CHINA — current posts — Fantasy/Animation

Fan Service in Chinese and Japanese Animation

Originating in Japanese anime, fan service refers to elements in fiction, often of a sexual nature, added to please the audience and cater to fans’ desires by incorporating nudity or highly suggestive and erotic scenes. Keith Russell (2008) argues that fan service scenes in anime create an aesthetic of the “glimpse,” where panty shots, leg spreads, and brief flashes of breasts transform mundane moments of daily life into possibilities charged with desire. These anticipated gestures are briefly frozen in time, sustaining moments of sensory gratification where the body and imagination coexist, establishing a connection between gaze and desire (Russell 2008, 107).

EDITORIALMengxue WeiNovember 15, 2024ANIME, JAPAN, CHINA, SEXUALITY, REPRESENTATIONComment

Annecy and Animafest Zagreb in the 1980s: Building Bridges for the Sino-European Opening-up in Animation

The following excerpts are taken from my recent book Chinese Animated Film and Ideology. Tradition, Innovation, Interculturality (2024) published by the CRC Press. This book will be of great interest to those in the fields of animation and film studies, political science, Chinese area studies, and Chinese philology. It especially considers animation film festivals history, paying particular attention to the culture-building role of the festivals Annecy (France) and Animafest Zagreb (former Yugoslavia) in the 1980s.

EDITORIALOlga BobrowskaMay 31, 2024CHINA, FESTIVAL, SHANGHAI ANIMATION FILM STUDIOComment

Review: Kenneth Chan and Andrew Stuckey (eds.), Sino-Enchantment: The Fantastic in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas (2021)

It seems that even film fans are becoming increasingly aware of the huge significance China is going to play in the next few decades of popular culture. In a global media landscape otherwise dominated by the United States, the huge significance of both the Chinese box office and the Chinese government’s cultural politics is shaping the fortunes of the globalised media industry.