Murphy, David. "A Guide to Manga and Anime for Those Who Want to Know What All the Fuss is About." Reading Time. Vol.1. No. 53.: 15-16. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.
This precise and clearly article, written by a freelance magazine contributor, meant for beginners in the Japan-born neo-global phenomena of Manga and Anime, does a very good job in outlining the basics of the art, history, production, audience, fanbase, characterics of the two inter-related media. The article, copyrighted by the Children’s Book Council of Australia, is full of colourful illustrations, which is indeed an important way of catching notice of the page-flippers. Interesting for both children and their parents alike, Murphy’s article begins with a casual title, making the difficult oriental medium of manga and anime seem as easygoing and entertaining as possible. He starts off the discussion with the popularity of the media, and the fields where they are now located -- blooming in the western culture in the last decade, much to the dismay of many parents, teachers and librarians. He then gives a running list of the most popular of their kind -- Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Cowboy Bebop. Appleseed. The Guyver, One Piece , and goes on to explain the reason behind this sudden boom. For him, it is because it is an easily accessible, rich story telling technique that covers a broad range of genres. Moving on to a brief history of the medium, he explains that originally manga was translated as “whimsical pictures”, and was created first by the artist Hokusai in the 18th Century, through woodblock prints on handmade papers. By the 1930s, the art of creating manga had evolved, so did the story-telling technique. The works of Walt Disney were being imported in Japan, and the artists found that the simple, fluid strokes of the Disney characters went well with their artstyle, and were quick to incorporate it into their own oeuvre. As the Japanese were interested in visual art-books (comics) without regard to any particular age-group, the post World War II Japan saw a large influx of American servicemen and businessmen who brought large amounts of American 'Comic Books'. Japanese experts on Manga, acknowledge much of their early understanding of English to reading these comics.The cinematographic techniques of the western comic books gave rise to the lack of descriptive text, highly stylized facial expressions, cutesy style, but the big eyes small mouth combination was a direct descendent of the Disney art-style. Many titles were produced which ranged from teenage love stories, to action adventures, to adult dramas, so there was something for everyone. Then essay then deals with the rise of video techniques and computer games which incorporated such art-style, which came to be known as anime movies and anime games. Many of the Studio Ghibli Movies were based on western literature. The article is a popular magazine article, but proved important for my discussion of the Manga Shakespeare’s version of The Tempest. The medium though popular among all ages, in India, as well as other parts of the world, is relatively culturally alien, as it is propagated through English or other regional translations, and are often misunderstood as cartoons, which are essentially caricatural. This article proves to be very useful for building the basics of knowledge about manga and anime. The author is rarely subjective, is professional in his treatment of the subject. It belongs to the interdisciplinary field of the cross-section between visual arts and literature, meant to appeal to scholar and commoner alike. Ample presence of sources and examples make the work even better graspable.
Lanier, Douglas. "Recent Shakespeare Adaptation and the Mutations of Cultural Capital." Shakespeare Studies 38 (2010): 104-12. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.
The author of the present article, Douglas Lanier, is a Professor of English and director of the London Program at the University of New Hampshire. His published work on early modern British writing includes articles on Shakespeare, Jonson, Marston, Middleton, and the Jacobean masque. He has also written widely about contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare, including articles on Shakespeare adaptation in film, television, audio performance, radio, comic books, and advertising. This interdisciplinary article, published in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal titled Shakespeare Studies, focuses on the various multifaceted adaptations of William Shakespeare’s evergreen works in the day and age of contemporary globalization, belonging mostly to the field of media studies. For Lanier, Shakespearean works prove to be cultural capital moving freely from investment to investment, from medium to medium, genre to genre in a search for renewed value as a mass cultural product rather than mere highbrow-classical commodity. This phenomenon grants the works a certain universality, as can be found in greater detail in the following essay by Troni Grande, as well as popularity, contemporanaeity, and broad intelligibility. The author presents his case in a tripartite model based upon literary theory, works of critics such as the rhizomatic model of Deleuze and Guattari, social and chronological contextualization in the earlier ages and lastly in the post World War II era. Lanier accounts the drive to rejuvenate the Shakespearean cultural capital to be rooted in its continued value as a socio-cultural-educational phenomenon, and this fact guarantees a market. Remodelling Shakespeare in terms of mass media and genres, producers can supply a readymade market (i.e, educational institutions). The discussion of media and genres involved start with filmic adaptations across time and space and their connections to the ‘original text’, moving on to the recent development of Shakespearean graphic novels. Starting with a chronological background on the different productions and publications, it then lays its focus on the Manga Shakespeare series, with its oriental-graphic-style of adaptation while paradoxically being produced by the London-based publishing house SelfMadeHero. The article then mentions the authentically Japanese mangas based on Shakespeare and his works, such as the ones by Yoko Shimamura, Hiromi Morishita etc. Then comes the treatment of the freely adapted western graphic novels that give the Shakespearean oeuvre a whole new turn; the works of Neil Gaiman, Gareth Hinds, Antony Johnson, Brett Weldele, Chuck Austen, Salvador Larroca and many others. The way for Lanier to understand this whole new blooming of this medium, is to see it as a migration to a new, cheaper-to-produce medium which allows greater freedom of adaptation and visualization, being free from production-diffuculties usually associated with films. Though there are no graphical representations supporting the argument the article is fairly informative, if at times a little roundabout and difficult to interpret, providing details of ample inter-disciplinary publications and productions to support its core argument. The article though dealing with adaptations meant for popular culture, adapts models belonging to the field of literary theory, and is intended to attract scholars and researchers sharing interest in the field of media adaptations. There seems to be some difficulty about the sourcing, as there is no bibliography or works cited list. The author seems to be impartial and logical and the article proved quite helpful in my work on The Tempest adaptation of the Manga Shakespeare series, by providing chronological and logical background on the work’s creation and intended audience base.
Grande, Troni. "Manga Shakespeare and the Hermeneutic Problems of "Double Access"" Proc. of Queen City Comics, University of Regina. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. University of Regina - Ourspace. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. <http://ourspace.uregina.ca/handle/10294/3091>.
The professionally conceived unique article, based on the visual art form of westernized manga, deals with the various forms of “graphic Shakespeare” widely available through mass production and distribution and heavily endorsed by educational institutions. The boom began since Neil Gaiman’s publication of Sandman, with its appropriation and reinvention of characters from different creations of Shakespeare and the bard himself. For Grande, who belongs to the faculty of Arts, in the University of Regina, the scholarly community has finally recognized the significance of Shakespeare in the comics. Citing authors like Heike Jungst, Paul Gravett, Michael Bristol and other such authorities on manga and other graphic media, Grande points out to the facts of manga-craze, and its cultural connotations – as means of resisting the established values of high culture. The Manga Shakespeare series capitalizes on merging the “bardbiz” with the “mangabiz” while managing the commercial interests of the youth pop-art culture, backing it up with the academic investment of high culture (this discussion coheres nicely with the aforementioned article by Douglas Lanier). These two “Shakespeares” are then set up side by side on the homepage of the publishing house SelfMadeHero, where the manga business is popularized with the help of the bonus and free academic resources – therefore toppling the hierarchy of source and adaptation; high and low; aesthetic and commercial. According to Grande, the SelfMadeHero Manga Shakespeare is by no means one of its kind, but is arguably one of the most artistically and critically interesting published graphic series. For her, Manga Shakespeare as a whole, operates as a point of double access to Shakespeare, capitalizing on the paradox that Shakespeare is at once a popular commodity and a beacon of high culture. It had appeared as a paper published during the prestigious conference named Queen City Comics, held by the University of Regina. The author is impartial and logical, and while there are no graphic representations, ample critical material is present to support her cause. The article is meant to appeal to the comic book and manga enthusiasts, while scholarly and critical. It has especially helped me conceive of the critical validity of the text under consideration ( the Manga Tempest) in my own research.
"HAMLET: Manga Shakespeare." Rev. of HAMLET: Manga Shakespeare. Kirkus Reviews 15 Mar. 2007: 1-5. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.
This informative and critically conceived review, published in Kirkus Reviews, explores the playing off between the western comic book tradition of graphic illustration, alongside that of the manga style. According to the reviewer, the SelfMadeHero manga Hamlet, created by Emma Vicelli slightly alters the Shakespearean tragedy's content and presents the play in a left-to-right reading pattern rather than the authentic right-to-left manga style. The Americanized format will assist readers who find Shakespeare difficult to understand and the classic dialogue confusing. In a decimated future cyberpunk world laced with technology, the tragedy unfolds. The famous characters, each with a different hairstyle for instant identification, are introduced in the work's front-matter. Illustrations that repeatedly shift in mood, from mysterious sensations to edgy action, become integral to the story. Enhanced by the stark black-and-white sketches, Hamlet's facial expressions allow students to feel his inner turmoil. Dialogue circles set the pace by guiding the reader from panel to panel in a logical eye-movement pattern. Famous quotes from the play such as, "Get thee to a nunnery," are directly linked to illustrations clarifying exactly when in the play's sequence they occur and which character is speaking. Refreshingly clear, this adaptation is recommended by the reviewer for all libraries serving teens. The aforementioned observations happen to be valid for all the other Manga Shakespeare publications by the publishing house SelfMadeHero, and thus justify the case of The Tempest as well. The review, is of scholarly interest, meant for a wide audience ranging from scholars to the book enthusiasts across cultures. The unnamed reviewer is serious in his/her approach in his/her study of this paradoxical graphic medium of westernized manga, and though not critically acclaimed, proved to be important in my field of study. The manga volume under consideration is cited in a proper bibliographic manner.
Hutcheon, Linda. Introduction. A Theory of Adaptation. N.p.: Routledge, 2012. Pp. 1-32. Print.
The famed literary critic and theorist Linda Hutcheon holds the rank of University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. In her newest book titled A Theory of adaptation, she explores the continuous development of creative adaptation, and argues that the practice of adapting is central to the story-telling imagination. In this avant-garde book Hutcheon develops her theory of adaptation through analyzing a range of media, from film and opera, to video games, pop music and theme parks, investigating the breadth, scope and creative possibilities within each such medium. I have found the Introduction to the this book especially helpful for my research of the new media adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in manga form. Hutcheon appropriates quotes from other well-known critics, such as John North and Walter Benjamin, suiting their views on images, words and the art of storytelling to her own purpose of validating the value of adaptations, not as derivatives of ‘original’ texts, but palimpsestuous takes that reveal new, varied ways of thinking. For Hutcheon, as it is for Aristotle, mimesis is not mere copy, but pleasurable representation in tune with human nature, which derives its pleasure of ritualistic repetition, along with the piquancy of surprise. An adaptation has its own aura, its own polyphonic presence in ever-flowing, ever-melting, ever-meandering, horizon of expectations. Adaptation is repetition without reflection, a form of intertextuality, a work that is second without being secondary. Every adapter is first an interpreter then a creator, one who takes possession of another’s story yet makes it his/her own, through his/her own sense and sensibilities. It is a proof of the dynamicity that makes a work enduring across ages, through variations of media and reception, as is seen by the graphic representation of Shakespearean mangas of the present day and age. An adaptation facilitates the use of memory and involvement on part of the audience who take part in the unveiling of the riddle, finding out the similarities as well as dissimilarities between the text and the palimpsest. Adaptations allow people to tell, show, or interact with stories. Major shifts in story’s context, either in time or in space, can change how the transposed story is interpreted, both ideologically and literally. This idea coheres well with those of Lanier’s and Grande’s, by the fact that the settings, characters, market as well as reception of the Manga Shakespeare is chronologically and geographically dependent. An interesting observation tells us how stories get retold in different ways in new material and cultural environment, like genes which adapt to situations trough mutations, which are passed on through generations. And the fittest do more than mere surviving, they flourish. The book, though meant mostly for scholarly studies, is in fact so lucidly and interestingly (yet professionally and unbiasedly) conceived that it would prove to be a good read for any cultural media enthusiast. The book, published by the prestigious Routledge Press, is abundantly sourced, with ample pictorial evidences. It has been a real eye-opener for my understanding of the validity and importance of Shakespearean manga adaptations, or on any adaptation for that matter.