I suggest anyone who is interested in anime, is involved in the ‘Animation, Comics and Games’ subculture within the East Asian context (ACG), has friends who are anime geeks, or identifies as an ‘nijigen/erciyuan’ to have a look at Anime’s…
The Flesh of Animation: Bodily Sensations in Film and Digital Media by Sandra Annett is an insightful exploration of the intertwining of the physical body and the ‘flesh’ of animation. The author plays with the concepts of body and flesh…
In Pulses of Abstraction: Episodes from a History of Animation, Andrew R. Johnston contends that animation has been ‘pulsing in fits and starts with the creation, distribution and experimentation of new technologies’ (Johnston: 2024, p. 3). He sets out to…
Writing about the way elements move in animation proves to be a formidable challenge for any book on the medium, but Ryan Pierson’s Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics (2019) manages to explore philosophical theories related to change while providing…
French Animation History (2011) by Richard Neupert delivers an essential academic exploration of Francophone animated cinema, a topic of great interest according to Neupert, due to its artistic potential and worldwide influence since its origins. Across six chapters, the author…
In the introduction of the recently published anthology Coraline: A Closer Look at Studio LAIKA’s Stop-Motion Witchcraft, editor Mihaela Mihailova writes, “Like witchcraft, puppet craft remains poorly understood and frequently branded as a relic of a bygone era — and…
Review of Stevie Suan. Anime’s Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan. United States, University of Minnesota Press, 2021. Traditional scholarship on anime has left the identity of the media form as de facto Japanese, reducing a global industrial network into…
Review of Jez Stewart, The Story of British Animation, London: British Film Institute, Bloomsbury, 2021. Jez Stewart’s role as a curator at the BFI National Archive positions him well as author of this detailed history of British animation. The book…
Review of Nea Ehrlich, Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. For those of us who are interested in nonfictional animation, Nea Ehrlich’s new book is, to tell the truth, a proper…
Review of Omar Sayfo, Arab Animation: Images of Identity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. Probably the first extensive dedication to the subject, Arab Animation: Images of Identity is a major contribution to the diverse world of Arab and international animation…
