The cinema of Japan predates that of Russia, China, and India, and it has been able to sustain itself without outside assistance for over a century. Japanese cinema's long history of production and considerable output has seen films made in a variety of genres, including melodramas, romances, gangster movies, samurai movies, musicals, horror films, and monster films. It has also produced some of the most famous names in the history of cinema: Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Beat Takeshi, T...

See Dragon Ball with new eyes. This book is your cultural tour guide of Dragon Ball, the world’s most recognized anime and manga series.Over 11 years in development, at over 2,000 pages of content, and featuring over 1,800 unique terms, Dragon Ball Culture is a 7 Volume analysis of your favorite series. You will go on an adventure with Son Goku, from Chapter 1 to 194 of the original Dragon Ball series, as we explore every page, every panel, and every sentence, to reveal the hidden ...

Was Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor based on Aleister Crowley? Can Captain Marvel be linked to the Sun gods on antiquity?In Our Gods Wear Spandex, Christopher Knowles answers these questions and brings to light many other intriguing links between superheroes and the enchanted world of estoerica. Occult students and comic-book fans alike will discover countless fascinating connections, from little known facts such as that DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz started his care...

The thought-provoking, aesthetically pleasing animated films of Hayao Miyazaki attract audiences well beyond the director's native Japan. Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away were critically acclaimed upon U.S. release, and the earlier My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service have found popularity with Americans on DVD. This critical study of Miyazaki's work begins with an analysis of the visual conventions of manga, Japanese comic books, and anime; an overview of Japanese animated fi...

Translated by Audie E. Bock."A first rate book and a joy to read.... It's doubtful that a complete understanding of the director's artistry can be obtained without reading this book.... Also indispensable for budding directors are the addenda, in which Kurosawa lays out his beliefs on the primacy of a good script, on scriptwriting as an essential tool for directors, on directing actors, on camera placement, and on the value of steeping oneself in literature, from great novels to de...

A tribute to Japan's God of Manga by his long-time American friend and translator.The pioneering genius of Japan’s “God of Comics,” Osamu Tezuka (1928–89), is examined through his life’s masterwork: Tetsuwan Atomu, also known as Mighty Atom or Astro Boy, a comic series featuring a cute little android who yearns to be more human. The history of Tetsuwan Atomu and Tezuka’s role in it is a road map to understanding the development o...

The first book-length collection by the most respected writer on anime and manga today.Anime’s influence can be found in every corner of American media, from film and television to games and graphic arts. And Fred Patten is largely responsible. He was reading manga and watching anime before most of the current generation of fans was born. In fact, it was his active participation in fan clubs and his prolific magazine writing that helped create a m...

World Film Locations: Tokyo gives readers a kaleidoscopic view of one of the world’s most complex and exciting cities through the lens of world cinema. 50 scenes from classic and contemporary films explore how motion pictures have shaped the role of Tokyo in our collective consciousness, as well as how these cinematic moments reveal aspects of the life and culture of a city that are often hidden from view. Complimenting these scenes from such varied films as Tokyo Story, ...

A critical biography of a modern Japanese literary giant, whose brilliant career ended in a spectacular ritual suicide.Yukio Mishima (b. 1925) was a brilliant writer and intellectual whose relentless obsession with beauty, purity, and patriotism ended in his astonishing self-disembowelment and decapitation in downtown Tokyo in 1970. Nominated for the Nobel Prize, Mishima was the best-known novelist of his time (works like Confessions of a Mask and The ...

In this revealing study, Daisuke Miyao explores "the aesthetics of shadow" in Japanese cinema in the first half of the twentieth century. This term, coined by the production designer Yoshino Nobutaka, refers to the perception that shadows add depth and mystery. Miyao analyzes how this notion became naturalized as the representation of beauty in Japanese films, situating Japanese cinema within transnational film history. He examines the significant roles lighting played in distinguishing th...

Increased use of mass transportation in the early twentieth century enabled men and women of different social classes to interact in ways they had not before. Using a cultural studies approach that combines historical research and literary analysis, author Alisa Freedman investigates fictional, journalistic, and popular culture depictions of how mass transportation changed prewar Tokyo's social fabric and artistic movements, giving rise to gender roles that have come to characterize modern...

References to Samurai Films are quite common in film literature. Many mainstream directors, from Hollywood and elsewhere, have been inspired and influenced by Samurai Films. Want to know where George Lucas got some of the major plot ideas for Star Wars: A New Hope? Check out Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. Interested in seeing the film that arguably inspired the whole Spaghetti Western genre? Have a look at Kurosawa's Yojimbo. Want to see one of the major i...