On Methods Acting: Anime’s Transnational Animation Performances

Stevie Suan

Dec. 6, 2024 / 18:00-19:30

Room 301, Building 10,

Sophia University

In Person only

No registration required

This talk examines a common method used to explain and understand anime: as commentary about Japanese society. However, an alternative conception of anime is possible that highlights how many of the tasks involved in production – work by animators, colorists, and background artists – take place outside of Japan. As such, the common approaches to anime tend to make “invisible” many of the complexities of those who make the animation “visible.” A shift in the way anime is conceptualized helps facilitate a lasting recognition of the importance of the aesthetics of animation that provide alternative mappings of transnationality. To sustain such a shift, the operations of anime’s character acting will be analyzed through the examination of two distinct but interrelated modes of performance. Exploring such aesthetics of animation provides insights into how these modes of performance operate in our everyday lives under neoliberalism in Japan and beyond.

Stevie Suan is an Associate Professor at Hosei University’s Faculty of Global and Interdisciplinary Studies. He is one of the lead organizers of the Mechademia Asia conference on Asian popular culture, an associate editor for the journal Mechademia: Second Arc, and on the editorial board of the journal for the Japanese Society of Animation Studies. In his research he utilizes performance/performativity theory and media theory to explore anime’s media-form and its transnational cultural production, with a focus on Asia. This is the topic of his recent book Anime’s Identity: Performativity and Form beyond Japan (University of Minnesota Press, 2021). He also extends this interdisciplinary approach to the ecocritical analysis of anime.

This event is organized by David Slater (Professor, FLA, Sophia University).