二次元

What does 二次元 mean?

On the Chinese-language internet, 二次元 labels the two-dimensional world of drawn characters and, by extension, the whole subculture built around it: anime, manga, light novels, games, voice actors, fan art, conventions and 谷子, the fandom word for merchandise. Saying that someone 入坑二次元 means they fell in deep, and the phrase covers a weekend hobby as easily as a decade of fandom. The word is elastic: a brand collaboration, a sold-out concert by an anime singer and a new smartphone game all get filed under 二次元 news. The real world is 三次元, and fans like to warn each other not to confuse the two.

Where does 二次元 come from?

The word is a direct borrowing from Japanese, where 二次元 simply means two-dimensional space. Chinese anime and game fans adopted it on forums in the 2000s, and through the 2010s it rode the growth of that fandom into the mainstream. On June 27, 2017, 光明日报 ran a piece that treated 二次元 culture as one generation's cultural identity rather than a niche hobby.

How to use 二次元

• 同事去了一趟漫展，回来就说自己彻底入坑二次元了。
  Tóngshì qù le yí tàng mànzhǎn, huílái jiù shuō zìjǐ chèdǐ rù kēng èr cì yuán le.
  A colleague went to one comic convention and came back saying she had fallen into 二次元 for good.
• 他嘴上说二次元是小孩子看的，手机里却存了两百集番剧。
  Tā zuǐ shang shuō èr cì yuán shì xiǎoháizi kàn de, shǒujī lǐ què cún le liǎng bǎi jí fānjù.
  He says 二次元 is for kids, yet his phone has two hundred episodes of anime saved.