The years from 1993 to 2000 constituted the beginning period of the growth of English-language anime/manga studies, as scholars such as Susan Napier, Anne Allison, Antonia Levi, Sharon Kinsella, Mary Grigsby and Kinko Ito first began to publish scholarly writing on Japanese animation and Japanese comics.
2001, and in particular, the publication of Napier’s Anime From Akira to Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation, marked the start of the next stage. Napier had already established herself as a well-regarded scholar of Japanese literature, and this book, coming as it did from a major publisher, introduced the idea of academic approaches to Japanese animation to both scholars and non-academic readers. It was received favorably, with positive reviews appearing in journals such as the Journal of Asian Studies and Monumenta Nipponica, and even made an appearance in Entertainment Weekly, even if the magazine’s response to it was dismissive to say the least – “Why would anyone who loves anime’s unbridled vibrancy want to slog through the antiseptic dryness of a textbook?” And in fact, in addition to the book, that year, Prof. Napier also authored a book chapter on “the body in Japanese pornographic animation”, and articles on anime in Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique and the Harvard Asia Pacific Review – making herself known even further as a “pioneer in the scholarly study of anime”.
(As a caveat, Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke‘s hard-cover edition actually has a 2000 copyright date – but it wasn’t until the 2001 paperback that the book really started getting noticed – both inside the academic world, and by the general public.)
The two major essay collections with chapters on anime/manga that were published in 2001 essentially present the two major approaches to studying anime that scholars took at that point – within the context of a focus on Asian animation, and, separately, on Asian comics – the implication being that at this point in time, it was just too early for a full essay collection that would focus specifically on either anime or manga. Though, of course, it would only be another several years before such collections began appearing. Finally, another noteworthy publication that appeared in 2001 was the catalog for the exhibition My Reality: Contemporary Art and the Culture of Japanese Animation. Featuring works by over a dozen Japanese and Western artists, it opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art on July 28, 2001, and traveled around the U.S. through 2004. The highlight of the catalog was Takashi Murakami’s essay on the relationship between anime and Japanese art.
Books, Book Chapters, and Journal Articles on Anime/Manga – 2001
Books
Total Published: 2
Clements, Jonathan, & McCarthy, Helen. The anime encyclopedia: A guide to Japanese animation since 1917. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge.
Napier, Susan J. Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing contemporary Japanese animation. New York: Palgrave.
Book Chapters
Total Published: 16
John A. Lent (Ed.), Animation in Asia and the Pacific. Eastleigh, UK: John Libbey.
Levi, Antonia. New myths for the millennium: Japanese animation (pp. 33-50).
Ehlrich, Dave. Memory of an animated couple: Renzo and Sayoko Kinoshita (pp. 51-54).
Patten, Fred. Anime in the United States (pp. 55-72).
McCarthy, Helen. The development of the Japanese animation audience in the United Kingdom and France (pp. 73-85).
Lent, John A. Anime and manga in parts of Asia and Latin America (pp. 85-88).
Lent, John A. Overseas animation production in Asia (pp. 239-246).
John A. Lent (Ed.), Illustrating Asia: Comics, humor magazines, and picture books. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press
Isao, Shimizu. Red comic books: The origins of modern Japanese manga (pp. 137-152).
Ogi, Fusami. Gender insubordination in Japanese comics (manga) for girls (pp. 171-186).
Okamoto, Rei. Images of the enemy in the wartime manga magazine, 1941-1945 (pp. 204-220).
David Frankel, Faith Brabanec Hart, & Sheila Schwartz (Eds.), My reality: Contemporary art and the culture of Japanese animation. Des Moines, IA: Des Moines Art Center.
Fleming, Jeff. My reality, your reality (pp. 10-40).
Lubowsky Talbott, Susan. Posthuman – monsters and cyborgs (pp. 42-55).
Murakami, Takashi. Impotence culture – anime (pp. 56-67).
Berndt, Jaqueline. Permeability and othering: The relevance of “art” in contemporary Japanese manga discourse. In Livia Monnet (Ed.), Critical readings in Twentieth Century Japanese thought (pp. 349-375). Montreal, Canada: Les Presses de l’Universite de Montreal.
Donovan, Maureen. Challenges of collecting research materials on Japanese popular culture: A report on Ohio State’s manga collection. In Aaron Gerow & Abe Mark Nornes (Eds.), In praise of film studies: Essays in honor of Makino Mamoru (pp. 225-232). Ann Arbor, MI: Kinema Club.
Napier, Susan J. The frenzy of metamoprhosis: The body in Japanese pornographic animation. In Dennis Washburn & Carole Cavanaugh (Eds.), Word and image in Japanese cinema (pp. 342-365). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Tsuji, Nobuo. Early medieval picture scrolls as ancestors of anime and manga. In Nicole Coolidge Rousaniere (Ed.), Births and rebirths in Japanese art (pp. 53-82). Leiden, The Netherlands: Hotei.
Articles
Total Published: 23
Allison, Anne. Cyborg violence: Bursting borders and bodies with queer machines. Cultural Anthropology, 16(2), 237-265.
Bauer, Megan. Anime, manga and otaku: A quick study guide. Voice of Youth Advocates, 24(3), 186-187.
Alvermann, Donna E., & Heron, Alison H. Literacy identity work: Playing to learn with popular media. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(2), 118-122.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Freiberg, Freda. Tombstone for Fireflies. Senses of Cinema, 14.
Gerbert, Elaine. Images of Japan in the digital age. East Asia: An International Quarterly, 19(1), 95-122.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Howell, Peter. Strategy and style in English and French translations of Japanese comic books. Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, 11, 59-66.
Marechal, Beatrice. “The Singular Stories of the Terashima Neighborhood”: A Japanese autobiographical comic. International Journal of Comic Art, 3(2), 138-150.
Mayfield, Milton, Mayfield, Jacqueline, & Genstre, Alain D. Strategic insights from the international comic book industry: A comparison of France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and the U.S.A. American Business Review, 19(2), 82-92.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** McLelland, Mark. Local meanings in global space: A case study of women’s ‘boy love’ web sites in Japanese and English. Mots Pluriels et Grans Themes de Notre Temps, 19.
McLelland, Mark. Why are Japanese girls’ comics full of boys bonking? Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media, 1.
*** ARCHIVED VERSION ***
Napier, Susan J. Confronting master narratives: History as vision in Miyazaki Hayao’s cinema of de-assurance. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, 9(2), 467-493.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Napier, Susan J. Peek-a-boo Pikachu: Exporting an Asian subculture. Harvard Asia Pacific Review, 5(2), 13-17.
Ng, Benjamin Wai-Ming. Japanese animation in Singapore: A historical and comparative study. Animation Journal, 9(1), 47-60.
Ogi, Fusami. Beyond shoujo, blending gender: Subverting the homogendered world in shoujo manga (Japanese comics for girls). International Journal of Comic Art, 3(2), 151-161.
Osmond, Andrew. Anime magic: Studio Ghibli. Sight & Sound, 11(11), 24-26.
Pandey, Rajyashree. The pre in the postmodern: The horror manga of Hino Hideshi. Japanese Studies, 21(3), 261-274.
Price, Shinobu. Cartoons from another planet: Japanese animation as cross-cultural communication. Journal of American & Comparative Cultures, 24(1-2), 153-169.
Sato, Kenji. More animated than life (revised). Kyoto Journal, 46.
*** ARCHIVED VERSION ***
Schaub, Joseph Christopher. Kusanagi’s body: Gender and technology in mecha-anime. Asian Journal of Communication, 11(2), 79-100.
Thorn, Matt. Shojo manga – something for the girls. Japan Quarterly, 48(3), 43-50.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Thuresson, Michael. Manga: Fitting into new media. J@apan Inc, 19, 6.
Toku, Masami. What is manga? The influence of pop-culture in adolescent art. Art Education, 54(2), 11-17.
Yokota, Masao, Koide, Masashi, & Nomura, Koji. Psychological dependence in Japanese animated films: A case of Rin Taro. The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies, 3(1A), 49-52.
As always, the following list will be permanently archived in the Bibliographies section of this site. If I identify any new publications, they will be added to the permanent list only, not to this post.