Apocalypse in Contemporary Japanese Science Fiction

Starting with the history of apocalyptic tradition in the West and focusing on modern Japanese apocalyptic science fiction in manga, anime, and novels, Motoko Tanaka shows how science fiction reflected and coped with the devastation in Japanese national identity after 1945.

List of contents

1. The Trajectory of Apocalyptic Discourse 2. Apocalypse in Japan 3. Apocalyptic Fiction from 1945 to the 1970s 4. Apocalyptic Fiction in 1980s Japan 5. Apocalyptic Fiction after 1995 - Sekaikei Works 6. Apocalyptic Imagination after 2011

About the author

Motoko Tanaka is an Associate Professor at Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan

Summary

Starting with the history of apocalyptic tradition in the West and focusing on modern Japanese apocalyptic science fiction in manga, anime, and novels, Motoko Tanaka shows how science fiction reflected and coped with the devastation in Japanese national identity after 1945.

Report

"Apocalyptic scenarios occupy a critical place in Japanese science fiction, and since the disasters of 2011, it has become even clearer that such fictions represent an important conceptual tool for trying to think through these unthinkable events. Motoko Tanaka moves us beyond facile generalizations about Japan's preoccupation with disaster, by examining the changing ways that Japanese literature has conceived of the apocalyptic and tracing these ideas through a fascinating array of texts and media." - Christopher Bolton, Associate Professor of Comparative and Japanese Literature, Williams College, USA and co-editor of Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime

Product details

• Authors: M Tanaka, M. Tanaka
• Publisher: Palgrave UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 29.01.2014
• EAN: 9781349476664
• ISBN: 978-1-349-47666-4
• No. of pages: 204
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Photography, film, video, TV; B, Literature, Cultural Studies, Cultural Theory, Film History, Literary studies: post-colonial literature, Literary theory, World Literature, Literature, general, Culture—Study and teaching, Literature, Modern—20th century, Twentieth-Century Literature, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Biography, Literature & Literary studies, Palgrave Literature Collection, Literature—Philosophy, Film and TV History, Motion pictures—History, Postcolonial/World Literature