Colleges and universities throughout the U.S. are now frequently offering classes on Japanese animation and Japanese comics. The purpose of this list is to illustrate the titles that these classes can have and the departments and programs that they can be offered under. It is not meant to be comprehensive, and if you are teaching such a class, are a student, or simply know about one, please let us know! Also, of course, vastly more classes discuss anime/manga in connection with other topics, such as Japanese and global popular culture more broadly, Japanese literature, and representations of particular social groups.
Arizona State University
Japanese Anime as History
(Japanese)
– Japanese anime often use settings and characters drawn from moments in Japan’s history. This class surveys a range of such anime to provide in-depth coverage of specific major issues in Japanese history and culture from roughly 200 CE to the present. While covering the basics of ‘what happened,’ we’ll also ask how anime plays with and adapts historical events, and what that might mean for popular understanding of Japanese history both in Japan and the West.
Carnegie Mellon University
Anime – Visual Interplay Between Japan and the World
(Languages, Cultures, and Applied Linguistics)
– In contemporary Japanese culture, anime plays a vital role, unfolding a wide range of stories with its distinct modes of visual representation and complementing to other forms of culture (e.g., literature, film, and art). This course explores Japanese animes appeal to the international viewers today, centering around cultural analyses of anime such as the Studio Ghibli production and Cyberpunk. Equally important are to locate the origin of Japanese animation, which is also investigated through the prewar and postwar works of animation in conjunction with related forms such as manga, or comic strips (e.g., Osamu Tezukas works that was initially inspired by Disney) and to discuss the potential of anime as an art form.
City College of San Francisco
Manga and Anime
(Asian Studies)
Dartmouth College
Thinking of Contemporary Issues in Japan through Graphic Novels
(Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages)
– This course aims to explore some of the critical and interconnected issues of contemporary Japan as they are represented in graphic novels (manga): gender roles (Ōoku, Little Miss P, The Way of Househusband), same-sex intimacy (My Brother’s Husband, Whispered Words), disabilities (Real, Silent Voice), body image (In Clothes Called Fat), and more. For the first week, students will learn the basic mechanics of manga, its history, and significance both within Japan and on a global scale, which will help them better understand this medium vis-à-vis “comic books” in the United States. Beginning in Week 2, students will carefully read the assigned work (usually multiple volumes per day; one volume ranges from 200–250 pages) while taking detailed notes. Though it is important for the students to enjoy and appreciate the form and content of the assigned primary texts, they are also expected to read the works introspectively—”What do I think about this trope/story/character and why? Is my evaluation valid?”—and comparatively. All the assigned works are written in English and posted on Canvas. No prerequisites.
Florida International University
Japanese Manga and Anime
(Asian Studies)
Harvard University
Anime as Global Popular Culture
(General Education)
– In this course, students will learn to engage Japanese or Japanese-style animation (sometimes known as anime) through two-pronged approaches. First, the students will learn to evaluate the aesthetic and socio-cultural relevance of anime in relation to the criteria and perspectives developed through the study of more established artistic forms such literature, cinema and visual arts. We will cover topics including, anime’s generic conventions, formal aesthetic, and narrative motifs. Secondly, students will learn to address the cultural value of anime in manners that recognize the specificity of its media ecology, encompassing the modes of production, distribution, and consumption. In particular, we will pay close attention to the ways media technology, industrial production of anime, marketing, and fan culture are integral facets of anime eco-system. In this sense, we will study anime as a node in the global network, involving diverse commercial as well as non-commercial medias such as graphic novels, live-action films, video games, character merchandises, and fanzines and other fan practices. The course as a whole suggests that we need to work between these two approaches in order to understand anime as a medium of global popular culture today.
Middlebury College
Reading Japanese Culture through Anime
(Film and Media Culture)
– In this course we will explore contemporary Japanese culture through the lens of Anime Studies. We will employ historical, literary, linguistic, and anthropological perspectives, as well as interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches (Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Film and Media Studies, and Fan Studies). We will watch, read, and study both stand-alone anime movies, as well as selected episodes from anime series, to understand the cultural and historical contexts that generated these works and how they in turn shape national and international media culture
The Anime Industry: Studios, Genres, Media Mix
(Film and Media Culture)
– What exactly is anime? Why and how did it become so popular around the world? In response to these questions, we will study Japanese anime in the context of its unique media mix industry that involves franchising across manga, movies, television series, and original video animation, as well as toys, merchandise, and video games. We will explore the establishment and development of that industry through the works of key auteurs (e.g., Osamu Tezuka, Mamoru Oshii, Rumiko Takahashi, Masaaki Yuasa), studios (e.g., Toei, Ghibli, Madhouse, Production I.G.), and genres (e.g., mecha, shojo, BL, sports). Our discussions will focus on both the politics and aesthetics of anime, and will be informed by broader historical and theoretical readings
Purdue University
Manga and Anime
(Japanese / Film – Special Topics in International Cinema)
San Diego State University
Japanese Religions Through Anime
(Religious Studies)
– Analyze Japanese religions through animation; fundamental values of Japanese religion and society: life/ death; cosmology; human relationships with nature; ritual/ tradition; inter-religious cooperation; understandings of gender, sexuality; analysis of religion across Japanese history; understanding contemporary issues: fetishism, environmentalism, nationalism, terrorism.
University of California, Berkeley
The Craft of Writing – Japanese Animation
(Rhetoric)
– This course explores the rhetoric of contemporary media works with a focus on anime and cinema, including eco-horror, melodrama, and tech-noir. We will approach Japanese animation as part of a series of transnational conversations about cybernetics, media mix, gaming and database aesthetics as well as on emergent forms of sociality (gender, race, sexuality) intimated by the reconfigurations of communication technologies. In addition to discussing the transcultural gives and takes of media theory, we will explore the various intersections of Japanese cinema with other media forms in order to challenge some of our basic assumptions about the geographies of global media.
University of Florida
The Anim(e)ted World: Exploring Global Issues Through Anime
(Japanese / UF Quest)
– This course uses the medium of Japanese animation (anime) to explore social, political, cultural, and economic issues of global relevance today. The premise of this course is that pop culture can treat serious topics and address real issues and challenges facing the world. We will examine anime containing commentary and critique relevant to some of the most pressing modern concerns. Students will both examine various contemporary issues through a close reading of anime texts, and develop skills to analyze pop culture. This is not a survey course of anime or Japanese visual culture, but a course which uses pop texts to discuss a variety of relevant topics. Throughout this course students will confront issues of identity, the environment, gender, capitalism, surveillance, war, power, and other themes through the lens of the humanities. The course will consider how pop cultural texts participate in the conversation on what makes a fair and just society, how we know truth, and how we can even manage conflicts between individuals and groups to form a society in the first place, especially in the face of changing technologies. The focus will be on the operation of power in society in its various forms. The course will examine the relationship between power and knowledge; the power to surveil and know; the relationship between power, security, and terror; society’s power to accept and exclude; the power of capital; and the potential for opposition to power. Students will examine how texts produced in the particular social, political, and cultural environment of Japan can have global relevance through today’s increasingly interconnected world and comment on issues of relevance to their own lives. At the same time students will learn critical humanities methodologies and—most crucially—how to employ those methodologies to confront the pop cultural texts they consume. Students will also learn some of the tropes and conventions of anime and how they affect its portrayal of social reality. All readings / viewings are in English.
The University of Kansas
Manga: Histories and Theories
(Art History / East Asian Languages and Cultures)
Manga (Japanese comics) have long been an extremely popular and influential medium in Japan and internationally. Manga offer engaging narratives and visual imagery revealing central concerns not only of Japanese culture, history, society and politics, but also of the global cultural industry. The medium has been studied through various disciplinary lenses ranging from art history to visual culture and media studies, literature, sociology, and anthropology. Through the examination of several manga artists and works from the late 19th century to the present as well as reading a broad range of scholarship, this course explores the major issues addressed and theoretical approaches used in the interdisciplinary study of manga.
University of Pennsylvania
The Religion of Anime
(Religious Studies)
Be it shrine maidens, gods of death, and bodhisattvas fighting for justice; apocalypse, the afterlife, and apotheosis… the popular Japanese illustrated media of manga and anime are replete with religious characters and religious ideas. This course uses popular illustrated media as a tool for tracing the long history of how media and religion have been deeply intertwined in Japan.