Articles – Page 2 – Stevie Suan

Article in Japanese: 相違するパフォーマンスマンガ( 研究) とアニメ( 研究) を繋ぐ慣例、メディア、グローバリティ
Article in English: Performing Differently: Convention, Medium, and Globality from Manga (Studies) to Anime (Studies). In *Comicology: Probing Practical Scholarship*. Kyoto International Manga Museum: Kyoto Seika University International Manga Research Center, 2015.

While anime studies has flourished in the past few years, in many respects manga studies is much more developed, with a longer history and more debates within the field. Because anime and manga are intimately intertwined media, one might ask what models anime studies could borrow to expand the field. But, as there are significant differences between the two media, there will be points where the theoretical models overlap or deviate, specifically in regards to their inter-related yet media-specific aesthetics. This paper focuses on some of these points, specifically the apparent unity of manga and anime’s conventionalized aesthetics, the material distinctions in the respective media, and the variant degrees of globality.

Article in Japanese: グローバルな舞台でローカルなアニメが演じるアイデンティティ危機 ―『フルメタル・パニック! The Second Raid』を中心に京都精華大学紀要第48号 March, 2016: 3-20.

In TV anime series, narrative and character, among other elements, tend to be highly conventionalized. These conventions are a significant part of how anime is produced, recognized as anime, and interpreted. It is through the performance of these conventions that anime articulates its identity. In this study, I analyze how anime’s conventionalized patterns are performed within the context of shifting tensions between the local and global. This will be explored through an examination of Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid (TSR: 2005), an anime historically situated during the peak of anime’s exportation boom and the JSDF’s deployment to Iraq (2004-06), and which can be read as thinking through identity, globalization, and military narratives. I examine how TSR performs anime’s established conventional patterns in a manner that questions the logic of those conventions, engaging with the anxieties of expanded exportation of a previously local, niche product suddenly exported on a global scale with government backing, and the contemporaneous media discourse on the expanded militarization of Japan. The identity crisis of the main character, Sousuke, acting as the core, conventionalized plot of the series, will be analyzed in relation to the identity of anime itself. Through Sousuke’s identity crisis TSR raises questions about anime’s conventional logic (the narrative and character conventions that appear commonplace), and their connections to the ethics of using lethal force (even in defense), problematizing conventional anime narrative structures and military narratives in general.