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Lunning, Frenchy, ed. Mechademia 7: Lines of Sight. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Softcover. 300 pp. ISBN 978-0-8166-8049-8. $24.95.
Any critic interested in the relationship between visual art or visual culture and the fantastic would be hard pressed to deny the significance of Japanese animation, or anime, and Japanese graphic serials, or manga. Yet there are a number of factors that make anime and manga complicated subjects to approach. One dilemma is the intimidating gulf between Japan and America when it comes to understanding the history of anime and manga. A second major dilemma is the sense that, despite the tremendous strides anime and manga have made over the past few decades, there nonetheless exist certain stigmas attached to both mediums. Some still view anime and manga as unworthy of scholarly attention. The Meduidemia series is an excellent antidote for such retrograde views. As a series, Mechademia reduces the gulf between American and Japanese critical approaches to anime and manga. As an individual volume, Mechademia 7: Lines of Sight may be of interest not just to those who already follow the series, but to those who have not even heard of it. This is because Mechademia 7: Lines of Sight may help alleviate both of those two major dilemmas: the gulf between American and Japanese critical approaches and the denigration of anime and manga. This particular volume indirectly addresses the reputability of Japanese anime and manga through the subject of the Superflat art movement, making it a particularly apt volume for those interested in widening their critical approaches to visual art.
Mechademia 7: Lines of Sight is part of the Mechademia annual forum and, as such, it is a collection of short essays-fifteen in all, divided into four sections: "Intervals," "Worlds in Perspective," "Nonlocalizable Selves," and "Energetic Matter." This volume begins with an introduction by Thomas Lamarre. Like other installments of the Mechademia series, the essays in this volume are organized around a unifying theme. Lamarre introduces the theme of the volume, Radical Perspectivalism, which aims to explore perspective and point of view, with particular interest in transfiguring Cartesianism. For the purposes of this volume, contributor Sharalyn Orbaugh, in "Kamishibai and the Art of the Interval" most succinctly boils down the three major elements...