Representations of Europe in Japanese anime: An overview of case studies and theoretical frameworks
PDF

Keywords

Europe
Miyazaki Hayao
Anime
Anime genres
Anime settings
Manga
Shojo
Media pilgrimage
Iconography in audio-visual media
Themes in motion pictures

How to Cite

García Aranda, O. “Representations of Europe in Japanese Anime: An Overview of Case Studies and Theoretical Frameworks”. Mutual Images Journal, no. 8, June 2020, pp. 47-84, doi:10.32926/2020.8.ara.europ.

Abstract

Europe, as a cluster of cultural elements related to nations, cities, and historical periods, has experienced different representations and recreations in Japanese animated series and films (anime) in the form of European (or European-like) settings. The following article discusses the creation, aesthetic appeal, and uses of these contents. First, tracing a theoretical retrospective that displays the different concepts and conceptions used to understand these contents, to then focus our study in reviewing the European settings of some of the main anime productions that contain this kind of contents: the 1970s sh?jo manga and anime series (comics and tv anime series addressed to girls), the Nippon Animation-originated so-called “Meisaku” group of series, and more “singular” cases, such as Miyazaki Hayao’s films. The review carried out shows the use of different sources and intense fieldwork by Japanese creators to recreate particular visions of European (or European-like) settings and the narrative and communicative strategies or even commercial implications of these settings according to the genre, demographics, and media specificity of each project.

https://doi.org/10.32926/2020.8.ara.europ
PDF

References

ANTONONOKA, OLGA (2016), Blonde is the New Japanese: Transcending Race in Shōjo Manga. Mutual Images [Online], 1, Summer, pp. 22-46.

AZUMA, HIROKI (2001), Otaku. Japan’s Database Animals [Dōbutsu Suru Posutomodan. Otaku Mita Nihon Shakai]. Translated by Jonathan E. Abel and Shion Kono (2009). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

ARAKI, HIROHIKO (2015), Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga [Araki Hirohiko no Mangajyūtsū]. Translated by Nathan A. Collins. San Francisco: VIZ Media, LLC.

BAUDRILLARD, JEAN (1981). Simulacres et Simulation [Simulacra and Simulation]. Paris: Editions Galilee

BARKMAN, ADAM (2010), Anime, Manga and Christianity: A Comprehensive Analysis. Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies [Online], 9 (27), Winter, pp. 25-45.

BERNDT, JAQUELINE (1995), El Fenómeno Manga [Phänomen Manga]. Translated by J. A. Bravo (1996). Barcelona: Ediciones Martínez Roca S.A.

BROPHY, PHILIP (2005), 100 Anime. London: British Film Institute.

BOWNING, JOHN E. — WAYNE, STEIN (2008), The Western Eastern: De-Coding Hybridity and Cyberzen Gothic in Vampire Hunter D (1985). In: Soon Ng, Hook (Eds), Asian Gothic: Essays on Literature, Film and Anime. North Carolina, London: McFarland & Company Inc., pp. 210-223.

BRYCE, MIO (2012), Images of a Greek Goddess in Anime: Athena and Nausicaä in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. In: Kefallinos, Ellizabeth (Ed.), Thinking Diversely: Hellenism and the Challenge of Globalization. Australia: The Modern Greek Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand (MGSAANZ), pp. 377-394.

CHAPPUIS, ROMAN (2008), La Japonité selon Jeanne D’Arc. Mythes et Récits Occidentaux dans le Manga et l’Anime. Critique Internationale [Online], (38), pp. 55-72.

CHEN, XIAOMEI (1995), Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CLEMENTS, JONATHAN (2013), Anime: A History. UK: Palgrave / The British Film Institute.

CREIGHTON, MILLIE R. (1995), Imaging the Other in Japanese Advertising Campaigns’. In: James G. Carrier (Ed.), Occidentalism: Images of the West. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 135–60.

DANESIN, MAXIME (2016), The European Middle Ages through the Prism of Contemporary Japanese Literature: A Study of Vinland Saga, Spice & Wolf and l’Eclipse. Mutual Images [Online], 1, Summer, pp. 95-122.

DANESIN, MAXIME (2017), Beyond Time & Culture: The Revitalization of Old Norse literature and History in Yukimura’s Makoto Vinland Saga. Mutual Images [Online], 2, Winter, pp. 185-217.

DENISON, RAYNA (2010), Transcultural Creativity in Anime: Hybrid Identities in the Production, Distribution, Texts and Fandom of Japanese Anime. Creative Industries Journal, 3, (3), pp. 221-235.

DRAZEN, PATRICK (2003), Anime Explosion! The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation. Updated edition (2014). Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press.

DRAZEN, PATRICK (2017), Holly Anime! Japan’s view of Christianity. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, UK: Hamilton Books.

GRAVETT, PAUL (2004), Manga. La Era del Nuevo Cómic [Manga, Sixty Years of Japanese Comics]. Translated by Kliczkowski (Ed.) (2006). Madrid: Kliczkowski H.

GRIFFITH, JOHN L. (2009), Integration and Inversion: Western Medieval Knights in Japanese Manga and Anime. Medieval and Early Modern English Studies [Online], 17 (1), pp. 89-119.

HERNÁNDEZ-PÉREZ, MANUEL (2017a), Manga, Anime y Videojuegos. Narrativa Cross-media Japonesa [Manga, Anime and Videogames. Japanese Crossmedia Narrative]. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza.

HERNÁNDEZ-PÉREZ, MANUEL (2017b), “Thinking of Spain in a flat way”: Visiting Spain and Spanish Cultural Heritage through Contemporary Japanese Anime. Mutual Images [Online], 3, Autumn, pp. 43-69.

HIKARI, HORI (2013), Tezuka, Shōjo and Moto Hagio. Mechademia, 8, pp. 299-311.

HU, TZE-YUE G. (2010), Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-building. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

IGUCHI, ATSUSHI (2010), Appropriating the Other on the Edge of the World: Representations of Western Middle Ages in Modern Japanese Culture. Journal of The Open University of Japan [Online], (28), pp. 63-69.

IWABUCHI, KŌICHI (2002), Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. Third edition (2007). US: Duke University Press.

KÁLOVICS, DALMA (2016), The Missing Link in Shōjo Manga History: The Changes in Shōjo Manga as seen through the Magazine Shukan Margaret. 京都精華大学紀要 (Kyoto Seika University bulletin) [Online], 49, pp. 5-22.

KELTS, ROLLAND (2006), Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the U. S. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

KINSELLA, SHARON (1998), Subculture in the 1990s: Otaku and the Amateur Manga Movement. Journal of Japanese Studies, 24 (2), Summer, 1998, pp. 289-316.

KINSELLA, SHARON (1999), Pro-establishment Manga: Pop-Culture and the Balance of Power in Japan. Media Culture and Society, 21 (4), pp. 567-572.

KOULIKOV, MIKHAIL (2010), Online Bibliography of Anime and Manga Research. Avalaible from http://www.corneredangel.com/amwess/academic.html (accessed 29 January 2018).

KOULIKOV, MIKHAIL Annual Bibliography of Anime and Manga Studies. Available from: https://animemangastudies.wordpress.com/bibliographies/ (accessed 30 January 2018).

LAMARRE, THOMAS (2009), The Anime Machine: a Media Theory of Animation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

LU, AMY SHIRONG (2008), The Many Faces of Internationalization in Japanese Anime. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal [Online], 3 (2), pp. 169-187.

MCCARTHY, HELEN (1999), Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation. Revised edition (2002). Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press.

MIYAZAKI, HAYAO (1996), Starting Point: 1979-1996 [Shūppatsu Ten, 1979-1996]. Translated by Beth Cary and Frederik L. Schodt (2009). San Francisco: VIZ Media LLC.

MOLINÉ, ALFONS (2002), El Gran Libro de los Manga [The Big Book on Manga]. Barcelona: Ediciones Glénat.

MOUSAVI, SAEEDEH (2013), Entertaining Religious Ideas in Animation: through the Study of Religious Elements in Japanese Anime. Dōshisha University Global Studies Journal [Online], 4, pp. 145-166.

NAPIER, SUSAN J. (2005), Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

ŌDA, EII’CHIRŌ (2014), SBS Question Corner. One Piece, vol. 72. pp. 146.

OGI, FUSAMI (2008), Shōjo Manga (Japanese Comics for Girls) in the 1970’s: Japan as a Message to Women’s Bodies: Interviewing Keiko Takemiya. International Journal of Comics Art, 10 (2), pp. 148-169.

OKAMOTO, TAKESHI (2015), Otaku Tourism and the Anime Pilgrimage Phenomenon in Japan. Japan Forum, 27 (1), pp. 12-36.

PELLITTERI, MARCO (2006), East of Oliver Twist: Japanese Culture and European Influences in Animated TV Series for Children and Adolescents. The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies (JJAS), 7 (1), pp. 57-70.

PELLITTERI, MARCO (2010). The Dragon and the Dazzle: Models, Strategies and Identities of Japanese Imagination – A European Perspective. Latina: Tunué.

PRUVOST-DELASPRE, MARIE (2016), Uncertain Spaces: The Odd and the Foreign in Tōei’s feature Films of the 1960. Mutual Images [Online], 1, Summer, pp. 71-94.

SABRE, CLOTHILDE (2016). French Anime and Manga Fans in Japan: Pop Culture Tourism, Media Pilgrimage Imaginary. International Journal of Contents Tourism, 1 (1), pp. 1-19.

SAID, EDWARD (1978), Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.

SANTIAGO, JOSE A. (2010), Manga. Del Cuadro Flotante a la Viñeta Japonesa [Manga. From the Floating Picture to the Japanese Panel]. Vigo: dx5 Digital & Graphic Art Research.

SATŌ, KENJI (1999), More Animated than Life. Kyoto Journal, (41).

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright (c) 2020 Oscar García Aranda