Vol. 4 No. 1 (2025)
From the Multiple Turn to Ontological Anarchy

Articles

Homo animalis, a Japanese Futurism: a Dialogue between Hiroki Azuma and Yuk Hui

Published 2025-06-30

  • Hiroki Azuma
    • ,
  • Yuk Hui
    • ,
  • En De Zhang
    • ,
  • Mikhail Zhuravlev

Hiroki Azuma
Genron Publishing House (Tokyo, Japan)

Yuk Hui
Erasmus University Rotterdam image/svg+xml

En De Zhang
St Petersburg University image/svg+xml

Mikhail Zhuravlev
Lomonosov Moscow State University image/svg+xml

Abstract

In this dialogue, Hiroki Azuma discusses with Yuk Hui about the perception of technology in Japan after the defeat in the Second World War, from the Kyoto School to the postmodern critics, and the ambivalent conflicts between the modern and the tradition. The postmodern culture has a different signification in Japan than in the West as well as in other parts of Asia. Azuma documents the rise of the Otaku culture in Japan, and calls them “database animals”, a thesis that he formulated through his reading of Alexandre Kojève’s end of man and the absorption of the human subject into the technological world.

Translated from the edition: Azuma, H., Hui, Y. Homo animalis, a Japanese Futurism, Philosophy Today, 2021, Vol. 65(2), pp. 401–408. DOI: 10.5840/philtoday2021412395.

Keywords

Otaku culture, database animals, end of the human, Japanese philosophy, futurism, cyberpunk

PDF (Russian)

Author Biography

Hiroki Azuma

PhD in Philosophy, Editor-in-Chief of Genron Publishing House (Tokyo, Japan).

Yuk Hui

PhD in Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Rotterdam, Netherlands. 

En De Zhang

Master’s Degree, Faculty of Philosophy, Saint Petersburg State University. 199034, Russian Federation, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7–9.

Mikhail Zhuravlev

PhD Candidate, Department of Ontology and Epistemology, Faculty of Philosophy, Lomonosov Moscow State University. 119991, Russian Federation, Moscow, Leninskie Gory, 1.

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