If the source of manga and anime is physically located in Japan; the temptation for many critics and scholars is to ask what aspects of Japanese culture and history gave rise to these media. This ninth volume of Mechademiamdash;an annual collection of critical work on anime and mangamdash;challenges the tendency to answer the question of origins by reductively generalizing and essentializing ldquo;Japaneseness.rdquo; The essays brought together in Mechademia 9 lead us to understand the extent to which ldquo;Japanrdquo; might be seen as an idea generated by anime; manga; and other texts rather than the other way around. What is it that manga and anime produce that no other medium can precisely duplicate? Is anime its own medium or a genre of animationmdash;or something in between? And how must we adapt existing critical modes in order to read these new kinds of texts? While the authors begin with similar questions about the roots of Japanese popular culture and media; they invoke a wide range of theoretical work in the search for answers; including feminist criticism; disability studies; poststructuralist textual criticism; postcolonialism; art history; film theory; phenomenology; and more. Richly provocative and insightful; Mechademia 9 both enacts and resists the pursuit of fixed starting points; inspiring further creative investigation of this global artistic phenomenon.Contributors: Stephen R. Anderson; Dale K. Andrews; Tohoku Gakuin U; Andrew Balluacute;s; Jodie Beck; Christopher Bolton; Williams College; Kukhee Choo; Tulane U; Ranya Denison; U of East Anglia; Lucy Fraser; Fujimoto Yukari; Meiji U; Japan; Forrest Greenwood; Imamura Taihei; Seth Jacobowitz; Yale U; Kim Joon Yang; Thomas Lamarre; McGill U; Margherita Long; U of California; Riverside; Matsumoto Nobuyuki; Tokyo National Museum; Laura Miller; U of Missourindash;St. Louis; Alexandra Roedder; Paul Roquet; Stanford U; Brian Ruh; Shunrsquo;ya Yoshimi; U of Tokyo; Alba G. Torrents.
#1469977 in eBooks 2014-12-05 2014-12-05File Name: B00RQXS0E2
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Great for Getting the Lay of the LandBy AesadaiThis volume is perfect for getting all the info on the history and current snap shot of Machinima today. It is a little light on the vision for how Machinima can take the next step into full spectrum legitimacy and for that I found that chapter 8 of Blender Meets Python: Blender 2.6 Unites with Python 3 for a Completely 3D Relationship (Volume 1) was really good for laying out how Machinima principles can be used within Blender to cut costs for legitimate animation (with the help of the Blender Game Engine).
