Subject playing with flat images: Transmedia spreadability of anime and manga character images

Abstract

Anime and manga characters are so ubiquitous in Japan that people see them anywhere, regardless of public or private. The two-dimensional flatness of line drawing allows the character images to straddle the boundaries of the worlds of works and media. The analysis of individual artworks needs to be revised to understand the transmedia spreadability of characters and our living conditions. This paper, thus, overviews the preceding discussions of anime and manga scholars on human-character relations and compares them with the theory of subject formation in film studies, whose realist tendency once emphasized the three-dimensional space and time. While psychoanalysis-influenced theories such as suture and male gaze model after one-point perspective and subordinate two-dimensionality, Thomas Lamarre formulates a de-unified perspective in relation to the multilayered image field of Japanese anime. In conjunction with the orientation of cultural and fan studies to emphasize audience agency, this article discusses the de-unified perspective on flat images which has the potential for understanding the complexity of subject formation through the interplay with two-dimensional images.