Your guide to research into Japanese comics and animation
When thinking about the nature of anime and manga studies as a discreet subject area, it is certainly possible to raise a whole range of different questions. For example, in a chapter in the recent 2nd edition of the definitive essay collection Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, Mark McLelland highlights some of the unique challenges of [ ] The post Who Are the Anime/Manga Studies Publishers –…
In a new paper just published in Theory, Culture Society, Sharon Kinsella makes the point that Japan and neighbouring Asian states are now conjoined in a transregional visual cultural symbolic language, with relatable though not identical cultural symbolic meanings, based around animation characters and computer games I would argue that over the last two [ ] The post Call for Papers – Mechademia…
Anime and manga continue to grow in popularity and reach worldwide. And, in the process, anime and manga and their audiences can be the subject of certain particular and very specific kinds of publications that now exists alongside both scholarly monographs and articles on one hand and coverage in magazines, newspapers, and the [ ] The post A Quick Guide to – Anime Market Research Reports appeared…
InTO.MANGA – Critical Paths in Manga StudiesTorino, ItalyJanuary 22-24, 2026 This fall, with two leading university presses each publishing a major new scholarly monograph (Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics by Eike Exner from Yale University Press and Manga’s First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905–1989 by Andrea Horbinski from University [ ] The post Call for Papers…
When we think about how scholars typically approach Japanese animation, the approaches that come to mind right away are those that use anime as a text to analyze. Just some noteworthy recent examples include journal articles such as Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008): A cli-fi reading of Japanese anime, in [ ] The post Interview with the Anime Scholar – Francheska M. González…
English-language scholarly writing on Japanese comics is not something that just started last year or five years ago or ten. Fred Schodt s Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga, the first book on the topic from a U.S. publisher, appeared in 1996 and more than a decade earlier, he had already written Manga! [ ] The post Call for Papers – Mechademia: Second Arc, 19.2 “Graphic Narratives”…
In three weeks, starting on July 3, Anime Expo, the largest Japanese animation and comics convention in the U.S., will once again return to the Los Angeles Convention Center. The AX 2025 schedule is packed with dozens of talks, presentations, premieres, guest appearances, company announcement sessions, and other live events. And, as it has for [ ] The post Anime Expo 2025 Academic Program Schedule…
With the release of the new Summer 2025 Methodologies issue, Mechademia: Second Arc, the major forum for studying objects and practices that have developed around media forms associated with Japan is now approaching its twentieth anniversary (although publication was paused in 2016 and 2017). The twenty-three issues that have appeared since the journal first launched, [ ] The post Call for Papers…
Everybody loves an awards ceremony. And if movies can have the Oscars, Broadway theater can have the Tonys, and comics can have, uh, the Eisner Awards, why should manga feel left out! And, later this summer, the organizers of New York City s Anime NYC convention will be holding a gala awards ceremony for the English-speaking [ ] The post Manga Scholar and Manga Librarian at the Manga Awards!…
First announced at the end of 2023, and running successfully in April of last year, the online symposium Queer and Feminist Perspectives on Japanese Popular Cultures represents a major and exciting new stage in the development of Japanese popular culture studies as a vibrant academic field. The 2024 program brought together speakers from academic institutions [ ] The post Online Symposium – Queer…