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New Book, Journal Issue Look at Anime, Anime Fans
posted on by Mikhail Koulikov
The academic publishing house Palgrave Macmillan has officially released From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Eyes of the West, Professor Susan Napier's second full-length critical study of the world of Japanese animation. Her 2001 Anime from Akira to Mononoke book, also published by Palgrave, examined various well-known anime series to identify major themes common to all anime. The new book expands on Napier's earlier work by looking at fans of Japanese animation both in Japan and in America.
Separately, the University of Minnesota Press has announced the publication of the second annual volume of Mechademia, the only English-language scholarly journal devoted to anime, manga, and other aspects of Japanese popular culture. The theme of this year's volume is "networks of desire," and it contains over 20 original and translated essays, reviews, interviews, and commentary on topics like the evolution of themes in Ranma 1/2 fanfiction, the meaning of the theme of flight in Porco Rosso, and imagery in Haibane Renmei. The next two issues of the journal are already being planned. They will deal with the themes of war and violence in Japanese popular culture, and with how anime and manga approach the question of the limits of being human.
