Japanese Manga Research Articles

How Long Can k-Göbel Sequences Remain Integers?

Inspired by Episode 3 of the Japanese manga “Seisu-tan” by Doom Kobayashi and Shin-ichiro Seki, we investigate the k-Göbel sequence ( g k , n ) n named after Fritz Göbel. Although the sequence is generally defined as rational, quite a few initial terms behave like an integer sequence. This article addresses a question raised in Seisu-tan and shows that g k , n is always an integer for any k ≥ 2 and 0 ≤ n ≤ 18 .

The Position and Status of Translated Manga in Saudi Arabia

Manga translations offer a valuable opportunity for studying the complex interactions and dialogues between different cultures and modes of communication. This study takes a multimodal approach and a comparative qualitative analysis to explore the translation of manga in the Saudi market, which started recently in 2021. The emphasis is on illustrating how the link between the verbal and visual modes may be used in the translation process and how much input translators, and perhaps publishers, have in it. The research also seeks to explore the status of this new genre in Saudi literary systems, employing Evan Zohar’s division between central and peripheral strata based on the degree of intervention made to the target text and the tactics employed. The article includes instances of the Japanese manga Attack on Titan as well as its Arabic translation by the Saudi publisher Manga Arabia. The findings indicate that translation intervention was kept to a minimum, most likely because the translated manga is in a central position and no previous patterns were used to introduce this genre to the Saudi market. KEYWORDS comics, Japanese manga, multimodality, Saudi manga, translation, translator’s intervention

Italian places in Japanese manga: a study on topophilia in graphic narratives

Abstract The goal of this paper is to offer an analysis on how Italian places act as key narrative units in Japanese manga. Building on a quantitative and qualitative corpus study, the paper investigates how culturally salient locations are embedded in these narratives. It is first shown that authors develop salient locations (“places”) as distinct entities playing key roles within narrative structures. It is then shown that these representations of places follow principles of cultural relevance, popularity, historical and geographical faithfulness. This is the case because authors creating manga set in Italy share knowledge and appreciation of Italian places and their cultural import with readers. These results are framed in a theory of geo-criticism and in a possible worlds analysis of places in fiction, hereby extended to graphic narratives.

Depictions of Firearms and Other Projectile Weapons in Top-Selling Japanese Manga.

Firearm violence is a pressing public health issue in the United States and becoming increasingly so worldwide. This concern has prompted researchers to examine the prevalence of such violence in media entertainment. Japanese manga have a large youth readership in the U.S., yet research on their depictions of firearms is presently lacking. We randomly selected 50 chapters from each of ten top-selling manga series worldwide (N = 500) to identify dialogue, action, and other illustrations involving handguns, rifles, machine guns, other projectile weapons, and bombs. Of the 500 chapters, 129 (25.8%) had at least one depiction of a firearm or other projectile weapon, with 684 instances of characters handling (e.g., carrying, holding, firing, reloading) such a weapon. Of the 384 unique characters so depicted, the vast majority were males (88.3%), adults (92.2%), and "good" characters (73.4%). Manga readers, especially male adolescents and preteens, are frequently exposed to storylines in which one or more characters are using a firearm or other projectile weapon. Working collaboratively, manga publishers and distributors should act to develop and implement a comprehensive rating system to flag content that may be harmful to youth so that parents can more easily monitor what their children are reading.

The Role of Culture Power: Examining the Influence of Popular Culture in Shaping Global Power Dynamics

Establishing a causal link between popular culture and global power dynamics is challenging as it does not produce tangible outcomes. There is a lack of academic consensus on whether cultural power equates to soft power despite the growing influence of the media and entertainment industry. Considering popular culture a soft power in cultural diplomacy, this article examines the changing paradigms of content moderation and regional lockout in the global power dynamics through case studies of the Korean wave, American Pop culture, and Japanese Manga and Anime. It uses the Saunders Research Onion method with an interpretive approach to subjectively explore the aspects of cultural influence. Similarly, it analyses the evolution of recurring themes in the case studies. Data collection employs a longitudinal approach to study the impact of technology and changing audience preferences. The primary data sources include expert interviews, supplemented by secondary sources such as relevant literature, reports, and media contents. The findings highlight that cultural diplomacy as a softpower approach effectively contributes to the nation-branding concept that now incorporates new demands, actions, and goals.

What Makes adolescents want to read? Examining adolescents’ contemporary print and new media (fiction) leisure reading through mobile ethnography

Drawing on data from a mobile ethnography study of 12 adolescents from one secondary school, this article proposes to examine the everyday digital reading resources and practices of Singapore adolescent youths to better understand the print and new media (fiction) leisure reading habits of adolescents. Mobile ethnography, with its capacity to capture adolescents’ actual reading through images, texts, and video recordings, provides a new way to document and understand the changing reading habits of adolescents. Participants documented their print and digital reading on a smartphone app over four days, followed by a photo-elicitation interview. Findings showed that these adolescents read for pleasure and were self-directed readers who invested time in reading various new media fiction texts such as ebooks, Japanese manga and fanfiction. Practices of new media reading include cross-media consumption, engagement in fandom behaviours, and interest-driven searching for diverse reading materials. Adolescents are motivated to read when the reading experience promises immersive entertainment. A good story, ease of access to interesting content and potential for multiple media engagements encourage adolescents’ volitional reading. Implications for curriculum and future research on adolescent volitional reading are discussed.

Wokół definicji i historii mangi

The article discusses the history of Japanese manga, covering the period from the 6th century AD to the present day, and its relationship to the art of the Land of the Cherry Blossoms. In the course of the discussion, attention is drawn to the exaggerated refinement of the roots of pictorial stories among their researchers. The article also demonstrates that the factors most influential on the birth of manga were the rise of the press, exposure to Europeans in the 19th century, occupation of Japan by the United States and American pop culture. The paper further discusses the etymology of the word manga and pays attention to its ambiguity.

Background check: cross-cultural differences in the spatial context of comic scenes.

Cognitive research points towards cultural differences in the way people perceive and express scenes. Whereas people from Western cultures focus more on focal objects, those from East Asia have been shown to focus on the surrounding context. This paper examines whether these cultural differences are expressed in complex multimodal media such as comics. We compared annotated panels across comics from six countries to examine how backgrounds convey contextual information of scenes in explicit or implicit ways. Compared to Western comics from the United States and Spain, East Asian comics from Japan and China expressed the context of scenes more implicitly. In addition, Nigerian comics moderately emulated American comics in background use, while Russian comics emulated Japanese manga, consistent with their visual styles. The six countries grouped together based on whether they employed more explicit strategies such as detailed, depicted backgrounds, or implicit strategies such as leaving the background empty. These cultural differences in background use can be attributed to both cognitive patterns of attention and comics' graphic styles. Altogether, this study provides support for cultural differences in attention manifesting in visual narratives, and elucidates how spatial relationships are depicted in visual narratives across cultures.

Winespeak in wine’s pics

Abstract This study investigates how wine pics construct visual winespeak through investigating the metaphor and metonymy in the Japanese manga, Drops of God. The study demonstrated that metonymy has the indicational function to help others understand the winespeak quicker and can be elaborated as a visual metaphor as suggested in previous studies (Isabel Negro Alousque 2015; Zahra Kashanizadeh & Charles Forceville 2020). Two metonymies related to winespeak include the smell and mouthfeel of the wine. Four common source domains of metaphor in visual winespeak, human, nature, art , and activity have been identified. The study further utilized the Visual Narrative Grammar (VNG) proposed by Neil Cohn (2013a, 2013b, 2015, 2020) to examine the roles of metaphor and metonymy in visual winespeak. Visual winespeak can be deconstructed as establisher, initial, prolongation, peak, and release. Findings suggest that the VNG corresponds with the procedure of wine tasting, which involves attack, evolution, and aftertaste (Rosario Caballero, Ernesto Suárez-Toste & Carita Paradis 2019; Adrienne Lehrer 2009). Also, results show that it is possible to predict the positions of metonymy and metaphor in a narrative of visual winespeak. Metonymy usually occurs in the establisher, and metaphor tends to be presented in the peak. Their positions in a narrative further indicate their function. The usage of metonymy aims to set up a concrete and general setting, and metaphor is used to create a climax. In general, the findings show that, although metaphor and metonymy play different roles in a narrative, they co-construct a comprehensive and detailed visual narrative to elaborate a winespeak.

Food as Contact Zone: Navigating the Ainu–Wajin Encounter in Golden Kamuy (2014–)

Abstract: This paper analyzes the role and representation of food in the Japanese manga and anime series Golden Kamuy (Gōruden Kamui, 2014-present) by Satoru Noda. While ostensibly an action-packed narrative about the hunt for indigenous Ainu gold, Golden Kamuy has earned a reputation among fans as a gurume , or gourmet, manga and anime. Cooking scenes of both Ainu and Wajin food feature prominently throughout the series. This paper analyzes the rhetorical role of food in the fictional narrative and its connection to official and unofficial ideologies about ethnic harmony between Ainu and Wajin communities in Japan.

Labour of love: Chinese-to-English fan translations of BL web novels

The genre of boys’ love (BL) has enjoyed huge popularity since its Japanese beginnings in the 1960s, and it has taken root in popular cultures in many countries. BL arrived in China via fan translations of Japanese manga into Chinese. With the rise of online fiction platforms in China, local writers produced widely popular male–male romances that gained traction locally and abroad. The outflow of Chinese BL mirrors fan activities that led to the popularity of Japanese manga and anime in the United States. Fan translations of Chinese-to-English BL fiction are one of the most important links in introducing Chinese BL to the rest of the world. This article focuses on the cultural outflow of Chinese BL through fan translations in gloBLizing the genre. Through interviews with five teams and one individual fan translator, this article examines their roles played in the dissemination of BL web novels beyond the native Chinese-speaking world. These fan translators all resided in anglophone countries, and are diverse in their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, ages and BL interests. We interviewed fan translators that translated works from fantasy, alternative history and contemporary romance. Some of these works have been adapted into multimedia and some have not.

Affective stance as positioning in an English-speaking online fan community

This study analyses how affective stance is used for evaluation and positioning in fan discourse. Adopting a corpus-based approach, the paper focuses on affective stance verbs in an English-speaking popular media fandom on three social media platforms, Twitter, Tumblr, and Reddit. Fans use affective stance to construct positions in relation to the popular media franchise, in this case a popular Japanese manga and anime series. By combining quantitative and qualitative linguistic analysis the study shows that stancetaking verbalises fans’ investment in the fictional world of the narrative media, in the franchise production, and in the context of fan productivity. The discursively constructed positions reflect common fan practices such as publicising fan affect and emotions, reviewing the franchise critically, and sharing textual fan productivity. The analysis associates platform differences with the social norms of the fans and the technological affordances that enable their interaction. Because hashtag-based interaction on micro-blogs is primarily indirect, the study argues that the interactive functions of stance can be understood in relation to the general fandom affect.

DRAWING IS A WAY OF FIGHTING: THE COMICS OF THE INDIGENOUS INDIA

The tribal arts of India have traditionally held a significant cultural and historical place. Despite the unique visual languages seen in contemporary American or Franco-Belgian BD and Japanese manga, the Indian tribal art, predominantly created by tribal women for generations, is often neglected in the context of Indian comics. This study aims to examine the visual language inherent in tribal art and how it has been employed in two specific comics: Sita`s Ramayana and Bhimayana. Both comics are drawn by tribal women, Moyna Chitrakar and Durga Bai Vyam, respectively, and showcase a unique visual language in Indian comics. These styles bring to light issues related to the ‘other’, such as casteism and reservations, and challenge patriarchal narratives through an ecofeminist perspective. Being in part a distinct language in comics- these styles are not that much noticed in popular culture of the mainstream for that matter. This paper asserts how artists of these specific tribes have moulded the language of comics in a way to be able to speak for themselves while using their own methods at disposal. This paper also tries to probe whether this is just a symbolic resistance forged by the publishing houses to exploit the women artists from the Indian tribal communities as a machinery to provide for a new taste to the Urban audience. All in all, this article tries to locate the portrayal of social and political issues raised in the comics of the marginal gender, from the marginal communities.

Understanding transnational decontextualization-recontextualization through Shingeki no Kyojin: The perils and possibilities surrounding Japanese manga and anime

ABSTRACT Japanese anime has continued to gain recognition as one of the strongest cultural influences in a globalized world. We examine how the transnational process of decontextualization-recontextualization can shift the messages of popular culture texts as situated in differing collective memories. To highlight this process, we analyze Shingeki no Kyojin (known to English-speaking audiences as Attack on Titan). Shingeki no Kyojin provides insightful grounds for analysis given its tremendous popularity in both Japan and beyond, its message of resistance against U.S. militarism, and its recontextualized uptake by the American alt-right, even including an Arizona congressman. Our analysis reveals the importance of understanding popular culture alongside context and the impact of decontextualized-recontextualized transformations of meaning on transnational processes of collective memory discourse.

Graphic Novels and Traditional Art Forms: The Indian Context

The visual language of graphic novels is increasingly becoming a powerful tool of expression. Originally known as the comic books, the contemporary graphic novels are being acknowledged as a potential medium for handling serious issues. Recently, a great changeover in the thematic concerns and the art style of Indian Graphic Novels has been witnessed. This hybrid medium of text and image is addressing to the sensitive issues and questions of the contemporary modern society and also establishing a cultural identity through its artistic (visual) expression. The conventional style of comic sketching and caricaturing on paper is being replaced by the traditional art forms from different cultures and regions of India. This shift has brought about a change in the perspectives or the ways of ‘seeing’ both the Indian Graphic Novels and the Indian visual art forms. The paper purports to establish a connection between these two with a proposition that the graphic novels are a potential mode of preserving the traditional art forms of India and helping them gain recognition globally so that the Indian Graphic Novel can also create a distinguished identity in verbal-visual literature like that of Japanese Manga. The paper is an endeavour to examine how the traditional art forms are being contextualized in the contemporary times and how they are effectively registering the resistance against the stereotype and the negligence especially of women and Dalits in the Indian society itself.

The eroticization of Tibetan monks in shōnen-ai and yaoi manga

Men have historically dominated the artistic production of cultural exotifications. This article flips the script by analysing how two prominent female Japanese manga artists – Kuranishi and Shinsan Nameko – erotically illustrate Tibetan men, specifically Tibetan Buddhist monks. Through textual analysis and fieldwork conducted between 2019 and 2021, we show how their manga depictions of Tibetan young men, in particular monks, tend towards eroticization and sexual innuendo. This discursive and aesthetic trend in manga parallels ethnographic data on how Japanese women – facing unprecedented social precarity, seeking spiritual healing and self-transformation and desiring alternate masculinities – look elsewhere, outside of Japan and the perceived inadequacies of Japanese masculinities. We explore how liberative erotics, especially homoeroticism and love between boys, fuses with Buddhist and alternative spiritualities in yaoi and shōnen-ai genres and gestures towards a changing landscape of female desire.

Intercultural dialogue in manga: Building friendships, sharing spaces and values

Manga as a cultural art form delves into various sociocultural issues and narratives, and the representation of diverse cultural contexts in manga has increased over the years. The role of Japanese manga as a site for intercultural understanding and engagement is worth further investigation, and research in this area is still growing. This article explores intercultural dialogue through a case study of the Japanese manga Satoko and Nada Volume 1 by Yupechika, which narrates the friendship between Satoko, a young Japanese woman, and Nada, her Saudi Muslim roommate. It adopts a literary approach to the analysis of the manga and employs textual analysis as the methodology. The manga is analysed through the lens of interculturalism and deep dialogue focusing on the themes of food, fashion and faith. Through the analysis, readers are exposed to the narrative of intercultural engagement as portrayed by the mangaka. Yupechika incorporates pre-existing prejudices in the engagement between the two culturally diverse characters. The narrative arc reveals the importance of empathy, space and value sharing in forging intercultural understanding. This reading into Yupechika’s intercultural narrative is a microcosm of the type of dialogue needed in the world today to overcome the acute racism and xenophobia.

Sakura Shrimp as a hybrid spokes-character: How Japanese moe anthropomorphism promotes tourism in Taiwan

The younger generation of Taiwanese do not merely consume Japanese popular culture as a ‘foreign’ product; they have integrated Japanese cultural elements into many aspects of Taiwan’s local cultural creations as a Taiwan–Japan hybrid form. One example of this is that the majority of Taiwanese visual artists follow the Japanese manga format, aesthetics and grammar when they create their own work. In this article, we examine trends of moe anthropomorphism in manga, a method that personifies animals, objects, cities and natural phenomena as cute human characters. Using a cultural studies framework, we trace how Japanese moe anthropomorphism helps Taiwanese visual artists and local governments to promote domestic tourism and further individuals’ desire to get to know Taiwan. The spokes-character, Sakura Shrimp, serves as an example to illustrate the trend, the purpose and the readers’ responses to this new way of local tourism marketing.

Grimms Manga as a Transcultural Product

This research examines how Kei Ishiyama’s Grimms Manga series create a transcultural product by retelling selected Grimm brothers’ fairy tales, and by incorporating Japanese visual language. Ishiyama’s Grimms Manga has its own transcultural beginning, and its inception began when Ishiyama was temporarily living in Germany and encountered the Tokyopop publisher of Germany. Ishiyama Grimms’ fairy tales retellings use various modes with contemporary visual styles, such as commercialized and domesticated notions of exaggerated cuteness, which are very common in manga targeting young female readers. Due to the success of Grimms Manga Volume 1 (2007) and Volume 2 (2008), a special volume titled Grimms Manga Sonderband (2011) was published, which contains retellings from German and Japanese manga artists. These retellings not only celebrate the success of Ishiyama but reflect the important influence of German literature to display a product of a contact zone and an artifact of transculturation.

Niejednoznaczność płciowa w wypowiedziach postaci w japońskich komiksach manga oraz w ich polskich przekładach

GENDER AMBIGUITY IN CHARACTERS’ STATEMENTS IN JAPANESE MANGA COMICS AND THEIR POLISH TRANSLATIONS
 The aim of this paper is to analyze how creators of Japanese manga comics utilize the fact that Japanese language lacks the grammatical category of gender. The analysis is preceded by theoretical background, explaining how gender can be expressed or hinted in Japanese texts. The analysis is performed on fragments of original mangas, which are presented alongside their Polish translations and explanations of translation strategies employed to reflect the original intentions.