In almost any discussion about Japanese animation, the names of certain directors are bound to come up. Hayao Miyazki is easily the most obvious, but there are several others who have also received significant attention in English-language anime scholarship. Continuing my work in documenting the literature of anime/manga studies, I am pleased to present a new bibliographic project – bibliographies of scholarship on major anime directors and their works.
The first item in this project addresses the a director one of whose films was, for many Western viewers, their introduction to Japanese animation as a genre, rather than simply as animation that was produced in Japan – Mamoru Oshii. Oshii’s prominence as a director is hard to understate – he is commonly mentioned in standard scholarly and popular introductions to Japanese cinema, is the only anime director profiled in Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction (Abingdon, UK: Routledge), and the only Japanese animator on in the worldwide list of “Great Directors” compiled by the influential film studies journal Senses of Cinema. And, while his list of credits as a director is relatively modest, the sheer amount of attention he has received in the scholarship, including monographs, chapters in edited collections, and individual journal articles, has been significant.
This bibliography covers all scholarly publications on Oshii as an anime director or screenwriter written in English that I am aware of. It specifically does not include scholarship on his live-action films, the “anime live-action hybrid feature” Avalon, or his Blood: The Last Vampire – Night of the Beasts novel. Whenever possible, and if this is not clear from the publication’s title, I have also tried to identify and note the actual anime that it discusses.
As of November 24, 2014, it includes a total of 53 entries, including 4 monographs, 8 book chapters, and 41 journal articles (for the purposes of this bibliography, I treat Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts as a journal rather than an annual series of essay collections). Of the individual journal articles, eight were published in Mechademia, four in Science Fiction Studies, three in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and two in the International Journal of Comic Art. Twenty-four other journals published one article on Oshii and his films each. The vast majority of the articles and chapters discuss Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence; only a few address Patlabor, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, and Sky Crawlers. Several approach Oshii’s work from a comparative perspective, and read his films alongside those of other anime directors, in particular, Hayao Miyazaki and Hideaki Anno.
This bibliography is also available as a separate page. Any new updates will be reflected on that page only, not in this post.
Mamoru Oshii: A Bibliography of English-Language Scholarship
2014
- Ruh, Brian. Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii, 2nd Ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
2013
- Correa, Marie Deanne Therese. Ghost in the Shell: A cyborg-feminist review of Mamoru Oshii’s animated film. Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media, and Society, 10(2). 115-119.
- Greenhill, Pauline, & Kohm, Steven. Hoodwinked! and Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade: Animated “Little Red Riding Hood” films and the Rashomon Effect. Marvels & Tales, 27(1), 89-108.
- Kohara, Itsutoshi, & Niimi, Ryosuke. The shot length styles of Miyazaki, Oshii, and Hosoda: A quantitative analysis. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8(2), 163-184.
- Nagakawa, Miho. Mamoru Oshii’s production of multi-layered space in 2D anime. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8(1), 65-83.
- Ruh, Brian. Producing transnational cult media: Neon Genesis Evangelion and Ghost in the Shell in circulation. Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media, 5, 1-23.
2012
- Chow, Kenny K.N. Toward holistic animacy: Digital animated phenomena echoing East Asian thoughts. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 7(2), 175-187.
[Ghost in the Shell]
- Monnet, Livia. Anatomy of permutational desire, part III: The artificial woman and the perverse structure of modernity. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and the Fan Arts, 7, 282-297.
[Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]
- Riekeles, Stefan, & Lamarre, Thomas. Image essay: Mobile worldviews. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and the Fan Arts, 7, 173-188.
[Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell]
2011
- Clement, Frederic. Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence: Thinking before the act. Cinephile: The University of British Columbia’s Film Journal, 7(1), 30-36.
- Gan, Sheuo Hui. The transformation of the teenage image in Oshii Mamoru’s The Sky Crawlers. Animation Studies, 6.
- Horbinski, Andrea. War for entertainment: The Sky Crawlers. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and the Fan Arts, 6, 304-306.
- Monnet, Livia. Anatomy of permutational desire, part II: Bellmer’s dolls and Oshii’s gynoids. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and the Fan Arts, 6, 153-170.
[Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]
- Ruh, Brian. Volition in the face of absurdity. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 6, 306-309.
- Shin, Hyewon. Voice and vision in Oshii Mamoru’s Ghost in the Shell: Beyond Cartesian optics. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 7-23.
- Terai, Hiroko. Disembodiment of our physical bodies and embodiment of urban space in Oshii Mamoru’s animations. International Journal of Comic Art, 13(2), 437-447.
2010
- Brown, Steven T. Tokyo Cyberpunk: Posthumanism in Japanese Visual Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.[Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]
- Chipman, Jay Scott. So where do I go from here? Ghost in the Shell and the imaging cyborg mythology for the new millennium. In John Perlich and David Whitt (Eds.), Millennial Mythmaking: Essays on the Power of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Films and Games (pp. 167-192). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
- Dinello, Dan. Cyborg goddess. In Joseph Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin (Eds.), Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder (pp. 275-285). Chicago: Open Court Publishing.
[Ghost in the Shell]
- Heinricy, Shana. Take a ride on the Catbus. In Joseph Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin (Eds.), Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder (pp. 3-11). Chicago: Open Court Publishing.
- McBlane, Angus. Just a ghost in the shell? In Joseph Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin (Eds.), Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder (pp. 27-38). Chicago: Open Court Publishing.
- Monnet, Livia. Anatomy of permutational desire: Perversion in Hans Bellmer and Oshii Mamoru. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 5, 285-309.
[Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]
- Penicka-Smith, Sarah. Cyborg songs for an existential crisis. In Joseph Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin (Eds.), Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder (pp. 261-274). Chicago: Open Court Publishing.
[Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]
- Stoddard, Matthew. Contested utopias: Ghost in the Shell, cognitive mapping, and the desire for Communism. ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, 5(2).
2009
- Anderson, Mark. Oshii Mamoru’s Patlabor 2: Terror, theatricality, and exceptions that prove the rule. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 4, 75-109.
- de Fren, Allison. Technofetishism and the uncanny desires of A.S.F.R. (alt.sex.fetish.robots). Science Fiction Studies, 36(3), 404-440.
- Endo, Yukihide. An examination of the human soul that dwells within the machine as exemplified by The Ghost in the Shell. Bulletin of Liberal Arts, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, 23,
- Gardner, William. The cyber sublime and the virtual mirror: Information and media in the works of Oshii Mamoru and Kon Satoshi. Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 18(1), 44-70.
- Griffith, John Lance. The world and Japan: Animated anxiety in a global age. National Central University Journal of Humanities, 39, 1-54.
[Ghost in the Shell]
- Napier, Susan. Oshii, Mamoru. In Mark Bould, et al. (Eds.), Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction (pp. 176-181). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
2008
- Miller, Gerald Alva Jr. “To shift to a higher structure”: Desire, disembodiment, and evolution in the anime of Otomo, Oshii, and Anno. Intertexts: A Journal of Comparative and Theoretical Reflection, 12(2), 145-166.
[Ghost in the Shell]
- Ashby, Madeline. Ownership, authority, and the body: Does antifanfic sentiment reflect posthuman anxiety? Transformative Works and Cultures, 1.
[Ghost in the Shell]
- Brown, Steven. Machinic desires: Hans Bellmer’s dolls and the technological uncanny in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and Fan Arts, 3, 222-253.
- Curti, Giorgio Hadi. The ghost in the city and a landscape of life: A reading of difference in Shirow and Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(1), 87-106.
- Orbaugh, Sharalyn. Emotional infectivity: Cyborg affect and the limits of the human. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 3, 150-172.
[Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]
2007
- Bolton, Christopher. The quick and the undead: Visual and political dynamics in Blood: The Last Vampire. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 2, 125-147.
- Johnson, Rebecca. Kawaii and kirei: Navigating the identities of women in Laputa: Castle in the Sky by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghost in the Shell by Mamoru Oshii. Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, 14.
- Notaro, Anna. “Innocence is life”: Searching for the post-human soul in Ghost in the Shell 2. International Journal of Comic Art, 9(1), 610-624.
2006
- Cavallaro, Dani. Cinema of Mamoru Oshii: Fantasy, Technology and Politics. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
2005
- Wright, Lucy. Transcendental style in ‘Ghost in the Shell’. In P. Horsfield (Ed.), Papers from the Trans-Tasman Research Symposium ‘Emerging Research in Media, Religion and Culture’ (pp. 100-106). Melbourne: RMIT Press.
2004
- Ruh, Brian. Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
- Suchenski, Richard. Great directors: Mamoru Oshii. Senses of Cinema, 32.
2003
- Inuhiko, Yomota. Stranger than Tokyo: Space and race in postnational Japanese cinema. In Jenny Kwok Wah Lau (Ed.), Multiple Modernities: Cinemas and Popular Media in Transcultural East Asia (pp. 76-89). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
[Patlabor, Patlabor 2, Ghost in the Shell]
- Yokota, Masao, Koide, Masashi, & Kifune, Tokumitsu. From the autistic world to entertainment in feature animations of Mamoru Oshii. The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies, 4(1A), 19-26.
2002
- Bolton, Christopher. From wooden cyborgs to celluloid souls: Mechanical bodies in anime and Japanese puppet theater. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, 10(3), 729-771.
[Ghost in the Shell]
- Gonzaga, Elmo. Anomie and isolation: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Ghost in the Shell, Serial Experiments Lain, and Japanese consensus society. Humanities Diliman, 3(1), 39-68.
- Monnet, Livia. Towards the feminine sublime, or the story of ‘a twinkling monad, shape-shifting across dimension’: Intermediality, fantasy and special effects in cyberpunk film and animation. Japan Forum, 14(2), 225-268.
[Ghost in the Shell]
- Orbaugh, Sharalyn. Sex and the single cyborg: Japanese popular culture experiments in subjectivity. Science Fiction Studies, 29(3), 436-452.
[Ghost in the Shell]
2001
- Schaub, Joseph Christopher. Kusanagi’s body: Gender and technology in mecha-anime. Asian Journal of Communication, 11(2), 79-100.
[Ghost in the Shell]
2000
- Won, Kin Yuen. On the edge of spaces: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, and Hong Kong’s cityscape. Science Fiction Studies, 27(1), 1-21.
1999
- Kim, Won. The quest for humanity: The hero’s journey in Walt Disney’s Pinocchio and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell. Animatrix, 10, 50-72.
- Silvio, Carl. Reconfiguring the radical cyborg in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell. Science Fiction Studies, 26(1), 54-72.
1996
- Chute, David. Ghost in the Shell: The soul of the new machine. Film Comment, 32(3), 84-88.