Resistance, Resilience, Cosplay, and Beauty in Anime

Join scholars at the JAMS@AX Academic symposium to discuss anime imagery in protest movements, ornamentation, cosplay, and mental health!

• The Straw Hat Stretching Outside of the Manga Panel: A case study analysis of One Piece’s sociopolitical impact through political activism – Raylene Bentlin
• Joyful Ornaments: Sonic Intertexts and Aesthetic Adornments in Hunter x Hunter – Zoë E. Sprott
• Protective Factors as Power Systems: Anime, Manga, and Adolescent Mental Health – Jermaine Wall, LICSW-S
• Infiltrating the Palace: “Cosplay Commission” as a Fan Practice of Memory and Remembrance – Xiaoming YU

Representations of History, and History in Anime

Meiji to Doujinshi! Join the scholars of the JAMS@AX Academic Symposium as they discuss anti-war messaging, the history of doujinshi, Ainu narratvies, and histocial characters.

• When Anime Revives the Dead: Bungō Stray Dogs’ Reinvention of Literary Figures in Modernity – ZiFu Xu
• A Case Study: How the Anime Ecology Amplifies Anti-War Memory through Barefoot Gen – Koni Zhang
• Ainu “for a New Era”: Ainu History in Golden Kamuy’s Minor Characters – Jane Palomera Moore

The Secret History of Dōjinshi: Towards a Dōjin Fourth Wave? – Andrea Horbinski

Music of SpyXFamily

From Mixed Nuts to Kura Kura! Close out Day 1 of the JASM@AX Symposium with professors David F. Lopez, Elliott Jones, and John Marr, in their all new panel, as they look at this amazing, and moving music!

Black Fandom and Anime: How We “Adopt” Our Characters

Join scholars at the JAMS@AX Academic Symposium as they discuss black anime fandom and character identity!

• Piccolo is (not) black – Dexter Thomas
• “Let the red clouds go!” : Unpacking the relationship between Black Anime fans and Naruto’s Akatsuki – Javon Goard

Games, Sports, and Gender in Anime

Join scholars in exploring how horror anime can be used in the classroom, and beyond, in this session of the JAMS@AX25 symposium.

• Anime’s Influence on Dungeons and Dragons – Daniel Octavio Fantino
• What Does a Supporting Character Want?: Rereading Revolutionary Girl Utena – Giancarlo Cornejo
• So We’ve Let Her Play: A Temporal Exploration of the Progression of Women in Sports Manga and Anime – Rica Quebral & Jubelle Paa
• The Horsegirls are Having a Moment: Uma Musume Cosplay and NFL Fandom as a Reimagining of Girlhood in Male-Dominated Spaces – Emilie Waggoner

Eating Orcs, Rooming with Cats: Ecocriticism and Anime Studies – JAMS Keynote

JAMS’ Keynote Speaker, Daniel Ambord, delivers an academic lecture about anime, ecology, and eco-criticism.

Elves, Robots, and the Invisible Man: Explorations of Otherness in Anime

Join scholars at the JAMS@AX Academic symposium to discuss ai, elves, monstrosity, and shoujo manga!

• Exploitation and Othering in Urasawa’s Pluto: AI, Robots, and Capitalism – Revna Altiok
• Exploring (Im)mortality: the Humanity of Frieren – Ted Gournelos
• The Sound of Love: Disability & Romance in Manga – Lillian Marie Martinez
• Becoming the Monster: Fear and Identity in Jujutsu Kaisen, Tokyo Ghoul, and Demon Slayer – Ashley Smalls

Dystopia, Geography, and Museums – Science and Technology in Anime

Join scholars at the JAMS@AX Academic sympsoium as they discuss manga in museum, geogrphaic evolutions, social media, and survelience in anime!

• Psycho-Pass’s Sybil System as Social Media: Subjectivity, AI, and Modern Mass Surveillance – Justin Cosner
• Let’s All Love Lain! Liminality, Agency, and Identity Negotiation in the Present Day, Present Time – Erick Garcia
• The Science of Pokémon Geography – Alejandro Munoz Jr.
• Manga in Museums: A Brief State of the Field – Sierra Schiano

Physics of Anime

Anime introduces us to some very new concepts and ideas. Some religious and cultural concepts are distinctly Japanese and help to broaden our social and cultural worldviews. Others, while familiar, may still be relatively new. One such concept is science. While there are anime that are based firmly on science, other anime, especially those in the science fiction genre, include well-established physical principles. Sometimes, these anime get the physics right, especially if we allow for a few “miracle exemptions”. In this panel, we will discuss some of these concepts in an in-depth yet beginner-friendly manner. This panel in the JAMS@AX Symposium is a one-hour romp, which is a one-part physics lecture and a geek-out session. Questions from the audience and discussions are encouraged. This panel is meant to be interactive, educational, and, most importantly, entertaining.

JAMS@AX Academic Showrunner:

Billy Tringali

JAMS@AX Conference Board Members:

Roman Gomez

Ted Gournelos

Emilie Waggoner

Keynote Address:

JAMS@AX Keynote – Anime Goes to College with Emilie Waggoner

Join university lecturer and anime researcher, Emilie Waggoner, as she kicks off JAMS@AX2025!

Performing Girlhood: Princesses, Cosplay, and Identity in Anime

This panel in the JAMS@AX Symposium challenges conventional ideas of self-expression by exploring how anime heroines, cosplay communities, and chosen families can offer powerful alternatives to traditional gender roles.

• Magical Girl Operation: Costume & Cosplay in Witch Hat Atelier
• Azumanga Daioh and “Nichijou“: Absurdity and the Japanese Schoolgirl
• The functional view in the constructed family: Animation as a Tool to Redefine the Concept of Family in Spy x Family
• Floating Castles, Staged Narratives: Genre Conventions and Gender in Revolutionary Girl Utena

Music of Studio Ghibli

From Nausicaä to the The Boy and The Heron, Joe Hisaishi has provided the musical landscapes for Studio Ghibli. Close out Day 1 of the JASM@AX Symposium with professors David F. Lopez, Elliott Jones, and John Marr, in their all new panel, as they look at this amazing, and moving music!

Family Bonds and Queer Community: Finding Acceptance, and Oneself, in Anime

In this session of the JAMS@AX Symposium, scholars discuss how chosen families, intergenerational ties, and queer-coded narratives depicted in anime can foster empathy, build stronger communities, and help audiences find self-acceptance.

• Ace in Practice: Uta Isaki’s Manga and the Production of Asexual Identity
• Can I Get An Amen?: Teaching English and Queer Acceptance in Japan via RuPaul’s Drag Race in Until We’re Together
• Henshin Dekinai: The Doomed Queen is Doomed No More
• Beyond School Walls: Queer Families and Self-Acceptance in Hinowa Kozuki’s Elegant Yokai Apartment Life

Monstrous Lessons: Teaching Horror Anime

Join scholars in exploring how horror anime can be used in the classroom, and beyond, in this session of the JAMS@AX25 symposium.

• Horror and Transformation: A Curriculum Exploring Junji Ito
• Designing an Anime Studies Syllabus: Teaching Monstrosity and Tolerance
• Cataloguing the Creepy: Japanese Anthology Horror and Its Connection to Literary History

Educator Roundtable

Are you interested in how anime can be used in the classroom? In this session of the JAMS@AX Symposium, join three educators teaching students ranging from high schoolers, to undergraduates, to graduate students and learn how they built and taught several classes centered around anime.

Worlds of Knowledge: Anime’s Keepers of Discovery

In this session of the JAMS@AX Symposium, join four scholars whose research explores how anime presents the wonder of knowledge. From magic, to music, to museums, to bibliometrics, learn how anime celebrates, rebels against, or explores the concept of inquiry.

• Frieren and the Value of Inquiry
• The Guardians of the Louvre: How Manga Mythologizes Museums
• Anime as Information: Mapping the Resources of Anime and Manga Studies
• Anime Music Academia: Reborn as a music theory student with unlimited potential

Pirates, Ecology, and K-Pop – How Anime Explores Worlds and Cultures

In this session of the JAMS@AX Academic Symposium, explore the cultures of worlds both real and imagined. From teaching anthropology through your favorite pirates, to satirizing capitalistic consumption, to seeing how anime explores Korean culture, this is not a panel to miss!

• Teaching Culture Analysis and Anthropological Research through One Piece and the Fantasy-Journey Setting in Anime/Manga
• Wagyu with a Fenrir: The Instructive Evasion of Ecology in Campfire Cooking in Another World
• Anime’s Korean Wave: The Rise of South Korean IP in Japanese Animation

Physics of Anime

Anime introduces us to some very new concepts and ideas. Some religious and cultural concepts are distinctly Japanese and help to broaden our social and cultural worldviews. Others, while familiar, may still be relatively new. One such concept is science. While there are anime that are based firmly on science, other anime, especially those in the science fiction genre, include well-established physical principles. Sometimes, these anime get the physics right, especially if we allow for a few “miracle exemptions”. In this panel, we will discuss some of these concepts in an in-depth yet beginner-friendly manner. This panel in the JAMS@AX Symposium is a one-hour romp, which is a one-part physics lecture and a geek-out session. Questions from the audience and discussions are encouraged. This panel is meant to be interactive, educational, and, most importantly, entertaining.

Keynote: Researching Anime – An Introduction to Anime and Manga Studies

JAMS@AX Conference Runner and Editor of the Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, Billy Tringali, for a primer on the best resources for researching anime and manga!

One Piece, Sekko Boys, and Reimagined Histories in Anime

Scholars Juan Carlos Fermin, Sierra Schiano, and Janine Sun as they discuss representing history, and presenting alternative history, in anime.

RADWIMPS and Music from the Films of Makoto Shinkai

From Tenmon to RADWIMPS, music from the films of Makoto Shinkai have moved audiences for years.

Vampires and Dragon Ball Z: Memory Studies and Black Fandom in Anime

Scholars Adrienne Merritt and Dexter Thomas as they discuss memory studies and black fandom in anime.

Writing About Anime – Discussions with the Editors-in-Chief

Writing about anime and manga and how publishing works in the news and academic world.

Exploring Dungeons, Borders, the Countryside – Delicious in Dungeon, Rural  Cosplay, and Dragon Ball Z

Scholars Edmund Hoff, Daniel W. Ambord, and Dayana Calle as they discuss, respectively, ecological fiction, rural revitalization, and the transcendence of borders through anime.

Death, Yōkai, and Demon Slayer

Scholars Lillian Marie Martinez, Chenghao Wen, and Peggy Wood as they discuss their scholarship surrounding yōkai.

Physics of Anime

Anime introduces us to some very new concepts and ideas. Some religious and cultural concepts are distinctly Japanese and help to broaden our social and cultural worldviews.

MechaJAMS Symposium

Keynote Address: Advancing Anime Studies: Building Anime’s Academic Journals!
Learn how scholarly work on anime is published and the exciting history of anime studies’ two journals, Mechademia and the Journal of Anime and Manga Studies!

Theories on Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World

Scholars explore world building, masculinity, and isekai as a genre as presented through Re:Zero. See individual paper titles and authors below.

– Why Otaku Always Restart from Zero – Joshua Adams
– Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World and the Subversion of the Male Fantasy in Isekai Anime – Sarabelle Khalil

Second Impact: The Music of Evangelion II

“Fly Me to the Moon,” to “One Last Kiss,” the music of Evangelion painted an engaging and emotional backdrop to this epic story. Join Professors David F. Lopez, Elliott Jones, and John Marr, as delve deeper into this amazing soundtrack, in their all new panel!

Anime Goes to College: Using Anime to Help First-Year College Students

Scholars explore how anime can be used to transition first-year college students to early success in higher education.

– Now I’m a College Student?!: Using Isekai to Support Transitioning to Higher Education – Emilie Waggoner
– No Running with Toast in the Library: Utilizing Anime in Information Literacy Instruction – Billy Tringali

Presentations on Anime Scholarship

Scholars in the MechaJAMS Symposium will deliver their research on anime and manga studies.

The Physics of Anime

Have you ever watched an anime and wondered if the events portrayed are physically possible? If so, “The Physics of Anime” is meant for you! This panel is one part physics lecture, one part geek-out session, and a bundle of fun for your inner weeb.

Let’s Study in Japan! Guide to Japanese Universities

Many Japanese universities welcome international students. Enjoy the presentations covering incentives such as “English Admission System”, “Courses in English”, “Scholarships” and more! If you would like to experience and enjoy Japanese life, studying in Japan is a great option for you!

Sailor Moon IRL: Isekai and Real World Connections

Scholars explore anime as a language of resistance, and how anime as community exists and responds to real world issues like COVID-19. See individual paper titles and authors below.

– Isekai back to future; back to reality: Hong Kong’s Anime in 2019 – Mateja Kovacic
– Some Fan(dom) Insights from “Survey of Anime Convention Attendance In Response to COVID-19 – Billy Tringali, Maria K. Alberto

Perspectives on Central Characters through Isekai

Presenters in this panel will explore how various anime utilize the archetype of “witch” and “hero”. See individual paper titles and authors below.

– Make Your Own Magic: The Inventive Power of Witchcraft in Little Witch Academia (2017) and Witch Hat Atelier (2016-Present) – Nona Landis
– The Clueless Hero: Uncle from Another World and One Punch Man – Ted Gournelos

Marx, Foucault, and Ouran High School Host Club

This panel will focus on the portrayal of capitalism within, Ouran High School Host Club, and how the comedic portrayal of labor and the attempt, and failure, of overcoming capitalism and the ruling class can impact fans’ own perception of capitalism and their role in a capitalist society.

Theme: Anime Chronotopes: Nostalgia in Japanese Animation and Comics

Nostalgia/Intertextuality (Thursday, July 4, 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM)

• The OG of black revolutionary Japanese anime: Golgo 13 (Dexter Thomas)
• Wakon (yo)sai – Tracing Japanese Technomodernity back to 1970s and 1980s Science Fiction Anime (Anthony Lee)
• Western Culture’s Influence in Japanese Entertainment: Intertextuality and Metafiction in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (Ericka N Rivera Figuero)
• Feminist Recontextualization of Nostalgia in Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Mine Fujiko (Yasheng She)

Nostalgia/Society (Thursday, July 4, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM)

• Survival Strategies for Future Fate: Loss and Nostalgia in Mawaru Penguindrum (Cynthia Zhang)
• Remediating Histories: Millennium Actress and the Productive Capacity of Nostalgia (Susan Noh)

Intermediality & Anime (Saturday, July 6, 11:30 PM – 1:30 PM)

• Nostalgic Reinvention of Anime Onstage: Takarazuka Kagekidan (Amoretta Cockerham)
• Resisting Samurai Nostalgia: Aurality and Silence in Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuioku-hen by Stacey Jocoy
• Integral Intersections: Suicide, Ikigai, and Nostalgia in Orange. Christopher Hepburn
• Cardcaptor Sakura and the History of the Book – Exploring the history of manga domestication in the United States ( Victoria Rahbar )

Topics in Anime Studies (Sunday, July 7, 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM)

• Longing for Home: Isekai Food Manga and Love for Food in Japanese Anime (Jasper Ferehawk)
• The Metastory: The Failure of Filler Episodes within Anime (Bobbi Steele)
• “This is a Game I Made”: Ludonarrative Dissonance in Incidental Isekai or the Genre that Refuses Refusal (Lillian Marie Martinez)
• Ceaselessly into the Past: Anti-Nostalgia in Studio MAPPA’s Banana Fish (Breanna Robles)

Keynote Address
Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of America

Andrew McKevitt
Assistant Professor, History
Louisiana Tech University

Anime fandom in the United States was born at a tense moment in the relationship between the United States and Japan. To many Americans it seemed that, decades after the end of World War II, Japan’s newfound global economic power would challenge the U.S.-dominated international system. Popular publications foretold the “Danger from Japan,” or the “Coming War with Japan.” But a national “Japan Panic” was not the only way Americans encountered Japan in the 1970s and 1980s. Throughout the country, in local places like automobile factories and anime fan clubs, Americans engaged with Japanese culture in new and transformative ways.

Andrew McKevitt teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of U.S. foreign relations, the postwar United States, modern Russia, and modern Japan. He received a Ph.D. from Temple University, and previously served as the Hollybush Fellow in Cold War History at Rowan University and as a visiting assistant professor of history at Philadelphia University

Dr. McKevitt’s research focuses on U.S. cultural relations in the postwar era. His book on the history of U.S.-Japan relations in the 1970s and 1980s told through the lens of consumerism in the United States will be published in October. In 2011, he received the Stuart L. Bernath Scholarly Article Prize, awarded by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations for the year’s best article in the field, for his paper “You Are Not Alone!” Anime and the Globalizing of America. Published in the journal Diplomatic History, it examines the local, national, and transnational cultural networks created by fans of Japanese animation in the 1970s and 1980s.

Studying Anime Fans Around the World

• Why We Fight for Love and Justice: A Survey of Sailor Moon Crystal Fans
  –Casey McDonald (University of Florida)
• “Ha Ha! Boring”: Nostalgia and Melancholia in Servamp and Anime Fan Communities
  –Derek S. McGrath (Stony Brook University)

Special Guest Lecture

Before Ghibli was Ghibli: How and Anime Studio is Born

Rayna Denison
Senior Lecturer, Art, Media and American Studies
University of East Anglia

Studio Ghibli may have become Japan’s most important and successful animation brand, but its early significance is far more debatable. To challenge current perceptions of Ghibli’s dominance of animation in Japan, I revisit the early history of Studio Ghibli, and examine the industrial and promotional discourses circulating at the time of Studio Ghibli’s formation. In doing so, I argue for a corrective analysis of Studio Ghibli’s brand significance. Even the most powerful of anime studio brands can have humble beginnings, and that we need to view anime brand construction as a piecemeal, historical process, rather than as an ahistorical constant.

Dr. Rayna Denison researches and teaches contemporary Japanese and Asian media. She is a specialist in popular Japanese film and animation, and is the author of Anime: A Critical Introduction and the co-editor of the Eisner Award-nominated Superheroes on World Screens. She is widely published on anime and Japanese cinema in academic journals such as Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Cinema Journal, the International Journal of Cultural Studies and Japan Forum. He current projects include editing a collection of essays on Princess Mononoke (due to be published in January) and a special issue of the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture analyzing 30 years of Studio Ghibli (due out later this year), and researching anime tourism and Studio Ghibli’s industrial history.

Anime and Manga Studies in Japan

• Anime’s Pop Surrealism: Why, and Why it Matters
  –Herb Fondevilla (Aoyama Gakuin University)
• Mangaki: Creating an Open-Source Manga Discovery and Recommendation Platform
  –Jill-Jênn Vie (RIKEN)
• Reinventing the Cityscape: Anime Pilgrimage and the Transformation of Collective Memory
  Project Animatexture: A Research Group for the Study of Anime, History and Society (Ritsumeikan University)
  –Yoshiya Makita, Yuri Kojima, Hiroki Tamai, Nao Suzuki, and Hideki Morita

Special Guest Presentation

Musical and Historical Journeys Through Contested Japanese Masculinity: Rurouni Kenshin
–Stacey Jocoy and Christopher Hepburn (Texas Tech University)

This presentation confronts the opposing musical narratives of the Rurouni Kenshin anime and live-action films using musical semiotics combined with comparative iconographic-aural analysis to unpack this heroic discourse of the Meiji samurai, arguing that the overt musical differences reflect a shifting conceptualization of Japanese gender politics across the 1990s and 2010s.
Rising Stars of Anime and Manga Studies

• Drawing Lines Between Boys and Girls: Blurred Signs and Conventions in Shonen and Shojo Manga
  –Mia Lewis (Stanford University)
• Researching the History of Manga: 1970’s – We Want to Revolutionize…
  –Andrea Horbinski (University of California, Berkeley)

Building Communities of Fans and Scholars

• Cosplayer-Creators and the Textual Experience of Cosplay
  –Caitlin Postal (University of Washington)
• Expanding Manga Studies: Publication Trends, Demographics, Markets
  –Andrew John Smith (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)

The Goals and Challenges of Anime Fans’ Transformative Practices

• A Room of Their Own: Creating and Consuming Anime/Manga Fanfiction as Reparative Reading
  –Breanna Brooks (California State University, Los Angeles)
• Perceptions of Race in Cosplay
  –Madison Schmader (California Lutheran University)

Special Guest Panel Discussion

Teaching Happiness – Using Anime and Manga as Educational Tools

Chair: Brent Allison (University of North Georgia)
Stevi Grimm
Derek S. McGrath (Stony Brook University)
Critical Approaches to Depictions of Gender in Japanese Visual Culture

• Women Come Apart: Fractured Female Identity in the Shounen Harem
  –Oscar King IV (Loyola Marymount University)
• Fanservice in Anime: A Continuum from Complicity to Critique
  –James Pyke (University of Michigan)

Keynote Address

Anime for Aspiring Filmmakers: Lessons from the USC School of Cinematic Arts
-Prof. Ellen Seiter (University of Southern California)

Why should American film students pay attention to anime? In the AX Anime and Manga Studies Symposium Keynote Address, Prof. Ellen Seiter, the University of Southern California Stephen K. Nenno Endowed Chair in Television Studies, shares her thoughts on the distinctive visual, dramatic and narrative language of Japanese animation in film and television, and on what aspiring filmmakers can learn from anime directors such as the late Satoshi Kon, especially in the contemporary environment of digital production and distribution.

Words, Scripts, Implications: Creating Meaning in Anime and Manga

• Sounding Out the Pictures: Manga Sound Effects, Meanings, and Translation
  -Andrew John Smith (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
  This talk looks to discuss the unique world of comic sound effects, specifically those found in manga. Although many readers may not think about them directly, sound effects affect their ability to read, enjoy, and understand graphic texts—meaning that an inability to understand them can stop understanding, and changing them can potentially cause a disastrous misreading. Sound effects can carry just as much meaning, weight, and import as the dialogue and art they accompany, and this discussion looks to introduce that concept and expand the scope of what can be studied when it comes to graphic works.
• Can the Pop-Idol Speak?: The Role of Voice in Satoshi Kon’s Films
  -John Ballarino (Bridgewater State University)
  Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue is a film about identity: the conflict of the film is driven by the divide that exist between how people perceive the main character, Mima, as a commercial commodity and a woman, and in turn how Mima perceives herself. I analyze how this is portrayed symbolically throughout the film through the motif of Mima’s voice, developing being owned and sold by others to being entirely her own. This provides a useful approach to better understand the outside influences influencing her identity and development as a character, revealing a strong criticism of the expectations of women in a patriarchal society.
• Drawing Lines between Boys and Girls: What do we Mean by “Shōnen” and “Shōjo”?
  -Mia Lewis (Stanford University)
  While manga combines image and text, it divides boys and girls. In bookstores in Japan manga is divided primarily by the gender of the target audience, often separated onto different floors in larger bookstores. This reflects the gendered division that begins in manga zasshi [comics magazines] and continues through the media mix chain. This talk will briefly overview how this distinction has been discussed in previous scholarship, and shifted over the years. This talk will also introduce preliminary results from my ongoing research on the divisions between these genres. One of these research projects examines how the reader’s sections in shōjo manga proscribe the ideal work to readers and aspiring artists to a far greater extent than their shōnen equivalents. The other examines formalist distinctions between contemporary shōnen and shōjo manga in order to explore what it means when we open a comic, glance at it, and declare it to be one or the other.

Reflections of a Changing Japan in Modern Japanese Visual Culture

• Salaryman at the Black Factory: Absurdist Loserdom and Labor Politics in Osomatsu-san
  -Danielle Choi (University of Southern California) and Calvin Choi
  This presentation investigates the archetype of the “loser” in Osomatsu-san, the 2015 anime reboot of the well-known Osomatsu-kun (1966-67, 88-89) franchise. Tensions inherent in the image of the salaryman—simultaneously a signifier of socio-economic stability, yet also of soulless drudgery—paradoxically position it as a personally unfulfilling career, and also a desirable marker of traditional (masculine) success that is no longer attainable for a young workforce in Japan’s late capitalist global economy. Osomatsu-san’s structure and content preclude any possibility of financial or personal success for its characters, offering a revealing critique of contemporary labor politics in a post-industrial Japan.
• Fantastic Damage – Architecture, Anime, Destruction, and Tokyo
  -Evan Jones
  Of all of the Earth’s major cities, perhaps none have undergone more cataclysmic changes in a shorter time period than Tokyo. Earthquakes, modernization, firebombings, and urban renewal have changed the three dimensional Tokyo just as much – if not more – than giant robots, angels, or magical girls have changed a myriad number of two dimensional versions. By analyzing the city as both a historical entity and as a narrative setting, Evan Jones will explore Tokyo as a cityscape of limitless flexibility, one which creators and visionaries bend and manipulate at will to satisfy various wants and needs. This presentation will use a number of visuals to highlight various animated interpretations of Tokyo with an emphasis on important representational shifts.
• Good Eating and Social Meetings: The Semiotics of Food in Goro Miyazaki’s From Up on Poppy Hill
  -Verna Zafra (University of Guam)
  Depictions of making and consuming food have been prominent throughout the history of Japanese animation and Japanese comics.. This presentation will overview development, role, and significance that food plays in anime/manga, and the place of Japanese media in the emerging academic field of “food studies”. In Goro Miyazaki’s From Up on Poppy Hill, food can be interpreted as a sign that carries various meanings, which in turn underscore and facilitate specific themes, such as family, camaraderie in the community, and role fulfillment.

Examining and Questioning Japan’s Place in the World

• On This Side of the Gate: Politics and Geopolitics in Contemporary Anime
  -Paul S. Price
  Gate presents a right-wing view of Japan by combining an irruption of a fantasy world into Japan with the real world of the Japanese Self Defense Force (JSDF) and Japanese politics and geopolitics. Gate is a tale of the vindication of three underdogs: Japan, the JSDF, and otakus/otaku culture. Japan maybe a small country surrounded by more powerful nations. The JSDF maybe under funded and under suspicion at home and viewed as a joke by other nations. Otaku culture may not be viewed as exemplary or even entirely adult. In Gate, however, all three are more than conquerors.
• The Real Limit on the Cult of Speed: Attack on Titan’s Ambivalent (Anti-)Fascism
  -Verna Zafra (University of Guam)
  Attack on Titan’s engagement with the narrative and visual conventions of Japanese ultra-nationalist manga and anime combines an enthusiastic engagement with these elements, on their own terms and with the full strength of their appeal, with the violent interruption of these elements, their foundational myths being torn apart in an impossible blur of teeth. Situating this analysis alongside an overview of the ideological characteristics of Japanese ultra-nationalism and its history in manga/anime from the 1960s and onwards, this key to reading AoT presents insights into the character of these phenomenon in Japan’s animation and comics tradition and its political imaginary.
• Ghosts of February 26: The Officers Plot and the Keitai Revolution in Eden of the East and Gatchaman Crowds
  -Jordan Marshak
  On February 26, 1936 a group in the Imperial Japanese Military calling themselves the Young Officers attempted an uprising in Tokyo and a series of assassinations, calling on the the people and the Emperor to lead a “Showa restoration” to end economic inequality through the abolition of capitalism and corrupt party politics. Taking inspiration from the shishi of the Meiji restoration, its low status samurai leaders, they belong to a rich tradition of Japanese radicals who have attempted, armed with unfailing moral clarity, to use symbolic violence to bring about social transformation. This talk discusses two recent TV anime (Eden of the East and Gatchaman Crowds) that engage with this tradition and the memory of the Young Officers as a potential model for addressing the many social crises of post-bubble Japan and wrestle with its continuing legacy and importance while ultimately endorsing different methods of radical action.

50 Years of Anime in America, 50 Years of American Anime Fans

• What You Watch Is What You Are?: Early Anime and Manga Fandom in the United States
  -Andrea Horbinski (University of California, Berkeley)
  How did anime and manga first enter U.S. fandom, and why were people watching “Japanimation”? Using materials from the Fred Patten collection, this paper explores early anime and manga fandom in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. The problems that early fans faced were similar to those faced by Japanese audiences encountering English-language movies in the 1910s and 1920s, and the fans who watched anime in these years did so for similar reasons: anime offered them content they wanted mixed with appealing foreign-ness. The practices these fans pioneered eventually gave rise to the U.S. anime and manga industry.
• Anime in the US in the 1990’s and 2000’s: Unauthorized Distribution as a Catalyst for Evolution
  -Allison Hawkins
  Whether it was a copied VHS tape or a fansubbed video, chances are that you or someone you know has viewed anime through unauthorized means of distribution. With a consumer base formed partially by fans acting as creators and distributors, how has the anime market continued to grow? How do these fan distributors coexist with corporate distributors in an expanding market? This talk explores the way in which unauthorized distribution played a role in creating the current market of anime fandom and what that history means for the market today.
• Persuasion or Pleasure: Cosplayers’ Use of Social Media as a Rhetorical Tool
  -Caitlin Postal (California State University, Northridge)
  This talk focuses on the fan practice of cosplay through a rhetorical analysis of cosplayers’ use of social media when building their online persona. Through personal interviews conducted with cosplayers and a textual analysis of their social media posts, we can see how Cicero’s three offices of rhetoric (instruction, pleasure, persuasion) work in the minds and pages of well-known cosplayers. From there, let’s consider how social media affects the performative nature of cosplay.

Special Session: Using Anime and Manga in Education

In this session, three practicing educators provide responses to the question of how manga, anime, and other Japanese popular culture texts can be incorporated in a formal classroom setting. Old and new challenges to educators color this question – proscribed academic standards that limit teacher autonomy, barriers to students who struggle with traditional forms of literacy, and persistent conceptions of gender that reinforce certain types of readings of these texts. The session will review strategies to overcome these problems as well as engage the audience to consider how using Japanese popular culture texts can redefine gender, literacy, and ultimately what it means to “read”.

Moderator: Prof. Brent Allison (University of North Georgia)

• Creating Confident Readers Through Unconventional Texts
  -Stevi Grimm (Jefferson Union High School District, Daly City, CA)
• Digital Literacy: Expanding Students’ Literary Toolkits with Manga
  -Alexandra Dean (Eastern Illinois University)
• Incorporating Anime and Manga into Gender Studies Courses
  -Derek S. McGrath (Stony Brook University)
  Special Guest Lecture

Girls und Robots – Re-Evaluating “Genre” Demarcations in Anime
-Prof. Renato Rivera Rusca (Meiji University)

The evolution of the “Robot Anime” and “Magical Girl” genres since the 1960s has led to an expansion of target audience beyond their initial toy-sale-oriented origins and today the demarcation lines are blurred between the two. Looking at anime series today, we often find aspects of one in the other. Using the examples of the SF fandom controversy surrounding the original Gundam series, the development of the Macross franchise, and the coming-of-age of shojo manga with Hagio Moto and Takemiya Keiko, we will attempt to describe the various cultural and social factors surrounding how the requisites for anime genres have been maintained throughout the last five decades, while narrative complexity, visual grammar and media literacy have developed the core of the surrounding anime fandom culture.

Special Guest Lecture

Anime and Manga in Hollywood – and What Happens Next

Prof. Northrop Davis (University of South Carolina)

In a fascinating look at the interrelated history of Japanese manga/anime and Hollywood since the Meiji period through to World War II and up to the present day – and even to into the future, Prof. Northrop Davis will bring his extensive experience in the business and artistic intersection between manga/anime and Hollywood to talk about the latest projects in Hollywood live-action adaptations of anime/manga. Which ones have a good chance of working? What others might not work so well. The media industries in the United States and Japan are now accelerating into new forms of hybridization that will drive much of future storytelling entertainment. Drawing on original interviews with top creators in these fields and other research that he used when writing Manga and Anime Go to Hollywood, just published earlier this year by Bloomsbury Academic, Prof. Davis will show how to use this knowledge creatively to shape the future of global narrative storytelling, including through the educational system.

Applying Auteur, Critical, and Feminist Theory to Anime

• • Adaptation and Evolution in Japanese Visual Culture
    -Amanda Kennell (University of Southern California)
    Contemporary media production methods have been theorized in two similar ways, as transmedia storytelling and as the media mix, by Henry Jenkins and Otsuka Eiji, respectively. This talk introduces adaptation as a way to reconsider how stories come to be (re)told and suggests how art can evolve through adaptation using Yamamoto Sayo’s Lupin the 3rd: A Woman Called Mine Fujiko (2012) as a case study.
  • Anime Archives: Digital Curation and Scholarly Perspectives
    -Johnathan Lau
    This presentation explores “alternative” archival spaces (“surfaces”) of Japanese animation and the historical intersections between scholars and fans, shifting ethics, means of viewing and distribution. It proposes that careful consideration of these trends benefits not only fan studies, but studies of the works themselves in an evolving technological context. Here certain parallels are highlighted between comments on streaming video and file-sharing websites, and the tradition of colophons on Sino-Japanese handscrolls. The talk then proceeds to discuss the unstable nature of these “anime archives,” extending this instability to the notion of the digital archive. A case study of the file-sharing website BakaBT.me is explored alongside theories of a utopian “archival commons.”
    Special Guest Lecture
  • Anime Archives: Digital Curation and Scholarly Perspectives
    -Mia Lewis (Stanford University)
    The global trade and the advent of the Internet have turned local cultural products into easily accessible entertainment worldwide, including comics, cartoons, dramas, films, video games, etc. These products undergo a wide array of different processes of translation and localization on their way to foreign audiences — from subtitles, to dubs, to edits, to full remakes, and everywhere in between – demonstrating how profit driven corporations and fan culture intersect in translation practices. Based on a 2015 course taught at Stanford University, this talk looks at how Japanese and Korean popular culture can be used to teach translation, to link theory to practice, and to challenge students to critically examine their own consumption habits.

Keynote Address:

Mukokuseki: Teaching Anime in a Borderless World
David M. Desser (Professor Emeritus, Cinema Studies, University of Illinois)

Special Presentation

Manga and Anime Go to Hollywood
Northrop Davis (University of South Carolina)

Special Guest Lectures

New Directions in the Japanese Animation Industry
– Renato Rivera Rusca (Meiji University)
The Structure of the Japanese Animation Business
– Mariko Koizumi (Kyoto Seika University)

Roundtable Discussion:

Anime and Manga in the Classroom: Teaching Students, and Teaching Teachers
Chair: Brent Allison (University of North Georgia), Kathryn Hemmann (George Mason University), Alex Leavitt (University of Southern California), and Andrew John Smith (Indiana University of Pennsylvania).

Panel Sessions:

Critical Approaches to Japanese Animation and Comics

• The Beautiful End of the World: Eschatologies of the Bishojo
  –Kathryn Hemmann (George Mason University)
• Remixing Theories of Narrative Consumption for Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night
  –Sarah Ansley Colclough (University of Texas at Austin)
• Stories in Shades of Black and White: Use of Color in CLAMP’s Manga
  – Mia Lewis (Stanford University)>

Remixes and Responses in Japanese Popular Culture

• Straight Outta Compton, and Into Tokyo: Hip-Hop, Street Culture, and Japanese Manga
  – Andrew John Smith (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
• Characters as Music Makers in Neon Genesis Evangelion
  – Heike Hoffer (The Ohio State University)
• On the Impossibility of Revolution”: Responses to Modern Japanese Literature and the Student Movement in Neon Genesis Evangelion
  – Michael Copestake

Japanese Popular Culture’s Reflections of Japan’s Urban Landscape

• Mapping and Mimesis in the Electric City: Steins;Gate and the Spatial Practices of Anime and Video Games
  – Forrest Greenwood (Indiana University Bloomington)
• Flaneurs and Urbanization: Japan’s Cities and their Residents in Manga
  – Maxime Boyer-Degoul (Universite Libre de Bruxelles)
• Katsuhiro Otomu’s Exploding Cities: The Intersection of Class and City in Domu, Akira, and Metropolis
  – Sebastian Klausner (University of Vienna)

Anime’s Approaches to Religion and Spirituality

• The Power of Religion in Anime: Hayao Miyazaki’s Methods of Persuasion in My Neighbor Totoro
  – Yuxin Jiang (University of Pittsburgh)
• Super Saiyan Savior: Dragon Ball Z and the Bible
  – Christopher Davis (Sam Houston State University)
• Humanity and Nature: The Parable of Pokemon
  – Patrick Wauters (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

The Creative Process in Japanese Popular Culture

• “That’s My Name, Isn’t It?”: Work, Friendship, and the Discovery of Identity in Spirited Away and Porco Rosso
  – Jenn Koiter
• Producing Hatsune Miku: Concerts, Commercialization, and the Politics of Peer Production
  –Alex Leavitt (University of Southern California)

Keynote Address:

Anime’s Media Mix
Marc Steinberg (Assistant Professor, Film Studies, Concordia University)

Special Guest Lecture: 

The Rebirth of the Saga and the Fabrication of History: Gundam, the Aum Cult, and Attack on Titan
Eiji Otsuka

Japanese Visual Culture’s Female Characters and Female Audiences

• Girls Gone Wild: Anxious Times and the Weaponized Shoujo Body
  – Elizabeth Birmingham (North Dakota State University)
• Kanoko Sakuramoji’s Refashioned Tengu: Using the Japanese Supernatural to Explore Female Coming of Age in Black Bird
  – Tara-Monique Etherington (University of Exeter)

Humanity and the Future in Japanese Animation

• Here and There and Then: Space Dandy, Science Fiction, and Recursion in Japanese Animation
  – Andrew John Smith (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
• Good, or Don’t Be: Post-Humanism in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Code Geass
  – Sarah Colclough

Fan Art and Fan Comics in Japan

• Queering the Media Mix: Comics and the Female Gaze
  – Kathryn Hemmann (George Mason University)
• Why am I the Uke?!: Performing and Changing Identity Through Language Styles in Japanese Dojinshi Fan Works
  – Ryan Redmond (University of Arizona)
• Who has the Copyright of Fan Art? A Case Study of Controversy Between Manga Fandom and the Japanese Contemporary Art World
  – Kohki Watabe (University of Southern California)

Special Presentation:

Hollywood Turns to Anime: What Was and What’s to Come
Northrop Davis (University of South Carolina)

Japanese Society and Japan’s History in Anime and Manga

• Record of Dying Days: The Alternate History of Ooku
  – Andrea Horbinski (University of California, Berkeley)
• Cultural Amnesia: Constructed Images of Illicit Drug Use in Anime and Manga
  – Lance Mulcahey (University of California, Los Angeles)

Fan Communities and Fan Activities Around the World

• Extending the Database: Japanicized Image Production in Global Online Communities
  – Danielle Frankel
• TwitchPlaysPokemon: Flash Fandom, Interactivity, and Tracing Fan Behaviors
  – Alexander Leavitt (University of Southern California)
• Connecting the World: The Worldwide Visual Lexicon and Terminology of Anime, Manga and Fandom
  – Lawrence Brenner

Media and Transmedia Mixes in Japanese Popular Culture

• Alice in Evasion: Creating Wonderland Without its Main Character
  – Amanda Kennell (University of Southern California)
• “Pot Smasher”: The Legend of Zelda – A Transmedia Modern Epic
  – Chris Foster (Sam Houston State University)
• Creating a Cosmology for  the Media Mix: The Case of Pokemon
  – Patrick Wauters (Southeast Arkansas College)

Panel Discussion:

• Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs of Anime and Manga in the Classroom

Keynote Address

Translating Anime and Manga: Let Us Count the Ways
-Christopher Kuipers (Professor, English, Indiana University of Pennsylvania)

The Cutting Edge of Anime/Manga Studies

• “I Believe that I am Human. That is Proof Enough”: Battle Angel Alita: Last Order and Transhumanism
  – Andrew John Smith (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
• Short Skirts and Superpowers: The Female Gaze in Contemporary Japanese Anime and Manga
  – Kathryn Hemmann (University of Notre Dame)

Anime’s Girls and Women

• Shifting Images of Witch Girls in Japanese TV Anime Since 1966: From Sally to Alice and Chocolat
  – Akiko Sugawa-Shimada (Kansai Gaidai University)
• The Hysterical Subject of Shojo: The Dark, Twisted Heroines in Revolutionary Girl Utena andPuella Magi Madoka Magica
  – Lien Fan Shen (University of Utah)

Special Guest Lecture: Masako Hamada (Villanova University)

• Teaching Japanese Culture to College Students Through the Lens of Anime and Manga

Special Presentation: Northrop Davis (University of South Carolina)

• The Best of WeMakeManga.com

Words, Pictures, and Language in Japanese Comics

• Painting Worlds with Words: CLAMP Lost in Translation
  – Mia Lewis (Stanford University)
• German and Spanish for Japanese Speakers: A Case Study of Linguistics Practices in the Manga Series Bleach
  – Ryan Redmond (University of Arizona)

Special Guest Lecture: Akiko Sugawa-Shimada (Kansai Gaidai University)

• The History of Anime and Manga Studies in Japan

Borrowing and Changing: What and How Anime Takes from the West

• ‘Fullmetal Alchemist‘ Manga: A ‘Western’ Story Informed by Japanese Sensibilities
  – Allyson Floyd
• Transforming and Taming the Gothic Vampire Image in Japanese Animation and Comics
  – Hazel Naylor (Chapman University)
  – Audrey Will (Chapman University)

What Anime Fans Do, and Why, and How?

• Networked Fandom: An Exploration of Online Information Practices for Anime Fans
  – Alexander Leavitt (University of Southern California)
• The Rise of the Cosplay Economy: Fan Creativity for Fun and Profit
  – Lawrence Brenner

Keynote Address

Jeffrey Dym (Professor, History, California State University, Sacramento)

• Adventures in teaching ‘The History of Manga’

The Cutting Edge of Anime/Manga Studies

• “I want to be a Hero of Justice!”: Gen Urobuchi and the Failed Hero
  – Andrew John Smith (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
• “All Cities are Destined to Doom”: Apocalyptic Destruction of Tokyo as Representation of Resilience
  – Shiro Yoshioka (Newcastle University)
• The State as a Serial killer: Death in the Name of Prosperity and the Necropolitics of Citizenship in Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit
  – Bo Luengsuraswat

Special Guest Presentation: Northrop Davis (University of South Carolina)

• WeMakeManga.com – Education in art and creative writing using styles and technologies from Japanese sequential art

Building Bridges through Individual Texts

• Remixing History: The Semiotics of race and Nationality in Samurai Champloo
  – Laurel Foote-Hudson ((University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
• Alienated from Her Emotions: Conveying Interaction between Character Psychology and the Science Fictional in 7 Billion Needles
  – Carl Li (Leiden University)

What do Anime Fans Do, Why and How?

• Even a Monkey can Cnderstand Fan Activism: Political Speech, Artistic Expression, and a Public for the Japanese doujin Community
  – Alexander Leavitt (University of Southern California)
  – Andrea Horbinski (University of California, Berkeley)
• Artifacts of Sound: Sound Effects and Their Impact on Fan and Genre Community
  – Evan Jones

Supporting and Expanding Anime and Manga Studies

• “Save me!”: Practices of Manga Collection Preservation
  – Hannah Li (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Young Adult Literature in the Manga World: Inspecting the Adaptations
  – Ashley Poston

Keynote Address: Ian Condry (Associate Professor, Comparative Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

WATCH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtFc2617x9k

At that point, Prof. Condry was already working on the book that he would publish in 2013 as The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan’s Media Success Story, and he reflected on some of his experiences at AX in the book.

Panel Discussion: Theoretical Perspectives on Japanese Visual Culture

• Samantha Close (University of Southern California)
• Amanda Landa (University of Texas at Austin)
• Gino Zarrinfar (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

WATCH: Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tmSainOixA, Part 2 –http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x_IRvyQTDY

Open Session

• This Place is a Nightmare: Globalization as Horror in Katsuhiro Otomo’s Domu
  – Andrea Gilroy (University of Oregon)
• Manga Revolution or Logical Evolution? Field Theory on the Rise and Demise of Tokyopop’s U.S. Publishing Programme
  – Casey Brienza (University of Cambridge)

Open Session

• Between Yasashii and Bushido: The Balancing Power of Warrior Mothers in Anime
  – Sherrie Bakelar (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
  – Sandra Aragona (Claremont Graduate University)
• Modernity and Pre-War Japanese Animation
  – Annie Manion (University of Southern California)

Open Session

• History, Memory, and Aesthetics in Animation: Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies
  – Paul Cheng (University of California, Riverside)
• “Cool Japan”: Soft Power in the 21st Century
  – Kukhee Choo (Tulane University)
• The Guyver and Societies of Control
  – Gino Zarrinfar (University of Hawaii Manoa)

Open Session

• Real Ninjas make AMV’s! Anime through the Eyes of Vidders
  – Samantha Close (University of California, Irvine)

The author presented a revised version of this paper as a part of the University of California, Irvine Visual Studies Student/Faculty Colloquium, and published a further revision, entitled ‘Popular culture through the eyes, ears, and fingertips of fans: Vidders, anime music video editors, and their sources’ as a chapter in Sampling Media (Oxford University Press, 2014)

• WeMakeManga.com – A bridge between teaching and creating manga
  – Northrop Davis (University of South Carolina)
• “Past fungibility”: Examining the speculative value of history in the doujin works of Takeshi Nogami
  – Forrest Greenwood (University of Southern California)
• “Open-source culture” and the cult of Hatsune Miku
  – Alexander Leavitt (University of Southern California)

Panel Discussion: Teaching, Writing, and Thinking about Anime/Manga: New Directions, New Opportunities

• Northrop Davis (University of South Carolina)
• Dru Pagliassotti (California Lutheran University)
• Kim Rudolph (University of Oklahoma)

Closing Remarks: Lawrence Eng (Founder, Anime and Manga Research Circle)

• Writing about Otaku: Lessons from Fandom, Academia, and Beyond