&lt;i&gt;Gundam&lt;/i&gt; and the Future of Japanoid Art

Tatsumi, Takayuki; Bolton, Christopher

doi:10.1353/mec.0.0065

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…6 Similarly, Tatsumi Takayuki understands the appeal of Gundam, and other anime mecha works, through the lens of Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto," coining the term "Japanoid" to describe what he sees as a uniquely Japanese interest in robotic embodiments resulting from post-occupation cultural bifurcation. 7 However, less attention has been paid to another central theme and concept of the original Gundam TV series-Newtype ideology. Just as many have argued for the importance of mechanical body imagery to Gundam's themes, through the concept of Newtypes, the series also explores the imagery of human bodies becoming transcendent, losing their initial forms.…”

Section: Gundam and The "Newtype" Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Newtypes, Angels, and Human Instrumentality: The Mecha Genre and its Apocalyptic Bodies

Seager

2023

JAMS

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This paper argues that the mecha genre is fixated on psychedelic and abstract imagery of supernatural human bodies, the destruction or transcendence of which often have bring about new political and social epochs. In making this argument, I build on the writing of Hiroki Azuma, and his understanding of classical mecha texts functioning as ‘substitutes’ for political grand narratives. Two major mecha texts are analyzed: Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), and Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995). I suggest that Gundam’s occultic ‘Newtypes’ bridge the series’ grand narrative space opera storyline with themes of New-Age mysticism, itself reminiscent of Azuma’s writings on the role of spiritualism in postmodernity. In my section on Evangelion, I argue that its imagery of bodily re-organization mirrors its fixation on reimagining its world and characters. I term the mecha genre’s supernatural archetype ‘The Apocalyptic Body’, and argue it is key to understanding the genre’s mixing of occult and technological themes.

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Section: Gundam and The "Newtype" Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Newtypes, Angels, and Human Instrumentality: The Mecha Genre and its Apocalyptic Bodies

Seager

2023

JAMS

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“…Starship Troopers introduced the concept of the "powered suit," mechanical armor weighing in at 2,000 pounds that allowed for a single soldier to have the power equivalent to a single tank division. 26 In 1977, Starship Troopers would receive a paperback edition in Japan with a cover drawn by Studio Nue of Space Battleship Yamato fame. The Japanese cover for Starship Troopers would depict Heinlein's giant power-suit crouched on all fours, cannon at the ready, and this depiction of a realistic giant robot would go on to influence the design of Gundam.…”

Section: Robots and Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechapocalypse

Dominguez

2022

JAMS

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In 1988, Tomino Yoshiyuki released Char’s Counterattack, the filmic conclusion to the nine year saga he had begun with the original anime series, Mobile Suit Gundam (1979). Set in a distant and alternate future where war is fought in giant humanoid robots known as “mobile suits,” Char’s Counterattack centers on the final battle between the Democratic Earth Federation and the fascist Neo Zeon Empire. This essay examines Char’s Counterattack as its own watershed moment for the Gundam franchise wherein Gundam would begin to spin-off into multiple media and other franchises, including more anime and films, but also manga, toys, novels, and later video games, all of which would be exported throughout the world, giving rise to Gundam’s global popularity. In reading the explosion of the Gundam franchise alongside its roots in the genre of “real robot” anime, this essay postulates that the destruction of real robots in Char’s Counterattack allegorizes the concept of C ool Japan. In doing so, this essay traces the production and exportation of Gundam’s media to both East Asia in the 1980s and North America in the early aughts, thereby repositioning the pivotal role Char’s Counterattack plays in the growth of otaku culture alongside other works in the anime canon, such as Akira (1988) and Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995).

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Gothic Politics: Oshii, War, and Life without Death

Looser¹

2009

Mechademia

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Even before the recent Gulf wars brought on talk of a new kind of war without end, war has been a common, even ubiquitous theme in anime and manga. With this perhaps in mind, an interviewer asked an artist involved with the 2005 "Gundam: Generating Futures" exhibition at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum in Ueno Park how the "Gundam generation" could talk about war with "no actual experience of war." The reply was that, simply, "each of us has 'experienced' virtual war in a variety of ways." 1 It could be interesting to pursue the importance of virtual war (as opposed to "actual" war) in social life, or perhaps of the experience of war within video games (a question, at least in part, of technology). Certainly Oshii Mamoru, the anime director, filmmaker, artist, and novelist, works with each of these themes at different points in his own, typically war-centered, oeuvre. This article, however, takes up a far more generalized statement on how to think about war. In Oshii's novel Blood: The Last Vampire; Night of the Beasts (2000, Kemonotachi no yoru), war as it now is configured is presented as part of a foundational logic of contemporary political and social life.2 This is not to say that "war" is merely figurative (or fictional) for Oshii.

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<i>Gundam</i> and the Future of Japanoid Art

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Newtypes, Angels, and Human Instrumentality: The Mecha Genre and its Apocalyptic Bodies

Newtypes, Angels, and Human Instrumentality: The Mecha Genre and its Apocalyptic Bodies

Mechapocalypse

Gothic Politics: Oshii, War, and Life without Death

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