Japanese Visual Culture

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.

Mark W. MacWilliams

Foreword, Frederik L. Schodt; Introduction, Mark W. MacWilliams; 1. Manga in Japanese History, Kinko Ito; 2. Contemporary Anime in Japanese Pop Culture, Gilles Poitras; 3. Characters, Themes, and Narrative Patterns in the Manga of Osamu Tezuka, Susanne Phillips; 4. From Metropolis to Metoroporisu: The Changing Role of the Robot in Japanese and Western Cinema, Lee Makela; 5. Opening the Closed World of Shojo Manga, Mizuki Takahashi; 6. Situating the Shojo in Shojo Manga: Teenage Girls, Romance Comics, and Contemporary Japanese Culture, Deborah Shamoon; 7. Intellectuals, Cartoons, and Nationalism During the Russo-Japanese War, Yulia Mikhailova; 8. Framing Manga: On Narratives of the Second World War in Japanese Manga, 1957-1977, Eldad Nakar; 9. Aum Shinrikyo and a Panic about Manga and Anime, Rich Gardner; 10. Medieval Genealogies of Manga Horror, Raj Pandey; 11. The Utopian "Power to Live": What the Miyazaki Phenomenon Signifies, Hiroshi Yamanaka; 12. Heart of Japaneseness: History and Nostalgia in Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Shiro Yoshioka; 13. National History as Otaku Fantasy: Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress, Melek Ortabasi; 14. Considering Manga Discourse: Location, Ambiguity, Historicity, Jaqueline Berndt; Bibliography; About the Contributors; Index.