Original editor: Skylar Jiang
In Web 3.0 and Metaverse, the PFP (profile picture) project based on the NFT (non-fungible token) token mechanism has attracted widespread attention from collectors and investors. We can't help but wonder - what kind of NFT PFP project will success?
Many artists have also handed in their answers one after another, including designers from giants in the entertainment industry, such as Disney and Blizzard. After waves of market and investor screening, the "blue chips" that survive "All have proved its intrinsic value and potential for future development, and one of the most eye-catching projects is Azuki.
Azuki's official introduction is "committed to becoming the largest decentralized brand established and owned by the community in the Metaverse." Currently, Azuki provides community members with as many as 10,000 character images, which will be sold online in the form of NFT. It plans to develop offline streetwear brand stores and hold live events such as meet-ups and music festivals. The Azuki brand is operated by a real-name team. The social accounts of the team members are all disclosed on the official website, and many of them have backgrounds in large technology companies such as Facebook, Google, YC and Blizzard, such as Arnold Tsang, members of Chiru Labs.
Azuki's great success is inseparable from the concept advocated by the project - to build the largest decentralized brand in the original universe, created by the community, and also belongs to the community. Azuki also openly recruits and has the same spirit of breaking the centralization macro narrative as ta A new member of Azuki. Before Azuki's blind box was unveiled, the fanaticism of the community and the large-scale topic flow surrounding it seemed to be determining its decisive hero narrative.
Not long after the opening of the blind box, community members showed off their unique style of Azuki NFT on Twitter, and its floor price also rose all the way. On February 15, 2022, the price hit a new high: 14ETH (43,600 USD). The value of Azuki as the "blue chip" of the first type of Japanese animation style is also reflected in the unanimous recognition of its benefits and painting style inside and outside the NFT industry, which precisely reflects the public's acceptance of Azuki's artistic creation; As a result, Azuki's success also needs to be attributed to the influence of Japanese animation on the world. This huge cultural force has shaped Azuki's mobility and super high floor price pricing.
This article will analyze the cultural characteristics of Azuki, the collection of NFT PFP series, its advantages in Web 3.0, and the correlation between the spirit of Web 3.0 and the post-national identity presented by Japanese animation.
How to attract people who don't understand blockchain and Web 3.0 to join this revolutionary movement?
The most organic and creative publicity method is naturally to use NFT PFP. NFT PFP can not only bring a sense of group belonging, but also show unique individuality in Web 3.0 and Metaverse; these two characteristics naturally make NFT PFP It has become an admission ticket to the encrypted world, which is not only the embodiment and expression of identity, but also the invisible empowerment.
Japanese cultural studies scholar Susan Napier pointed out in the book Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke that in the late 1990s, the development of the Japanese animation industry and the products of Western culture complement each other. Young Japanese artists have been influenced by Western culture since childhood, and from the United States in the 1970s From mainstream TV dramas to the French New Wave in the 1960s. Under the influence of this continuous cross-cultural "cross-pollination", the relationship between Japan and the United States has become very ambiguous. Japanese animation in this historical period is in a state of A state of non-indigenization and not complete Westernization.
In 2022, the year when Web 3.0 gradually dominates the discussion of public topics, we also see the cultural hybridity scene of "I am in you, and you are in me" from Azuki; and the success of Azuki in 2022 It also allows us to see the cultural representation between East and West that began at the end of the last century.
Azuki #8215 https://opensea.io/assets/0xed5af388653567af2f388e6224dc7c4b3241c544/8215
Azuki #8215 is a good example of Western cultural elements grafted into the Japanese cultural system. Let's assume that clothes represent identity characteristics, and face shape and hair represent gender. Although this character is wearing a traditional Japanese kimono, it also shows a lot of signs from the mainstream culture of the West: the alpha male behavior of carrying a guitar, the playful breath of blowing bubble gum, the fluffy hair with prominent colors and the knife on the eye Scar; these are in great contrast to the traditional East Asian female images that were oppressed by the patriarchal society and not awakened in the early Japanese screens.
Azuki #7558 https://opensea.io/assets/0xed5af388653567af2f388e6224dc7c4b3241c544/7558
Azuki #7558 is wearing a Perfecto motorcycle leather jacket that has the meaning of American rebellion. The bright red color and the rivet decoration on the clothes are not difficult to make us feel the rebellious character of the character. Pay attention to the spiked earrings and the reversed baseball These collocation details further revealed his personality. Although 7558's dress is full of characteristics of Western cultural products, he is surrounded by images depicted by Eastern philosophy, that is, thunder, earth, and fire among the five elements of nature.
Film studies scholar Susan Pointon pointed out that in terms of culture, the creative field of contemporary media art is the chemical reaction zone (zones) and intersections (intersections) of the cultural collision and fusion of the West and Japan. Azuki’s success in the NFT market is not limited to In the East Asian community, NFT players in Europe and the United States are also very fond of it. In Azuki: Can it become the BAYC of the East?
In the article, MemeMio, a community builder from SeeDao, explained: "From the perspective of art composition, Azuki obviously has a strong Japanese style. The members represented by HOSHIBOY (a member of the Azuki team) directly embrace the attitude of the second dimension, and the attitude shown to the market It is an art style that is consistent with mainstream Japanese anime, coupled with American-style thick outlines, it very neatly mixes the two-dimensional route and the classic European and American styles of the NFT market."
It can be seen that the global market is willing to pay for the mixed animation aesthetic style with Eastern and Western cultures; at the same time, it also shows that the influence of Japanese animation in the global perspective has long become a nexus point of global culture. ), and Azuki's excellent gene spread across countries and nations should also be attributed to this.
From the rock paintings of collective hunting 30,000 years ago, to people dictating stories and history around campfires, to the decentralization concept conveyed by web 3.0 today, human beings seem to have been looking for common ground in narratives. As science reporter David As Robson said, the preoccupation of human beings has been shaping the story mode we like. Although we have entered a larger and more complex society, our values are consistent; for example, cooperating with others and integrating into society groups, against threats to the interests of members of the community by dominant ruling powers, etc. From this point of view, can we say that the decentralized narrative of web 3.0 and DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) break the centralized structure and decentralize power, which is exactly what human beings have been admiring since ancient times? Azuki The Japanese animation behind it resists the hegemony of Western culture and at the same time embraces Western culture spontaneously. Is the cross-border hybrid it creates exactly what web 3.0 expects?
The breakthrough point of Japanese animation's global success in the 1990s is that it used science fiction (science fiction) themes to create a virtual world foreshadowing. In that world, everyone is a stateless (stateless) State; Due to the fictional setting of science fiction animation, works of these themes can often more directly describe the experiences shared by all human beings, such as family and friendship, and can also discuss philosophical issues through narrative, such as consciousness and prosthetics.
Ghost in the Shell. Dir. Mamoru Oshii
The close relationship between Azuki and Web 3.0 is also like the connection between the characters and the world in Japanese science fiction animations. Azuki’s own narrative purpose is to break the centralized structure and establish a denationalized (denationalized) one in the future metaverse, by the community Doesn’t the idea of a member-managed community echo the Japanese sci-fi animations that have achieved this goal? Once they enter the realm of the metaverse, people will lose their nationality and ethnic characteristics just like the characters in the animation, and become Virtual characters that no one knows (on the Web 3.0 social platform, people are also hidden behind their avatars); and in Web 3.0, the community activities that people participate in and the philosophical issues they think about are also closely related to decentralization and DAO .
In contrast to the real world, people are still arguing about issues such as race, ethnicity, and gender that should have been concluded long ago. (I personally think that these issues and institutional oppression will not exist in the future, and their disappearance is only a matter of time. Web 3.0 And the birth of the Metaverse will also speed up this speed.) Therefore, the Metaverse and the virtual world in Japanese sci-fi animations have the same effect; a successful NFT PFP project like Azuki will also become the real world and Web 3.0, A necessary bridge to the metaverse.
In 1909, American animated films were imported into the Japanese market. Stimulated by this culture, Japanese animators embarked on the journey of establishing a local animation aesthetic style in 1915. In the subsequent stages, animators adopted different methods (such as revisiting Inspired by Japanese paintings in the early 19th century) to get rid of the shadow of Western animation aesthetics, but the results presented make people feel more or less westernized (westernized). Napier pointed out that rather than saying that these Japanese animations are Westernized, Rather, it is more specifically the presentation of Japan's own "anime" style.
Cowboy Bebop. Dir. Shinichirō Watanabe
Japanese animation was influenced by the West in the early days, and the animators intentionally expressed "de-Japaneseization", which entrusted their imagination of the "non-Japanese world" in the animation world (cold knowledge: Hayao Miyazaki himself pointed out that the Japanese hate their own face); so it is natural and reasonable to look at the vision of animators to the United States, which is dominated by global culture, but at the same time it is not in a subaltern position. “This deliberate de-Japanizing of the characters is in keeping with their view of anime as offering an alternative world to its Japanese audience.” The most common model builds for Japanese animation tend to have the following features: slender bodies, big eyes, flowing hair, and even skin tones ranging from blond to light The hair color is also varied (like the character in Cowboy Bebop pictured above), and we can witness a similar aesthetic presentation in Azuki.
Azuki# 7614 https://opensea.io/assets/0xed5af388653567af2f388e6224dc7c4b3241c544/7614
Azuki#1016 https://opensea.io/assets/0xed5af388653567af2f388e6224dc7c4b3241c544/1016
Azuki#3775 https://opensea.io/assets/0xed5af388653567af2f388e6224dc7c4b3241c544/3775
Azuki#9584 https://opensea.io/assets/0xed5af388653567af2f388e6224dc7c4b3241c544/9584
Azuki contains four models: human (human), blue (blue), red (red) and spirit (spirit). In The Racial Contract, philosopher Charles Mills pointed out that in the racial contract theory, non-white ethnic groups exist In what Hobbes refers to as the state of nature, in which they exist in "a war of all against all", they are savages and more subhuman. On the contrary, Because of their skin color, white people are born to prove that they are human beings. In Azuki, although only one model is called "human" in the traditional sense, the other three attributes are similar to the human model. are the same. Before the blind box is opened, all characters are in the same initial stage of "red beans"; therefore, the four models essentially have the same subjectivity.
As Napier said, immersed in Japanese animation, both Japanese and non-Japanese can feel the fantasy of statelessness; and this fantasy also makes them acquire a "post-ethnic identity". This also confirms Azuki inherits the characteristics of diversity in Japanese animation, not only deconstructing the single definition of "person" in the traditional sense, but also directly refuting the central narrative of racism related to white supremacy. It can be seen that in the metaverse carrying the post-national spirit, the identity characteristics of community members can not only transcend racial restrictions, but also provide the possibility of presenting a new human form.
Azuki Red Bean
Like fans of Japanese animation, the members of the Metaverse in the future are not just stateless individuals, but also share the identity characteristics of the post-nation, and this also benefits from the creation of the decentralized manifesto of Web 3.0 itself. Diversified and expandable social space. In the construction of decentralized communities in the future, I think Azuki will be superior to most projects, even some existing "blue chips", because of its own visual characteristics that echo Japanese animation Culture and the spirit of decentralization. The success of some projects is often closely related to new concepts such as blockchain (blockchain), NFT, Web 3.0 and Metaverse; The idea of the author is also tightly entwined.
Azuki is a project that captures the universality and post-national identity characteristics brought by Japanese animation, which also promotes its community members to resonate with the virtual world in Japanese animation culture, Web3.0 and Metaverse will also Welcome to the Azuki community.
Azuki #2174 https://opensea.io/assets/0xed5af388653567af2f388e6224dc7c4b3241c544/2174
Finally, I hope everyone stay hydrated and stay fluid like Azuki #2174 in Web 3.0 and Metaverse.
