Mechademia 4: War/Time

Legacies of Sovereignty

“The Filmic Time of Coloniality: On Shinkai Makoto’s The Place Promised in Our Early Days” by Gavin Walker; “Theorizing Manga: Nationalism and Discourse on the Role of Wartime Manga” by Rei Okamoto Inouye; “Transcending the Victim’s History: Takahata Isao’s Grave of the Fireflies” by Wendy Goldberg.

Control Room

“Gothic Politics: Oshii, War, and Life without Death” by Tom Looser; “Oshii Mamoru’s Patlabor 2: Terror, Theatricality, and Exceptions That Prove the Rule” by Mark Anderson; “Waiting for the Messiah: The Becoming-Myth of Evangelion andDensha otoko” by Christophe Thouny; “War by Metaphor in Densha otoko” by Michael Fisch.

History/Memory

“Imagined History, Fading Memory: Mastering Narrative in Final Fantasy X” by Dennis Washburn; “Haunted Travelogue: Hometowns, Ghost Towns, and Memories of War” by Michael Dylan Foster; “Three Views of the Rising Sun, Obliquely: Keiji Nakazawa’s A-bomb, Osamu Tezuka’s Adolf, and Yoshinori Kobayashi’s Apologia” by Sheng-mei Ma; “Virtual Creation, Simulated Destruction, and Manufactured Memory at the Art Mecho Museum in Second Life” by Christopher Bolton.

Genre Violence

“Ninja, Hidden Christians, and the Two Ferreiras: On Endô Shûsaku and Yamada Fûtarô” by Takayuki Tatsumi, translated by Seth Jacobowitz; “Monsters at War: The Great Yôkai Wars, 1968-2005” by Zília Papp; “From Jusuheru to Jannu: Girl Knights and Christian Witches in the Work of Miuchi Suzue” by Rebecca Suter.

Mobilization/Domestication

“Empire through the Eyes of a Yapoo: Male Abjection in the Cult Classic Beast Yapoo” by Christine Marran; “Nippon ex Machina:
Japanese Postwar Identity in Robot Anime and the Case of UFO Robo Grendizer” by Marco Pellitteri; “Kobayashi Yoshinori Is Dead:
Imperial War/Sick Liberal Peace/Neoliberal Class War” by Mark Driscoll; “Manga: A Comic Interlude from Darumasan-ga-koronda, ‘Land Mine in Central Park’” by Yoji Sakate, translated by Manami Shima, art by Chinami Sango.

Review and Commentary

“Two Phases of Japanese Illustrated Fiction” by Charles Shiro Inouye; “Paradise Lost…and Found?” by Paul Jackson; “Molten Hot: Japanese Gal Subcultures and Fashions” by Theresa M. Winge; “Monstrous Toys of Capitalism” by Brent Allison; “If Casshern Doesn’t Do It, Who Will?” by Deborah Shamoon; “Psychoanalytic Cyberpunk Midsummer Night’s Dreamtime: Kon Satoshi’s Paprika” by Timothy Perper and Martha Cornog.

トレンド Torendo

Interview with Murase Shûkô and Satô Dai by Deborah Scally, Angela Drummond-Matthews, and Marc Hairston, translated by Chelsea Colin and Watanabe Yuki.