Adapting Anime: Transnational Media between Japan and the United States
This dissertation examines Japanese animation, or anime, as an example of how a contemporary media product crosses national and cultural borders and becomes globalized. Bringing together the theories of Hiroki Azuma and Susan J. Napier, it develops a theory called the "database fantasyscape" as a way of discussing such transnational flows. In short, the "database" refers to how contemporary media products are assembled from a matrix of constituent elements into combinations that are simultaneously unique and familiar, while the "fantasyscape" element expands on Arjun Appadurai's concept of global flows in order to posit a way in which desire travels transnationally. The dissertation discusses how anime came to the United States and the role this had in anime's development in Japan by examining Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy), the first half-hour television animation produced in Japan. It examines how anime has been adapted and distributed in overseas markets like the US by analyzing successful media franchises like Robotech and Voltron, as well as unsuccessful ones like Warriors of the Wind. It analyzes the complex and often fraught relationship between anime fans and producers / distributors and discusses the role played by fansubs (subtitled copies created by fans and often illegally distributed). Bringing in Matt Hills's concepts of cult texts, the dissertation discusses how in certain respects anime can be seen as cult and what this means with regard to transnational reception. Finally, it examines the relationship between anime and physical space, both in a temporally-limited fan-oriented space like an anime convention as well as within the city of Tokyo, with anime-ic perspectives providing ways of perceiving and processing the city.
anime, fan studies, globalization, Japan, transnational
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
[Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University