*CFP* "PIKACHU'S TRANSMEDIA ADVENTURES: THE CONTINUING ADAPTABILITY OF THE POKEMON FRANCHISE", EDITED COLLECTION

In 2021, the Pokemon franchise celebrates the 25th anniversary of its debut in Japan and the fifth anniversary of its popular worldwide AR cellphone game Pokemon Go. In fact, Pokemon is arguably experiencing something of a resurgence and renaissance within the current cultural moment. When a pop-up Pokemon Centre store was opened in London in 2018 to mark the release of Sword and Shield, queues for entering the retail space frequently had to be closed due to demand whilst product lines regularly sold out on a daily basis. In 2019, when the long-running cartoon’s main character Ash Ketchum finally won a Pokemon tournament, major news sites humorously deemed this victory a newsworthy event (Bissett 2019). 

More recently, a revival in Pokemon card collecting has left retail shelves bare and scalpers running rampant whilst mint-condition ‘graded’ cards have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction (Koebler 2021). Meanwhile, the games themselves continue to be adapted to Nintendo’s console platforms, with the Nintendo Switch releasing both remakes of previously popular titles (Pokemon Let’s Go! Pikachu and Let’s Go! Eevee, Pokemon Snap) as well as new titles exploring hitherto unknown regions (Pokemon Sword and Shield). Much more than a franchise intended to commercially target and exploit children, the Pokemon franchise represents an enduringly popular intellectual property that continues to attract interest across generations.

DEFENSA DE TESIS "PROGRAMACIÓN Y RECEPCIÓN DE ANIME EN LA DÉCADA DE LOS NOVENTA EN ESPAÑA: LA FUNCIÓN DEL DOBLAJE EN LA MODIFICACIÓN DE IDENTIDADES NO NORMATIVAS"

  Próxima defensa de tesis del Departamento de Comunicación de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Información de la tesis: 


"Programación y recepción de anime en la década de los noventa en España: la función del doblaje en la modificación de identidades no normativas"

Autor/a: DANIEL FERRERA LÓPEZ

*CFP* "INTERNATIONALISATION INTERRUPTED: JAPAN ON THE GLOBAL STAGE, THE ROLE OF THE 2020 OLYMPICS, AND THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC", RESEARCH WORKSHOP (HYBRID EVENT)

Internationalisation Interrupted: Japan on the Global Stage, the Role of the 2020 Olympics, and the Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Research Workshop

Thursday 1st – Friday 2nd July

Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, Norwich, UK 

(hybrid in-person and online)

 

The Centre for Japanese Studies at the University of East Anglia and the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures invite scholars to submit papers for a special two-day workshop event to discuss the global role of Japan in relation to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. The Olympics has historically provided an opportunity for hosting nations to showcase cultural and political strengths as well as their unity within the international community. However, Japan’s model of globalisation has been seen as more inward-looking and seeks to enhance a certain self-image rather than global ties (e.g. Iwabuchi 2015). Following this, Tokyo 2020 presents an ideal opportunity to discuss how Japan’s global role and ambitions have developed in the contemporary era.

*CFP* "THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL SEMIOTICS OF COMICS AND CARTOONS", VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2, PUNCTUM-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SEMIOTICS

We are pleased to announce the publication of the Volume 6, Issue 2 (2020) of Punctum-International Journal of Semiotics, the online, open-access journal of the Hellenic Semiotic Society. This issue is devoted to "Semiotics of Political Communication", edited by Gregory Paschalidis. The articles, as well as the whole of the issue, can be accessed/downloaded at the journal’s website. We also bring you the new the new call for papers for the Volume 7, Issue 2 of Punctum-International Journal of Semiotics, devoted to ''The Social, Political and Ideological Semiotics of Comics and Cartoons'', edited by Stephan Packard and Lukas R.A. Wilde.

What more can semiotics do for comics? As early as the 1960s and through to the first decades of the 21st century, comics studies have attracted a large and perhaps disproportionate amount of attention from analytical semiotic approaches that foreground description and theory building: Their combination of pictures and text offering a challenge to any attempt towards a systematic theory of signs, and their experimental treatment of their semiotic inventory as well as the genres, imageries, and conventions of other media and art forms inviting descriptive scrutiny as well as playful engagement. Scott McCloud’s famous Understanding Comics (1993), both praised and criticized for its essentially semiotic approach, provided the foundation for the rise of sequential comics studies. Even the relatively more practice-based earlier work of Will Eisner (Comics & Sequential Art, 1985), on which McCloud built his own, focuses on a description of formal semiotic and semantic relationships. 

*CFP* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION, SECOND VOLUME, THE JOURNAL OF ANIME AND MANGA STUDIES

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) is eager to announce a Call for Papers for our second volume.

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies is a double-blind peer reviewed, open-access journal published by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. JAMS is dedicated to publishing scholarly works concerning anime, manga, cosplay, and the fandom surrounding these areas. As an open-access journal, JAMS aims to reach an audience of scholars both inside and outside the academe, encouraging public engagement through the digital humanities.

Because anime and manga studies is such a diverse field, JAMS welcomes papers regarding anime, manga, cosplay, and their fandoms as analyzed from any number of scholarly perspectives. Works published in JAMS first volume ranged from media industry history, to the intersections of disability and queer identity.

All papers published in JAMS are published with a Creative Commons license, Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, OCTOBER 2021, THE JOURNAL OF ANIME AND MANGA STUDIES

Volume to be Published in October of 2021

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) is eager to announce a Call for Papers for our second volume.

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies is a double-blind peer reviewed, open-access journal published by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. JAMS is dedicated to publishing scholarly works concerning anime, manga, cosplay, and the fandom surrounding these areas. As an open-access journal, JAMS aims to reach an audience of scholars both inside and outside the academe, encouraging public engagement through the digital humanities.

Because anime and manga studies is such a diverse field, JAMS welcomes papers regarding anime, manga, cosplay, and their fandoms as analyzed from any number of scholarly perspectives.  Works published in JAMS first volume ranged from media industry history, to the intersections of disability and queer identity.

*CFP* "LA REPRESENTACIÓN DE LA FAMILIA EN EL MANGA Y EL ANIME", MONOGRÁFICO 8, REVISTA ADMIRA

Durante las últimas décadas, el cómic japonés (manga) y la animación japonesa (anime) se han consolidado como objetos de investigación relevantes en los Estudios de la Comunicación, los Estudios Japoneses y los Estudios Culturales. La creciente presencia internacional de estos productos comunicativos y su éxito entre varias generaciones de audiencias extranjeras han propiciado multitud de investigaciones centradas en las características estéticas, narrativas, ideológicas, económicas y socioculturales de los cómics y las animaciones procedentes de Japón. 

Con el fin de contribuir al conocimiento sobre manga y anime así como sobre el modo en que las obras de estos medios representan la sociedad japonesa para una audiencia extranjera, la Revista ADMIRA lanza una convocatoria de artículos para su próximo número. Bajo el título “La representación de la familia en el manga y el anime”, este monográfico coordinado por el investigador Francisco Javier López Rodríguez tiene como objetivo reflexionar sobre el modo en que los cómics y las animaciones de Japón (de)construyen, critican, promocionan o cuestionan determinados valores, roles de género, actitudes o acciones en el seno de la familia. 

*CFP* "CAPTURE JAPAN: VISUAL CULTURE AND THE GLOBAL IMAGINATION FROM 1952 TO THE PRESENT", EDITED BOOK

This is the final Call for Papers for the edited book Capture Japan: Visual Culture and the Global Imagination from 1952 to the Present’. The book analyses, deconstructs and challenges representations of Japan in a variety of different visual media such as cinema, documentary film, photography, visual art and computer games. The book is now under contract with Bloomsbury and due to the recent withdrawal of a contributor, we are now looking for a replacement chapter. We are particularly keen to hear from potential contributions on anime, manga, animation or comics which are topics that are currently underrepresented in the book. Additionally, we are also interested how these type of visual media relate to transnational contexts within East Asia and beyond. 

The book comprises of a series of case studies by an international group of experts in the field which highlight the institutional framework that has allowed certain types of images of Japan to be promoted. The book points to a vast network of global institutions, each concerned with a different type of image of Japan that fits into an ideological, political, cultural or economic agenda. Internationally, these institutions include film production companies or art museums and galleries, whereas in Japan they include local tourist boards, government agencies or computer game manufacturers. Whilst these institutions have differing interests, this book identifies common threads in the type of image of Japan that is being imagined, produced and disseminated by such institutions. The book makes the argument that these images are visual tropes that feed into a type of Japan of the global imagination.

*CFP* "ASIAN TIGERS IN THE DIGITAL JUNGLES", SPECIAL ISSUE, GALACTICA MEDIA: JOURNAL OF MEDIA STUDIES

Southeast Asia is the most densely populated region in the world, where neighboring states are political and economic heavyweights, leading players in a globalized world, and small countries that retain their distinctive appearance and style. It is a cauldron of ethnic groups, religions, worldviews, which has given rise to many alternative ways of integrating traditions and modernity.

In particular, Asian media, especially electronic ones, and social networks such as Chinese Weibo, WeiChat, Tencent and Qzone, South Korean Naver, and Japanese Line can serve as an example of such integration.

East Asian cinema and TV-show production display clear influence of Western, primarily Hollywood, standards. Yet they have many original characteristics, some of which are due to national historical experience and mentality, while others are dictated by state censorship and political agenda.

No less interesting is the representation that Asian peoples and cultures receive in Western cinema and commercials, and the recent growing protest of East and Southeast Asian natives against discrimination and stereotyping of their image.

*CFP* “GLOCALIZATION OF POPULAR CULTURE IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN MEDIA”, VOL.2, NO.3, SOUTHEAST ASIAN MEDIA STUDIES

Southeast Asians consume various traditional and new media content, which makes the region a big market for content distributors. In particular, drama series produced in China, Japan, Korea, India, and the United States have aired in Southeast Asian countries and were presented either through dubbed or subbed content. Music and fashion sense inspired by popular music groups in East Asia have also developed and gained a large fan following in the region.

This issue collates papers that analyze the various manifestations of glocalization in media content exhibited in Southeast Asia. Dreisbach (2018) defined glocalization as a wordplay of the terms global and local that means the accommodation of foreign cultural sensibilities by local actors. Robertson (2000) conceptualized glocalization as the accommodation and/or contextualization of foreign ideas which results in cultural diversity. In this case, we refer to the concept as the process in accommodating global media content and contextualizing it according to the tastes of local consumers. Due to the broad scope of the theme, the journal invites papers revolving around, but not limited to, the politics of global media content localization, translation studies on dubbed content or songs, and the sociology and economics of fan studies. As such, the issue is interdisciplinary, incorporating papers with a focus linguistics, history, politics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, visual art, culture, and economics relevant to Southeast Asian media studies.

*CFP* CALL FOR PROPOSALS, KINEMA CLUB CONFERENCE FOR FILM AND MOVING IMAGES FROM JAPAN 20/20, NIPPON CONNECTION FILM FESTIVAL

Kinema Club Conference for Film and Moving Images from Japan 20/20 at the Nippon Connection Film Festival

June 11-13, 2020

Frankfurt a.M., Germany

Goethe University Frankfurt / Nippon Connection Film Festival

(Nippon Connection Film Festival dates: June 9 - June 14)

We welcome paper proposals and roundtable participation proposals for the 20th Kinema Club Conference for Film and Moving Images from Japan, to be held in conjunction with the 20th anniversary edition of the Nippon Connection Film Festival.

The conference will consist of two sections, one with panel presentations and one with events that are coordinated with the festival screening schedule. The latter will include roundtable discussions on broader topics, “wildcard roundtables” the topics of which will be decided to create maximum synergies with the festival, and more focused conversations with filmmakers. Through this we hope to take advantage of the current films from all corners of Japanese moving image production showing at the festival, and the large number of filmmakers in attendance.

*CFP* “PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETICS OF SEXUALITY IN JAPAN”, ISSUE THE POLISH JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS

Due to the large number of request we have extended the deadline for full paper submissions to the issue “Philosophy and Aesthetics of Sexuality in Japan”, 55 (4/2019), edited by Timon Screech (SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom) and Gabriela Matusiak (Jagiellonian University, Poland).

Sex is one of the most essential elements of human life. Without it, the continuity of the generations of any nation would be impossible. Desire, whether unfulfilled or otherwise, sexual fantasies come true, religious, social, and moral taboos—all of these elements have influenced the shaping of sexuality in any given culture, while sublimation of this sphere of life has been reflected in art, literature, philosophy, the performing arts, pop culture, and many other areas. However, due to differences in cultural patterns, the results may be different, strange, incomprehensible, and sometimes even unacceptable to viewers from another part of the world who are unfamiliar with their historical or sociocultural context. So it is with Japan. 

*CFP* CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS, INAUGURAL ISSUE, JOURNAL OF ANIME AND MANGA STUDIES

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) is excited to announce a CFP for its inaugural issue! JAMS is an open-access journal dedicated to providing an ethical, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary space for academics, students, and independent researchers examining the field of anime, manga, cosplay, and fandom studies to share their research with others. JAMS is peer reviewed by scholars with experience in anime and manga studies.

This is an exciting time for anime and manga studies as a discipline, with courses on the subject appearing at universities like Yale and the University of California, Berkeley. The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies hopes the works submitted to and published within our first issue can spark further conversations about the deeper meanings, understandings, and/or cultural significance of anime, manga, cosplay, related media, and their fandoms, what anime and manga studies can be as an area of study, and the types of interdisciplinary work that can come out of analyzing anime, manga, cosplay, related media, and their fandoms from a variety of scholarly perspectives.

*CFP* "JAPANESE HORROR: NEW CRITICAL APPROACHES TO HISTORY, NARRATIVES AND AESTHETICS", CHAPTER BOOK

The cultural phenomenon of Japanese Horror has been of the most celebrated cultural exports of the country, being witness to some of the most notable aesthetic and critical addresses in the history of modern horror cultures. Encompassing a range of genres and performances including cinema, manga, video games, and television series, the loosely designated genre has often been known to uniquely blend ‘Western' narrative and cinematic techniques and tropes with traditional narrative styles, visuals and folklores. Tracing back to the early decades of the twentieth century, modern Japanese horror cultures have had tremendous impact on world cinema, comics studies and video game studies, and popular culture, introducing many trends which are widely applied in contemporary horror narratives. The hybridity that is often native to Japanese aestheticisation of horror is an influential element that has found widespread acceptance in the genres of horror. These include classifications of ghosts as the yuurei and the youkai; the plight of the suffering individual in modern, industrial society, and the lack thereof to fend for oneself while facing circumstances beyond comprehension, or when the features of industrial society themselves produce horror (Ringu, Tetsuo, Ju on); settings such as damp, dank spaces that reinforce the idea of morbid, rotten return from the afterlife (Dark Water)—these are features that have now been rather unconsciously assimilated into the canon of Hollywood or western horror cultures, and may often be traced back to Japanese Horror (or J-Horror) cultures. Besides the often de facto reliance on gore and violence, the psychological motif has been one of the most important aspects of Japanese Horror cultures. Whether it is supernatural, sci-fi or body horror, J-Horror cultures have explored methods that enable the visualising of depravity and violent perversions, and the essence of spiritual and material horror in a fascinating fashion, inventing the mechanics of converting the most fatal fears into visuals.

*CFP* “THE IMPACT OF JAPANESE AND SOUTH KOREAN AUDIOVISUAL PRODUCTION ON THE SPANISH-SPEAKING WORLD”, ATALANTE - Nº29

We are pleased to announce the call for papers of the next issue of L’Atalante. Revista de Estudios Cinematográficos which, under the title of “The impact of Japanese and South Korean audiovisual production on the Spanish-speaking world”, is open to contributions. You can find detailed information here.

In recent years, even while interest has been growing in China’s increasing influence as the dominant power in East Asia, the global presence of different expressions of contemporary Japanese and South Korean culture has been constantly on the rise. The interest in literature, graphic products, pop music, video games, cuisine, and especially audiovisual productions from Japan and South Korea has turned these two countries into cultural superpowers with a prominent place in an increasingly fragmented global entertainment industry (Lie, 2014; Kuwahara, 2014; Otmazgin & Lyan, 2013).

*CFP* CONVOCATORIA JORNADA DE CINE JAPONÉS, UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID

*CFP* "MEDIATED AND CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS IN EAST ASIA, ITALY AND EUROPE", INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL

Mediated and cultural representations in East Asia, Italy and Europe

International Summer School

University of Messina (Messina, Italy): 16-19 July, 2019

Co-organised by

Mutual Images Research Association and DiCam—University of Messina with the generous support of the Hōsō Bunka Foundation

Mutual Images Research Association and DiCam—Department of Ancient and Modern Civilisations, University of Messina (Italy) invite applications for the Mediated and cultural representations in East Asia, Italy and Europe International Summer School, which will be held at the University of Messina from Tuesday 16 July to Friday 19 July 2019.

*CFP* "EL IMPACTO DEL AUDIOVISUAL JAPONÉS Y SURCOREANO CONTEMPORÁNEO EN EL ÁMBITO HISPANOHABLANTE", REVISTA L'ATALANTE

En los últimos años se ha consolidado el incremento acelerado de la presencia global de expresiones diversas de las culturas populares japonesa y surcoreana contemporánea, pese al creciente interés por el aumento de la influencia de China como potencia dominante en Asia oriental. El interés por la literatura, los productos gráficos, la música pop, los videojuegos, la gastronomía y, sobre todo, las producciones audiovisuales procedentes de Japón y Corea del Sur, ha convertido así a estos dos países en auténticas superpotencias culturales que ocupan un lugar destacado en la fragmentada oferta del entretenimiento a escala mundial (Lie, 2014; Kuwahara, 2014; Otmazgin y Lyan, 2013).

Al habitual protagonismo de filmes japoneses y surcoreanos en los circuitos internacionales de festivales –ya estén especializados en los géneros de terror y fantástico (Brown, 2018; Tezuka, 2012) o de cine de arte y ensayo (Martinez, 2009; Chung y Diffrient, 2015)– se suma cada vez más su presencia en los catálogos de las plataformas de subscription video on demand (Lobato, 2018) con formatos de gran popularidad como los K-drama, los doramas japoneses y el anime (Hernandez Hernandez & Hirai, 2015; Kirsch, 2015; Wada Marciano, 2010), que en algunos casos se insertan en potentes narrativas crossmedia y transmedia de alcance transnacional. 

*CFP* “EYES UNCLOUDED: THE FILMS OF HAYAO MIYAZAKI AND STUDIO GHIBLI”, 2019 CONTEMPORARY DIRECTORS SYMPOSIUM, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX & LEWES DEPOT CINEMA

Eyes Unclouded: The Films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli

May 8th 2019

Lewes DepotCinema, 

Lewes, East Sussex, UK

Keynote speaker: Dr RaynaDenison (University of East Anglia, author of Anime: A Critical Introduction)

“You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two” — Princess Mononoke

*CFP* "PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETICS OF SEXUALITY IN JAPAN", SPECIAL ISSUE THE POLISH JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS

Sex is one of the most essential elements of human life. Without it, the continuity of the generations of any nation would be impossible. Desire, whether unfulfilled or otherwise, sexual fantasies come true, religious, social, and moral taboos—all of these elements have influenced the shaping of sexuality in any given culture, while sublimation of this sphere of life has been reflected in art, literature, philosophy, the performing arts, pop culture, and many other areas. However, due to differences in cultural patterns, the results may be different, strange, incomprehensible, and sometimes even unacceptable to viewers from another part of the world who are unfamiliar with their historical or sociocultural context. So it is with Japan. According to Ruth Benedict, “[i]n the seventy-five years that have passed since the opening of Japan to the world, the Japanese have become the heroes of such fantastic stories that no other nation in the world can compare with them in this respect.” Decades have passed since the publication of her book about Japan, and yet many stereotypes about the Japanese, and especially about their sex life, continue to circulate. On one hand, Japan appears, in the general consensus, as a land of sexual peculiarities and deviations, often inconceivable to Westerners, assumed to date from “ancient” times; on the other hand, the media informs us of the latest research results, according to which the Japanese have completely given up cohabitation.