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This work is the extended version of a paper presented at the conference HMM2021, about the history of mechanical engineering. First, the initial cultural and industrial steps in the robotic field in Japan are introduced, to display the beginning of this interlaced path, before WW2; then, in the context of the aftermaths of the war, some famous anime heroes are presented as ancestors of the coming mecha anime series. The rising research in the field of robotics and more generally the developments of contemporary Japanese automation industry are then drawn, as a technological substrate for mecha conception. In particular, Masahiro Mori studies are taken into consideration to identify an actual robot design pattern to apply to the following comparative description and examination of the different mecha; finally, thanks to this analysis, the common breeding ground whence robotics and mecha (and their reciprocal influences) arise, is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Emotional design of multimedia lessons involves adding features that are intended to increase learner enjoyment and promote learning—such as adding narrative, anthropomorphizing non‐human elements, and using warm colours. Objective: The present study extends this work to examine the potential of Japanese animation (anime) for improving science learning. Method: Specifically, 134 English‐speaking students learned about cells in the human body by viewing the popular anime, Cells at Work, either in Japanese with English subtitles or dubbed in English with no subtitles (anime groups), or by viewing a slideshow containing the same information (slideshow group). The anime conditions were vibrant story‐driven lessons that depicted human‐looking cells working to fight off invaders in a human body that looked like a city. The slideshow used very similar wording as the anime groups, and displayed the cells without anthropomorphism or a storyline. Results and Conclusion: The anime groups did not differ significantly from each other on any dependent measures and were therefore combined. The anime groups scored significantly higher than the slideshow group on retention (d = 0.35) and transfer (d = 0.48) tests. The anime groups also had significantly higher ratings of motivation (d = 0.60) and enjoyment (d = 1.13), whereas, the slideshow group had significantly higher ratings of distraction (d = 0.59). These results support the cognitive‐affective theory of learning with media (CATLM) and demonstrate that anime may be an effective learning medium. Takeaways: Anime should be considered as a medium for science learning, especially when students might not otherwise be motivated to learn. Lay Description: What is currently known about this topic: Anime is a form of Japanese animation similar to an animated comic book.Cells at Work is a series of anime lessons on cells in the human bloodstream.Cells are represented with anthropomorphism, colours, and rounded shapes.Emotional design involves using anthropomorphism, colours, and rounded shapes. What does this paper add: Students viewed an anime or an equivalent slideshow on the human bloodstream.The anime group performed better on a post‐test and reported less distraction.Anime can be considered a form of emotional design for science lessons. What are the implications for practitioners: Anime can be used to teach about cells in the human bloodstream.Instructional designers should consider using anime as a medium for science instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the introduction of information technology (IT) influence production systems? This paper reveals two important changes by introducing information technology (IT) into a production system in the case of the Japanese anime industry. In particular, it focuses on the production system and the relationship between outsourcing and in-house production. Given this objective, this research explores each process and technology of the production system. The processes that are focused in this research are the art production process, painting process and the process that follows. In addition, it examines three-dimensional computer graphics and digital sakuga (drawing) in the technology. The results of the paper elucidate the following. First, companies in Japan cannot attain successful introduction of IT until IT achieve low cost or/and high quality. Second, the process of choosing in-house production or outsourcing depends upon the following factors. Realizing the integration of multiple processes or enhancing the flexibility of the production process leads to the transition from outsourcing to in-house production. On the other hand, realizing lower cost by the delivery of digitalized data through storage media or the Internet results in the transition from in-house production to outsourcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A call for papers on anime is presented.

Japanese popular culture has become a major global phenomenon, with thousands of manga, anime, and video game titles translated and localized every year in dozens of countries. However, despite the international success of Japanese pop culture, fandom in Japan remains insular and socially marginal. Japanese society generally regards otaku and fujoshi as undersocialized, immature, and even dangerous. This paper examines the collision of these two fan cultures as depicted in Kio Shimoku's manga Genshiken. A somewhat self-deprecating love letter to otaku and fujoshi, the text depicts a university otaku circle that is eventually joined by an American exchange student, Susanna Hopkins. Through the inclusion of this exchange student the text expresses anxieties about the exportation and repatriation of Japanese subculture. Sue only expresses herself in quotes from subcultural texts, suggesting that the process of exportation transmogrifies Japanese subculture to the point where it is no longer legible to Japanese fans. This subculture, dehistoricized and decontextualized from the social and cultural strata of Japanese fandom, is made illegible in its home country, revealing deep uneasiness about the spread of Japanese subcultural fandoms that have escaped Japanese cultural authority and invites scrutiny to insular fandom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at recent isekai ('different world') anime in relation to 2018s Goblin Slayer. It argues the latter is a settler-colonialist critique of the unconscious structural violence within former's tropes and presumptions. Isekai anime provide a space where superexploitation and the redistribution of surplus value are buried within a fantasy of non-alienated, non-commodified labor, and Goblin Slayer represents the exhaustion of this fantasy and the return of the repressed unconscious of settler violence on the frontier. Using Patrick Wolfe's theorization of a neoliberal settler-colonialism, this paper argues that Japanese settler-colonialism is not a primitive form of capitalism or a historical episode shed by postcolonialism but a contemporary mode of production that coexists alongside imperialism. Through an analysis of the historiography of the Japanese Empire, this paper constructs a general theory of settler-colonialism that situates Japan at the forefront of the late capitalist world system, anime as the system's cultural representation, and otakudom as its labor regime. Finally, it asks what lies beyond the settler-colonialist critique and the space Goblin Slayer opens up against its own ideological limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world of anime and manga, Japanese animation and comics respectively, has developed into a pop-culture phenomenon with a rising popularity worldwide, triggering a shift from a niche market into the mainstream. Anime and manga are strongly hybrid texts which incorporate diverse pretexts, thus, this paper will focus on the pretexts of Japanese religion, mythology, and the supernatural in anime and manga, and an analysis of how these pretexts have constructed this mediums pictorial representation of such ideas. This paper will also examine how artists intertextualise recognised images as a form of symbolic shorthand to create new narratives via the retelling (or re-envisioning) of a vast accumulation of well-known stories, characters and settings for modern audiences. This paper draws heavily on the works of Miyazaki Hayao, who is greatly influenced by Shintō notions of purification and pollution. Other notable anime and manga included are: Watase Yuu's Ayashi no Ceres and Kishimoto Masashi's Naruto, both of which use Japan's rich mythological database within their works as central components for their series; and the horror filled Hundred Stories which intertextualises traditional folktales and superstition, based in already recognised images and meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents examples of collaboration between anime producers and the Japan Self-Defense Force. By situating the transitions within the context of the broader trends in collaboration between anime producers and locations (namely, the development of contents tourism), the key turning point in anime producer — JSDF collaboration is be identified and explained. Then, the reasons why in recent years JSDF has been actively collaborating with the production of pop culture contents in the realms of fantasy and fiction with an anime fanbase will be discussed. What is happening in Japan today is a fantasization (= contentsization) and consumption of the military, rather than a 'drift to the right' or resurgence of militarism. The pressures to produce military or 'moe military' anime are driven by the market rather than the military. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently the Japanese government revised its copyright law, and one of the major changes in it is that illegal downloaders in Japan now face up to two years' imprisonment or a fine of ¥2 million (approximately US$19,265), or a combination of the two for downloading certain kinds of copyrighted content. These momentous changes have triggered backlashes around the country from below, as might be expected. Interestingly, the industrial practices of Japanese content industries have developed certain domestic and foreign copyright-related strategies that tolerate some alleged copyright-infringing fan activities. This paper argues that, although some of these strategies are incompatible with the current copyright law regime, and specifically the aforementioned revision to Japan's copyright law, they have unconsciously created unexpected positive outcomes. This paper uses an integrative approach that combines market analysis and comparative law methods--to examine these copyright strategies, and proposes an alternative solution to deal with the copyright problems raised by fanbased activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video-sharing sites like YouTube and streaming services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, along with unlawful platforms such as Anitube, are environments of consumption enabled by increasing transnational consumption that are pushing for transformations in the Japanese animation industry. Among these platforms, the Kadokawa Dwango Corporation is known to rely on the integration of consumers' practices and the needs of the animation industry in a changing and challenging era of transnational content flows. In this paper, I focus on the Kadokawa Dwango Corporation, a major player in the contemporary media mix, and its pushing forward of the creation of an environment that integrates two different stances on cultural content: one which represents the industry's needs regarding cultural content as intellectual property, and another that represents consumers' practices and which regards content as a common or free resource for enabling participation in digital networks. I argue that rather than the production of content, it is the production of value through the management of fictional worlds and user's participation in media platforms that lies at the core of the Kadokawa Dwango Corporation's self-proclaimed 'ecosystem'. This case represents the transformations in the Japanese content industry to survive the increasing transnationalisation of consumption and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manga and anime are commonly regarded as media products geared primarily towards entertainment and merchandising opportunities. However, some are capable of offering critical commentary on society, humanity and more broadly, life itself. Following the lead taken by the 'God of Manga' Tezuka Osamu in "Seimei-hen" in "Hi no Tori" ("Life" in "Phoenix", 1980), a number of manga and anime have produced unsettling images of clones and hybrid beings, particularly those resulting from organ transplantation. These works question, typically ahead of the technology of the time, the value of life, the integrity of its form, and its immunity from commodification. In spite of their fictionality, these narratives are associated with a great sense of reality and immediacy, due in part to rapid developments in biotechnology, computing and engineering. At the same time, humanity itself appears to have changed along with these developments and the fictional narratives can be said to embody fears, hopes, and dreams concerning life and its significance. They deal with a range of pressing social and ethical issues, especially those related to the self and its multiple boundaries, whilst entertaining their readers and viewers. Using several narratives as exemplars, this paper will explore the use of biotechnology in manga and anime as devices in envisioning 'life' - what it may be, how it is formed and how it could be dealt with, at the individual as well as collective level. In doing so, the paper will demonstrate how these manga and anime narratives and others like them are relevant in a wide range of contexts despite their apparent linguistic and cultural specificity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will re-examine current AV translation practices from a film studies perspective through director Kon Satoshi's full-length animated feature Sennen joyû (Millennium Actress, 2001), a film that employs, and expects, a fairly deep and broad knowledge of Japanese history and culture. In this film, where the protagonist recounts her life in movies in a realistic historical setting, cinematic imagery becomes the primary medium of communication. Narrative action and dialogue, considered the main components of cinema by many viewers, take a back seat. The real "story" is the history of one of Japan's proudest cultural products: live action cinema, particularly that of the "golden age" of the 1950s and 60s. The aim of this paper is not simply to "translate" for the uninitiated viewer the many components of Millennium Actress that cannot be efficiently communicated through standard subtitles. Instead, this film is an ideal vehicle for demonstrating the shortcomings of current AV translation, which is primarily text-based. As recent studies show, technology-savvy "fansubbers" are using methods that challenge not only how we think about subtitling, but the process of AV translation itself, a practice usually defined by its tendency to truncate and delete. By examining the English subtitled version of Millennium Actress in the context of emerging translation strategies and technologies, this paper will propose a concept of AV translation that rejects this discourse, and more fully incorporates non-verbal methods of exchange and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper focuses on three anime movies and their respective soundtracks: Ponpoko: The Heisei Tanuki War (Heisei tanuki gassen ponpoko, 1994, director: Takahata Isao, music: Shang Shang Typhoon), Ghost in the Shell (Kôkaku kidôtai [literally: Mobile Armored Riot Police Against Chaos Attacks], 1995, director: Oshii Mamoru, music: Kawai Kenji) and Princess Mononoke (Mononoke hime, 1997, director: Miyazaki Hayao, music: Hisaishi Joe). The choice of these anime movies falls back to the fact that at the time of their release, they marked undisputed milestones in the history of the anime genre due to their powerful expression modes and idealistic foundations. The music of these three anime movies is comprised in the stress ratio between two concepts - "domesticating plagiarism" and "hybridizing authenticity" - in the quest for identifying their contribution to overcoming classical dichotomies such as original-copy and West-East. While anime soundtracks can be observed from a variety of perspectives - as a medium, a genre, a technique, a form, an ideology or an aesthetics -, the current research endeavor brings in the foreground the ideological-aesthetical parameters of anime soundtracks, particularly and directly derived from the individual visions of their respective composers and refering unmistakenly to the magic and the deeper levels of significance of animation as a means of expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper lists several web sites on Japanese popular culture. Dentsu Institute of Human Studies provides information on different Japanese media ranging from video and arcade games to television and radio and from magazines to computers. It includes the outline of the White Paper on Information Media which summarizes the information for publishing, broadcasting, films, music and so on for a given year. Kinema Club is an informal group of scholars studying Japanese cinema and other moving image media which was formed out of the shared need for bibliographic information. It has information on holdings in North American libraries, links to Japanese production companies, film festivals, actors, data and search engines, a guide to film specialty bookstores in Japan and how to find prints in the U.S. Anime Web Turnpike has a searchable list of hundreds of links to anime on the web. Japanese TV Guide provides the schedule for about ten days of programming for different regions of Japan; also sorts by genre. Kodansha has links to the e-zines Friday, HotDog PRESS and Young Magazine as well as information about the magazines and comics that it publishes. Ronza is an opinion monthly published by Asahi on political and social issue. Its site provides table of contents for latest issue.

Miyazaki Hayao has achieved international renown for a succession of feature-long animations that have been noted for their visual flair and highly imaginative world-constructs. Many of the narratives in these films have been situated in fantasy worlds with often only a tenuous representation of the world as experienced in some conventional contemporary (or historical) sense. Yet beyond the surface of these figures and fantastical plot devices there is a clearly discernible stream of engagement with the past. Focusing primarily onSen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away)of 2001, this paper critically engages with the leading commentaries on nostalgia and memory in Miyazaki’s work, contrasting the “culturalist” approach of Susan Napier with the “machinic” approach of Thomas Lamarre. In turn, the aesthetic theory of R.G. Collingwood, in particular his concept of “magic”, is employed to demonstrate how certain aesthetic devices within the film facilitate an imaginative engagement with the past, one that is subtle but nonetheless highly evocative of distinctive nostalgic emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The earthquake and tsunami which occurred in the Tohoku region of Japan (northern Japan) on 11 March 2011 have taken the lives of more than 15,000 people. The disaster and the accident in the nuclear reactors in Fukushima have left about 330,000 people homeless. The catastrophe has affected not only Japanese politics, economics, society and people’s mentalities, but also its cultural industries. This article attempts to investigate two contemporary issues tracing the effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake (the Tohoku Disaster) on Japan’s media landscape: its impact on Japanese media production and distribution, particularly of its most transnationally famous forms, manga and anime; and how perceptions of ‘soft power’ have fluctuated in this difficult media moment. The research uses a cultural and industrial studies approach based on discourse analysis, focusing on the period immediately following the Tohoku Disaster in order to map significant shifts and unexpected results and responses from within Japan’s cultural industries to the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima power plant disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the mobile worldviews or sekai-kan aspect of anime production design. It elaborates on the role of sekai-kan on the dynamics of animation and range of anime artistry. It discusses painting and design procedures done on several anime productions which include "Patlabor-The Movie" and "Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance." It features the concept of layout design in the movie "Metropolis" and a book cel design for "Ghost in the Shell."

Japan is recognized as the leading country in the global animation industry. Nevertheless, the real circumstances behind the scenes have not been fully unveiled to a wider audience. In the past half century, Japanese animation has developed without government support. However, now it finds itself at a crossroads. The Japanese Animation Creators Association investigated animators' working conditions in 2008 as part of the first assessment of this field and revealed some important facts. In addition to the industry's heavy reliance on outsourcing to countries such as China and South Korea, the assessment finds that young animators face poor working conditions. This article demonstrates the main points arising from these facts, and outlines the recent approach of the Japanese government in response to the problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper deals with the harem genre of Japanese animation as a representative example of Japan's socio-cultural reality in terms of dating and marriage patters in the early 21st century. Animation and manga (comics) are an important part of the public sphere in Japan and one of the most widespread forms of popular culture. Three animated series are discussed in this paper namely: Zero no Tsukaima (Zero's Familiar), Ameinaideyo!! (Ah my Buddha!!), and Asu no Yoichi (High School Samurai). The main characters are a Japanese Knight, a Buddhist Monk, and a Samurai. The paper concludes that the harem genre in animation and comics represents a turning point in Japanese culture in terms of popular attitudes regarding romantic love and also embodies some of the inherent contradictions involved in the transition from arranged marriages to the Western ideal of chivalric romantic love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laughter is a complicated and highly sensitive human activity, implying ambivalent elements, such as spontaneity and performativity, innocence and tactics. It can elicit simply cheerful ambience but also facilitate powerful victimisation by provoking embarrassment of the target. Humoristic discourses are often heavily culture-specific in terms of the text and the situation wherein they are expressed. This is particularly true with Japanese humour, due to the insular and circumstantial nature of the language (e.g., Toyama, 1976) and the way communicative protocols are executed. This paper will examine manzai (Japanese stand-up comedy) and explore Japanese laughter, paying a particular attention to their performativity. Our discussions include the essential characteristics of laughter and humour and their social-cultural and psychological background (Benedict, 1946; Hibbett, 1998-2005; Kawai, 2005, Kitayama, 1993; Kotthoff, 1996; Norrick, 1993, 2001, 2004; Oda, 1986; Raskin, 1985; Sakuta, 1967; Schmitz, 2002; Umehara, 1972). Our hypothesis is that Japanese comical discourses are highly performative and staged, either physically or imaginably, installing the readers/audiences in a voyeuristic perspective, often as an accomplice of one of the participants of the humoristic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 2005 UNESCO produced its Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. This was largely a response to the worries of countries, especially in Europe and not least of which France, which feared the damaging effects to their cultures if trade in entertainment products remained too one-sided. Generally the argument of this paper is that while initial tensions between the United States and Europe were motivated by the usual commercial concerns, Europeans were increasingly worried about the cultural impact of this commerce. The Japanese, however, have not been nearly so concerned as the Europeans about becoming 'Americanized'. This lack of tension between the United States and Japan in the area of film and television is due to several factors. First, there is a complementarity between American entertainment and the Japanese electronics industry. Second, the Japanese are major players in some aspects of the entertainment industry, most especially in the area of animation, and they are especially influential in Asia. Finally, issues of cultural conflict between the United States and Japan are simply less salient to Tokyo than those which characterize Japan's relations with its Asian neighbors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the use of Edo as a trope for Japanese post-modernity in the 1980s and 1990s and its transformation at the turn of the millenium in order to better situate Japanese visual artist and theorist Murakami Takashi's 2000-1 exhibition, 'Superflat'. Is Murakami's 'Superflat' — which links contemporary anirne and anime-influenced art to the works of Edo-period artists Kano Sansetsu and Katsushika Hokusai — merely another expression of the Edo boom of the 1980s and 1990s? Or does it present a different use of Edo from that which came before? In order to address this question, this article looks at the works of Ötsuka Eiji, Okada Toshio and Karatani Köjin, a group of writers to whose works theorist Azuma Hiroki links Murakami's genealogical endeavors, and takes up Azuma's critique of these writers and Murakami himself. Finally, turning to Nan Yoshitomo's and Murakami's works themselves, seen through the lens of Azuma's arguments in his recent The Animalizing Postrnodern, this article argues that their art — and in turn the Superflat itself — is guided by a logic of compositing that is far more informed by contemporary modes of digital imaging than by the mode of appropriation and quasi-historization that characterized the use of Edo in Japan's postmodern 1980s and 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay deals with two kinds of movement common in cel animation: 'drawing movements' and 'moving drawings'. Drawing movements is common in traditional cel animation that strives for full animation. The latter ndash; moving drawings – becomes pronounced in techniques of limited animation, common in anime. The goal is not, however, to identify and consolidate differences between animation and anime. On the contrary, this paper explores how drawing movements entails a decoding of live-action cinema,which is intensified in the techniques of moving drawings that are prevalent in anime. Thus, anime is seen as a part of movement away from one kind of cinematic experience, towards something like new media and information. The goal of the essay is to think across media, to explore the ways in which different movements have an impact on narrative, genre and spectatorship. Miyazaki Hayao's Tenkuno shiro Raputa (Castle in the sky) (Studio Ghibli, 1986) provides a site for analysis of the ways in which anime technique generates and exploits potentials such as flatness, jitter and weightlessness. Miyazaki's emphasis on floating and gliding presents one way to deal with 'anime-ic' potentials - one that has definite consequences for the imagination of gender, history and nature, as well as the anime-ic experience of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has recently seen an upsurge in idol ikusei (nurturing) games: networked mobile games where one nurtures and produces an idol pop group. These games are a significant part of Japan's contemporary 'media mix', influenced both by virtual pet games and by discourses of nurturing surrounding the production of 'real' girl idol groups by male producer-auteur figures. Previous analyses have considered affection for simulated or virtual girl idol figures as a detached longing for stylised characteristics (moe). This article uses a case study of a mobile game at the centre of the Love Live! girl idol-nurturing simulation franchise to suggest that we cannot only speak of players' affection for nurturing games' characters in terms of postmodern disembodiment; we must also consider how in playing idol-nurturing games, players take the place of real male producer-auteur figures in Japanese popular music production, where discourses of gendered nurturing abound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presenting interviews undertaken throughout 2006–2007 with editors at Tokyopop and Viz Media, this article explores the importance of manga in bringing Japanese pop culture to the North American mainstream, and manga publishing as a creative industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the presentation of state power and affective life in the anime series Yuki Yuna Is a Hero. Juxtaposing the portrayal of the recruitment of female bodies and affects into the defense of the sovereign with the historical context of Imperial Japan, this article elaborates how the series captures the sovereign violence that creates biopolitical subjects in everyday life. It then illustrates how the series appropriates and subverts the genre conventions of the magical girl (mahō shōjo) anime through Giorgio Agamben's idea of bare life and the state of exception. This subversion offers an opportunity to rethink the politics of disaster in contemporary Japan. Finally, this article probes into the utopian potential of the series by elucidating its affirmation of the relationality of life in an enchanted world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, real-world locations that appear in manga and anime have gained popularity as tourist destinations since the 1990s. Fans refer to those locations as "Seichi" (i.e. "a holy place"). Since 2010, research on this new type of tourism (Seichi-junrei, also known as contents tourism) has increased. The relationships that emerge between the fans, content creators/producers, and local stakeholders through contents tourism are varied. This study examines the work Love Live! Sunshine!! and how Seichi-junrei was developed by the creators/producers since the project's inception. Through an examination of the work and interviews, I assessed the relationships that developed between the involved parties (fans, creators/producers, and regional stakeholders), as well as the extent to which Seichi-junrei gained acceptance in the region. The development of Seichi-junrei related to Love Live! Sunshine!! marks a departure from prior examples of this phenomenon, since it has been essentially creator/producer-driven rather than fan-driven or the result of a collaboration between the creators/producers and regional stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan, as a global soft power, conquers the world through the wise philosophy and mesmerizing art style that it combines in anime, gaining a growing number of fans from all over the world and of all ages. The effect of Japanese culture on the mentality of the young generation is becoming easier to notice. The cultural encounters that we have to face in a global era are an exciting challenge that we must understand and deal with. This article aims to discuss a future perspective for research in interreligious dialogue, based on popular culture. Why should we study anime and what kind of link can exist between it and interreligious dialogue? How does anime, as a global modern heritage, teach us to encounter interreligiousity? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, many academics and practitioners have focused on anime-induced tourism as one of the new alternative forms of tourism in the 21st century. Many fans have visited locations that have appeared in anime as film-induced tourists. Regarding the behavior of anime-induced tourists, many tend to be willing to contribute to the destinations they visit as eco-oriented volunteers, different from purely film-induced tourists. Therefore, anime-induced tourists possess a complex character that entails both an interest in film-induced tourism and volunteer tourism, which may conceptually be opposed to one another. This study reveals anime's potential as a driver of new volunteer tourism and theoretically contributes to tourism research by redefining anime-induced tourism by relying on the concept of film-induced voluntourism. Using a comparative case study of the behavior of anime-induced volunteer tourists at three destinations, this study found that while anime-induced volunteer tourists have a feeling of gratitude for their host communities with a vacationer's mindset, they can realize positive outcomes, including economic benefits and problem solutions by engaging in cleaning-up activities at the destinations they visit. In conclusion, this study clarifies that anime tourism is one of the significant alternative forms of tourism that can achieve community development associated with film-induced voluntourists, resolving the negative effects of film-induced tourism and volunteer tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese animated films or anime have been popular in the West since the early 1990s. However, media interest in anime (particularly in Britain) has tended to focus on negative representations of anime concerning violence, sexuality and young girls. The current paper undertakes an examination of the genre of 'Lolita complex' or rorikon anime, the focus of these concerns. It is argued that the term 'Lolita' has a culturally specific meaning and that it has a different meaning in Western culture to that in Japan. This has led to a misperception of aspects of Japanese society and its cultural products such as anime. Furthermore it is argued that rorikon anime reflects teenage anxieties about the adult world, and changes in society and gender roles rather than perverse male sexual desire. An examination of the elements of rorikon anime shows that, rather than the product of a cultural 'other', it reflects features common across Japanese and Western cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suan does consistently keep such actors in mind: repeatedly hailing contributors whose skilled labor and effacement grant anime its cultural - supposedly "Japanese" - surface unity and international commercial success. Suan identifies media studies, area studies, and performance studies as key interfaces when conducting a formalist examination of anime's transnational features (p. 6). Suan's methodology is guided by the notion that "each anime is its own network of relations" (p. 147). [Extracted from the article]

Cowboy Bebop, a popular anime series set in the year 2071 onboard the spaceship Bebop, chronicles the bohemian adventures of a group of bounty hunters. This paper presents how the imaginary characters and their voices are conventionalized to fit hegemonic norms. The social semiotic of desire depicted in Cowboy Bebop caters to a general heterosexual market in which hero and babe characters represent the anime archetypes of heterosexual normativity. Scripted speech used in the anime functions as a role language which indexes common ideological attributes associated with a character’s demeanor. This study focuses on how ideas, including heterosexual normativity and culture-specific practices, are reproduced in media texts in order to negotiate the intertextual distances that link the characters and audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Official development assistance (ODA) constitutes one of Japan's most important foreign policy instruments as it builds Japan's global network and supports allies in the Southeast Asian region and beyond. In the context of a rising China and an increasingly severe fiscal and demographic situation at home, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) promulgated a domestic-oriented legitimation campaign featuring a popular anime character rebranded as 'ODA-man' to increase public understanding of and support for Japan's ODA. Drawing on interpretivist analysis of performances at a development cooperation promotion festival, anime videos on the MOFA YouTube channel and interviews and examining the use of rhetorical strategies, this article provides an in-depth study of the promotion of one of the central instruments in Japan's foreign policy repertoire. Though he comes off as goofy and benign, ODA-man's messages are serious ones that reproduce dominant economic and security narratives about Japan and the world. Analysis points to both innovation and path dependency in Japan's foreign policy repertoire; while ODA-man may be new the story he is telling, and the way that he is performing it, is very much familiar. The article further illuminates important trends in the public legitimation of foreign policy in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anime music videos (AMVs) are remix videos made by overseas fans of Japanese animation. This paper describes the organization of the AMV scene in order to illuminate some of the key characteristics of a robust networked subculture centered on the production of transformative works. Fan production that appropriates commercial culture occupies a unique niche within our creative cultural landscape. Unlike professional production and many other forms of amateur media production, transformative fan production is non-commercial, and centered on appropriating, commenting on, and celebrating commercial popular culture. Participants in robust fan production scenes are motivated to create high-quality work that can rival the quality of professional media, but do this within an entirely non-commercial context. Rewards are not financial, but rather center on recognition and social participation. I describe how AMV creators, supporters, and viewers engage in processes of social inclusion as well as processes for marking status and reputation that delineate different modes of participating, contributing, and being recognized. This paper starts by outlining the conceptual framework and methodology behind this study. Then the paper provides historical background on the AMV scene before turning to descriptions of three complementary dimensions of the AMV scene drawn from ethnographic fieldwork: the properties of open access and sharing that support an amateur ethos, processes of connoisseurship and distinction making, and how status and reputation are established and negotiated among the elite editors that comprise the core of the scene. Together, these characteristics of the AMV scene provide incentives for both new and aspiring creators to participate, as well as for more experienced creators to improve their craft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Television programs such as animation and drama series from Japan have become common transnational products in Malaysia. Since studies on Malaysians who consume Japanese popular culture are lacking even a decade after its substantial rise in popularity, this qualitative study was designed to explore the media consumption of Japanese popular culture in Malaysia. In this article I examined how Malaysians are interpreting their favorite media texts from Japan specifically revisiting the concepts of "cultural proximity" and "reflexivity" suggested in the other studies of Japanese popular culture and the audience. I conducted in-depth interviews with 12 participants who have been consuming various Japanese popular cultural products over the years, and thematically analyzed transcribed audio-recordings of the interviews. Individual proximity in the particular life stage was found in their favorite media texts, and that was a part of their pleasure in addition to enjoying encountering foreignness, which they did not find or accept in their real lives. Transnational media texts of Japanese popular culture are suggested to be potential materials to reflect upon and discuss the individual proximity in people, social issues, or phenomenon rather than essential "culture" which is often associated with national or ethnic origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the significance of anime and manga as media in dissemination and construction of philosophical ideas in Japan. It focuses on how the conceptualization of cartoonist Tezuka Osamu of life was made through an interaction among ideas of vitalism, evolutionary theory and Buddhism. It explores the autobiography of Tezuka entitled "Boku no manga jinsei" and depicted how experiences guided him to find life as his work's leading theme.

As an embodiment of the shoujo, a specific Japanese representation of 'girl', the schoolgirl often appears as a central character in Japanese popular culture. With the import, and widespread availability, of Japanese cultural products in the West (such as comics called manga, animated movies called anime, toys and games), the Japanese schoolgirl has gained a visibility in Western popular culture, and perceived as cute and shy. In this paper, the way the Japanese schoolgirl is represented in British popular culture is examined, and contrasted with the representation in Japan. It is concluded that cultural context influences the representation and, in agreement with the work of Saito (1996), the British representation is simplistic and distorted in comparison to that in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay on human identity issues as a theme in Japanese animation is presented. It focuses on the anime series "Serial Experiments Lain." It relates dimensional analogues of non-Cartesian spaces to the universe with multiplicity of identity created in "Lain." It explains the ambiguity of identity by means of a topological analysis.

Japanese animation, the un-Disney, represents a major challenge to US global entertainment dominance. Through interviews, survey research and content/ratings analysis, this study discovered two facets of between-nation differences: (1) Japan's favorite anime (e.g., ‘Sazae-san’) differ from those of overseas audiences, and (2) overseas audiences’ favorites differ (‘Doraemon’ in Asia, but not in the West). Regional factors rather than cultural proximity account for anime being more popular in Asia than in the West. Ironically, overseas exports may save an industry that has up to now (despite characters’ Caucasian look) been aimed at a domestic base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses the relationship between sporting practice and its representation in animated film. It constitutes one of the first investigations into this area, and consequently seeks to define its historical and theoretical terrain. This is achieved by exploring sport-orientated animation in a variety of national contexts throughout the history of animation, and in defining a set of aesthetic criteria that relate and bind sport and animation as processes and producers of meaning and affect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at discussing copyright and its infringement from the consumers' perspective by examining 'anime fansubbing'. Anime fansubbing refers to the practice in which avid anime (Japanese animation) fans copy anime, translate Japanese to another language, and subtitle and release a subtitled version on the Internet to share it with other fans, without permission from the copyright holder. The case study of English fansubbing of anime shows that this activity has been guided by fansubbers' own ethics that intend to support the US anime industry by respecting US publishers' licences and self-controlling fansubbed anime. However, the existing ethics have been increasingly challenged under the advancement of digital fansubbing and the rise of peer-to-peer distribution. The case study finds that the idea of copyright is contingent upon and open to cultural consumers' own understanding and interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to examine some of the overlooked transcultural aspects and elements of creativity in anime. Through a series of contemporary case studies, it is argued that anime supports an array of transcultural creative practices that span across borders, hybridize content and even force the creation of new types of text and distribution. The attention to the transcultural here is an attempt to move beyond discussions of how Japanese anime are, and to open up a space in which to discuss their relevance beyond their home nation. In these ways, the creative work undertaken by those within and beyond the industries related to anime is demonstrating the global reach of Japanese cultural products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the popularity of Japanese animation worldwide. Millions of children watch Japanese cartoons on television. Critics praise anime for its unrivalled storytelling, ingenious plots, and thought-provoking themes. The genre deals with romance, mystery, science fiction, and nonfiction. In addition, the stories of anime are played out in fantastic settings and depicted in a visually compelling style. Anime has become an international generic term for Japanese animation. As a matter of fact, Japan has become a global trendsetter for animation.

Yaoi and BL ('boys love') are a genre of Japanese cartoons, comics, videogames and fan art whose subject matter is erotic and romantic relationships between males. Its producers and consumers are predominantly women. Until very recently, there was virtually no English-language research on the fan base of yaoi/BL. While the gap in quantitative knowledge is beginning to be filled, there are still virtually no English-language qualitative studies addressing the Western fan base of the genre. This article aims to redress the lack of qualitative literature on yaoi/BL's fan base. Its goal is to gain a better understanding of the nature and appeal of yaoi/BL by tapping the perspectives of Western consumers of the genre through the analysis of a particular kind of textual material where these perspectives are expressed: reviews of yaoi/BL works contributed voluntarily by yaoi/BL aficionados on the English-language website Boys on Boys on Film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Japan's first weekly, 30-minute animated TV series, Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), is not only commonly regarded as the first instance of what is now known as 'anime'; it is also regarded as the point of emergence of the commercial phenomenon of character-based merchandizing. Interesting enough, it is not so much Tetsuwan Atomu the TV series as the practice of including Atomu stickers as premiums in the candy maker Meiji Seika's chocolate packages that really ignited the character merchandizing boom. The key to the success of the stickers - along with the use of the already popular figure of Atomu - was their ability to be stuck anywhere, and seen anytime. This anytime-anywhere potential of the stickers arguably led to the new communicational media environment and the cross-media connections that characterize the anime system and the force which drives it: the character. Part historical, part theoretical, this article will explore the thesis that it was the 'medium' of stickers that led to the development of the character- based multimedia environment that is a key example of - and perhaps even a precursor to - the ubiquity of media that is the theme of this journal issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]