In an earlier post, I made the case that 2001 marked the beginning of a new period in the development of anime/manga studies as an academic field or area. And while it was certainly possible that one year was just a quirk, the English-language academic publications on Japanese animation and comics that appeared in 2002 point strongly towards the development of a trend. Two particular highlights this year were the publication of a Japanese animation special issue, containing 7 individual articles, of Japan Forum, “the leading European journal in the multidisciplinary field of Japanese Studies”, and a “Japanese science fiction” one of Science Fiction Studies, with individual articles by Susan Napier on Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain, Christopher Bolton on Patlabor 2, and Mari Kotani on “Japanese women’s science fiction”, among others. (Interestingly, including the ones in the special issue Japan Forum has published a total of 18 articles on anime/manga, from 1996’s Change in the social status, form and content of adult manga, 1986-1996 to the four in last year’s Japanese Popular Culture and Contents Tourism special issue. Of the 16 journals with a subject focus on Asian/East Asian/Japanese Studies that have published more than one article on anime/manga, it ranks at no. 2, after only the online-only/open-access The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. Science Fiction Studies published 4 articles on anime before 2002, but only 1 since.)
Between them, these two special issues, and a special section in an issue of the Japan Economic Foundation’s English-language Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry carried 17 articles on anime/manga. A further 29 appeared in other journals – for a total of 46 individual articles, an increase of more than 100% from the previous year. Many of these journals, such as the Animation Journal, Asian Studies Review, Education About Asia, Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, the International Journal of Comic Art and the Journal of Popular Culture could be expected to publish on anime/manga – and in fact, had already published articles on anime/manga in the past. But, once again, 2002 made it clear that as long as the specific matter of a particular article was appropriate for a journal’s overall theme, it would be welcomed – as could be seen in Baby can you drive my bed: Technology and old age in Japanese animated film – a study of “tensions between the experience of old age and high technology [that]…draws attention to how technologies of care are not always socially and culturally attuned to personal biographies” – as depicted in Hiroyuki Kitakubo’s OVA Roujin Z – and published in the Journal of Aging and Identity.
Finally, 2002 also saw the publication of an article that, although it did not run in a peer-reviewed academic journal, was possibly the single most important piece of English-language writing on Japanese popular culture that appeared in the first half of the 2000’s – Japan’s Gross National Cool, written for the the influential “journal of opinion” Foreign Policy, by recent Japan Society media fellow Douglas McGray. The article highlighted Japan’s “cultural reach” abroad, as expressed in music, fashion, “character goods”, and anime/manga, and presented a fairly straight-forward question (as restated in a NeoJaponisme comment on it): “Can Japan revive its economic outlook by becoming a content-providing cultural superpower?” Since its publication, the article has shown itself to be extraordinarily influential, with over 300 citations in all kinds of academic publications. Even more importantly – and certainly unusually for a publication of any kind – it ended up playing a major role as a driver for the development of the Japanese government’s “Cool Japan” policy.
English-language books, book chapters, and journal articles on anime/manga – 2002
As usual, this list is also archived as a separate page. Any additions or corrections will be reflected on that page only.
Book Chapters
(Total published: 7)
Allison, Anne. Playing with power: Morphing toys and transforming heroes in kids’ mass culture. In Jeannette Marie Mageo (Ed.), Power and the self (pp. 71-92). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gateward, Frances. Bubblegum and heavy metal. In Frances Gateward and Murray Pomerance (Eds.), Sugar, spice, and everything nice: Cinemas of girlhoold (pp. 269-284). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Jenkins, Henry. Interactive audiences? The “collective intelligence” of media fans. In Dan Harris (Ed.), The new media book (pp. 157-176). London: British Film Institute.
Miles, Milo. Robots, romance, and ronin: Music in Japanese anime. In Daniel Goldmark & Yuval Taylor (Eds.), The cartoon music book (pp. 219-224). Chicago: A Cappella Books.
Tobin, Joseph. Pikachu’s global adventure. In Cecilia von Feilitzen and Ulla Carlsson (Eds.), Children, young people and mass globalisation (pp. 53-68). Goteborg, Sweden: The UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media.
*** OPEN ACCESS TO COMPLETE VOLUME ***
Ueno, Toshiya. Japanimation: Techno-orientalism, media tribes, and rave culture. In Ziauddin Saidar & Sean Cubitt (Eds.), Aliens r us: The other in science fiction cinema (pp. 94-110). London: Pluto Press.
Wilson, Brent. Becoming Japanese: Manga, children’s drawings, and the construction of national character. In Liora Bresler & Christine Marme Thompson (Eds.), The arts in children’s lives: Context, culture, and curriculum (pp. 43-56). New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Journal Special/Theme Issues
(Total published: 3 issues, 17 articles)
Japan Forum
Vol. 14, Issue 2
Lamarre, Thomas. Introduction: Between cinema and anime (pp. 183-189).
Miyao, Daisuke. Before anime: Animation and the Pure Film Movement in pre-war Japan (pp. 191-209).
Russell, Catherine. Tokyo, the movie (pp. 211-224).
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 (pp. 225-268)
[Ghost in the Shell] [Mamoru Oshii]
Driscoll, Mark. From kino-eye to anime -eye/ai: The filmed and the animated in Imamura Taihei’s media theory (pp. 269-296).
Looser, Thomas. From Edogawa to Miyazaki: Cinematic and anime -ic architectures of early and late twentieth-century Japan (pp. 297-327).
Lamarre, Thomas. From animation to anime: Drawing movements and moving drawings (pp. 329-367).
Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry (current title: Japan Spotlight Bimonthly)
Vol. 21, No. 4
Special Report: Japan as Anime Superpower
Ng, Benjamin Wai-Ming. The impact of Japanese comics and animation in Asia (pp. 30-33).
Kubo, Masakazu. Japanese animation as an industry (pp. 34-38).
Momma, Takashi. Miyazaki Hayao and Japanese animation (pp. 39-41).
Science Fiction Studies
Vol. 29, Part 3
Japanese Science Fiction
Kotani, Mari. Space, body, and aliens in Japanese women’s science fiction (pp. 397-417).
Napier, Susan J. When the machines stop: Fantasy, reality, and terminal identity in “Neon Genesis Evangelion” and “Serial Experiments Lain”. (pp. 418-435).
Orbaugh, Sharalynn. Sex and the single cyborg: Japanese popular culture experiments in subjectivity (pp. 436-452).
Bolton, Christopher. The mecha’s blind spot: Patlabor 2 and the phenomenology of anime (pp. 453-474).
Tatsumi, Takayuki. A soft time machine: From translation to transfiguration (pp. 475-484).
Gardner, William O. Attack of the phallic girls (pp. 485-489).
Sivio, Carl. Anime, both global and local (pp. 489-491).
Journal Articles
(Total published: 29)
Ahn, Jiwon. Animated subjects: On the circulation of Japanese animation as global cultural products. Spectator: Journal of Film and Television Studies, 22(1), 10-22.
Bolton, Christopher A. From wooden cyborgs to celluloid souls: Mechanical bodies in anime and Japanese puppet theater. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, 10(3), 729-771.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Broderick, Mick. Anime’s apocalypse: Neon Genesis Evangelion as millennarian mecha. Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, 7.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Brophy, Philip. Sound and vision: Furi Kuri. Film Comment, 38(6), 16.
Cavalieri, Monica. Animeshon no mugen no sekai: Kuri Yoji’s infinite world of animation. Animation Journal, 10, 36-49.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Ebihara, Akiko. Japan’s feminist fabulation: Reading Marginal with unisex reproduction as a key concept. Genders, 36.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Flannery-Dailey, Frances. Robot heavens and robot dreams: Ultimate reality in A.I. and other recent films. Journal of Religion and Film, 7(2).
Gibson, Mark. The powers of the Pokemon: Histories of television, histories of the concept of power. Media International Australia, 104, 107-115.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** 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).
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Hamilton, Robert. Empire of kitsch: Japan as represented in Western pop media. Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life, 60.
Ito, Kinko. The world of Japanese ladies’ comics: From romantic comedy to lustful perversion. The Journal of Popular Culture, 36(1), 68-85.
Kan, Kat., & Fletcher-Spear, Kristin. Showing anime in the library. Voice of Youth Advocates, 25(1), 20-23.
*** ARCHIVED VERSION ***
Kawashima, Terry. Seeing faces, making races: Challenging visual tropes of racial difference. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 3(1), 161-190.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Kim, Kyu Huyn. Girl (and boy) troubles in animeland: Exploring representations of gender in Japanese animated films. Education About Asia, 7(1), 38-46.
King, Christopher. Baby you can drive my bed: Technology and old age in Japanese animated film. Journal of Aging and Identity, 7(2), 83-98.
Maynard, Michael L. Friendly fantasies in Japanese advertising: Persuading Japanese teens through cartoonish art. International Journal of Comic Art, 4(2), 241-260.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** McGray, Douglas. Japan’s Gross National Cool. Foreign Policy, 130, 44-54.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** McLelland, Mark J. Kamingu auto: Homosexuality & popular culture in Japan. IIAS Newsletter, 29, 7.
Mehra, Salil. Copyright and comics in Japan: Does law explain why all the cartoons my kid watches are Japanese imports? Rutgers Law Review, 55(1), 155-204.
Miyamoto, Hirohito. The formation of an impure genre – on the origins of manga. Review of Japanese Culture and Society, 14, 39-48.
Morris-Suzuki, Tessa, & Rimmer, Peter. Virtual memories: Japanese history debates in manga and cyberspace. Asian Studies Review, 26(2), 147-164.
Natsume, Fusanosuke. Japanese manga encounter the world. Japan Echo, 29(3), 63-66.
Ng, Ross Wing-Yee. Log into comics. E-Journal on Hong Kong Cultural and Social Sciences, 2.
*** ARCHIVED VERSION ***
Ono, Kosei. Girls’ own comics. Look Japan, 558, 34-36.
Onoda, Natsu. Drag prince in spotlight: Theatrical cross-dressing in Osamu Tezuka’s early shojo manga. International Journal of Comic Art, 4(2), 124-138.
Perper, Timothy, & Cornog, Martha. Eroticism for the masses: Japanese manga comics and their assimilation into the U.S. Sexuality and Culture, 6(1), 3-126.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Phillipps, Susanne. Images of Asia in Japanese best-selling manga. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** Thill, Scott. The wizard of awe: Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. Bright Lights Film Journal, 38.
Tomii, Reiko. Akasegawa Genpei’s The Sakura Illustrated: When the Good Old Man makes a dead tree flower and the bad old man throws a fire bomb. International Journal of Comic Art, 4(2), 209-223.
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