Anime
Asian St. 245/Japanese 245/Film-Video 245
In this course, we examine the history of Japanese animation and its relationship to the social, political, and economic transformations of the nation. Anime's roots are in 1930s children's films promoting the colonization of Asia, followed by propaganda films from World War II. In the postwar high-growth economy, animated films experience phenomenal transformation as they spread to television and eventually come to dominate both Japanese moving picture media. This spectacular growth is accompanied by an explosion in stylistic forms and delivery media (celluloid, television, video cassette, CD-ROM, and now the Internet and DVD.) This course will approach the Japanese animated film by focusing on its articulations of cinematic categories (such as camera angles, acting, lighting, narrative space, special effects, adaptation, pornography and visual pleasure) and various historically and culturally specific categories of reception (fan culture, capitalism, crisis, modernity, the family, nationalism, transnationalism).l
9/6—Introduction: Anime in the Academy
9/11 —What is Anime?
—Chuck Jones. Chuck Amock (New York: Avon, 1989), 182-185. (Reader)
—Normal McLaren, "The Definition of Animation: A Letter from Norman McLaren," Animation Journal (Spring 1995): 62-66. (Reader)
—Levi, 19-31.
—McCarthy, 32-37.
9/13 —Invention and Industrialization
—Bordwell/Thompson, 2-9, 29-34, 144-151, 153-154.
—Furniss, 13-27.
—Levi, 1-17.
—: Princess Mononoke
9/18 —Form and Convention (Color and Line)
—Bordwell/Thompson, 39-57.
—Furniss, 135-176.
—Bordwell/Thompson,
9/20 —Mise-en-scene / Framing
—Bordwell/Thompson, 156-246.
—Furniss, 61-83.
—Bordwell/Thompson,
9/25 —Editing
—Bordwell/Thompson, 249-288.
9/27 —Sound–SEGMENTATION DUE
—Bordwell/Thompson, 291-324.
—Furniss, 85-107.
—:Patlabor II
10/2 —Narrative
—Bordwell/Thompson, 59-78.
—Jeremy Butler. Television: Critical Methods and Applications (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1994), 3-13, 261-286. (Reader)
10/4 —MIDTERM
—: Selection of Fan Sub/Dub
10/9 —What’s Japanese about Japanese Anime?
—Levi, 33-65.
—Jesse Berrett. "Asian Envy," Bad Subjects 13 (April 1994); (http://eserver.org/bs/13/Berrett.html).
—Philip Borphy, "Ocular Excess," Art and Design 12.3 (March/April 1997): 27-33. (Reader)
10/11— Translation
—"Enter Neil Gaiman, Screenwriter," How did America View Princess Monokehime— (Tokyo: Studio Ghibli, 2000): pp. 4-6. (Reader)
—Nornes, Abé Mark. "For an Abusive Subtitling," Film Quarterly 52.3 (Spring 1999). (Infotrac)
10/16 —The Prewar Era–SHOT BREAKDOWN DUE
—Imamura Taihei. "Japanese Art and the Animated Cartoon," Quarterly Review of Film, Radio and Television 7.3 (Spring 1953): 217-222. (Reader)
10/18 —China War into World War II
—Scott Nygren. "The Pacific War: Reading Contradiction and Denial," Wide Angle (Reader)
—Komatsuzawa Hajime, "Toybox Series #3: Picture Book 1936," "Nippon Banzai," and "Momotaro’s Sea Eagle," in Japan/America Film Wars: WWII Propaganda and Its Cultural Contexts, ed. Abé Mark Nornes and Fukushima Yukio (New York: Harwood, 1992). (Reader)
—: Spider and Tulip, Momotaro’s and Sacred Soldiers of the Sky
10/23 —Imperial Anime
—Ueno Toshiya, "The Other and the Machine," trans. Maya Todeschini, in Japan/America Film Wars: WWII Propaganda and Its Cultural Contexts, ed. Abé Mark Nornes and Fukushima Yukio (New York: Harwood, 1992), 71-93. (Reader)
10/25 —Atomic Anime
—Ben Crawford, "Emperor Tomato-Ketchup: Cartoon Properties from Japan," ed. Mick Broderick, in Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film (London: KPI, 1996), 75-90. (Reader)
—Freda Freiberg, "Akira and the Postnuclear Sublime," ed. Mick Broderick, in Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film (London: KPI, 1996), 91-102. (Reader)
—: Cowboy BeBop
10/30 —Postwar Era and the Rise of Toei–FLOW ANALYSIS DUE
11/1 —Yamato, Gundam and Beyond
—David Vernal, "War and Peace in Japanese Science Fiction Animation: An Examination of Mobile Suit Gundam and The Mobile Police Patlabor," Animation Journal (Fall 1995): 56-84. (Reader: only pp. 56-72)
—Susan Napier, "Vampires, Psychic Girls, Flying Women and Sailor Scouts: Four Faces of the Young Female in Japanese Popular Culture," in The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture, ed. D. P. Martinez, pp. 91-100. (Reader)
—: Astroboy #1, Neon Genesis: Evangelion #25-26
11/6 —Oshii Mamoru
—David Vernal, "War and Peace in Japanese Science Fiction Animation: An Examination of Mobile Suit Gundam and The Mobile Police Patlabor," Animation Journal (Fall 1995): 56-84. (Reader: only pp. 72-84)
—Michael Fisch, "Nation, War and Japan’s Future in the Science Fiction Anime Film Patlabor II," Science Fiction Studies 27 (2000): 49-68. (Reader)
11/8 —Robots and Cyborgs
—Ueno Toshiya. Japanimation and Techno-Orientalism: Japan as the Sub-Empire of Signs," Documentary Box 9; (http://www.city.yamagata.yamagata.jp/yidff/ff/box/box9/en/b9en-1.html).
—Levi, 85-95.
11/13 —You Otaku
—Levi, 145-152.
—Annalee Newitz. "Anime Otaku: Japanese Animation Fans Outside Japan," Bad Subjects 13 (April 1994). (eserver.org/bs/13/Newitz.html)
—Karl Taro Greenfield, "The Incredibly Strange Mutant Creatures Who Rule the Universe of Alienated Japanese Zombie Computer Nerds," Wired 1.01 (March/April 1993); (www.wired.com/wired/archives/1.01/otaku_pr.html).
—Ueno Toshiya. "Techno-Orientalism and Media Tribalism: On Japanese Animation and Rave Culture," Third Text 47 (Summer 1999): 95-106. (Reader)
11/15 —Fandom and Poaching
—Henry Jenkins. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York: Routledge, 1992), 277-287. (Reader)
—"The History of Psychommu Gaijin" ; (www.pgaijin.com/history.html).
—: Otaku no Video, Perfect Blue
11/20 —Fetish and Desire
—Furniss, 231-249.
—Robert Hamilton. "Virtual Idols and Digital Girls: Artifice and Sexuality in Anime, Kisekae and Kyoko Date," Bad Subjects 35 (November 1997). (eserver.org/bs/35/hamilton.html)
—Annalee Newitz. "Magical Girls and Atomic Bomb Sperm: Japanese Animation in America," Film Quarterly 49.1 (Fall 1995): 2-14. (Infotrac)
—Levi, 115-136.
11/22 Violence and Transformation (Class ends at 5:00)
—Kinder, Marsha. "From Mutation ot Morphing," in Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-Change, ed. Vivian Sobchack (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press), 59-80. (Reader)
—Furniss, 201-213.
11/27—Pokemon and the Globalization of Play
—Levi, 137-144.
—McCarthy, 206-216.
—N.F. Mendoza. "Symbiosis: The Alliance Between Toys and Toons," Animation Magazine (June-July 1999): 22-23, 56-57. (Reader)
—Stephen Kline. "The Empire of Play: Emergent Genres of Product-Based Animations" in In Front of Children: Screen Entertainment and Young Audiences, ed. Cary Bazallette and David Buckingham (London: BFI, 151-165. (Reader)
11/29 —Experimental Animation
—Bordwell/Thompson, 128-144.
—Furniss, 29-39.
—Minato Chihiro. "Ghostly Energy," trans. Jonathan M. Hall, in Illumination Ghost: The Films of Ito Takashi (Tokyo: Image Forum, 1998), 16-19. (Reader)
12/4 —Adaptation: Manga–POACHING PAPER DUE
—Sazae-san. (Reader)
—Hamaoka Kenji, Super Radical Gag Family 1 (Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku), (Tokyo: Shonen Champion Comics, 1993), 5-22; 171-182. (Reader)
—Start Miyazawa Kenji, Milky Way Railroad, trans. John Bestor (Tokyo Kodansha, 1994).
12/6 —Adaptation: Novel
—Finish Miyazawa Kenji, Night Train to the Stars.
—: Night on the Galactic Railroad
12/11 —Tezuka Osamu
—Start Helen McCarthy, Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation.
12/13 —Miyazaki Hayao and Studio Ghibli
—Finish Hayao Miyzaki: Master of Japanese Animation.
—: Heisei tanuki utagassen pon pon