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Limning, Frenchy, ed. Mechademia 1: Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. 194 pp. Paper. ISBN 0-8166-4945-6. $19.95.
As the first volume in a series of annual publications, the edited collection Mechademia I : Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga establishes the direction of both creative and critical work on anime, manga, and fan arts. Before one even begins to read the collected articles, the intent of Mechademia is apparent in its design: the volume is configured to look like a standard issue manga, from its cover (including an interior anime/manga timeline) to the illustrated "Anifesto" that opens the book, to the inclusion of comic book style word bah loons that highlight key quotes from the articles, and even to the very paper stock on which the book is printed. While other academic treatments of anime and manga continue to be regularly published and studies of fan culture now appear in ethnographic work, Mechademia consciously chooses to house discourse from fan communities in the same textual space as academic and industry analysis. (Interestingly, this combination has resulted in the publisher's decision to market this as a "Popular Culture/Asian Studies" cross-genre book.) This inclusionary posture gives the collection a sense of strength across disciplines and enhances its appeal to both academic and non-academic audiences. If one regards the collection as a potential nexus of connections between a large number of discursive fields extending from anime, manga, and game design to their production (in graphic design), distribution (in commercial packaging), and reception (in fan or subculture conspicuous fashion), then the goal of the publication to produce and promote new possibilities for critical thinking, as well as the forms and/or graphic designs that the writing might take, is clearly achieved.
The book consists of loosely related essays on varying subjects and a separate section specifically for "Review and Commentary" (that also includes interviews). For example, after the "Anifesto," one essay addresses Japanese fads, while another discusses the global appeal of anime, and another discusses its American popularity. The "Anifesto" is itself quite fannish in its presentation of four two-page panels and decidedly imagistic in the way it borrows from the tanka tradition of Japanese poetry written to commemorate a special event,...