Anime''s Identity: Performativity and Form beyond Japan

A formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism

Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its global reach raises a perplexing questionwhat happens when anime is produced outside of Japan? Who actually makes anime, and how can this help us rethink notions of cultural production? In Animes Identity, Stevie Suan examines how animes recognizable media-formno matter where it is producedreflects the problematics of globalization. The result is an incisive look at not only anime but also the tensions of transnationality.

Far from valorizing the individualistic originality so often touted in national creative industries, anime reveals an alternate type of creativity based in repetition and variation. In exploring this alternative creativity and its accompanying aesthetics, Suan examines anime from fresh angles, including considerations of how anime operates like a brand of media, the intricacies of anime production occurring across national borders, inquiries into the selfhood involved in animes character acting, and analyses of various anime works that present differing modes of transnationality. 

Animes Identity deftly merges theories from media studies and performance studies, introducing innovative formal concepts that connect anime to questions of dislocation on a global scale, creating a transformative new lens for analyzing popular media.