Suspensions of Concentration: Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year of the Global Pandemic Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020 - Waseda ...
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WORKSHOP
SERIES
Suspensions of Concentration:
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the
Year of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Suspensions of Concentration:
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Our original research project “Location of Anime: Institutions, Disciplines, and Fields”
was planned as an international symposium/seminar at Waseda University’s Brussels
Office in collaboration with its partner institution, the Université Libre de Bruxelles
(ULB) in Fall 2020.
Unfortunately, we had no choice but to cancel the event due to COVID-19. In the beginning,
there was no plan to hold any alternative event because we were too exhausted from a
seemingly endless series of Zoom meetings and other online affairs. While contemplating the
discontinuation of the project, 劇場版「鬼滅の刃」無限列車編 or Demon Slayer the Movie:
Mugen Train was released on October 16, 2020. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, this
anime movie became an instant blockbuster, and eventually surpassed Miyazaki Hayao’s
Spirited Away (2001) to become the highest-grossing film ever in Japan. Intrigued by this
blockbuster phenomenon and the wide-ranging social effects the movie and the original
manga have created, we have decided to reorganize the original project by focusing on
Kimetsu no yaiba or Demon Slayer.
The main objective of our project remains the same, i.e., the investigation of the location
of anime. This two-day online seminar is an attempt to accomplish this objective by
examining a wide range of issues that are concretely related to Kimetsu no yaiba yet have
implications beyond the single media franchise. Through presentations and discussions at
the seminar, we will explore such topics and questions as the anime industry and media
mix, fan culture, cosplay and social media, anime songs and music, voice acting and actors,
genre systems, intertextuality, action and spectacle, speed and kinetic dynamism, narrative
motifs, iconography, visual style, historical imagination, the political unconscious, affect,
violence, censorship, gender and authorship, transnational reception and consumption,
labor and marketing, COVID-19 and the culture industry, etc. By scrutinizing Kimetsu no
yaiba in relation to these and other issues, we will collectively reflect on the location of
anime in its broadest sense.
While it is our intention to maintain and expand a global network of anime scholars, this
international seminar is organized specifically for the purpose of fostering a collaborative
research on anime among Japan-based and Europe-based scholars. In addition to in-depth
discussions on the main topics of the seminar, we will also spend some time considering the
original theme of this Japan-Europe joint research project: “Location of Anime: Institutions,
Disciplines, and Fields.” Our hope is to cultivate collectively seeds of new ideas that can
be developed into future cooperative research projects or partnerships.Suspensions of Concentration:
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
SCHEDULE
March 19th (Friday)
2 pm - 2.05 pm (JST) Welcome & Introduction
06:00 - 06:05 (CET)
SESSION 1 - PANDEMIC TIME
2.05 pm - 2.50 pm Jason Cody DOUGLASS (Yale University)
06:05 - 06:50 “Animation in Times of Pandemic”
2.50 pm - 3.35 pm Christophe THOUNY (Ritsumeikan University)
06:50 - 07:35 “Kimetsu eroguro: Oni longing for a face”
10’ Q/A
SESSION 2 - AFFECT AND POWER
3.45 pm - 4.30 pm Akiko SUGAWA-SHIMADA (Yokohama National University)
07:45 - 08:30 “Shinobu and Mitsuri as Post-Feminist or ‘Post’-Post Feminist
Characters: Representations of Femininity and Power in Kimetsu
no Yaiba”
4.30 pm - 5.15 pm Catherine REGINA BORLAZA (University of the Philippines
08:30 - 09:15 Diliman)
“Binding Threads: The Emotional Structure of Attachment in the
Animated Series Kimestu no Yaiba”
10’ Q/A
5’ Coffee Break
SESSION 3 - MANGA AND THE MANGAESQUE
5.30 pm - 6 pm Jaqueline BERNDT (Stockholm University)
09:30 - 10:00 “More Mangaesque than the Manga: ‘Cartooning’ in the Kimetsu
no yaiba anime”
6 pm - 6.30 pm Bryan HARTZHEIM (Waseda University)
10:00- 10:30 “Parasketches: Tankôbon Interstices in Kimetsu no yaiba”
6.30 pm - 7 pm Discussant: Julien BOUVARD (Université Lyon 3 - Jean Moulin)
10:30 - 11:00
10’ Q/ASuspensions of Concentration:
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
March 20th (Saterday)
2 pm - 2.05 pm (JST) Welcome
06:00 - 06:05 (CET)
SESSION 4 - HISTORY OF THE PRESENT
2.05 pm - 2.50 pm Stacey JOCOY (Texas Tech University)
6:05- 06:50 “Kagura Dance: The Musicality of Ritualized Dance as Historical
Imaginary in Demon Slayer/Kimetsu no Yaiba and Your Name/Kimi
no Na wa”
2.50 pm - 3.35 pm Siyuan LI (Waseda University)
06:50 - 07:35 “Where is the Sacred Site? Reconsidering the ‘Sacralization’ of
Tourism Destinations in the Midst of Public Craze for Kimetsu no
Yaiba”
10’ Q/A
SESSION 5 - ANIME’S CONVENTIONAL AND EXCEPTIONAL
3.45 pm - 4.15 pm Seio NAKAJIMA (Waseda University)
07:45- 08:15 “Talk of Success: A Pragmatic-Sociological Discourse Analysis of
How People Explain Why Kimetsu Became a Blockbuster”
4.15 pm - 4.45 pm Stevie SUAN (Hosei University)
08:15 - 08:45 “Colorful Execution: Conventionality and Transnationality in
Kimetsu no Yaiba”
4.45 pm - 5.15 pm Discussant: Lukas R.A. WILDE (University of Tubingen)
08:45 - 09:15
10’ Q/A
5’ Coffee Break
SESSION 6 - KIMETSU AND BEYOND
5.30 pm - 6.15pm Rayna DENISON (University of East Anglia)
09:30 - 10:15 “The Distant Blockbuster: Gekijôban ‘Kimestsu no yaiba’ mugen
ressha-hen (2020) and the Transnationalization of Anime Status”
6.15 pm - 6.45 pm Discussants:
10:15- 10:45 Marie PRUVOST-DELASPRE (Université Paris 8 Vincennes)
Mitsuhiro YOSHIMOTO (Waseda University)
6.45 pm - 7.00 pm Concluding words
10:45 - 11:00March 19th & 20th
Suspensions of Concentration: 2021
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Seminar Mitsuhiro YOSHIMOTO (Waseda University)
Organizer/
Discussant
Bio Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto is Professor of Media and Visual Culture and Dean
of Graduate School of International Culture and Communication at
Waseda University. His published books in English include Kurosawa:
Film Studies and Japanese Cinema, Television, Japan, and Globalization
(co-edited with Eva Tsai and Jung-bong Choi) and Planetary Atmospheres
and Urban Society after Fukushima (co-edited with Christophe Thouny).
He most recently authored articles and essays on the intermedial TV drama
adaptation of the manga and animated box office hit In This Corner of
the World, nuclear disasters and ecocritical analysis of Japanese cinema,
the Anthropocene and the apocalypse of cinema, and Fredric Jameson’s
film theory for such journals as Series: International Journal of TV Serial
Narratives, Asian Cinema, and Hyosho: Journal of the Association for the
Studies of Culture and Representation. He is currently working on a book
manuscript on Japanese anime.March 19th
(Friday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 1
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title Animation in Times of Pandemic
Presenter Jason Cody DOUGLASS (Yale University)
Abstract As an unprecedented box-office sensation, Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen
Ressha makes for a fruitful site of inquiry for those interested in the
enduring commercial success of theatrical anime despite the ongoing
challenges posed to film exhibitors by COVID-19. Within the broader
series, Kimetsu no Yaiba (hereafter Kimetsu) offers readers, viewers, and
consumers an enigmatic take on a fantastical outbreak, as Tanjiro and his
comrades seek to stop the spread of a curse that is turning humans into
bloodthirsty demons. And as a media phenomenon, Kimetsu exhibits
a number of viral-like qualities: it continues to spread across screens
and bookshelves, disseminating throughout department stores and
vending machines, and infecting those of us who caught the bug and
have now decided to gather together to draw up a collective diagnosis
of our present condition. By taking these various cues from Kimetsu –
animation in pandemic, animation of pandemic, animation as pandemic
– this talk endeavors both to locate the place of Kimetsu within animation
history, and to consider some of the distinct forms and functions that
animated media in Japan have assumed in times of pandemic. Rather
than focusing closely on one of the myriad texts, spaces, or events that
currently constellate the ever-expanding Kimetsu universe, I consider the
franchise alongside brief historical snapshots taken from 1918 (“Spanish
flu”), 1957 (“Asian flu”), 1968 (“Hong Kong flu”), and 1977 (“Russian
flu”).
Bio Jason Cody Douglass is a fifth-year Ph.D. Candidate in Yale’s combined
program in Film and Media Studies and East Asian Languages and
Literatures, as well as the graduate certificate program in Women’s, Gender,
and Sexuality Studies. His dissertation brings questions of gender, race,
class, and spectatorship to bear on the history of midcentury Japanese
animation. His publications can be found in Film Quarterly, Animation
Studies Online Journal, Women Film Pioneers Project, Animation Studies
2.0, and the edited collection Animation and Advertising (eds. K.
M. Thompson and M. Cook, Palgrave Macmillan 2020). In 2018, the
Society for Animation Studies awarded him the Maureen Furniss Award
for Best Graduate Student Paper on Animated Media. In the fall of 2019,
he served as Guest Faculty of Film History at Sarah Lawrence College.
He is currently a Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellow based at Waseda’s
Graduate School of International Culture and Communication.March 19th
(Friday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session1
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title Kimetsu eroguro: Oni longing for a face
Presenter Christophe THOUNY (Ritsumeikan University)
Abstract In this presentation, I discuss Kimetsu as a symptomatic answer to the
present planetary crisis, what I call Corona eroguro. By eroguro I refer
to a series of artistic styles from the post-1923 Great Kanto Earthquake
urban culture to postwar Japan new media revivals of the genre and
today’s Corona moment, each resonating with each other in the search
for an answer to the very same question, how to live a time of change, a
time without ground - but passages, a time without home - but shelters,
a time that asks us how much the body can take, how much deformation
for value-extraction is acceptable and desired. In volume 12 of the
Kimetsu manga series, Muzan, vampiric dandy, arch-enemy of Tanjiro,
and father of an endless lineage of Oni freaks makes a simple and clear
political statement (politics is always clear!) : ‘What I hate is change’. For
Muzan, change of situation, of flesh, of emotions, all changes only lead
to deterioration. What Muzan desires is eternal life without change of
any sort, the Paradise on Earth, integrated capitalism, the end of the end,
a neutral and stable face - mask. Quite the conservative statement at a
moment in history where going back to our good old ways, going back to
a safe and warm home has become an impossibility. Kimetsu as we know
was already highly successful when the corona crisis hit global human
societies, triggering a cascading effect that today sees no end in sight.
And at the same time, nothing has changed with Corona, pre-established
logics only intensified and accelerated as the Japanese write Tawada
Yoko recently noticed. The demon (oni) slayer Tanjiro Kamado has no
home to go back to and it is no surprise that one of the most popular
scene of the movie is about dreaming of going back home and meeting
his dead mother, brothers and sisters, dead because killed by an Oni,
the father figure, Muzan. The choice of Taisho and of a Shinsengumi-like
group of vigilante protecting innocent citizens-qua-victims is significant
of this moment when there is no home, no family - only surrogate family-
like gatherings, when the patriarchal structure has become infected by a
parasitic life, when symbiosis and parasitism cannot stabilize nor slow
down their mad dance. Kimetsu is conservative in its oedipal narrative,
and insistently melancholic, as if dreaming that going back home was a
possibility, as if the nation-state still existed, and yet knowing perfectly
well this is not an option anymore. This is a melancholic state that I
argue allows in Kimetsu for a reparative narrative of sorts, navigating the
polarities of parasitism and symbiosis, mourning and melancholia in an
ongoing movement of deformation never captured into a stable face, a
white wall / black holes mask.March 19th
(Friday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 1
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Bio Christophe Thouny is an associate professor in the College of Global
Liberal Arts at Ritsumeikan University. He researches modern Japanese
urban culture in literature, movies and urban ethnography, and is the co-
editor (with Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto) of Planetary Atmospheres and Urban
Society After Fukushima (Palgrave, 2016). He also discusses global
debates about environmental issues, queer theory and critical theory. He
is now working on three research projects: the modern city and planetary
thought in contemporary Japanese visual culture (film and animation);
a monograph on urban experiences in Meiji and Taisho Tokyo literature
(Mori Ogai, Nagai Kafu and Tayama Katai) and ethnography (Kon
Wajiro); and a coming edited volume in English on postwar Japanese
social critique in the work of the poet and essayist Yoshimoto Takaaki.March 19th
(Friday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 2
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title Shinobu and Mitsuri as Post-Feminist or ‘Post’-Post
Feminist Characters: Representations of Femininity
and Power in Kimetsu no yaiba
Presenter Akiko SUGAWA-SHIMADA (Yokohama National University)
Abstract This presentation will attempt to analyze representations of two female
Hashira, Kocho Shinobu, Insect Hashira, and Kanroji Mitsuri, Love
Hashira, in Kimetsu no yaiba, from a post-feminist perspective. I argue
that Shinobu represents post-feminist potentials of female solidarity and
conflicts in the man-centered society of Japan, and Mitsuri serves to
present how she has experienced post-feminist struggles of femininity
and gender equality, seeking a way to “have it all.” Because of her hyper-
sexualized representation, the image of Mitsuri has been harshly criticized
from feminist perspectives mainly through Japanese social media, which
triggered a controversy between (male) “otaku” and “feminists” again in
Japan. I will also try to tackle this problem if time permits.
Bio Akiko Sugawa-Shimada, PhD, is a professor in the Graduate School
of Urban Innovation at Yokohama National University, Japan. Dr.
Sugawa-Shimada is the author of a number of books and articles on
anime, manga, and Cultural Studies, including Girls and Magic: How
Have Girl Heroes Been Accepted? (2013, Won the 2014 Japan Society
of Animation Studies Award, in Japanese), Studies on 2.5-dimentional
Culture (2021, in Japanese), chapters in the books Japanese Animation:
East Asian Perspectives (2013), Introduction to Anime Studies (2014, in
Japanese, co-edited), Teaching Japanese Popular Culture (2016), Cultural
Sociology of Post-kawaii (2017, in Japanese), Shojo Across Media (2019),
Women’s Manga in Asia and Beyond (2019), 55 Keywords for Animation
Culture (2019, in Japanese, co-edited), Contents Tourism and Pop Culture
Fandom (2020), and Animating the Spiritual (2020), and as co-author,
Contents Tourism in Japan (2017).March 19th
(Friday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 2
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title Binding Threads: The Emotional Structure of
Attachment in the Animated Series Kimestu no yaiba
Presenter Catherine REGINA BORLAZA (University of the Philippines Diliman)
Abstract In a bid to expound on and explore literary treatments of emotion in the
field of narrative theory, Patrick Colm Hogan in Affective Narratology
underscores the relation between “story structures” and “emotional
systems,” demonstrating how specific narrative prototypes—such as
the Romantic, Heroic, Revenge, and Attachment, to name a few—are
“fundamentally shaped and oriented” by emotions. In this paper, I
employ Hogan’s affective narratological approach in inquiring into the
emotion of Attachment and its corresponding story structure which is
arguably at the crux of the character goals and relations and the narrative
structure of the animated series Kimestu no Yaiba. Particularly informed by
Hogan’s observation that Attachment finds its narratological expression
through “emotional memories and mirroring relations,” I explore the
intertwinement of the emotion of Attachment, which manifests between
the siblings Tanjiro and Nezuko and the lower rank demon Rui and his
human and demon family, and the literary topos of memory and mirroring
in the Natagumo Mountain story arc (episodes 15-20) wherein the
series’ metaphors, manifestations, and musings on the theme of familial
attachment reach its climax. In doing so, this paper ultimately attempts
to present pathways into examining the narrative structures and motifs
of anime guided by insights and approaches in affective narratology
and explain the enduring appeal of narratives coming to grips with and
negotiating similar emotions and themes as Kimetsu no Yaiba.
Bio Catherine Regina Borlaza is an Instructor at the Department of English
and Comparative Literature of the University of the Philippines Diliman,
where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Comparative
Literature specializing in Asian literature. Her research interests include
studies on adaptation, narratology, folklore, and Japanese popular
culture.March 19th
(Friday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 3
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title More Mangaesque than the Manga: ‘Cartooning’ in
the Kimetsu no yaiba Anime
Presenter Jaqueline BERNDT (Stockholm University)
Abstract
Bio Jaqueline Berndt (PhD) is a Professor in Japanese Language and Culture
at Stockholm University. Prior to that, she served as Professor in Comics
Theory at Kyoto Seika University, Japan. Her scholarly work is in the
areas of Comics/Manga Studies and Animation/Anime studies, and
engaged in relating New Formalism to Media Studies. Her publications
include the co-edited volumes Manga’s Cultural Crossroads (2013) and
Shojo Across Media: Exploring “Girl” Practices in Contemporary Japan
(2019), as well as the monograph Manga: Medium, Art and Material
(2015). She also directed the world-traveling exhibition Manga Hokusai
Manga: Approaching the Master’s Compendium from the Perspective of
Contemporary Comics for the Japan Foundation (2016-); currently she
is preparing the exhibition Manga: Reading the Flow for the Museum
Rietberg, Zürich (fall 2021).March 19th
(Friday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 3
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title Parasketches: Tankôbon Interstices in Kimetsu no
yaiba
Presenter Bryan HARTZHEIM (Waseda University)
Abstract Scholars of manga have in recent years grappled with the materiality
of the media, focusing attention to the role of printed materials in
contributing to textual meaning and reader involvement. While there
has been substantial analysis of the editorial and paratextual function
of manga magazines, there has been comparatively less with regards to
collected volumes of manga chapters, or tankôbon, regarded typically
as little more than analog devices that assemble specific manga works
into a readable and profitable format. This talk seeks to highlight some of
the creative contributions of tankôbon, and also discuss their narrative
potential as a platform for media convergence in an age of increasing
digital comics production. Using the tankôbon of Kimetsu no yaiba
as an example, this talk shows how the approach of the mangaka and
editors to crafting Kimetsu’s tankôbon reflect one of the manga’s key
themes of hidden, overlapping worlds. Specifically, I aim to show how
the tankôbon’s small narratives and images comprise a reflective layer
of meaning not available to readers of the manga magazine. Through
an analysis of the in-between spaces of Kimetsu’s tankôbon – its dust
jackets, book covers, and inserts – the paratextual interstices of the
manga become an opening into creative repurposing and reframing of
the manga’s world and characters, connecting the historical-fictional
past of the manga’s world to a continuous, transmedial present.
Bio Bryan Hikari Hartzheim is an assistant professor in the School of
International Liberal Studies and the Graduate School of International
Culture and Communication at Waseda University. His work focuses
on the production cultures of media industries, particularly the Japanese
animation and video games industries, and he has published a number
of essays on these topics in edited collections and journals including
Television and New Media and Journal of Popular Culture. He is the
co-editor of The Franchise Era: Managing Media in the Digital Economy
(Edinburgh University Press, 2019), which examines the outsized
importance of franchises to film studios and big tech corporations in
light of rapidly changing digital technologies, and and the guest editor
of a forthcoming special issue on media platforms and industries for
Mechademia (University of Minnesota Press, 2023).March 20th
(Saterday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 4
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title Kagura Dance: The Musicality of Ritualized Dance
as Historical Imaginary in Demon Slayer/Kimetsu no
Yaiba and Your Name/Kimi no Na wa
Presenter Stacey JOCOY (Texas Tech University)
Abstract In episode 19 of Kimetsu no Yaiba, Tanjiro remembers his father’s
Hinokami kagura dance, which offers him expected strength in battle.
This worldbuilding sequence places the action amidst localized rituals
of Shinto belief, which Jolyon Thomas notes in Drawing on Tradition,
offers a fecund site for historical imagination. Kagura dances, as an
element of Shinto, are historically localized and unique, offering modern
anime fertile cultural space—a potent location for both soft power
constructions and modern narrative. Hinokami can be grouped with the
kagura dance in the recent anime movie Your Name (Kimi no Na wa)
by Makoto Shinkai. Both dances reference essential aspects of Japanese
traditionalism, residing in narrative spaces connected with memory. In
Your Name, Mitsuha’s kagura dance contains powerful but forgotten
regional memories that combine with the kuchikamizake ritual to create
the pivotal time distortion. Hinokami kagura ties Tanjiro’s father to the
power of regional ritual, the memory of which reveals forgotten breathing
exercises that amplify Tanjiro’s technique.
While both anime use traditionally influenced dance movements
and music to depict kagura, Hinokami also incorporates an extended
orchestration technique. “Kamado Tanjiro no Uta” by Go Shiina,
underlaid throughout the scene, changes timbre from soft lyricism to
heroic orchestral dynamism, aurally impacting the critical moment
narrative switches from memory to climatic present. This presentation
compares these two kagura scenes, using comparative musical analysis
with aural-visual tracking, emphasizing their effectiveness in translating
iconic elements of traditional Japanese culture into historical imaginary
that builds powerful modern narratives of Japanese identity.
Bio Stacey Jocoy is an associate professor of music history at Texas Tech
University. She holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has presented on music in anime at
the American Popular Culture Association, the Animation and Public
Engagement Symposium, Mechademia conferences, and Anime Expo
Academic Conferences. She is a guest editor for Mechademia 13.2
“Soundscapes” and has articles appearing in the upcoming Anime and
Music Handbook (Palgrave) and Animation and Public Engagement at the
Time of Covid-19 (Vernon Press). Her research explores the intersections
of music, politics, and constructions of gender, focusing on the functions
of musical narratives in context.March 20th
(Saterday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 4
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title Where is the Sacred Site? Reconsidering the
‘Sacralization’ of Tourism Destinations in the Midst
of Public Craze for Kimetsu no Yaiba
Presenter Siyuan LI (Waseda University)
Abstract Anime pilgrimage (seichi junrei) usually refers to the visit to real places
where used as the basis for background settings of anime works.
However, the terms “seichi” and “seichi junrei” are pervasively used by
the audience in general, with less emphasis on visual similarities between
the real places to anime scenes. Fans of Kimetsu no Yaiba have been
identifying and traveling to “sacred places”. Many of these locations are
identified because of shared names or visual similarities to content from
the series, not because they were used as references for the settings. For
instance, shrines in Kyushu that contain the characters for “Kamado” in
their names, associating it with the family name of protagonist Kamado
Tanjiro. Tofuku Temple in Kyoto because its checkerboard pattern garden
can be associated with Tanjiro’s Kimono pattern. More than 50 locations
have been listed by media and visited by fans as “sacred places”, despite
that some locations have only tenuous connections to the series. In
addition, inspired by Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train, JR Kyushu
and JR Gunma operated steam locomotive trains respectively, and offered
special railway tours to passengers. With decorations and services
provided on board, the trains were theme-park like adaptations of the
movie into physical spaces.
I attended the tour organized by JR Gunma and would like to share
my experience and observations. Through a review of various types of
Kimetsu no Yaiba pilgrimage visits, I argue that the sacralization of anime
tourism destination is a co-productive process, whereby association
could be incorporated on the basis of fans’ common recognition rather
than visual similarities.
Bio Siyuan LI is a Ph.D. student at Graduate School of Asian and Pacific
Studies, Waseda University. Her fields of research interests include
international popular culture fandom and anime tourism. .March 20th
(Saterday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 5
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title Talk of Success: A Pragmatic-Sociological Discourse
Analysis of How People Explain Why Kimetsu
Became a Blockbuster
Presenter Seio NAKAJIMA (Waseda University)
Abstract The blockbuster anime film Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train was
released in Japan on October 16, 2020, and in 73 days, the film became
the highest-grossing film of all time. Social scientists have attempted to
analyze economic successes (and failures) of cultural products through
two distinctive approaches. The first is a positivist approach gathering
objective statistical-numerical data and conducting quantitative analyses
such as regressing box office figures on “star power.” The second is a
constructionist approach focusing on how people talk about why a film
has succeeded. In this presentation, I put to work the latter approach by
relying on the analysis of discourses of various media contents including
newspapers (e.g., articles, opinion pieces, editorials), magazines, as well
as the Internet including posts in social media. Preliminary analysis of
the reasonings of success people present reveals a highly complex matrix
of justification: discourses that focus on the nature of film text itself (e.g.,
character development, narrative, visual effects) vs. those focusing on
social-contextual factors (e.g., release dates of Hollywood blockbusters
delayed due to the COVID-19, hence more available slots for Kimetsu
screenings); among those focusing on film text, those emphasizing
“unique” expression of Japanese culture and tradition (e.g., respect for
social order and hierarchy) that resonates with the Japanese audience
vs. those focusing on universal attraction (e.g., perseverance of a hero);
critical-evaluative (i.e., discourses that describe the reasons for success
but are critical of the phenomenon itself, excluding the addresser outside
of the phenomenon) vs. descriptive (i.e., discourses that simply describe
the possible reasons for success). As a general theoretical stance, I rely
on “sociology of critique” of pragmatic sociology, which emphasizes the
critical ability of audiences.
Bio Seio Nakajima is Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies at the
Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University. He has
conducted organizational analyses of the Chinese film industry, as well as
ethnographies of Chinese film audiences and consumption. His articles
include “The Genesis, Structure and Transformation of the Contemporary
Chinese Cinematic Field: Global Linkages and National Refractions”
(Global Media and Communication, 2017), “Official Chinese Film
Awards and Film Festivals: History, Configuration and TransnationalMarch 20th
(Saterday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 5
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Bio Legitimation” (Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2019), and “The Sociability of
Millennials in Cyberspace: A Comparative Analysis of Barrage Subtitling
in Nico Nico Douga and Bilibili”(in China’s Youth Cultures and Collective
Spaces: Creativity, Sociality, Identity and Resistance, edited by Vanessa
Frangville and Gwennaël Gaffric, 2019). He is embarking on a new
project on the socio-technical analysis of safe driving and autonomous
driving technologies, serving as the Director of the Research Institute of
Automobile and Parts Industries (RIAPI), Waseda University.March 20th
(Saterday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 5
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title Colorful Execution: Conventionality and
Transnationality in Kimetsu no Yaiba
Presenter Stevie SUAN (Hosei University)
Abstract The sustained achievement of the Kimetsu no Yaiba film in the number
1 spot at the box office and claim to the highest grossing film of all time
in Japan marks an important achievement for late-night TV anime. While
two other anime, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi and Kimi no Na ha,
have reached similar levels of sales and popularity, neither of these works
were based on an established late-night TV anime like Kimetsu no Yaiba
is. This may invite questions of what makes Kimetsu no Yaiba so special
as to achieve this degree of fame. However, instead of pursuing the
question of Kimetsu no Yaiba’s uniqueness, this presentation will instead
explore how conventional the anime actually is, through an examination
of its media-form, exploring how Kimetsu no Yaiba performs as an anime.
Such an exploration will examine some of the recent trends in anime
that are employed in Kimetsu no Yaiba, including certain character types,
narrative tropes, and character designs. In addition, I will examine some
of the patterns of production, and, in comparison with the manga, reveal
how the media-formal elements of both mediums reveal divergent types
of transnationality.
Bio Stevie Suan is an Assistant Professor at Hosei University’s Faculty of
Global and Interdisciplinary Studies, Stevie Suan holds a doctorate from
the Graduate School of Manga Studies at Kyoto Seika University and a
masters in Asian Studies from University of Hawai‛i at Mānoa. His main
area of expertise is in anime aesthetics through which he explores various
modes of existence. In his recent research, he utilizes performance/
performativity theory and media theory to examine anime as an example
of the shifting currents of cultural production and consumption in our
moment of globalization. This is the topic of his upcoming book, Anime’s
Identity: Performativity and Form beyond Japan, forthcoming from
University of Minnesota Press (2021).March 20th
(Saterday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 6
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Title The Distant Blockbuster: Gekijoban ‘Kimetsu no
yaiba’ mugen ressha-hen (2020) and the
Transnationalization of Anime Status
Presenter Rayna DENISON (University of East Anglia)
Abstract By any standard, the recent success of the Kimetsu no yaiba (Demonslayer:
Kimetsu no Yaiba) franchise would justify its inclusion in lists of the world’s
most popular films of 2020. In fact, Hollywood films have increasingly
moved into online distribution in 2020, this franchise’s film incarnation –
Gekijôban “Kimetsu no yaiba” mugen ressha-hen – may well prove to be
one of the most profitable and popular of the year worldwide. Reportedly
seen by over 20 million people in Japan and bringing more than $260
million so far, the “theatrical version” of Kimetsu no yaiba is significant
for the way it inverts and subverts some of the longstanding debates and
assumptions about the blockbuster film (Schilling 2020). Chris Berry has
argued that Asia has its own thriving, localized versions of blockbuster
culture, and calls for the “de-Westernization” of the blockbuster as a
way of understanding “big” films from around the world (2003: 219). In
this talk, I seek to examine how an example of Kimetsu no yaiba might
shift the discourse of the blockbuster away from its American centre.
In particular, I focus on the how Kimetsu no yaiba’s success is being
assessed outside Japan as the film slowly transnationalizes and travels. In
doing so, I examine how critics, cultural commentators and journalists
are debating the film’s “blockbuster” status in relation to its reliance on
the domestic market in Japan for the majority of its success. Through
a comparative examination of the discourses around this hit film at
home and abroad, I attempt to unpick how anime’s meanings shift as
they travel, and how such local blockbusters are framed and understood
before they become accessible outside of the domestic market. Through
this analysis, I am to demonstrate how Gekijôban “Kimestsu no yaiba”
mugen ressha-hen has become a kind of “distant” blockbuster whose
success at home echoes around the world.
Bio Rayna Denison is a Senior Lecturer in Film, Television and Media
Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK, where she researches and
teaches contemporary Japanese animation and film. She is the author
of Anime: A Critical Introduction, and the editor of Princess Mononoke:
Understanding Studio Ghibli’s Monster Princess. She is also the co-editor
of the Eisner Award-nominated Superheroes on World Screens. Rayna has
edited special issues of the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, the
East Asian Journal of Popular Culture and Animation Studies Journal, and
her articles can be found in a wide range of scholarly journals including
Cinema Journal, Japan Forum, the International Journal of Cultural Studies
and Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal.March 19th
(Friday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 3
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Discussant Julien BOUVARD (University Jean Moulin Lyon 3)
Bio Julien Bouvard is currently associate professor in Japanese studies at
University Jean Moulin Lyon 3 (France). After graduating in History and
in Japanese language and civilization, he wrote a doctoral thesis in 2010
entitled “Manga politique, politique du manga (Political manga, politics
of manga): History of the Relationship between a Popular Medium
and Power in Contemporary Japan from the 1960s to the Present.» His
research focuses on the history of manga, but he also conducts work
on other aspects of Japanese popular culture such as video games and
animation. He is currently working on a book project on the materiality
of manga, otherwise on manga as an object.March 20th
(Saterday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 5
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Discussant Lukas R.A. WILDE (Tübingen University)
Bio Lukas R.A. Wilde is a research associate at Tübingen University’s
Department for Media Studies, Germany. He studied theatre and
media; Japanese; and philosophy at the Friedrich-Alexander-University
Erlangen-Nürnberg and the Gakugei University of Tokyo, and is a fellow
of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des
deutschen Volkes). His media studies dissertation on the functions of
‘characters’ (kyara) within everyday communication of contemporary
Japanese society was awarded the Roland-Faelske-Award for the best
Dissertation in Comics and Animation Studies in 2018. He is the Vice
President of the German Society for Comic Studies (ComFor) and a
member and former spokesperson of the Committee for Comic Studies
(AG Comicforschung) of the German Society of Media Studies (GfM).
Lukas Wilde is also one of the organizers of the digital artists initiative
Comic Solidarity and the GINCO Award (The German Inclusive Comic
Award of the Independent Scene).March 20th
(Saterday)
Suspensions of Concentration: Session 6
Kimetsu no yaiba and Blockbuster in the Year
of the Global Pandemic
Friday 19 & Sunday 20 March 2020
Discussant Marie PRUVOST-DELASPRE (Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis University)
Bio Marie Pruvost-Delaspre is Lecturer in Cinema Studies at Paris 8 Vincennes-
Saint Denis University since 2017. Her PhD dissertation, conducted at
Sorbonne Nouvelle University, focused on the history of the Japanese
animation studio Toei Doga and the evolution of its production system
from 1956 to 1972. She published several articles on anime and the
history of animation techniques, and co-authored a number of books in
French, such as Japanese Animation in France (2014) and Grendizer the
Never-Ending Story (2018). Her first monograph will be The Origins of
Anime: Toei Doga Studio (forthcoming, 2021).You can also read
