Japanese Anime

A different kind of cultural frame: An analysis of panels in American comics and Japanese manga

by Neil Cohn

The growing interest and influence of Japanese manga (“comics”) in America has inspired comparisons between the... more The growing interest and influence of Japanese manga (“comics”) in America has inspired comparisons between the properties of the two cultures’ graphic systems. Various theories have hinted to the existence of structural variation between these cultures’ books, yet little quantitative data has served to support these claims. This study seeks to provide empirical evidence for these cross-cultural theories by examining 300 panels in each of twelve American and twelve Japanese comic books. It examines 1) how they highlight amounts of information, 2) their depiction of subjective viewpoints, and 3) the angle of view taken by their representations.

Consuming and Maintaining Difference: American Fans Resisting the Globalization of Japanese Popular Culture

by Laura Beltz Imaoka

Published in disClosure 2010, Issue 19, p73-82

The article discusses how the popularization of Japanese popular culture in the U.S. has lead many American fans to... more The article discusses how the popularization of Japanese popular culture in the U.S. has lead many American fans to question the extent to which their identities are constructed through the consumption of foreign cultural materials that are increasingly being "Americanized." It also refers to increase of sales Japanese comics in the U.S. that coincides with the heightened global exchange and interest in Japan's contemporary popular culture.

The Middle Ground Journal: Call for Submissions 3.1

by Hong-Ming Liang 梁弘明教授

Alice in Evasion

by Amanda Kennell

Research poster for the University of Southern California's Fourth Annual Graduate Student Government Poster Symposium

Since the first Japanese translation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published in a girls’ magazine in 1908,... more Since the first Japanese translation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published in a girls’ magazine in 1908, translations and adaptations of Alice and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, have proliferated within Japanese popular culture. Dozens of translations – including a joint translation by revered novelists Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and Kikuchi Kan – point to the two books’ central position within Japanese children’s literature. However, for this project, I have focused on those looser adaptations that do not attempt to retell the Alice story, but instead use its characters and symbols for other purposes. These works can further be divided into those that tell a story and those that do not. An example of an Alice work that tells a story would be Alice School (学園アリス), a children’s comic book series about a school for children with superpowers. Story-less works are physical products like Alice-themed sticker sets or experiential activities such as eating at Tokyo’s Alice in the Land of the Labyrinth Café. These products clearly work within the Alice mythology, but take off on tangents from Lewis Carroll’s books.

Whether one is dealing with works that tell stories or works that do not, Alice (アリス) plays a major role. At the same time, Alice does not seem to fully exist within these works. Themed sticker sets, for example, may or may not include other characters, but always include Alice. Yet Alice is shown in silhouette, a shadow running away before she can be fully understood. In contrast, works that supply the consumer with a story go even further to obfuscate Alice. In Alice School, an “Alice” is a superpower, not an actual person, and Alices may manifest intermittently, disappear during puberty, or even shorten the possessor’s life span until both Alice and possessor die. Throughout the series, the nature of the main character’s Alice is in question: everyone knows that she has one, but what, exactly, does it do? Another series, Are You Alice?, follows a young man called Alice, who may or may not be the “real” Alice of Wonderland, as he participates in a competition to kill the White Rabbit – a competition created because the White Rabbit wanted to find the real Alice, and determined that only the real Alice would be able to kill the White Rabbit.

Through translations and adaptations, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland books have come to play a prominent role in contemporary Japanese popular culture. Some translations and adaptations attempt to retell the Alice story directly, but many more works use concepts from the books as a jumping-off point and extend Carroll’s Alice into everything from a themed eatery to romantic comedies, school supplies to dark explorations of reality and responsibility. Alice, herself, is pivotal in all Alice works, but in the latter case, her importance lies in her inaccessibility. Outside of direct retellings of Carroll’s stories, Alice has become a mystery that is being endlessly retold, without ever being solved.

● "When Hercule Poirot Met Japanese Animation: An Exploration of the 2004 Series

by Serena Formica

Presented at the 2012 SCMS conference in Boston, MA

2004 Japanese anime: A low angle shot presents a young girl against a blue sky background; the girl begins to dance... more 2004 Japanese anime: A low angle shot presents a young girl against a blue sky background; the girl begins to dance and ‘the camera’ closes up on her smiling face. A song invites the viewer to sing along... given such opening our viewer may expect the beginning of a “sohjo” (young girl) anime. However a more attentive viewer may have already observed the apparent incongruity of the superimposed title “No Meitantei Poirot to Marple”. Indeed, the following shot introduces a car approaching from the distance. The rear window opens, and the unmistakable moustached profile of Hercule Poirot appears!

This paper investigates the representation of Agatha Christie’s character in the series, and in particular how Poirot functions as a transnational character. Does the anime succeed in transferring Poirot to a different context? What are the ways in which the character of Poirot is made accessible to a young female Japanese audience? Is he made Japanese or is the anime ‘westernised’? In order to answer these questions, the paper analyses the series in the context of the “shojo” genre, and examines its representation of Poirot with references to the long lasting British ITV Series 'Agatha Christie’s Poirot'.

Mamoru Oshii's "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence". Thinking Before the Act

by Frederic Clement

Aside from the title and the opening and closing paragraphs, this article is an abridged version of the third chapter of the author’s book Machines désirées: La représentation du féminin dans les films d’animation Ghost in the Shell du réalisateur Mamoru Oshii, published in 2011 by Éditions L’Harmattan (© L’Harmattan 2011). Translation of this article by Guillaume Desgagné.

Since the enactment of the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths (the Bill 156... more Since the enactment of the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths (the Bill 156 regarding the sexualized representation of so-called “fictional youths,” recently passed in Japan), creators of manga and animé have had to promptly rethink the way they display sexuality in their works. Japanese director Mamoru Oshii, as a shrewd observer of his medium and society, had already been reflecting on the increased sexualization of fictional characters.

In 2004, several years before Bill 156, Oshii directed the animated film Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, a futuristic police story in which sex dolls modelled after little girls seemingly become sentient and murder their owners. What remains of desire and sexuality in the age of their mechanical reproduction? Such seems to be the question Oshii was asking in his film. It was, for him, a way of thinking the discomfort in his civilization, long before the Act. In this article, first and foremost, I propose to discuss a few points brought up in two essential writings about the depiction of little girls (the “shôjo,” literally “little female”) from renowned animé and manga scholars Susan J. Napier and Frederik L. Schodt. Then, I will study the movie itself, mainly through the inversion of what Napier names the “disappearing shôjo,” as well as a reflection on the doll’s body in the movie as being a kind of sexual “no man’s land,” both metaphorically and literally. Subsequently, I will analyze the movie through the prism of horror – or how, paradoxically, these dolls become monsters in order to fight abjection, and thus claim back their innocence.

La structure cristalline dans Millenium Actress

by Stephane Collignon

travail réalisé en 2004 dans le cadre du cours d'Analyse Textuelle du cinéma suivi pendant ma formation en Écritures et Analyses Cinématographiques à l'Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Étude du film Millenieum Actress de Satochi Kon, à travers le filtre de la structure cristalline de Deleuze. Étude du film Millenieum Actress de Satochi Kon, à travers le filtre de la structure cristalline de Deleuze.

Need for Speed: Anime, the Cinematic, and the Philosophical

by Katarzyna Wasylak

What Race Do They Represent and Does Mine Have Anything to Do with It? Perceived Racial Categories of Anime Characters

by Amy Shirong Lu

Is the intended race of anime characters distinguishable because of their facial features or are they too... more Is the intended race of anime characters distinguishable because of their facial features or are they too `international' to tell? This study addressed this question empirically by comparing the intended racial categories of static frontal portraits of 341 anime characters randomly selected from anime produced between 1958 and 2005 with the perceptions of 1,046 raters. Results showed that, although the race of more than half of the anime characters was originally designed to be Asian and only a small fraction were intended to be Caucasian, many were perceived as Caucasian by the largely Caucasian raters. Response patterns also indicated `Own Race Projection (ORP)', i.e. perceivers frequently perceived anime characters to be of their own racial group. Implications for anime's international dissemination are discussed.

Hardy Bernal, K. A. (2011). The Lolita Complex: A Japanese Fashion Subculture and its Paradoxes. Auckland: AUT University.

by Kathryn A. Hardy Bernal

Master of Philosophy (MPhil) Thesis, 30 May 2011

My thesis investigates complex issues implied by and connected with the Japanese movement known generally as Gothic... more My thesis investigates complex issues implied by and connected with the Japanese movement known generally as Gothic & Lolita (G&L), focussing specifically on the Lolita fashion-based subculture and psychological motivations behind it. It discusses the transmigration of the movement’s ideas from Eastern to Western to Eastern societies, including differing cultural interpretations of “Lolita” and their implications in terms of the Lolita phenomenon, while examining ideologies in context with conflicting connotations and paradoxes that arise from a label that combines perceptions about “Lolita” with the “Gothic”. It also addresses the “Lolita Complex”, a term that stems from the narrative of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and is applied to a syndrome affecting older men and their attraction to young girls, and explores its associations with the Lolita subculture. The Lolita Complex, as the title of this thesis, also refers to the problematic complexities connected with and inferred by the movement. This thesis is multi-disciplinary. Although the emphasis is related to Fashion (or Design) History and Theory, my research also spans the fields of Subcultural Theory, Gothic Studies, Gender Studies, Asian Studies and Anthropology. It leans, though, more to the “theoretical” side, while my methodological approach relates closely to Analytic or Psychoanalytic Art History, based on my education and training as an Art and Design theorist. As such, this study is an analysis of the Japanese Lolita subculture. It is my theory or my reading of this cultural phenomenon, supported by evidence to state the overriding argument that the Lolita movement is symbolic of and represents a generation of young women who refuse to enter adulthood and “grow up”.

Flight through the Metropolis: labyrinths of movement in the real and animated city

by Lawrence Bird

presented at "Landscapes of Global Urbanism: Power, Marginality, and Creativity", conference of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Sociology of Urban and Regional Development (ISA-RC21), Tokyo (2008)

This paper examines sequences depicting movement through cities in the animated films Metropolis (Rintarô, 2001)... more
This paper examines sequences depicting movement through cities in the animated films Metropolis (Rintarô, 2001) and Tekkon Kinkreet (Michael Arias, 2006). The analysis considers the perception of the city by bodies in motion, understood through the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The urban spaces revealed by this flight are evocative of the spectacle and banality of the contemporary Japanese city, and raise many of the same political, ethical, and poetic issues – which have specific implications for bodies in the city.

The Independent Spirit of CALF and the Rise of Alternative Animation in Japan

by Catherine Munroe Hotes

published in Midnight Eye

Winter Days

by Catherine Munroe Hotes

published in Midnight Eye

The Collected Works of Tadanari Okamoto

by Catherine Munroe Hotes

published in Midnight Eye

Tomoyasu Murata and Company

by Catherine Munroe Hotes

view in Midnight Eye

Thinking and Drawing: Nihon no Shinseki Art Animation

by Catherine Munroe Hotes

published in Midnight Eye

Héroes Mecánicos de la cultura Pop (Mechanical heroes in the Pop Culture)

by Carmen Virginia Grisolía

Paper presented in the X Seminario Nacional de Estética “Arte, Ciencia y Tecnología”, Noviembre 2008, Mérida, Venezuela.

¿Quién no ha querido personificar un héroe? ¿O ser recatado por uno? Desde épocas míticas la figura arquetípica del... more ¿Quién no ha querido personificar un héroe? ¿O ser recatado por uno? Desde épocas míticas la figura arquetípica del héroe ha seguido al hombre y a su cultura, evolucionando y adaptándose a las tendencias y avances de la tecnología electrónica-digital. Sin embargo, algunas características del héroe clásico siguen presentes en las figuras contemporáneas. Algunas de ellas resurgen presentándose como parte de la cultura popular, adentrándose e invadiendo los espacios de los mass mediay del ciberespacio. Mazinger Z, el coloso de 35 años de edad del animé japonés, materializa los arquetipos heroicos erigiéndose como un ícono simbólico del pop culture e, incluso, constituyéndose en antecedente temprano de movimientos ciberfílicos y ciberpunks

El tractament del cos als OVA japonesos

by Xavier Mínguez López

PUblicat a Benet, V. i Nos, E. (1999) Cuerpos en serie. Castelló: UJI

Aquest és un article sobre la serialitat i el tractament del cos a l'animació japonesa que vaig escriure fa uns quants... more Aquest és un article sobre la serialitat i el tractament del cos a l'animació japonesa que vaig escriure fa uns quants anys . A pesar de no comptar aleshores amb la bibliografia que vaig descobrir després, i encara que estiga lleig dir-ho, el cert és que vaig tindre molta intuïció en algunes interpretacions que després he comprovat que coincidien amb autors de prestigi.

Manga, animation and visual art

by Craig Norris

Norris, C 2009, 'Manga, animation and visual art', in Y Sugimoto (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, pp. 236-260.

Japan has dynamic visual popular culture that now relishes an international presence. Manga books make up about one... more Japan has dynamic visual popular culture that now relishes an international presence. Manga books make up about one quarter of Japan’s publications. The animation industry is vibrant with many successful films and TV programs. These two major interrelated genres have a long history of their own and have vast industrial bases. Some analysts have attributed the prevalence of this kind of visual art to Japanese paintings and calligraphy. Others link it to Japan’s vibrant film culture. This chapter attempts to find common threads that run through various types of visual art in Japan and analyse them in historical and comparative context.

Images of Resistance in Manga and Anime's Improbable Subjects

by Craig Norris

Norris, Craig 2010, 'Images of Resistance in Manga and Anime's Improbable Subjects', The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, vol. 42, pp. 95-114.

An interesting debate is occurring around of the role of popular culture in the context of globalization and... more An interesting debate is occurring around of the role of popular culture in the context of globalization and definitions of national identity. In this article I focus on the notion that there is a distinctive Japanese aesthetic in manga and anime. I compare the Occidentalism of early postwar intellectual Taihei Imamura with the Orientalism of western commentators and fans. These two perspectives share a concern with cultural imperialism and assumptions about media convergence. I wish to try and bring together these two approaches by examining the assumptions of them both through a case study of three texts. The manga Enomoto: New Elements that Shake the World, the Edo period picture scroll Shinnô and the anime short Stink Bomb. I propose that a textual analysis of the Japanese imagery in these texts combined with an understanding of the possibilities fans see in appropriating manga and anime within their local experiences reveals the shifts in globalisation and nationalism that are framing these texts as distinctly Japanese.
I conclude that popular culture can offer an important symbolic strategy for dealing with the impact of globalisation and media convergence. In this context it is possible to see how manga and anime helps some imagine escape routes and forms of resistance to forms of cultural and political domination.