Introduction

My name is P-J Van Haecke. I’m a young clinical psychologist from Belgium.

My fields of interest are Japanese culture in general (Japanese cinematography in particular) and Lacanian psychoanalysis. I’ve started this blog to bring those fields of interest together. More precisely, I aim to venture into the Japanese culture using a Lacanian perspective.

For anybody who’s interested how I became interested in Japan, the Japanese language and its culture: It all began with the manga Dragonball. What made this manga unforgettable for me was not the action, but the humour (look at the picture for an appetizer). That’s why – in my opinion – the first 165 chapters, when Goku is still small, are superior.

The purpose of the blog 

The goal of this blog is threefold. Firstly, I want to inform you of and about Japanese culture (movies, J-drama, manga, anime) and Japanese artists, directors, poets, … – there’s a lot to be found. Secondly, I’ll review cultural productions (for instance movies, J-dramas, …) using my own Lacanian influenced perspective. Thirdly, I’ll examine those cultural productions and phenomena. These examinations aim to pose questions beyond the usual aim of understanding. The guideline I’ll use, is Lacan’s “Gardez-vous de comprende”.

“If we deny the complexity of a phenomenon, we [face] (…) the possibility of reducing it [only] to what we already know. Given the fact that the phenomenon is an element of a different culture – an element who’s defined by all the other elements of that particular culture, we face the [additional] danger of westernizing this phenomenon (see An ordinary way of saying what’s to come).

どうも　ありがとう　ございます。