First, there were eight, and now there are six. With Mitsuru and Shimizu now missing, everyone is on edge as they try to find a way out of their horrifying circumstances. The remaining students continue to suspect that the person keeping them trapped is among them, but Shimizu also suggested a bizarre, new theory: they may be inside the mind of the person who took their own life at the school festival. Takano thinks he might just know who their tormentor is, but many unanswered questions still remain. Can he get to the bottom of this mystery before his time’s up?
A regular school day has turned into a chilling horror as Hiroshi, Mizuki, and their friends find themselves confined within the frigid walls of Seinan Gakuin. No one can seem to remember who took their own life at the school festival, but whoever it was is keeping them captive. And to make matters worse, the eight trapped classmates become seven when Mitsuru suddenly disappears with only a trail of blood in his place. Now they have even more reason to solve the mystery of their bizarre circumstances—because if they don’t, the only thing they may be leaving is this mortal coil…
Five high school classmates hold secrets close to their hearts--hidden talents, unspoken feelings, and buried pain. As they collide with each other on the path to growing up, they might jostle some of those secrets free. From Yoru Sumino, acclaimed author of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas and I Had That Same Dream Again comes a gentle, intriguing tale about love, life, and the things we leave unsaid.
Japanese animation—the globally acclaimed, family-friendly theatrical features are the exception rather than the rule for a TV-oriented industry that has been pushed into late-night slots in an era of fragmented audiences. When only three titles among fifty might turn a profit, topping the charts is hardly an overambitious aim. Yet as three women, a producer, a director, and an animator, survive in a business infamous for its murderous schedules, demoralizing compromises, and incorrigible men, moments of uplift emerge against all odds—and how. More than just a window into an entertainment niche, here’s a kickass ode to work.
Based on the cult hit game, the novelization of Yume Nikki follows a lonesome girl into the bizarre dreamscapes that await her when she falls asleep. Opening doors and wandering aimlessly, is she really as alone as she thinks?
Twenty years ago, animated features were widely perceived as cartoons for children. Today, though, they encompass an astonishing range of films, styles and techniques. There is the powerful adult drama of Waltz with Bashir; the Gallic sophistication of Belleville Rendez-Vous; the eye-popping violence of Japan's Akira; and the stop-motion whimsy of Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Andrew Osmond provides an entertaining and illuminating guide to the endlessly diverse world of animated features, with entries on 100 of the most interesting and important animated films from around the world, from the 1920s to the present day. There are key studio brands such as Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks, but there are also recognised auteur directors such as America's Brad Bird (The Incredibles) and Japan's Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away). Technologies such as motion-capture, used in films such as Avatar, blur the distinctions between live-action and animation. Meanwhile, lone artists such as Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues) and Bill Plympton (Idiots and Angels) make entire films by themselves. Blending in-depth history and criticism, 100 Animated Feature Films balances the blockbusters with local success stories from Eastern Europe to Hong Kong. There are entries on Dreamworks' Shrek, Pixar's Toy Story, and Disney's The Jungle Book, but you will also find pieces on Germany's silhouette-based The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the oldest surviving animated feature; on the thirty year production of Richard Williams' legendary opus, The Thief and the Cobbler; and on the lost work of Argentina's Quirino Cristiani, who reputedly made the first animated feature in 1917.
Welcome to Supremacy Games! The greatest entertainment platform in the universe that was created specifically to entertain and ease the boredom of the commoners all around the universe. The platform was made out of tens of formats, each containing hundreds of deadly games that allowed the use of elemental abilities. Sports format had games, like football, rugby, track running, and many more of such sports. Battles format had games, like battle royals, bounty hunt, points collection...etc There was even a lifestyle competition format, that had games like potion concoctions, fishing...etc. As long as a game was well received by the spectators, it would be added to the Supremacy Games platform. The Universal Virtual Reality that had 100% realism, made it easy for those games to be hosted inside it, and watched on a daily basis by every spectator in the universe. Whether live by entering the UVR and attending the stadiums, or through a live stream. Felix Maxwell was just an average joe, who wasn't really a popular player nor had a fanbase to support him in the games. He was just like the majority of the players. Add on, whose role was to make famous players shine even brighter. However, his fate was completely changed after joining a clan mission with 54 other clanmates. The mission was completed successfully. But, on their way back to the clan, their spaceship radar picked up a large amount of energy coming from a destroyed planet. His fate flipped upside down inside that said planet. What happened exactly on it? How did he end up after leaving it? Did he even leave it in the first place? ........... PS: This novel isn't a space exploration novel (Not in the first 8 volumes at least). It's mostly focused on the Universal Virtual Reality and the 'Supremacy Games' as the name implies, with some real-life situations as well of course!
If the source of manga and anime is physically located in Japan, the temptation for many critics and scholars is to ask what aspects of Japanese culture and history gave rise to these media. This ninth volume of Mechademia—an annual collection of critical work on anime and manga—challenges the tendency to answer the question of origins by reductively generalizing and essentializing “Japaneseness.” The essays brought together in Mechademia 9 lead us to understand the extent to which “Japan” might be seen as an idea generated by anime, manga, and other texts rather than the other way around. What is it that manga and anime produce that no other medium can precisely duplicate? Is anime its own medium or a genre of animation—or something in between? And how must we adapt existing critical modes in order to read these new kinds of texts? While the authors begin with similar questions about the roots of Japanese popular culture and media, they invoke a wide range of theoretical work in the search for answers, including feminist criticism, disability studies, poststructuralist textual criticism, postcolonialism, art history, film theory, phenomenology, and more. Richly provocative and insightful, Mechademia 9 both enacts and resists the pursuit of fixed starting points, inspiring further creative investigation of this global artistic phenomenon. Contributors: Stephen R. Anderson; Dale K. Andrews, Tohoku Gakuin U; Andrew Ballús; Jodie Beck; Christopher Bolton, Williams College; Kukhee Choo, Tulane U; Ranya Denison, U of East Anglia; Lucy Fraser; Fujimoto Yukari, Meiji U, Japan; Forrest Greenwood; Imamura Taihei; Seth Jacobowitz, Yale U; Kim Joon Yang; Thomas Lamarre, McGill U; Margherita Long, U of California, Riverside; Matsumoto Nobuyuki, Tokyo National Museum; Laura Miller, U of Missouri–St. Louis; Alexandra Roedder; Paul Roquet, Stanford U; Brian Ruh; Shun’ya Yoshimi, U of Tokyo; Alba G. Torrents.
Specifically designed for use in a range of undergraduate and graduate courses, while reaching specialists and general readers, this second edition of Introducing Japanese Popular Culture is a comprehensive textbook offering an up-to-date overview of a wide variety of media forms. It uses particular case studies as a way into examining the broader themes in Japanese culture and provides a thorough analysis of the historical and contemporary trends that have shaped artistic production, as well as politics, society, and economics. As a result, more than being a time capsule of influential trends, this book teaches enduring lessons about how popular culture reflects the societies that produce and consume it. With contributions from an international team of scholars, representing a range of disciplines from history and anthropology to art history and media studies, the book covers: Characters Television Videogames Fan media and technology Music Popular cinema Anime Manga Spectacles and competitions Sites of popular culture Fashion Contemporary art. Written in an accessible style with ample description and analysis, this textbook is essential reading for students of Japanese culture and society, Asian media and popular culture, globalization, and Asian Studies in general. It is a go-to handbook for interested readers and a compendium for scholars.
