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Born of Japan's cultural encounter with Western entertainment media, manga (comic books or graphic novels) and anime (animated films) are two of the most universally recognized forms of contemporary mass culture. Because they tell stories through visual imagery, they vault over language barriers. Well suited to electronic transmission and distributed by Japan's globalized culture industry, they have become a powerful force in both the mediascape and the marketplace.This volume brings together an international group of scholars from many specialties to probe the richness and subtleties of these deceptively simple cultural forms. The contributors explore the historical, cultural, sociological, and religious dimensions of manga and anime, and examine specific sub-genres, artists, and stylistics. The book also addresses such topics as spirituality, the use of visual culture by Japanese new religious movements, Japanese Goth, nostalgia and Japanese pop, \"cute\" (kawali) subculture and comics for girls, and more. With illustrations throughout, it is a rich source for all scholars and fans of manga and anime as well as students of contemporary mass culture or Japanese culture and civilization.

This chapter continues to trace the postwar development of Japanese animation from the 1970s onward. In particular, the rise of master animator Miyazaki Hayao and his colleague, animation director Takahata Isao, will be discussed in detail. In examining the eminence of Japan’s animation industry, the close working relationship of Miyazaki and Takahata in the past cannot be overlooked. It is important to examine the common elements found in their works. They founded Studio Ghibli in 1985, which almost equaled the status of Toei Dōga. The establishment of such a Toei-like animation studio was aimed primarily to produce animated feature films.

This study empirically examines the cultural soft power effectiveness of Japanese and Korean films in China, focusing on the audience attraction mechanism from the perspective of cultural diplomacy. A mixed-method approach was adopted to conduct a cross-sectional survey of 1,942 Chinese film fans, and thematic analysis was used to deconstruct the underlying cultural dynamics. The core findings of this study mainly include three aspects: Japanese films trigger high emotional resonance with their everyday realist narratives, and their effect on enhancing cultural awareness significantly surpasses that of Korean films; emotional proximity is the core mechanism, establishing non-political connections through micro-narrative life symbols to dispel geopolitical hostility; although Korean films enjoy a proximity to Confucian culture, their credibility is undermined by excessive dramatization, and they are counterattacked by Japan’s “hyperrealistic approach” with low cultural proximity. This study verifies the paradox of East Asian cultural acceptance: in the context of historical trauma, high cultural proximity tends to activate political defense, whereas emotional proximity can penetrate this barrier. This study proposes a three-dimensional soft power transformation path, namely, using everyday realism as the emotional foundation, intergenerational tension of values to achieve traditional reinvention, and technological aesthetic immersion to construct sensory conquest.

This article uncovers how the distribution of yaoi anime in the United States, in the specific context of streaming services, could be affected by and is reflective of shifting market conditions. Specifically, I study how a selection of yaoi anime are completely or partially withheld from circulation on Crunchyroll due to licensing issues and censorship, creating what I call \"nonpresences\" in Crunchyroll's yaoi catalog. Through translating these nonpresences into readable information, I illuminate how Crunchyroll as a niche distributor is affected by the disruptive presence of conglomerates, the impermanence of streaming licenses, and the constraints of industry regulation.

Cet article étudie les dimensions politiques du documentaire Súper Amigos, tant au niveau de la diégèse que de la démarche de création du réalisateur. D’une part, le documentaire représente le quotidien de cinq luchadores sociales qui agissent au cœur de la ville de Mexico comme des activistes sociaux et politiques. D’autre part, la démarche de création du réalisateur, basée sur une esthétique intermédiale (mêlant cinéma d’animation, BD, comics et cinéma documentaire), peut être perçue par le spectateur comme étant porteuse d’une dimension politique forte.

This chapter contains sections titled: Orientalism: Curiosity versus Exoticism The Reception of Asian Cult Cinema Networks of Exchange: Otaku Hong Kong Cult Cinema Anime and J‐Horror Conclusion

Este trabajo toma como objeto de estudio una muestra de la obra del director japonés de animación Makoto Shinkai. El objetivo principal es el análisis de los personajes protagonistas en tres de sus largometrajes. Aplicamos una metodología de análisis de contenido basada en la descripción y comparación de varias dimensiones de los personajes, desde las propuestas metodológicas de análisis procedentes de los estudios narratológicos del cine y la literatura. Consideramos que Shinkai construye a sus protagonistas a partir de prácticas y estrategias habituales a la hora de otorgar complejidad a aquellos y convertirlos así en simulacros verosímiles en la representación de personas, incluso tratándose de animación. El análisis concluye que la creación de personajes redondos dota a la obra de Shinkai de una madurez insólita en el anime. La introducción de elementos fantásticos y de un mensaje más profundo y menos evidente lleva a los títulos hacia el terreno de la metáfora y a un alto componente místico y espiritual, aunque dentro de una narrativa comercial.

When Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away reached American theaters in 2002, children by and large were enthralled, but some of us adults were confused. This English-language version of the original Japanese film bore the Disney logo, but it was clearly not Disney. It was longer, for one thing, with odd pauses during which the characters seemed to be pondering,¹ and the line between good and evil seemed blurred and shifting. On the other hand, it also did not fit the American stereotype of Japanese animation--too detailed, too expensive, and with a surprising absence of exploding robots. One thing about this movie did strike a familiar note: like many Disney features, it presented imagination as a sometimes dark and dangerous thing. That imagination is both a gift and a curse is hardly a new idea; its double-edged presence in children’s literature has long attracted scholarly attention. But for an animated film to warn viewers of the hazards of something without which it could not begin to exist seems downright hypocritical. When the most creative, surrealistic animated images are made to serve a story that preaches reason and restraint, they seem almost to erase themselves, like the path through Tulgey Wood rubbed out by broom dogs in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951). Disney publicity has never officially acknowledged any ambivalence about its chief product; what would a commercial for a Disney movie or theme park be without the word \"imagination\" or its near relative, \"dream\"? Yet even the post- Walt animated films of the neoclassic period, which began in 1989 with The Little Mermaid, may convey, in the tension between their pictures and their plots, a deep sense of unease.²