Abstract

Anime and manga are often seen as closely related media, both considered emblems of Japanese culture. Indeed, for about two decades, both have been at the forefront of nation branding campaign Cool Japan, which promotes popular culture for global consumption. With a focus on the massive hit anime and manga Demon Slayer, this presentation will explore the above dynamics of anime and manga. Although the presentation will concentrate mainly on anime, examining its similarities and differences to manga, their formal styles and production processes, helps one better understand their distinctive relationships to Japan and globalization.

Manga tends to be made in one place within Japan, then translated and exported abroad. This is the typical notion of cultural globalization: a product made in one country that is then sent to other countries. But for anime, many of the tasks involved in production – work by animators, colorists, and background artists – take place outside of Japan. As such, a different mode of globalization becomes visible. What is supposedly “Japanese animation” is actually animated through a transnational network of production across Asia, centralized via Tokyo as the de facto privileged node.

Importantly, it is the repeated enactment of the formal style of anime in its production that both enables and hides the transnationality of the final images: the style is performed so effectively across borders it is rarely acknowledged to be transnational. This performance affords a third type of globalization, one that is decentralized whereby the “origin” of Japan is not required as a qualifying factor if the stylistics are enacted sufficiently. Ultimately, all three of these modes of globalization operate in tandem in the performance of anime, allowing one to sketch out a complex regionality of transnational cultural production.

Biography

Stevie Suan is an Associate Professor at Hosei University’s Faculty of Global and Interdisciplinary Studies. In his research he utilizes performance/performativity theory and media theory to explore anime’s media-form, different modes of acting, and transnational cultural production. This is the topic of his recent book Anime’s Identity: Performativity and Form beyond Japan (University of Minnesota Press, 2021). He also extends this interdisciplinary approach to ecocritical analysis of anime.