Manga and Anime Studies

This article highlights how Anglophone anthropological studies of Japanese animation (anime) have overlooked its businesspeople (such as producers, investors, merchandisers, and entrepreneurs) by formulaically advocating anime creators and fans as crusaders subverting the global dominance of Euro-American global entertainment capitalism. Contextualising such orientation as an example of what Gayatri Spivak calls "strategic essentialism", the article further explores how to break out of this essentialist impasse of analysis in the anthropological approach to anime. The article suggests that a potential exit might exist through envisioning the business anthropology of anime, i.e. by casting an ethnographic focus on anime's businesspeople as the legitimate interlocutors for anthropological inquiries into anime. The author further explores the preliminary theoretical implications of this analytical turn through his own business ethnography of an international start-up venture of anime merchandising.

An interesting phenomenon is happening in contemporary comics: authors, in various countries, are emerging that, as migrants among different comic cultures, take inspiration from mangas aesthetic and narration, handling it with their proper styles and mixing it with stories and subjects from their own cultures. The word gaijin manga –probably a flawed label– identifies comic artists that have in common an underground and avant-garde production, often connected with the DIY comics scene.
This paper explains the meaning of graphic narrative inspired by manga, and specifically what is understood by gaijin manga, performing a fast analysis on its authors’ characteristics, such as the Argentinian Berliac. Then the text will focus on Vincenzo Filosa, who brings together gekiga tradition, self-publishing and independent Italian comics, and gaijin manga.

https://issuu.com/lijibero/docs/revista_lij_ibero_06

Exhibition catalogue for the 2015 solo show "The Great Golden Room" of Konstantinos Papamichalopoulos at the Bath of the Winds, Museum of Greek Modern Culture (formerly known as Museum of Greek Folk Art).

Κατάλογος της εκθέσεως "Το Μεγάλο Χρυσό Δωμάτιο" που φιλοξενήθηκε στο Λουτρό των Αέρηδων του Μουσείου Νεώτερου Ελληνικού Πολιτισμού (πρώην Μουσείο Ελληνικής Λαϊκής Τέχνης) από Ιανουάριο μέχρι και Μάρτιο του 2015.

With respect to adaptation studies, contemporary Japanese popular culture signifies a unique case, as different types of media (be those textual, auditive, visual or audio-visual) are tightly intertwined through the “recycling” of successful characters and stories. As a result, a neatly woven net of intermedial adaptations has been formed – the core of this complex system being the manga–anime–live-action fi lm “adaptational triangle.” On the one hand, the paper addresses the interplay of the various factors by which the very existence of this network is made possible, such as the distinctive cultural attitude to “originality,” the structure of the comics, animation and film industries, and finally, the role of fictitious genealogies of both traditional and contemporary media in the negotiation of national identity. On the other hand, the essay also considers some of the most significant thematic, narrative, and stylistic effects this close interconnectedness has on the individual medium. Special attention is being paid to the nascent trend of merging the adaptive medium with that of the original story (viewing adaptation as integration), apparent in contemporary manga-based live action comedies, as the extreme case of intermedial adaptation. That is, when the aim of the adaptational process is no longer the transposition of the story but the adaptation (i.e. the incorporation) of the medium itself – elevating certain medium-specific devices into transmedial phenomena.

Dōjinshi emerged in Japan during the Meiji period (1868-1912) and were self-published manuscripts by literary circles (Noppe 2010b). Since the second half of the 20th century, dōjinshi is used in regard to amateur self-published content, such as manga, magazines, illustrations (Lam and Fan-Yi 2010). In order to compete in a globalized market, innovative products have to find a competitive niche (Nobuoka 2010a). Amateur productions (Mizuko 2013), such as dōjinshi, and leading artists in large corporation are inter-connected, innovation and trends flow between the amateur production and the leading artists (Nobuoka 2010a). Amateur productions inspire leading artists and in return leading artists set trends that amateur productions copy. Some of avatar VR driven society trends in Japan are emulated from the conventional dōjinshi model and are incubating a new era of virtual society (Bredikhina et al. 2020). This paper approaches dōjinshi and its convergence with virtual reality, notably VRChat, from an anthropological and socio-demographic angle.

The proposed presentation focuses on Anglophone fandom dedicated to a Japanese transmedia franchise Weiß Kreuz. Over a span of ten years (1997-2007), manga series, anime series, OVA, a light novel and audio dramas were produced within the franchise, telling a story of four assassins working in a flower shop as a cover-up. Notable peculiarities of the series include a plentitude of internal inconsistencies and major continuity errors, including unaccounted gaps in the timeline and "plot holes so big you could drive a truck through". These flaws, however, do not seem to prevent the determined fans from appropriating the story and remaking it through fanfiction, often along the lines of BL (Boys' Love, or yaoi, featuring romantic/sexual relationship between male characters). On the contrary, the shortcomings of the canon in this case provide a sort of invitation for fan creativity. While dedicated fans enjoy engaging with the canon, they, nevertheless, are not blind to its flaws. They are willing to acknowledge and laugh at its inconsistencies and other failings, in both discussions and fanfiction, proving once again that fan appropriating and transforming of media productions is chiefly done for the fun of it.

Editorial Filacteria ISBN: 9 789569 896101
Editor: Diego Maureria

El libro abarcar tres ejes fundamentales basado en el arte contemporáneo chileno

1.- La relación afectiva y de imaginarios del animé en los 90 que llevaron a producciones de algunos autores del arte contemporáneo chileno (especialmente autores de la segunda la década de los 2010)
2.- Crónicas biográficas con un toque humorístico  y desacralizado sobre distintos escenarios de las escenas del arte chileno
3.- Textos recopilados sobre artista del arte chileno como:

Adolfo Martínez
Enrique Flores
Marco Arias
Sofía Squadritto
Sebastián Riffo
Pilar Quinteros
Samuel Dominguez
Francisco Morales
Leonora Pardo
Fiorela Angellini
Gaspar Álvarez

Teoría del arte y cultura pop japonesa: El investigador y teórico del Arte Diego Maureira (Chile, 1989) escribe los siguientes textos con motivo de su curatoría de la exposición “El Prisma Lunar” del artista Marco Arias.
Santiago de Chile.
Abril del 2018.

Pintura contemporánea y cultura pop japonesa: Postal informativa de la exposición "Genkidama", del artista chileno Marco Arias(1988), realizada en abril del año 2018 en el Centro Cultural de España (Santiago de Chile). El teórico e investigador de arte chileno Diego Maureira (1989) publica el texto "GENKIDAMA (元気玉)".

Pintura contemporánea y cultura pop japonesa: Postal informativa de la exposición "El Prisma Lunar" del artista Marco Arias(1988), curada por el teórico e investigador de arte Diego Maureira (1989).
Exhibición realizada en abril del año 2018 en Galería Posada del Corregido (Santiago de Chile).
En la postal, Maureira publica parte de su texto "¿Los dibujos animados son el origen de qué?".

The essay centers around the music written for animated works by Yuji Nomi, a contemporary Japanese composer. At a first glance, Nomi’s style seems to pay a generic homage to XX century neoclassicism; however, it is also responding very well to the free cultural contaminations at the core of the audiovisual style of Japanese animation (often read as a “postmodern” attitude of this medium). In balancing between learned musical references and adherence to the anime aesthetics, Nomi finds an own, peculiar take on neoclassicism in a new context. His approach could be described as “postclassical”, as in “postmodern” plus “neoclassical”. To comment upon this concept, the essay analyzes selected examples from the films Whisper of the Heart (1995) and The Cat Returns (2002), as well as from the TV series “My Ordinary Life” (2011).