Mechademia #4: Mechademia, Volume 4: War/Time

The themes of war and time are intertwined in unique ways in Japanese culture, freighted as that nation is with the multiple legacies of World War II: the country's militarization, its victories and defeats, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the uneasy pacifism imposed by the victors. Delving into topics ranging from the production of wartime propaganda to the multimedia adaptations of romance narrative, contributors to the fourth volume in the Mechademia series address the political, cultural, and technological continuum between war and the everyday time of orderly social productivity that is reflected, confronted, and changed in manga, anime, and other forms of Japanese popular culture.

Grouped thematically, the essays in this volume explore the relationship between national sovereignty and war (from the militarization of children as critically exposed in Grave of the Fireflies to reworkings of Japanese patriotism in The Place Promised in Our Early Days), the intersection of war and the technologies of social control (as observed in the films of Oshii Mamoru and the apocalyptic vision of Neon Genesis Evangelion), history and memory as in manga artists working through the trauma of Japan's defeat in World War II and the new modalities of storytelling represented by Final Fantasy X), and the renewal and hybridization of militaristic genres as a means of subverting conventions (in Yamada Futaro's ninja fiction and Miuchi Suzue's girl knight manga).

Contributors: Brent Allison; Mark Anderson; Christopher Bolton, Williams College; Martha Cornog; Marc Driscoll, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Angela Drummond-Mathews, Paul Quinn College; Michael Fisch; Michael Dylan Foster, Indiana U; Wendy Goldberg; Marc Hairston, U of Texas, Dallas; Charles Shiro Inouye, Tufts University; Rei Okamoto Inouye, Northeastern U; Paul Jackson; Seth Jacobowitz, San Francisco State U; Thomas Lamarre, McGill U; Tom Looser, New York U; Sheng-mei Ma, Michigan State U; Christine Marran, U of Minnesota; Zilia Papp, Hosei U, Tokyo; Marco Pellitteri; Timothy Perper; Yoji Sakate; Chinami Sango; Deborah Scally; Deborah Shamoon, U of Notre Dame; Manami Shima; Rebecca Suter, U of Sydney; Takayuki Tatsumi, Keio U, Tokyo; Christophe Thouny; Gavin Walker; Dennis Washburn, Dartmouth College; Teresa M. Winge, Indiana U.

Preface: War/Time, Thomas Lamarre

Legacies of Sovereignty

The Filmic Time of Coloniality: On Shinkai Makoto's The Place Promised in Our Early Days, Gavin Walker

Theorizing Manga: Nationalism and Discourse on the Role of Wartime Manga, Rei Okamoto Inouye

Transcending the Victim's History: Takahata Isao's Grave of Fireflies, Wendy Goldberg

Control Room

Gothic Politics: Oshii, War, and Life without Death, Tom Looser

Oshii Mamoru's Patlabor 2: Terror, Theatricality, and Exceptions That Prove the Rule, Mark Anderson

Waiting for the Messiah: The Becoming-Myth of Evangelion and Densha otoko, Christophe Thouny

War by Metaphor in Densha Otoko, Michael Fisch

History/Memory

Imagined History, Fading Memory: Mastering Narrative in Final Fantasy X, Dennis Washburn

Haunted Travelogue: Hometowns, Ghost Towns, and Memories of War, Michael Dylan Foster

Three Views of the Rising Sun, Obliquely: Keiji Nakazawa's A-bomb, Osamu Tezuka's Adolf, and Yoshinori Kobayashi's Apologia, Sheng-mei Ma

Virtual Creation, Simulated Destruction, and Manufactured Memory at the Art Mecho Museum in Second Life, Christopher Bolton

Genre Violence

Ninja, Hidden Christians, and the Two Ferreiras: On Endô Shûsaku and Yamada Fûtarô, Takayuki Tatsumi, Translated by Seth Jacobowitz

Monsters at War: The Great Yôkai Wars, 1968-2005, Zília Papp

From Jusuheru to Jannu: Girl Knights and Christian Witches in the Work of Miuchi Suzue, Rebecca Suter

Mobilization/Domestication

Empire through the Eyes of a Yapoo: Male Abjection in the Cult ClassicBeast Yapoo, Christine Marran

Nippon ex Machina: Japanese Postwar Identity in Robot Anime and the Case of UFO Robo Grendizer, Marco Pellitteri

Kobayashi Yoshinori Is Dead: Imperial War/Sick Liberal Peace/Neoliberal Class War, Mark Driscoll

Manga: A Comic Interlude from Darumasan-ga-koronda, "Land Mine in Central Park", Yoji Sakate, Translated by Manami Shima, Art by Chinami Sango

Review and Commentary

Two Phases of Japanese Illustrated Fiction, Charles Shiro Inouye

Paradise Lost . . . and Found?, Paul Jackson

Molten Hot: Japanese Gal Subcultures and Fashions, Theresa M. Winge

Monstrous Toys of Capitalism, Brent Allison

If Casshern Doesn't Do It, Who Will?, Deborah Shamoon

Psychoanalytic Cyberpunk Midsummer-Night's Dreamtime: Satoshi Kon's Paprika, Timothy Perper and Martha Cornog

Torendo

Interview with Murase Shûkô and Satô Dai, Marc Hairston, Deborah Scally, and Angela Drummond-Mathews

Contributors

Call for Papers