Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

With the popularity of Pokemon still far from waning, Japanese animation, known as anime to its fans, has a firm hold on American pop culture. However, anime is much more than children's cartoons. It runs the gamut from historical epics to sci-fi sexual thrillers. Often dismissed as fanciful entertainment, anime is actually quite adept at portraying important social and cultural issues like alienation, gender inequality, and teenage angst. This book investigates the ways that anime presents these issues in an in-depth and sophisticated manner, uncovering the identity conflicts, fears over rapid technological advancement, and other key themes present in much of Japanese animation.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgments (p. vii)
• Part 1 Introduction
• Chapter 1 Why Anime? (p. 3)
• Chapter 2 Anime and Local/Global Identity (p. 15)
• Part 2 Body, Metamorphosis, Identity
• Chapter 3 Akira and Ranma 1/2: The Monstrous Adolescent (p. 39)
• Chapter 4 Controlling Bodies: The Body in Pornographic Anime (p. 63)
• Chapter 5 Ghosts and Machines: The Technological Body (p. 85)
• Chapter 6 Doll Parts: Technology and the Body in Ghost in the Shell (p. 103)
• Part 3 Magical Girls and Fantasy Worlds
• Chapter 7 The Enchantment of Estrangement: The Shojo in the World of Miyazaki Hayao (p. 121)
• Chapter 8 Carnival and Conservatism in Romantic Comedy (p. 139)
• Part 4 Remaking Master Narratives: Anime Confronts History
• Chapter 9 No More Words: Barefoot Gen, Grave of the Fireflies, and "Victim's History" (p. 161)
• Chapter 10 Princess Mononoke: Fantasy, the Feminine, and the Myth of "Progress" (p. 175)
• Chapter 11 Waiting for the End of the World: Apocalyptic Identity (p. 193)
• Chapter 12 Elegies (p. 219)
• Conclusion: A Fragmented Mirror (p. 235)
• Appendix
• The Fifth Look: Western Audiences and Japanese Animation (p. 239)
• Notes (p. 257)
• Bibliography (p. 291)
• Index (p. 301)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Napier (Univ. of Texas, Austin) offers a brilliant four-part analysis of the extraordinarily diverse world of Japanese animation, breaking it down into its global and local cultural impacts and its relationship to the human body, depiction of "magical girls and fantasy worlds," and reconstruction of history. Scrutinizing a few dozen titles, the author fits anime into categories of apocalyptic, festival, and elegiac. She brings in social and cultural aspects central to understanding some anime (yellow cab ladies, victims' history of WW II) or about which the medium has something to say (teenage alienation, industrialization, war, feminism); describes genres such as mecha, shj, comedy, porno, and apocalyptic; and makes a strong point about anime's importance as a popular culture form. In an appendix, Napier offers a demographic profile of Western anime audiences--using "preliminary" research data she collected questioning fans at US anime clubs over a four-month period in 1998-99--and tells what attracts them to anime. Shortcomings of this otherwise comprehensive and well-written volume are the shallow four-page conclusion and the publisher's utterly unimaginative placement of 32 color illustrations. This worthy addition to the burgeoning literature on Japanese popular culture will stand the test of time. All collections. J. A. Lent Temple University