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Transgressing Death in Japanese Popular Culture

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. Miguel Cesar

    1. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

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  • Looks at the framing of death and related themes through new popular culture forms such as manga, anime and computer games and their ontologies
  • Conducts a philosophical investigation of the connections between traditional Japanese art and literature’s depictions of the boundary between life and death, and newly emerging reinterpretations of those depictions in contemporary Japanese media products
  • Connects the theme of death with contextual concerns on individualism, collectivism and the construction of new forms of community in contemporary Japan

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Miguel Cesar
    Pages 1-21

  3. A Genealogy of the EBT Conversation in Japan

    • Miguel Cesar
    Pages 23-48

  4. Transgressing Boundaries: Exile and Loneliness

    • Miguel Cesar
    Pages 49-77

  5. Rebellion and Transgression in “Journey to Agartha”

    • Miguel Cesar
    Pages 79-99

  6. Tragic Transgressions in Shadow of the Colossus

    • Miguel Cesar
    Pages 101-125

  7. Conclusions

    • Miguel Cesar
    Pages 127-136

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 137-138
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Keywords

About this book

This book focuses on the theme of the transgression of life and death boundaries through its representation in Japanese contemporary visual media, more specifically in the manga Fullmetal Alchemist, the animated film Journey to Agartha, and the computer game Shadow of the Colossus. By addressing how the theme was constructed by three different media and what these texts say about it, the book focuses on the narrativization of Japanese ontological anxieties. The book argues that, although these texts deal with matters of afterlife through fantasy worlds, the content of their stories, the archetypes of their characters, and their existential journeys echo contextually-situated conversations. Matters of gender, societal structure and, most of all, the tensions between individuality and sociocentrism not only permeate but structure the interrogation of our relation to the afterlife. This book stands to contribute significantly to media studies, literarystudies, and Japanese studies.

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Miguel Cesar

About the author

Miguel Cesar completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh. He obtained his degree in History at the University Complutense of Madrid in 2013, an MSc in American Anthropology at the same university, and an MSc in Japanese Society and Culture at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently an independent researcher studying the role of contemporary Japanese visual media in the shaping of current discourses on individualism and community.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Transgressing Death in Japanese Popular Culture

  • Authors: Miguel Cesar

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50880-7

  • Publisher: Palgrave Pivot Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-50879-1Published: 28 August 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-50882-1Published: 28 August 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-50880-7Published: 27 August 2020

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 138

  • Topics: Asian Culture, Popular Culture , Comics Studies

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