Mechademia: Second Arc

Mechademia: Second Arc
Editors: Frenchy Lunning and Sandra Annett, Editors
A groundbreaking exploration of anime, manga, and Japanese popular culture

Mechademia: Second Arc is a biannual journal series designed to promote academic and professional discourse around East Asian popular cultures. Its scope includes professional and fan-created works influenced by the forms of anime, Japanese manga/Korean manhwa/Chinese manhua, cinema, television dramas, digital media, video gaming, music, performance arts, and many other forms of popular culture that have proliferated in East Asia and throughout the world. This journal promotes high-quality academic research on anime, manga, and related pop cultural fields, in making key articles by East Asian authors accessible to English-speaking readers through original translations, and in promoting cultural exchange between artists, authors, fans, and scholars from various contexts, both through the journal and through related conferences held annually in the United States and biennially in Asia. Submissions to the series are required to be written in “open” language rather than adopting the exclusive language of academic discourse, but without detracting from a high level of inquiry.

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

Mechademia: Second Arc publishes two CFPs every year. Most issues are themed around a specific topic under the supervision of a guest editor. For information on current and future issues and CFPs, as well as full submission guidelines, please visit the Second Arc page on the Mechademia website.

For any further questions, contact the Submissions Editor at submissions@mechademia.net. 

 

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All Issues

  • Volume 14 - Issue 1 Contents Purchase This Issue

    Table of Contents, Volume 14 - Issue 1

    Introduction
    In the Age of Transnational Science Fiction by Takayuki Tatsumi
    Part One: Theory
    “Dear Ivan Efremov”: A Critique of Socialist Science Fiction Theory by Komatsu Sakyō, trans. Rebecca Suter, Introduction by Takayuki Tatsumi
    The Fiction of Kunst: A Re-reading of Heinlein by Aramaki Yoshio, trans. Baryon Tensor Posadas, Introduction by Takayuki Tatsumi
    The Purehearted Major: On Innocence by Kotani Mari, trans. Nishimura Keiko and Brian Bergstrom, Introduction by Takayuki Tatsumi
    The “Mystery” of Young Girls in Flower by Noah Azusa, trans. Shige (CJ) Suzuki and Brett Hack, Introduction by Takayuki Tatsumi
    Part Two: Critique
    Robot Theater (Robotto engeki) in Japan: Staging Science Fiction Futures by Jennifer Robertson
    The Automata Collective: Negation of Endings and Collective Formation in Nier: Automata by Alexandre Paquet
    Animals in the Database: Text, Space, and Communal Being in Tobi Hirotaka’s Science Fiction Literature by Brian M. White
    Part Three: History
    Film Infiltration to Diversification: A Brief History of Japanese Science Fiction and Its Asian Context by Nagasawa Tadashi
    Literary Science Fiction in Japan: The Story of a Secret Infiltration by Denis Taillandier
    Hidden Histories, Traveling Time: Science Fiction Translation as Cognitive Estrangement by Baryon Tensor Posadas
  • Volume 13 - Issue 2 Contents Purchase This Issue

    Table of Contents, Volume 13 - Issue 2

    Intro
    Sound Matters by Stacey Jocoy
    Article
    “The Sound That Races Through the End of the World”: Musical Moments as Refrain and Revolution in the Anime of Ikuhara Kunihiko by Rose Bridges
    Dis/joint: Unification of Sound, Music, Narrative, and Animation in Liz and the Blue Bird by Paul Ocone
    Blind Musicians and Supernatural Worlds: Animated Representations of Japan’s Mysterious Biwa Hōshi by Heike Hoffer
    Musically Locating the Iconoclastic Anime Samurai by Stacey Jocoy
    Vocational Aesthetics: Voice, Affect, and Energy in Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) by Heather Warren-Crow
    Sounds Like Misogyny: Voicing Cross-gender Roles in Anime and Discourses Surrounding Female Fandom on 2channel by Ryan Redmond
    Seiyū Events: Promoting Anime and Seiyū by Bringing Anime Characters to Life on Stage by Salma Medhat M. Abdelrazek
    Rumble, Race, and Crash: Space and Movement through Sound Effects in Akira and American Flagg! by MIa Lewis
    The Sound of Visual Novels: Differences and Similarities in Experience for Japanese and English-speakers by Rebecca Crawford
    Exploring Tenmon’s Music by Maria Grajdian
  • Volume 13 - Issue 1 Contents Purchase This Issue

    Table of Contents, Volume 13 - Issue 1

    Intro
    Introduction: Queer(ing) Japanese Popular Culture by James Welker
    Article
    O-jôsama kotoba and a Stylistics of Same-sex Desire in Japanese Yuri Narratives by Hannah E. Dahlberg-Dodd
    A Cycle, Not a Phase: Love Between Magical Girls Amidst the Trauma of Puella Magi Madoka Magica by Kevin Cooley
    Otoko no ko manga and New Wave Crossdressing in the 2000s: A Two-Dimensional to Three-Dimensional Male Subculture by Sharon Kinsella
    Queering Heteronormative Desire through Vocality in Goes! by Aiden Pang
    She’s Not Your Waifu; She’s an Eldritch Abomination: Saya no Uta and Queer Antisociality in Japanese Visual Novels by Ana Matilde Sousa
    Creative Misreadings of “Thai BL” by a Filipino Fan Community: Dislocating Knowledge Production in Transnational Queer Fandoms through Aspirational Consumption by Thomas Baudinette
    Queering Fandoms from the Periphery? A Conversation between Queer Fan Event Organizers in Mexico and the Philippines by Fen Garza and Kristene Michelle Santos, with James Welker
    Fujoshi Spaces in Mexico City by Mirna Montserrat Díaz López
    An Introduction to the First Taiwanese BL Musical, The New Member by Tien-yi Chao
    Sakkai Muniyai: A Look at Sri Lanka’s First Sinhalese BL Manga by Lakshmi Menon
    The Development of Boys Love in Vietnam: From Manga and Danmei Fiction to the Football Turf by Trįnh Minh Đỗ Uyên and Nguyễn Quốc Bình
    Perspectives on the Italian BL and Yuri Manga Market: Toward the Development of Local Voices by Marta Fanasca
    Translated Yuri Manga in Germany by Verena Maser
    Queer Roleplaying Practices in Russian Female BL Fandom by Yuliya Tarasyuk
    An Overview of the Commercial Publication of Japanese Boys Love (BL) Manga in Poland by Agata Włodarczyk
    Queer Cosplay in Israel by Liron Afriat
    Yaoi, YouTube, and Arabic-Speaking Fans by Ahmed Baroody
  • Volume 12 - Issue 2 Contents Purchase This Issue

    Table of Contents, Volume 12 - Issue 2

    Intro
    Guest Editor’s Introduction by Stevie Suan
    Article
    Communities of Craftsmen: Reflections on Japanese Manga from South Korean Manhwaga by Chloé Paberz
    Anime’s Spatiality: Media-form, Dislocation, and Globalization by Stevie Suan
    (Re)Playing Anime: Building a Medium-specific Approach to Gamelike Narratives by Selen Çalik Bedir
    Material Conditions and Semiotic Affordances: Natsume Fusanosuke’s Many Fascinations with the Lines of Manga by Lukas R. A. Wilde
    Conjoined by Hand: Aesthetic Materiality in Kouno Fumiyo’s Manga In This Corner of the World by Jaqueline Berndt
    Manga Across Media: Style Adapting to Form in the 1950s and 1960s and in the Digital Age by Dalma Kálovics
    Emerging “2.5-dimensional” Culture: Character-oriented Cultural Practices and “Community of Preferences” as a New Fandom in Japan and Beyond by Akiko Sugawa-Shimada
    Pedestrian Media Mix: The Birth of Otaku Sanctuaries in Tokyo by Edmond Ernest dit Alban
  • Volume 12 - Issue 1 Contents Purchase This Issue

    Table of Contents, Volume 12 - Issue 1

    Intro
    Introduction: Media Scholarship in the Contact Zone by Andrea Horbinski
    Article
    What You Watch Is What You Are? Early Anime and Manga Fandom in the United States by Andrea Horbinski
    The Genesis of the Otaku Phemomenon in Spain: A Journey through Fanzines, Associations, and Conventions during the 1990s by Salomón Doncel-Moriano Urbano
    Subtitle and Distribute: The Mediation Policies of Brazilian Fansubbers in Digital Networks by Krystal Urbano
    Japanese Exceptionalism and Play Hegemony: The Construction of Ludic Traditions in Video Games Criticism by Tomás Grau
    Disrupting Centers of Transcultural Materialities: The Transnationalization of Japan Cool through Philippine Fan Works by Kristine Michelle L. Santos
    In Front of the Law: The Production and Distribution of Boy’s Love Dōjinshi in Indonesia by Nice Huang
    (Trans)Cultural Legibility and Online Yuri!!! on Ice Fandom by Lori Morimoto
  • Volume 11 - Issue 1 Contents Purchase This Issue

    Table of Contents, Volume 11 - Issue 1

    Intro
    Editors’ Introduction
    Article
    Children as a Different Culture: “On Fragmentation: Parts Not Disconnected” translated by Deborah Shamoon by Honda Masuko
    From Vulnerable Minds to Cosmopolitan Affect: Child Fans of Anime in the 1960s-80s by Sandra Annett
    Anime in Schools: Going beyond Globalization and Standards by Brent Allison
    Play, Education, or Indoctrination? Kamishibai in 1930s Japan by Sharalyn Orbaugh
    Combating Youth Violence: The Emergence of Boy Sleuths in Japan’s Lost Decade by Okabe Tsugumi
    Particularities of Boys’ Manga in the Early 21st Century: How Naruto Differs from Dragon Ball by Itô Gô
    Training The Next Generation of Mangaka: A Comparison of Award Announcements in Weekly Shônen Jump and Hana to yume by Mia Lewis
    Against Teleology: Nostalgia and the Vicissitudes of Connectedness in Pharrell Williams’ It Girl Music Video by Ana Matilde Sousa
    Pursuing One’s Own Prince: Love’s Fantasy in Otome Game Contents and Fan Practice by Leticia Andlauer