Interpreting Anime
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Well-known through hit movies like Spirited Away, Akira, and Ghost in the Shell, anime has a long history spanning a wide range of directors, genres, and styles. Christopher Boltonβs Interpreting Anime is a thoughtful, carefully organized introduction to Japanese animation for anyone eager to see why this genre has remained a vital, adaptable art form for decades.
Interpreting Anime is easily accessible and structured around individual films and a broad array of critical approaches. Each chapter centers on a different feature-length anime film, juxtaposing it with a particular mediumβlike literary fiction, classical Japanese theater, and contemporary stage dramaβto reveal what is unique about animeβs way of representing the world. This analysis is abetted by a suite of questions provoked by each film, along with Boltonβs incisive responses.
Throughout, Interpreting Anime applies multiple frames, such as queer theory, psychoanalysis, and theories of postmodernism, giving readers a thorough understanding of both the cultural underpinnings and critical significance of each film. What emerges from the sweep of Interpreting Anime is Boltonβs original, articulate case for what makes anime unique as a medium: how it at once engages profound social and political realities while also drawing attention to the very challenges of representing reality in animationβs imaginative and compelling visual forms.
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Christopher Bolton is professor of comparative and Japanese literature at Williams College. He is author of Sublime Voices: The Fictional Science and Scientific Fiction of Abe KΕbΕ, coeditor of Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime (Minnesota, 2007), and a founding member of the Mechademia editorial board.
