The Korean Wave in Japan
Laura Miller from Loyola University Chicago
Laura Miller from Loyola University Chicago
In recent decades Japanese consumers have been enthralled with South Korean cultural products, especially hit TV drama series such as Winter Sonata, Dae Jang Geum, and Legend of the First KingÕs Four Gods. Given the grim history between the two nations, many observers were astonished at the positive shift in Japanese attitudes toward Korea that were engendered primarily through Korean Wave fandom. Although many critics dismissed this as nothing more than overheated middle-aged female excitement over the handsome actor Bae Yong-Joon, the popularity of Korean cultural products defies easy generalization. This presentation will review some of the wide-ranging expressions of Japanese interest in Korea that followed from the Korean Wave, tracking both the economic impact as well as areas of cultural fallout and influence.
Laura Miller, Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago, is the author of Beauty Up:Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics (University of California Press, 2006), "Those Naughty Teenage Girls: Japanese Kogals, slang, and media assessments" (Journal of LInguistic Anthropology, 2004), "Graffiti photos:Expressive Art in Japanese Girls' Culture" (Harvard Asia Quarterly, 2003), and "Extreme Makeover for a Heian-Era Wizard"(forthcoming in Mechademia:An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and the Fan Arts). She is currently working on a manuscript tentatively entitled Girl Power Japan:Gendered Domains of Cultural and Linguistic Vigor. Together with Jan Bardsley, she co-edited Bad Girls of Japan (Palgrave Macmillian, 2005); the two are now working on Manners and Mischief: Gender and Power in Japanese Conduct LIterature (University of California Press).
Laura Miller, Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago, is the author of Beauty Up:Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics (University of California Press, 2006), "Those Naughty Teenage Girls: Japanese Kogals, slang, and media assessments" (Journal of LInguistic Anthropology, 2004), "Graffiti photos:Expressive Art in Japanese Girls' Culture" (Harvard Asia Quarterly, 2003), and "Extreme Makeover for a Heian-Era Wizard"(forthcoming in Mechademia:An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and the Fan Arts). She is currently working on a manuscript tentatively entitled Girl Power Japan:Gendered Domains of Cultural and Linguistic Vigor. Together with Jan Bardsley, she co-edited Bad Girls of Japan (Palgrave Macmillian, 2005); the two are now working on Manners and Mischief: Gender and Power in Japanese Conduct LIterature (University of California Press).
Anime Screened: Jang Geum's Dream
The Ninja Martial Arts
Ryan Holmberg from University of Chicago
Ryan Holmberg from University of Chicago
From 1959 to 1962, Shirato Sanpei published The Ninja Martial Arts (Ninja Bugeich?), a seventeen volume manga that quickly became an icon of its era. It is set in the mid to late sixteenth century, amidst the intense civil warfare that would finally conclude with the Pax Tokugawa circa 1600. Against this historical backdrop, Shirato narrates interwoven stories of samurai vengeance, ninja assassination, and clan power struggles Ð all themes common to other period manga at the time, but here depicted with an unprecedented degree of brutality and violence. Most notable, however, is the mangaÕs foregrounding of the history of peasant suffering and armed uprising. For this focus, The Ninja Martial Arts was soon framed, contemporary to its serialization, as an allegory of popular protest movements in postwar Japan, and it was as such that the manga became the focal point of the earliest sustained critical discourse on manga, as well as an icon of the 60s counterculture. The names of its characters dot the pronouncements and ephemera of the student movement. A number of small independent theatre troupes staged performances based on Shirato's work. And in 1967, the controversial filmmaker ?shima Nagisa created an animated version of The Ninja Martial Arts a full-length feature composed of an extended series of stills shot from ShiratoÕs original drawings for the manga. Ryan Holmberg will provide introductory and closing remarks for a screening of this rare and historical animated feature (110 min).
Ryan Holmberg is an art historian and writer. He holds a doctorate in the History of Art from Yale University. His dissertation treats the work of the monthly manga journal Garo from 1964 to 1971. He is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor in Japanese Art at the University of Chicago
Ryan Holmberg is an art historian and writer. He holds a doctorate in the History of Art from Yale University. His dissertation treats the work of the monthly manga journal Garo from 1964 to 1971. He is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor in Japanese Art at the University of Chicago
Anime Screened: The Ninja Martial Arts
[家-con] Presented for your pleasure by the University of Chicago Japanese Animation Society (UCJAS) and generously bankrolled by the Student Government.