Dissertation
Newtypes: digital technology and the evolution of the language of anime
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Autumn 2024
DOI: 10.25820/etd.007650
Abstract
This dissertation examines how the integration of digital technologies into the production, conceptualization, aesthetic forms, distribution, and reception of Japanese animation, or ‘anime,’ has greatly accelerated the medium’s transformation in ways relevant not just for studies of anime and animation, but with consequences and implications for how we theorize ‘cinema’ more broadly in the digital age. It mainly trains its focus on the 21st century, with excursions to the past to better understand the present, to ask how the ‘language’ of anime has evolved as a result of the arrival and integration of digital technology into existing formal and aesthetic systems developed over the second half of the 20th century. Where Hollywood largely abandoned traditional hand-drawn planar animation in the early 2000s, Japanese animation has never made a full-scale shift to 3D CGI, but instead employed digital technology in ways that are additive and transformative. Rather than erasing and replacing existing forms, techniques, styles, and codes, the innovations of digital technology in anime have added to, complicated, and expanded this repertoire, expanding the formal language of anime in ways that have made it increasingly unique among global visual mass media.
The four body chapters each examine ways anime has changed, or is changing, as a result of intersections with new technology and digitality. The first chapter, Neon Anime Genesis, employs critical historiography to explore the protean definition of ‘anime’ and how it is dynamically shaped over time through collective effort and engagement. The second chapter, Sunabashiri, surveys a fascinating trend in digital-era anime where the medium begins using modern tools to emphasize – rather than efface – traces of the human hand, paradoxically to our typical expectations of digital media, and is principally theoretical in exploring how viewers identify with hand-drawn animation through tactility and affectivity. The third chapter, Hinokami Kagura, is heavily formal, examining how 3D CGI has impacted anime’s two-dimensional planar base, and the unique forms of hybridization that have emerged from an industry that has neither abandoned central tenants of cel animation nor refused to evolve with new technology. The fourth chapter, Shiny Sword, My Diamond, engages with ‘new media’ theory and video game studies to explore anime’s relationship to video games and what stories anime’s modern isekai (‘other world’) genre tells us about the stories we tell ourselves living in a digitally-inflected present. An introductory Prologue, Ethereal Horizon, explores why the aesthetics and narratives of anime resonate with the author’s generational cohort, and establishes foundational principles of film and animation theory as they relate to the study of contemporary Japanese animation. Finally, a concluding Epilogue, The Peak, considers all of the major themes and advancements studied in the body chapters through the lens of Andre Bazin’s “The Myth of Total Cinema” and the most recent episodes of the long-running anime One Piece to explore and challenge the idea of platonic ‘totalizing’ narratives of film history and of technological progress.
At all points, this work is further inflected by the author’s positionality as an anime fan, film critic, and podcast host, experiences which serve as ‘data’ for examples of Western 21st-century fandom, and as foundations for auto-critique over the course of the study. Implicitly and explicitly, this dissertation argues that taking anime seriously, not as a strange or niche ‘foreign’ offshoot of typically Western-centric animation studies, but as a central pillar of moving image media in the increasingly global marketplace, illuminates crucial aspects of cinema’s digital turn, and forces reckonings with frameworks and theories both new and old.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Newtypes: digital technology and the evolution of the language of anime
- Creators
- Jonathan R. Lack
- Contributors
- Corey Creekmur (Advisor)Melinda Barlow (Committee Member)Christopher Goetz (Committee Member)Kendall Heitzman (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Film Studies
- Date degree season
- Autumn 2024
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.007650
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- xviii, 610 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2024 Jonathan R. Lack
- Comment
- This thesis has been optimized for improved web viewing. If you require the original version, contact the University Archives at the University of Iowa: https://www.lib.uiowa.edu/sc/contact/
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 12/04/2024
- Description illustrations
- Illustrations, tables
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 592-610).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
One of the most remarkable periods in the history of Japanese animation is unfolding right before our eyes, as the integration of digital technologies into the creation, distribution, and reception of anime has greatly accelerated the medium’s transformation and fueled its global popularity in bold and surprising new directions. Each chapter of this dissertation explores a different contemporary phenomenon in digital-era anime: from the way modern tools have been employed to emphasize, rather than erase, traces of the human hand in films like Takahata Isao’s My Neighbors the Yamadas or Miyazaki Hayao’s Ponyo; to the way series like Land of the Lustrous or Kimetsu no Yaiba combine 2D and 3D forms of staging to create new “hybrid” styles; to anime’s longstanding exchange with video games, and the stories anime set within video game worlds, like Sword Art Online, tell us about our own digitally-inflected lives. Meanwhile, examination of major moments in the history of Japanese animation reveals how “anime” as an idea has been shaped by the intersection of creators and fans, and self-reflection on the author’s own life and fandom explore why the aesthetics and narratives of anime resonate so deeply with modern generations of international viewers. Put together, this dissertation surveys the shape of Japanese animation in the 21st century to seek out and define anime’s “Newtype” spirit – an impulse to surpass boundaries and imagine the impossible – and explore what it tells us about the broader study of film and media in the digital age.
- Academic Unit
- Cinematic Arts
- Record Identifier
- 9984774664902771
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