Martha Cornog, Timothy Perper

Mangatopia

Essays on Manga and Anime in the Modern World

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book provides fascinating insights on what Japanese manga and anime mean to artists, audiences, and fans in the United States and elsewhere, covering topics that range from fantasy to sex to politics.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Libraries Unlimited
• Seitenzahl: 276
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. Oktober 2011
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 15mm
• Gewicht: 424g
• ISBN-13: 9781591589082
• ISBN-10: 1591589088
• Artikelnr.: 33462038

Autorenporträt

Timothy Perper, PhD, and Martha Cornog, MA, MLS, were review and commentary editors for Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts for six years. They have both published several scholarly works about courtship and love in manga and anime.

Inhaltsangabe

When Akira
Ghost in the Shell
and Sailor Moon arrived in the United States from Japan in the 1990s
manga and anime entered a transnational flow of cultural goods that spiraled outwards into ever more complex loops of influence
fandom
and marketing (Matsui 2009). By then
manga and anime had already crossed the horizons of European popular art and culture (Pellitteri 2010 and Marco Pellitteri
this volume) and had likewise reached Southeast Asian audiences and markets (Wong 2006). In one direction of the arrow
none of this was new; Raoul Walsh's 1924 silent film The Thief of Baghdad
which starred Douglas Fairbanks
had within two years been adapted and remade as an animated film in Japan: Noburo O fuji's 1926 Bagadajo no tozoku (The Thief of Baghdad Castle; see Miyao 2007). But what has made the manga and anime explosion of recent years different is that now Japan
and increasingly Korea and China
are exporting cultural goods to the Eurocentric Western world-and with extravagant aesthetic
cultural
and commercial success. For at least some U.S. critics
journalists
and commercial commentators
manga and anime have constituted a bewildering intrusion or even challenge to the unquestioned (although parochial) view that U.S. production values embody the worldwide standard for comics and for animation. How could anyone else excel at cartoons when Superman and Batman define the comics
or when Fantasia and 101 Dalmatians define animation? If Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the 1988 ne plus ultra of innovative filmmaking
what was this Akira thing all about? The college students who formed the first definable fanbase for anime in the United States had it right when they said that they'd never seen anything like this before (Napier 2005). But they loved it-together with Robotech
Ninja Scroll
and Neon Genesis Evangelion. But more astonishments lay ahead. The hero-worshipping boys who were Robotech's and Gundam's first fans had sisters. And the sisters and their female friends adored Sailor Moon-and then Cardcaptor Sakura
Fruits Basket
and FAKE. By today
girls and young women form a large percentage of the manga/anime fanbase
a striking change from a three-decades historical predominance of young males in U.S. comics fandom (Robbins 2009). Because European experience with manga and anime predated U.S. familiarity
older continental women have maintained their enthusiasm for these Japanese art-forms
leading to extensive translation and publication in France
Italy
Spain
and Germany of manga originally written by adult women for adult women-the genres called josei and rediisu (see Kinko Ito
this volume
for a biographical discussion of Chikae Ide
a major josei manga artist). Simultaneously
a shift occurred in cartoon and comics criticism both in the United States and in Europe. Moving from an outlaw child of establishment print and publishing
comics and cartooning criticism renewed itself
a process greatly helped by the Internet and by blogging. It was difficult for alert critics to ignore the simply stunning beauty of animated films such as Hayao Miyazaki's 1997 Princess Mononoke and Mamoru Oshii's 2004 Innocence-or
more recently
Kenji Kamiyama's 2007 Seirei no moribito (see Paul Jackson
this volume). Some earlier commentators
such as Ivan Stang (1988
257-58)
had foreseen the potential impact of anime such as Yoshiaki Kawajiri's 1984 Lensman
a masterpiece of over-the-top swashbuckling romance
adventure
and comedy
including a scene unequalled in animation of a riot in a discotheque. Part of this shift in comics criticism produced theories about how cartooning works and achieves its effects
including writing by Scott McCloud
Neil Cohn (http://www.webcomicsnation.com/NeilCohn)
and Alan Cholodenko
among others (Cholodenko 1991
2007; McCloud 1993). In turn
their work stimulated further theoretical analysis
for example
by Thomas LaMarre and by Deborah Shamoon (some in this volume; see also LaMarre 2009). Much work of this kind is being published in Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime
Manga
and the Fan Arts (http://www.mechademia.org)
several of whose editors are represented in this collection: Frenchy Lunning
herself the editor of Mechademia
Thomas LaMarre
Patrick Drazen
and ourselves. So manga and anime did more than entertain an increasing number of ardent fans in the United States and Europe. Manga and anime also forced Western viewers and critics to revision the nature of cartooning
comics
and animation. In part
the revisioning has occurred because manga and anime overtly combine political
social
and emotional issues into narrative entireties
in stark contrast to the kiddie fare of Saturday morning cartoons on U.S. television. But this combination has characterized manga from the early post-World War II days of Osamu Tezuka (see Ada Palmer
and William Benzon
in this volume) and is central to both right-wing and left-wing views of manga (see Matthew Penney
this volume). No one can ignore the politics of emotionality when the subject matter of manga is the bombing of Hiroshima (see Thomas LaMarre
this volume). Nor can one ignore the history of Japanese art when looking at manga and anime. Transnational flows of influence may have arrived in Japan from the United States and Europe
but
equally
Japanese art has
since the 19th century
influenced Eurocentric art-for example
as Japonisme in France (Wichmann 1999). But manga and anime have been
if not immune
then relatively indifferent
to two of the cornerstones of modern Eurocentric art. One is abstractionism
dating roughly from 1900 to 1910 in Europe
central to work by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. But far more than drawing on European models of abstract art
manga and anime depend on recognizably Japanese forms of minimalism and abstraction-which Westerners may recognize only at a distance when gazing uncertainly at flower arranging and wondering what it means. Many viewers
we imagine
do not make complex aesthetic assessments when they watch giant robots stomping through the landscape or when they watch some poor high school lad torn between the seductions of two equally pretty heroines. But the minimalism is there
in a succinct focus on the image
on its symmetry
and on an elegance of line and coloring that wastes no space or effort. So we are grateful when scholars such as Deborah Shamoon and Thomas LaMarre ( and
respectively
in this volume) explicate the origins and nature of some of these techniques. But above all
manga and anime have not abandoned realism with the enthusiasm with which Eurocentric art surrendered to the blandishments of abstractionism. Of course
abstract
even surreal
manga and anime exist
some of them masterpieces
such as Kazuya Tsurumaki's 2000 FLCL and Kunihiko Ikuhara's 1999 film Revolutionary Girl Utena: Adolescence Apocalypse. But even Utena remains rooted in realism
as do manga and anime stories of demons
aliens
yokai
robots
androids
dakini
and a mind-boggling array of other beings all inhabiting the interstices of modern Tokyo-or in Armitage
Mars. Such realism transcends the definitions of 19th century European art of the kind where the French realist painter Gustave Courbet was asked to paint an angel and he replied
"Show me an angel and I will paint one" ("Courbet
Gustave" 2004). For Courbetian realism
art is "what my eyes see" (Clair 2003): the objects of art must exist in the mundane here-and-now of this physical world
for otherwise they are aesthetically empty phantasms and hallucinations. The counter-reply is not that worlds without fantasy are boring; nor is the answer that fantasy contains Truths of the Inner Mind inaccessible through literalism and accessible only symbolically
as Jung might have said (Jung et al. 1968). Instead
one answer to Courbet's realism is aesthetic
not psychological: animated films such as Akira
Ghost in the Shell
and Sailor Moon are drawn with impeccable stylishness and with detailed
loving attention to verisimilitude
and yet they are fantasies vivid
immediate
and real. Anime and manga have a tangible realism where sword-swinging heroines such as Utena (Perper and Cornog 2008) seem to be sitting in the artist's studio having their portraits painted. Such art provides an aesthetically realist-and visually realistic-map of the impossible. Paul Jackson (
this volume) shows how folklore and tradition combine with computer graphics in a hyperrealism beyond the real to create worlds never seen before-but which become familiar and appealing to us in exquisite detail. It is a very new aesthetic we see here: a semiotic revolution where meanings spiraling back and forth across the world reassemble themselves into new forms and representations of reality
imagined or not. And
in the meantime
the fans are running around having a wonderful time. Yet
in a nice complement to the complexities of the art itself
fan culture is neither simple nor pure joyousness. A great deal is involved in the fan custom of dressing up like your favorite anime character at a fan convention (cosplay or costume-play; see Frenchy Lunning
this volume). Fans make nuanced and complex decisions and evaluations about what they see (see Patrick Drazen
this volume). They also write and draw their own fan art. Some of it startles outsiders
such as the "male homosexuality" of yaoi and BL
acronyms for art drawn by women artists and read by women
showing male-male romances and sexual engagements. Three of our contributors expand on yaoi and BL: Robin Brenner
Snow Wildsmith
and Mark McHarry. At every point
we perceive not a static system of media engorgement at the expense of the consumer but a dialectical process of exchange among artist
society
and audience. By dialectical
we mean that richly entwined interactions among artist
society
and audience have shaped manga and anime first in Japan and now across the world. One should
we suggest
forget about linear models of social function when dealing with such complexities. For example
Ryutaro Nakamura's 2007 anime Ghost Hound involves-among other things!-a secret government laboratory hidden in the mountains creating artificial life for unknown but undoubtedly noxious reasons. The sudden manifestation of these artificial beings draws down upon itself the renewed and intensified curiosity of various other beings
including a tengu demon who lives in these mountains
some high school students
a pretty girl medium exploited by the bad guys
yakuza mobsters
and a group of Buddhist monks who watch the denouement while floating serenely in mid-air. No
not linear.not at all
especially not when the artificial creatures escape at the end
coalesce into two flying dragons who entwine in an unmistakable embrace
and then disappear into a hole in the sky. There
we assume
they will rear baby dragons. Do you think it might be a metaphor? Increasingly
libraries and librarians have become aware of manga and anime. These art-forms are hard to ignore when
as one librarian exclaimed
"I have kids in a piranha pack coming upstairs
clawing their way to the [graphic novel] collection!" (audience member
New York Comic-Con
2008). A mixed metaphor
but vivid nonetheless: scholarly attention
fan enthusiasm
and unparalleled commercial success for manga and anime have converged to create a need for good information. So we assembled this collection of essays to showcase discussions of manga and anime not just for librarians but for all intelligent readers interested in the future of the book and the story. We asked a number of manga and anime experts
some academics
some not
to write about topics of their choice
with the understanding that the result should be insightful
informative
and interesting. And they did. So enjoy their essays. They are-above all-well-written and thoughtful analyses of the complexities of manga and anime in the modern world. REFERENCESCholodenko
Alan
ed. 1991. The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation. Sydney
Australia: Power Publications and the Australian Film Commission. Cholodenko
Alan
ed. 2007. The Illusion of Life 2: More Essays on Animation. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Clair
Jean. 2003. "Femalic Molds." Translated by Taylor M. Stapleton. tout-fait: The Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal 2 (5). Available at: http://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_5/news/clair/clair.html. (Originally published in [Sur] Marcel Duchamps et le fin de l'art. Paris: Gallimard
2000.) "Courbet
Gustave." 2004. The Oxford Dictionary of Art. Edited by Ian Chilvers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at: http://www.enotes.com/oxford-art-encyclopedia/courbet-gustave. Jung
Carl G.
M.-L. von Franz
Joseph L. Henderson
Jolande Jacobi
and Aniela Jaffé. 1968. Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell. LaMarre
Thomas. 2009. The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Matsui
Takeshi. 2009. The Diffusion of Foreign Cultural Products: The Case Analysis of Japanese Comics (Manga) Market in the US. Working Paper 37. Available at: http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/workpap37.html. McCloud
Scott. 1993. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Northampton
MA: Kitchen Sink Press. Miyao
Daisuke. 2007. "Thieves of Baghdad: Translational Networks of Cinema and Anime in the 1920s." Mechademia 2: 83-103. Napier
Susan. 2005. Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. Rev. ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pellitteri
Marco. 2010. The Dragon and the Dazzle: Models
Strategies
and Identities of Japanese Imagination-A European Perspective. Translated by Roberto Branca with Christie Lee Barber. Latina
Italy: Tunué. (Originally published as Il drago e la saetta. Modelli
strategie e identità dell'immaginario giapponese. Latina: Tunué
2008.) Perper
Timothy
and Martha Cornog. 2008. "'I Never Said I Was a Boy': Utena
Arita Forland
and the (Non) Phallic Woman." International Journal of Comic Art 10 (2): 328-53. Robbins
Trina. 2009. "Girls
Women
and Comics." In Graphic Novels Beyond the Basics: Issues and Insights for Libraries. Edited by Martha Cornog and Timothy Perper
45-60. Santa Barbara
CA: ABC-CLIO/Libraries Unlimited. Stang
Ivan. 1988. High Weirdness by Mail. New York: Fireside. Wichmann
Siegfried. 1999. Japonisme: The Japanese Influence on Western Art since 1858. Translated by Mary Whittall
James Ramsay
Helen Watanabe
Cornelius Cardew
and Susan Bruni. London: Thames and Hudson. Wong
Wendy Siuyi. 2006. "Globalizing Manga: From Japan to Hong Kong and Beyond." Mechademia 1: 23-45.