Editing Hiroki Azuma (section)

==Work==
Hiroki Azuma is one of the most influential young [[literary criticism|literary critics]] in Japan, focusing on literature and on the idea of individual liberty.<ref name=":0" />

He began writing inspired by the work of [[Kojin Karatani]] and [[Akira Asada]]. He is an associate of [[Takashi Murakami]] and the [[Superflat]] movement. His publishing debut was "[[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn|Solzhenitsyn]] Essay" in 1993. Azuma handed the work directly to Karatani during his lecture series at [[Hosei University]] which Azuma was [[Academic audit|auditing]].

Azuma launched his career as a literary critic in 1993 with a postmodern style influenced by leading Japanese critics [[Kojin Karatani]] and [[Akira Asada]]. In the late 1990s, Azuma began examining various pop phenomena, especially the emerging [[otaku]]/<ref>{{Cite web |title=Otaku |url=https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/otaku |access-date=June 6, 2023 |website=University of Minnesota Press |language=en}}</ref>[[Internet]]/[[video game]] culture, and became widely known as an advocate of the thoughts of a new generation of Japanese. He is interested in the transformation of the Japanese literary imagination under its current “otaku-ization.”

Azuma has published seven books,<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Hiroki Azuma: The philosopher of 'otaku' speaks|url=https://japantoday.com/category/features/hiroki-azuma-the-philosopher-of-otaku-speaks|access-date=October 29, 2020|website=Japan Today|language=en}}</ref> including ''Sonzaironteki, Yubinteki'' (''Ontological, Postal'')<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hiroki Azuma |url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/author/hiroki-azuma-38638/ |access-date=June 6, 2023 |website=MIT Press |language=en-US}}</ref> in 1998, which focuses on [[Jacques Derrida]]'s oscillation between literature and philosophy. This work won the [[Suntory Literary Prize]] in 2000<ref name=":1" /> and made Azuma the youngest writer to ever win that prize. Akira Asada stated that it is one of the best books written in the 90s; however, [[Hiroo Yamagata]] pointed out that the book is based on the misunderstanding of [[Gödel's incompleteness theorem]]. He also wrote ''Dobutsuka-suru Postmodern'' (2001, lit, ''Animalizing Postmodernity''; translated as ''[[Otaku: Japan's Database Animals]]'' in 2009), which analyzes Japanese pop culture through a postmodern lens and uses the term "[[database consumption]]" to describe a new paradigm of media consumption that consumes elements of a narrative rather than a narrative itself.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ruh |first=Brian |url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/brain-diving/2011-01-11 |title=Ace of Database |work=Anime News Network |date=January 11, 2011 }}</ref> He has also set up a [[non-profit organization]] to encourage cutting-edge critics who might be shut out of the existing publishing world.