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HAYAO MIYAZAKI IN SEARCH OF THE WORLD
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2021-2-130-140
The Russian translation of Susan Napier’s monograph Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art is being reviewed. The book should be considered as the most fundamental research on the visual semiotics in the works of the Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki. Through the prism of visuality, the author analyses philosophical meanings that the director put in his films. From the perspectives of cultural theory and philosophy of culture, the monograph is particularly interesting because it allows going deeper into the interpretations of topics, key in the 20th-century culture, in Japanese animation. Among other things, Napiers’s book could be of interest for all academics interested in frontier studies and such philosophical topics as ecological thinking, feminism, new materialism, and apocalyptic thinking. This review is based on the research initiatives of visual semiotics. The analysis of Susan Napier’s intellectual ways of working with the visual nature of Hayao Miyazaki’s anime can be useful not only for those interested in the understanding of the direct meanings of the Japanese animator’s works, it also claims to reveal the internal mechanisms of visual representations of cultural phenomena. In other words, Napier’s book, in addition to revealing the hidden and non-obvious meanings of works of art, contributes to the general theory of working with the visual reality. The review also focuses on a number of inconsistent moves in Napier’s thinking and offers its own interpretation of the controversial aspects in the book.
Keywords: visual semiotics, anime, culture theory, philosophy of culture, social philosophy, ecology, Japan
References:
Boym, S. (2019). Budushchee nostal’gii [The future of nostalgia]. Translated from English by A. Strugach. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie.
Napier, S. (2001). Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing contemporary Japanese animation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Napier, S. (2018). Miyazakiworld: A life in art. Yale University Press.
Napier, S. (2019). Volshebnye miry Khayao Miyadzaki [Miyazakiworld]. Translated from English by A. Popova. Eksmo.
Pavlov, A. V. (2018). Besslavnye ublyudki, beshenye psy: Vselennaya Kventina Tarantino [Inglourious Basterds Reservoir Dogs: The Quentin Tarantino universe]. Delo.
Sato, K. (2004). How information technology has (not) changed feminism and Japanism: Cyberpunk on the Japanese context. Comparative Literature Studies, 41.(3), 335–355.
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Issue: 2, 2021
Series of issue: Issue 2
Rubric: BOOK REVIEWS
Pages: 130 — 140
Downloads: 356