Book Binge

[merin_chan]

Fall has fallen! The air is getting cool at night, the leaves are starting to kindle, and yesterday a line of geese flew over my head talking loudly among themselves, probably about the sweet timeshare they've got lined up in Florida

Comments

[corneredangel]

This book contains a mix of new studies and translations/excerpts from major Japanese authors like Azuma Hiroki (Database Animals) and Morikawa Kaichiro (Otaku and the City: The Rebirth of Akihabara). I wonder why Lawrence Eng and Mizuki Ito are both in there twice -couldn't they have gotten some other authors?

I almost got a feeling this was Ito's personal project and an easy way for her to find a home for her latest research. I'm frankly not sure how Larry ended up there - I wouldn't be surprised if it's mostly because he knows Dr. Ito and has worked with her in the past. And I also think you're right, Frames of Anime was not published by a major press, and so, ended up being pretty much overlooked in the reviews and the most recent literature.

...although, now that I look at it again, this may be changing - Napier has a review in the most recent issue of the Journal of Japanese Studies.

[merin_chan]

Thanks for the tip! I checked out Napier's review, and according to her, Frames of Anime is not the most rigorous film analysis, but it is useful for filling in the Japanese and wider East Asian historical and cultural contexts of anime, especially for teaching Asian Studies students. In Napier's words, "at times [Hu's] hypotheses seem rather unsubstantiated, but I genuinely enjoyed the ambitiousness and thought-provoking quality of these ideas. At the very least, they should make an excellent springboard for discussion in a course on Japanese culture."