On October 29, 1999, Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke opened in 8 theaters around the U.S. It was, of course, not the first Japanese animated feature film to receive an American theatrical release, but it was certainly more prominent than any that was released before. It ultimately expanded to some 130 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, and grossed at least $2.3 million during its theatrical run through the first months of 2000. And so, it was definitely not a coincidence that 1999 also saw the publication of the first English-language book on Miyazaki, authored by British anime journalist Helen McCarthy. Aimed at a general, non-academic audience, it nonetheless performed an excellent job of introducing commentary on Miyazaki’s works to a wide range of readers.
1999 also saw the launch of two different journals that both made an impact on the emerging field of anime/manga studies. From its very first issue, the International Journal of Comic Art, founded by the incredibly prolific comics scholar John A. Lent (he also edited both of the essay collections published in 1999 that contained chapters on manga – and authored one of the chapters), welcomed essays on Japanese comics – defined as broadly as possible. Since then, under Dr. Lent’s editorial guidance, it has published more than 60 such papers, as well as several special issues/special sections on manga, and has featured contributions from many of the most well-known scholars of manga who write in English, including many who are based in Japan and in other Asian countries, as well as in Europe.
The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies, the official publication of the Japan Society for Animation Studies, is a publication that most Western anime/manga scholars are still largely not familiar with. Interestingly, while most of its contents are in Japanese, the very first issue did include one essay on anime written in English, and the issues that appeared in subsequent years have largely followed this pattern. This journal is, of course, a lot more difficult for Western readers to access, but nonetheless, a comprehensive history and bibliography of academic writing on anime and manga cannot be complete without it.
This list is also permanently archived as a separate page. Any updates will be reflected on that page only.
Books
McCarthy, Helen. Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese animation: Films, themes, artistry. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press.
McCarthy, Helen, & Clements, Jonathan. The erotic anime movie guide. New York: The Overlook Press.
Note: During 1999, Viz Media, at that point, the leading American publisher of translated Japanese comics, also published a collections of columns that had previously appeared in monthly issues of its Pulp: Manga for Grownups magazine, and a collection of non-academic articles on Japanese popular culture, including anime and manga.
Fresh pulp: Dispatches from the Japanese pop culture front (1997-1999). San Francisco: Viz Media.
Japan edge: The insider’s guide to Japanese pop subculture. San Francisco: Viz Media.
Book Chapters
Total Published: 4
John A. Lent (Ed.), Themes and issues in Asian cartooning: Cute, cheap, mad and sexy. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press.
Including
Shiokawa, Kanako. Cute but deadly: Women and violence in Japanese comics (pp. 93-126).
Shigematsu, Setsu. Dimensions of desire: Sex, fantasy and fetish in Japanese comics. (pp. 127-164).
Grigsby, Mary. The social production of gender as reflected in two Japanese culture industry products: Sailormoon and Crayon Shin-chan. (pp. 183-210).
Lent, John A. Comics controversies and codes: Reverberations in Asia. In John A. Lent (Ed.), Pulp demons: International dimensions of the post-war anti-comics campaign (pp. 179-214). Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses.
Articles
Total Published: 16
Adams, Jeff. Of mice and manga: Comics and graphic novels in art education. Journal of Art & Design Education, 18(1), 69-75.
Brophy, Philip. The tyranny of the English voice in anime. RealTime, 31
Adams, Kenneth Alan, & Hill, Lester Jr. Castration anxiety in Japanese group-fantasies. The Journal of Psychohistory, 26(4), 779-809.
Cooper-Chen, Anne. An animated imbalance: Japan’s television heroines in Asia. International Communication Gazette, 61(3-4), 293-310.
Duus, Peter. The Marumaru Chinbun and the origins of the Japanese political cartoon. International Journal of Comic Art, 1(1), 42-56.
Inaga, Shigemi. Miyazaki Hayao’s epic comic series: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: An attempt at interpretation. Japan Review, 11, 113-127.
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.
Kinsella, Sharon. Pro-establishment manga: Pop-culture and the balance of power in contemporary Japan. Media, Culture & Society, 21(4), 567-572.
MacWilliams, Mark. Revisioning Japanese religiousity: Tezuka Osamu’s Hi no Tori (The Phoenix). Japanese Religions, 24(1), 79-100.
Nagata, Ryoichi. Learning biochemistry through manga – helping students learn and remember, and making lectures more exciting. Biochemical Education, 27(4), 200-203.
Sato, Kenji. More animated than life. Kyoto Journal, 41, 22-27.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Silvio, Carl. Refiguring the radical cyborg in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell. Science Fiction Studies, 26(1), 54-72.
Steinberg, Marc. The trajectory of the apocalypse: Pleasure and destruction in Akira and Evangelion. East Asia Forum, 8/9, 1-31.
Sugano, Yoshinori. Manga and non-photorealistic rendering. ACM SIGRAPH Computer Graphics, 33(1), 65-66.
Ueno, Toshiya. Techno-Orientalism and media-tribalism: On Japanese animation and rave culture. Third Text, 13(47), 95-106.
Yokota, Masao. A psychological meaning of creatures in Hayao Miyazaki’s feature animations. The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies, 1(1A), 39-44.