their brains. Here it is thought that the actual body is already unnecessary. But is that really right?

For example, it is becoming almost impossible for Japanese young people to live without mobile phones, they receive and send emails anytime and anywhere. The act of typing with the thumb is an indispensable element of their everyday life. However, it’s not only connected to their desire for communication, but also to the physical pleasure that comes from pressing keys with their thumbs. If this act were not fundamentally comfortable for the body in the the first place, they would never
devote themselves as much into sending emails. If so, it is not true that the dream or delusion within the brain which Otaku culture delivers doesn’t need the physical body. Because the pleasure or sensation produced by this should come from the body itself, the desire also must derive from there. The state of the body should always be closely connected with both the actual history and the actual society. Yet, I don’t want to say, “Abandon media and return to the natural body”. However, I just want to empathize again that a video image and eyesight are still different. Producing only in a brain and an actual experience are also different. It is important to combine the body once again in such simulation or fiction made by media. It is the body that eats, sleeps, touches, runs and moves and it is your body connected with place, time, history and the others.

The body always enables such feelings before media or technologies. We should not forget that the “body” in the “exterior” of codes is forms our new experiences.