As many prospective contributors still need more time to write, the deadline for this year’s Lab on Roof Rags Drum submissions has been extended from July 22 to August 15. The rest of the schedule, including judging, will also be postponed. We ask for your understanding and welcome anyone interested to continue writing and submitting their work.
Introduction
Indeed, like Mother Courage, we face the same war: it is close at hand, even within us. We share the same terrible blindness, the same ashes in our eyes, the same earth in our mouths. We have the same dawns and nights, and at our feet lies the same abyss: our unconscious. In short, we share the same history—this is the starting point of the whole problem.
—Louis Althusser, “Bertolazzi and Brecht”, translated for this edition.
Some readers may find this title surprising; others may find it familiar. Rags Drum was Lab on Roof’s annual call for submissions from 2020 to 2022, which prompted or brought together many excellent pieces of criticism on anime, comics, games, and novels (ACGN). It was subsequently suspended for various reasons—in part because both Lab on Roof and Chinese otaku criticism as a whole were in a period of transition, changing direction. As translated books reached the market, enthusiasm for otaku criticism emerged in Chinese-language intellectual circles. Although the work of Hiroki Azuma, Tsunehiro Uno, and Tamaki Saitō introduced through these translations was no longer particularly new to Lab on Roof’s readers, we nevertheless felt that, as a grassroots organization producing ideas, we might no longer need to write criticism of Japanese anime and manga to set a wave in motion. After all, with theory being introduced on a relatively professional basis and at scale, it seemed that existing knowledge, as part of readers’ everyday lives, would suffice to foster new criticism of higher quality.
In retrospect, however, that optimistic assessment of the prospects for criticism was not borne out. In the years since Rags Drum was suspended, we do not seem to have witnessed the wave of criticism we once imagined. Rather, otaku criticism—a performative practice of ongoing exchange between works and language—has become increasingly rare. Most visibly, the anime and manga discussions once so lively on Chinese internet platforms such as Zhihu now attract little interest. Even within the academic institutions and intellectual marketplace that introduced otaku criticism, misreadings of it and of concepts such as the so-called “sekai-kei” (“world-type” narratives) have become deeply entrenched and difficult to undo. These institutional undertakings in otaku criticism seem to have prematurely lost the vitality and potential to open up new spaces for discourse. By contrast, consumption of anime, manga, and related culture in China is booming. Amid this great wave called the “IP economy,” we Chinese otaku can take in anime and manga and enjoy modern audiovisual arts; we can attend live shows in person and experience the allure of idols; we can buy character merchandise and arrange it in elaborate displays, gaining recognition within our respective circles. These have become part of our everyday lives, shaping a reality that continues on from the 2010s without being quite the same. We see countless accounts and performances of the self within this otaku everyday life of consumption, and even a myth divorced from context: as though all works and merchandise simply grew on store shelves, and all we needed to do was consume with an easy conscience in our own island universes, without asking why these particular works and ideas have appeared here and now. Within this boundless reality, what is missing is a parallax through which we can attend to one another’s everyday lives—a language called publicness.
Of course, even as we write this brief introduction, this everyday life of consumption has already entered a crisis. Recent shifts in East Asia and across the world allow us to discern the crisis drawing near. In this prolonged postwar condition, it is not difficult to see that even this everyday life is fragile. We cannot help asking: as people caught up in a crisis, enjoying the present, what gives us the confidence that this everyday life will continue indefinitely? Yet even amid crisis, there still seems to be an everyday life that can serve as a basis for resistance. We can draw on the intellectual stance Harry Harootunian presents in his discussion of Kiyoshi Miki and Jun Tosaka: a belief that a concrete everyday life can bring utopian hope. This everyday, of course, is firmly situated in a specific time and place, and thus differs from the boundless everyday described above, which has forgotten its own origins. To activate this everyday as a utopian presence, rooted in a specific historical situation yet capable of aesthetic transcendence, reflection on the everyday also seems urgently necessary.
As it happens, Lab on Roof translated and edited many articles on the everyday in 2025. Several surveys of “nichijō-kei,” or slice-of-life, anime by Ayahiko Shizu and teramat (てらまっと) offered a historical reference for situating the genre’s rise and development since the 2000s. Shunsuke Sugita’s reconsideration of criticism in the 2000s also gave the well-known critical concept of game-like realism a grounding in everyday life akin to what Berlant calls “cruel optimism.” Stevie Suan’s reflections on the “spatiality” of Japanese animation partly revealed an anxiety beneath the popularity of slice-of-life anime: unease about the separation of Japanese animation’s form from its national character in a transnational age. Meanwhile, Hongcha Pao Haitai (红茶泡海苔), in an analysis of the transformations and misreadings of the literary magazine Faust in East Asia, depicted young people’s reading at a time when the youth-oriented literature and arts of the 2000s intersected with the light novel movement. It also offered a historical possibility for today’s ACGN ecosystem, dominated by platform capital such as that of Kadokawa: things were not always entirely this way. Whether implicit or explicit, the concept of “the everyday” runs through these articles. Even as it is criticized and dismantled, it also exists as a desirable utopia, offering an occasion for reflection. These analyses crossing national borders give us points of reference. Beyond this, however, we hope to see criticism in the Chinese-language sphere that is both locally grounded and able to reach beyond its immediate context: criticism rooted in works, moving beyond direct statements about reality yet always connected to it—even if, as the articles by Thomas Lamarre and Eiji Ōtsuka point out, criticism always runs the risk of being reduced to a technology of subject formation.
We have said all this both to explain why it is necessary to raise the question of criticism again in an age of crisis and to establish common ground for thinking and writing in Lab on Roof’s 2026 call for submissions: this year’s submissions will concern the everyday.
Submission Areas and Format Requirements
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We invite original critical analyses or comparative studies of video games, animation, comics, light novels, films, and related works, creators, histories, industries, and other phenomena, approached through philosophy and the social sciences, the humanities and arts, technology and media, industry and production, communication and political economy, or related perspectives. There are no geographical restrictions, and fan-created derivative works are included. We do not accept submissions consisting solely of translations or game guides. We encourage criticism of works that takes content and form as its basic analytical considerations, and also welcome autoethnographic writing on the conditions of otaku life. Submissions addressing the broader intellectual space of postwar literature and the arts are equally welcome, but we hope that articles will engage as closely as possible with this year’s theme: Rethinking the Everyday.
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We recommend following an academic format, providing notes and citations, an abstract, keywords, and references, but this is not compulsory. The suggested length is 5,000–20,000 characters. Submissions may take the form of articles or transcripts of recorded roundtable discussions. They may be in Chinese, English, or Japanese, though Simplified Chinese is recommended. We encourage authors to submit original articles, but also accept previously published work that complies with commercial-use and republication requirements. Quoted materials, cited ideas, and other sources must be used in accordance with accepted academic standards. If plagiarism or unauthorized appropriation is discovered before or after selection, the organizers will announce the matter publicly and withdraw any rewards issued.
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Use of generative artificial intelligence:
(1) We do not accept manuscripts credited to or written by generative AI tools, or submissions that directly present content generated by such tools as an article.
(2) We do not accept submissions involving any of the following: using generative AI tools to generate an article’s overall structure, central arguments, or main content, or to rewrite existing research; providing false information about AI tools or concealing their use; using generative AI tools to falsify or fabricate references, content, data, or other materials; using generative AI tools to create images of existing ACGN works; or other violations of AI ethics or academic standards.
(3) Generative AI tools may be used only for non-core tasks such as language polishing, literature searches, and data organization and analysis. Such use must comply with generally accepted AI ethics and academic standards.
(4) Authors who use generative AI must disclose which parts of their submissions involved these tools, including but not limited to data collection and analysis. They must specify the tool’s name and version, when it was used, and provide screenshots of the output page. Authors bear full legal and ethical responsibility for the entire content of their submissions.
We look forward to seeing the authors’ own language and thought in their submissions.
Procedures and Schedule
To make submissions more flexible and allow more critics to participate in this festival, this year’s call will no longer have separate “Festival Eve” and “After-Festival” tracks or two rounds of selection. Instead, a single round will determine the final selection of articles for this Rags Drum Repeat.
Eligibility: Previously published original manuscripts that have not been used commercially; and unpublished original manuscripts that have not been used commercially. Commercial use includes, for example, first publication in a commercial media outlet that acquired the copyright.
Submission format: Both types of manuscript must be submitted in full.
Schedule:
- March 22: Submissions open on the launch day of Rags Drum Repeat.
- August 15: Submission deadline.
- September 1: A roundup of accepted submissions will be announced, and production will begin on this Rags Drum Repeat dōjinshi (self-published anthology of criticism).
Selection: The jury will determine whether submissions qualify by a simple majority vote, emphasizing originality, intellectual substance, and critical engagement.
Publication and rewards: Once the jury has judged a submission to Rags Drum Repeat, the organizers will contact its author as soon as possible with the result. Accepted articles will be scheduled promptly for publication across Lab on Roof’s accounts on different platforms. We will edit the articles from this Rags Drum into a dōjinshi anthology of criticism and provide a copy to each award recipient. We are also considering participating in subsequent dōjinshi sales events such as Comiket or Comicup. If we do, proceeds will be used solely to support the next annual call for submissions and encourage new, original criticism.
The organizers will pay approximately RMB 300 for each accepted submission.
Submission methods—choose either:
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Email your manuscript, including your QQ contact details, to: a1835631041@163.com
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Join the event group, upload your manuscript to the group files, and notify the organizers (recommended): 1077208212
Please label your submission using the format “拾荒战略投稿－作者－文章标题,” replacing 作者 with the author’s name and 文章标题 with the article title. If exceptional circumstances prevent you from submitting through either method, please contact Lab on Roof through private messages on Zhihu or Bilibili, or through our WeChat official account, to discuss an alternative.
Jury
A group of enthusiasts of ACGN and the audiovisual arts, hoping to bring new life to works through criticism.
Other Matters
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For accepted submissions, Lab on Roof requires only non-exclusive permission to publish across its accounts, without requiring first-publication rights. However, for the subsequent dōjinshi, authors who wish to have their articles included must be able to authorize publication in that form without risking infringement of any rights held by other platforms that may have published the work. All other rights under copyright remain with the original author.
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To foster the production of more and better ACG criticism and research, as well as exchanges among those writing it, Lab on Roof may adapt accepted submissions into video essays or other forms. We will inform the author and obtain their consent beforehand. The author’s rights under copyright will be protected in the video essay.
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Our thanks to Qiutuan (球团) for designing Lab on Roof’s new mascot girl, and to the critics, groups, and platforms that have offered friendly advice and sincere help with the event.
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Given our limited organizing experience, the organizers reserve the right, to the fullest extent permitted by laws, regulations, and platform rules, to interpret and amend the event’s procedures, schedule, and related provisions. We ask critics and readers to take note and appreciate your understanding.
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We warmly invite all readers and critics to share this announcement and event information, spread the word, join the discussion, and submit your work!
