Introduction

• Taking its departure from the global recognizability of anime and a perceived lack of form-conscious research, this chapter highlights the importance to focus specifically on ‘anime’ as distinct from ‘animation’ at a time when anime’s medial identity as established since the 1960s is dissolving due to digitalization and globalization. This is done against the backdrop of a discourse-analytical survey on contemporary notions of ‘animation’ and ‘anime,’ the latter referring to a highly conventionalized, affective, interrelational, industrial, truly post-modernist media form that calls for interdisciplinary investigation. The Introduction argues for the aesthetic and critical potential of Anime Studies as a distinct, while open, field of research that accommodates anime as media (not genre) and its specificity. In contrast to traditional conceptions of medium specificity which have privileged allegedly autonomous texts, or works, anime’s media specificity is acknowledged in a broad way, including textual features, modes of engagement, and intermediality. This is demonstrated on the example of Neon Genesis Evangelion, stretching from the initial TV anime series to the later franchise.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Kulturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Cultural Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

animation studies

art animation

media

Japanese criticism

Aesthetics

estetik

Japanology

japanologi

medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap

Media and Communication Studies

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kap (ämneskategori)