Mechademia 1: Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga

Mechademia #1

by Frenchy Lunning (Editor)

After decades in which American popular culture dominated global media and markets, Japanese popular culture—primarily manga and anime, but also toys, card and video games, and fashion—has exploded into a worldwide phenomenon. From Pokémon and the Power Rangers to Paranoia Agent and Princess Mononoke, Japanese popular culture is consumed by an eager and exponentially increasing audience of youths, teenagers, and adults. Mechademia, a new annual edited by Frenchy Lunning, begins an innovative and fresh conversation among scholars, critics, and fans about the complexity of art forms like Superflat, manga, and anime. The inaugural volume, Mechademia 1 engages the rise of Japanese popular culture through game design, fashion, graphic design, commercial packaging, character creation, and fan culture. Promoting dynamic ways of thinking, along with state-of-the-art graphic design and a wealth of images, this cutting-edge work opens new doors between academia and fandom.The premiere issue features the interactive worlds that anime and manga have created, including the origins of cosplay (the manga and anime costume subculture), Superflat, forgotten images from a founding manga artist, video game interactivity, the nature of anime fandom in America, and the globalization of manga. Contributors: Anne Allison, Duke U; William L. Benzon; Christopher Bolton, Williams College; Vern L. Bullough, California State U, Northridge; Martha Cornog; Patrick Drazen; Marc Hairston; Mari Kotani; Thomas LaMarre; Antonia Levi, Portland State U; Thomas Looser, NYU; Susan Napier, U of Texas, Austin; Michelle Ollie; Timothy Perper; Sara Pocock; Brian Ruh; Takayuki Tatsumi, Keio U, Tokyo; Toshiya Ueno, Wako U, Tokyo; Theresa Winge, U of Northern Iowa; Mark J. P. Wolf, Concordia U; Wendy Siuyi Wong, York U.Frenchy Lunning is professor of liberal arts at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Genres: Nonfiction, Manga, Japan, Anime, Asia, Academic, Sociology

200 pages, Paperback

First published December 22, 2006

Reviews

[Marsha · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a pretty ragtag group of academic essays on anime and manga. The collection begins with some strong inspection of the influence of Japanese manga on both the West and East. The discussion of globalization is pretty strong, and the historical spread of anime and manga in other Asian countries is quite interesting.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the short essays seem to get lost in the weeds. One essay inspects the Miyazaki mailing list. The essay on cosplay was somewhat interesting, but I found it to be rather introductory. Inclusion of an essay on video game design seemed really rather off topic. An astoundingly short essay on Mori Minoru, a manga artist from the fifties, seemed rather lightweight, although I found the full color reproductions of the work rather interesting. Inclusion of material on "superflat" imagery dived deeply into the obscure, along with the next on "The Multiplanar Image," and I ended up skipping both of them after a few paragraphs. They were both quite long pieces.

The collection ended with a somewhat interesting evaluation of the werewolf in both Japanese anime/manga and American media, and a somewhat obscure look at the "hyper-girl" and "battling beauty" character types in Revolutionary Girl Utena.

There is also a Review and Commentary section, which included even shorter bits that seemed rather obscure, and I chose to skip them as well.

I think my biggest complaint is that this collection didn't have a clear focus. The series goal is "to promote critical thinking, writing and creative activity to bridge the current gap between professional, academic, and fan communities and discourses." It just seems like the editors published whatever, just as long as there was something about anime or manga in it, or sort of. There's no cohesion and no consistency. It was frankly somewhat of a disappointment.

[Spring Holbrook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the articles in this volume are really dull, some are fascinating, and the others are serviceable. I really hit a snag with the articles about cosplay, video game interactivity, and superflat. Without those, this is a good read. I'm not in a hurry to find the other Mechademia volumes, but I definitely will purchase them sometime in the future.

[coffee · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my first book on anime/manga scholarship I think it was an interesting and informational read. Really liked that each article was done by different people and it had a good amount of notes and further readings. Really liked the first few chapters since it feels like an introduction to the whole anime concept, then it goes into origins, and extends into the cosplay and video game realm.

Articles also include topics in:

Mori Minoru (very short, ~3.5 pages)

The Superflat image and layering (thought this chapter was especially boring and I couldn't really relate it to anime or manga. The writer does mention apocalyptic images in anime but doesn't go into further detail in that direction. Instead they analyze Japanese woodblock prints by Hiroshige)

Animation (The one chapter titled The Multiplanar Image also mentions the superflat image and they do a better job at explaining it through anime examples.)

Wolf-Human Dynamics in Anime and Manga [It was nice to read this near the end because it was so simple and easy to understand. Also, compared to all the other articles, this one actually listed shows I was more familiar with (Wolf's Rain, Princess Mononoke, Inuyasha, and another I haven't seen but that I'm now curious about, Hinotori: Taiyohen)]

The Japanese Girl (Another easy read though I had trouble keeping up with the different Girls (the Girl, Hypergirl, and the Battling Beauty). The show that was analyzed was Revolutionary Girl Utena which I haven't watched either.)

There's also a review and commentary section at the end. The book is also pretty old (2006) so I wonder how much the information has changed since then and what new methods have been introduced.

[ribbonknight · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt about this the way I feel about lots of academic writing: “It’s fine, I guess?”

If I ever see a used copy, though, I’ll snatch it for Mari Kotani’s piece on Revolutionary Girl Utena. She’s attended WisCon in the past (:

[McKenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

some of the essays are a bit dated but still some solid well written information.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first volume of a series of scholarly articles around anime and manga. This volume explores the interactive worlds created by anime and manga. While I was expecting that to mean world-building, the topics are much more broad, but no less interesting. As an example, my favorite article was the article on the MML (Miyazaki Mailing List) discussing *fandom* as it relates to that group. There's also an article on cosplay, several on how anime/manga has affected culture's around the world, and one on the changing image of Japanese girls. It's actually ended up being much more interesting than I initially expected, and has brought a lot more depth to my appreciation of anime and manga.

[Yupa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primo volume di Mechademia, la rivista made in U.S.A. su anime, manga e tutt'eccose.
Essendo un primo numero, i pezzi sono dedicati a una panoramica generica e generale. Tra l'altro questo numero è parecchio smilzo rispetto ai successivi...

Due righe su alcuni degli articoli.
I buoni:
- Due articoli non malaccio sulla diffusione internazionale di manga & anime, di Anne Allison e Wendy Siuyi Wong; il secondo, in particolare, spiega la situazione nei paesi asiatici tipo Corea, Cina, Taiwan e simili, dei quali di solito si sa poco o niente.
- Ueno Toshiya con un suo celebre pezzo su Oshii, tradotto dal giapponese... con qualche aggiornamento per l'occasione. Sempre utile da leggere.
I cattivi:
- Theresa Winge, con le sue "formidabili" riflessioni sul cosplay, in cui ci rivela segreti insospettabili, tipo che la cosa più importante per un cosplayer è...... il costume.
I cosí-cosí:
- Una specie di sklero cultur-critico di Thomas Lamarre, che parte da ottime basi molto concrete sul funzionamento tecnico dell'animazione, e poi va via per una discutibilissima tangente molto post-strutturalista e molto (ahimé) francofortese, estrudendo perle tipo che il cinema è "violenza tecno-politica" (sic!) perché ci pone nella prospettiva balistica del movimento, la stessa di bombe e projettili (ari-sic!). Quindi la domanda è: è anche il cinema d'animazione altrettanto tecno-politicamente violento? Per Lamarre no, visto che privilegia il movimento laterale e non quello soggettivo. Mah.

Il resto degli articoli è trascurabile.

Chiude il volume una serie di rapide recensioni su manga o anime singoli o testi critici sull'argomento. Questo è forse il punto più dolente della rivista, perché si nota un bello stacco tra gli articoli principali, dotati di basi assai robuste (anche quando discutibili negli esiti), e questa sezione, mooolto all'acqua di rose, con gli autori che spesso & volentieri ripiegano a far riassuntoni dell'oggetto trattato pur di riempire spazio tipografico.

Comunque per un primo numero non è una brutta partenza, e già il secondo dimostra decisi passi avanti.
Ad avercele, in Italia, iniziative del genere...

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, I read this as a preview for a gift for someone who is into anime and manga, as a way to see if I could interest them in something more academic. To that end, I think it is a good book. I'm not as academic as some of the papers included in the book, and so some of it was hard to get through. That said, the third essay was rather amazing and well worth having chosen to read the book! So, I'll be passing it on to my friend, for certain. For those who have a more academic bent to this sort of thing, it may be delightful. It is hard for me to tell. I also enjoyed the last two essays, but neither grabbed me as much as the third one did.

[Daniel]

some of the articles were meh. The best one was Ueno Toshiya's "Kurenai no metalsuits"

[Brendan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hadn't heard the term ' shukuri sedai ' ( sugar generation ) before

[Christian Clason · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun addition to learning about Japanese culture and cinema.