by Josef Steiff
DANIEL HAAS earned an MA in Philosophy from Simon Fraser University, Canada, and is currently completing a PhD at Florida State University. His research interests include Philosophy of Mind (particularly Action Theory/Free Will), Philosophy of Science (Especially the Philosophy of Biology and Psychology), and Ethics (Moral Psychology, Metaethics, and Applied Ethics). Like Hayao Miyazaki, Dan believes the best response to a publisher’s editorial suggestions is to mail said publisher a package containing a samurai sword and a polite note reading, “No Cuts!”
JOHN HARTUNG, otasen, has an MA in Philosophy from the University of Mississippi and is an adjunct instructor at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. He’s a big Killer Girl Android otaku. He would like to make his own but can’t justify the process of reverse engineering one.
SHANA HEINRICY is an Instructor of Communication Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans. She is currently completing her dissertation in Communication and Culture from Indiana University. She studies bodies, technology, and television. She thinks that Studio Ghibli keeps the real Catbus locked in a cage somewhere, giving it occasional cat treats. Someday she’ll find it and let it out. Someday.
SARA LIVINGSTON is an Associate Professor in the Television Department of Columbia College Chicago where she teaches Critical Studies, Aesthetics, and Writing for Television. She’s a nationally and internationally exhibited video artist as well as a media activist who uses video as a tool for social change. She is currently vacationing in the uncharted territory that lies between fact and fiction, and has found it to be an enchanting and productive place to write. Although she’s made lifelong friends there and would love to linger, she looks forward to her return to Chicago.
ANGUS MCBLANE is a distributed entity that is a conglomerate of the X and the Y that has taken the form of a “person” (?) who is a PhD student at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory at Cardiff University in Wales, where he is engaged with splicing his consciousness with various data sets in order to emerge as a viable self-sustaining distributed subject. When not concerned with posthuman emergence, he is attempting to construct a Guymelef.
LOUIS MELANÇON is a US Army officer with a variety of combat arms and intelligence experiences from the tactical through national-strategic levels. He holds masters’ degrees from the Joint Military Intelligence College and Kings College, London, has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal, and published in the US Army’s journal, Military Review, as well as Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up? Louis mentally accepts that giant robots wouldn’t be efficient weapons platforms, but still lets out a little disappointed sigh every time a new weapon system isn’t a Mobile Suit or VOTOMS.
SARAH PENICKA-SMITH is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney. Her other life as a choral conductor qualifies her to obsess over music in anime, although she has yet to convince any of her choirs that learning to sing like a minyo ensemble is a good idea. Sarah’s work with the GLBTQI community as Music Director of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir has led to her being the preferred postgrad in her department to tutor on religion, gender, sex, and the body. This is a workplace arrangement that she enjoys thoroughly.
IAN M. PETERS, a doctoral student in Georgia State University’s Moving Image Studies program, was previously published in Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up? Like the characters in Highlander: The Search for Vengeance, he has a strong affinity for swords of all shapes and sizes and is careful not to mount them on the wall near the headboard of his bed for fear of nighttime decapitation. If immortals like Colin MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod truly exist and “in the end there can only be one,” Ian hopes that the victor understands the importance of warming the teapot before brewing a proper cup of Darjeeling.
NEKO PILARCIK always knew what she wanted to be when she grew up: an intergalactic Space Pirate living a life of excitement and adventure in the Sea of Stars. However an unforeseen lack of advancement in the space shipping industry lead her to consider a more feasible career writing and drawing stories about people who do live lives of excitement and adventure. Her artwork introduces each of this book’s major sections (Body, Mind, Spirit, Conflict, Heroes, Devils, Future Perfect) and her animated short “The Three Artists” screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Neko currently works as a freelance animator and illustrator in addition to drawing the graphic novel, Kowaii Kawaii.
AMADA ROSAS is the artist and animator who designed our title page and the “Special Features” divider. She spends her days as a teaching assistant for the Columbia College Chicago Animation Program, but at night she spends her time working as a cleaner to capture and return the escaped imaginary characters from the animators’ minds that try to cause havoc on the world, under the code name O.A.I. (Over Active Imagination).
HAL SHIPMAN is completing his master’s in Literature at Northwestern University. His academic focus is the intersection of word and image in literature, with particular attention to the medium of comics. Like many Americans his age, his first exposure to anime was Speed Racer. One of his biggest disappointments occurred on Halloween when he went to a party in a flawless Speed costume, and everyone thought he was supposed to be a polo player. His partner, Channing, cries at the end of Grave of the Fireflies every time.
JOSEF STEIFF has learned the following from science fiction movies: 1. Never answer a distress call in space (Alien); 2. When boarding an abandoned space station, assume that at the very least, it will be a blank canvass upon which you will project your fears and anxieties; at worst, some other intelligence will mine your memories and experiences to create distorted simulations from your past (Solaris); 3. Allowing an artificial intelligence to completely control and operate a spaceship or station is never a good idea (2001: A Space Odyssey); and 4. All of the above (Magnetic Rose).
BENJAMIN STEVENS lived through the Robotech Wars by learning to imitate machine noises, a skill he has since put to more human uses in the academic and a cappella worlds. At Bard College he specializes in Latin and Greek, comparative literature, and linguistics; directs an annual symposium of undergraduate research on comics and comic art; and advises a student a cappella group, the Orcapelicans!. He also coordinates the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (RARB) and serves on the board of the Contemporary A Cappella Society (CASA).
TRISTAN TAMPLIN took a career guidance exam in high school that indicated that he should become either a religious leader or a test pilot. Instead, he got a PhD in philosophy, which he quickly parlayed into a career as a designer and photographer. An avid soccer player and fan, he currently lives in Manchester, England, where he hunts vampires (part-time) with his data dog, Paco.
Since his earliest days, ANDREW TERJESEN has been training to become Philosopher King (which is a lot like Shaman King, if you take away the part about transforming the world with your oversoul). In preparation for the Philosopher Fight, he has mastered the techniques of Fist of One Hundred Historical Ethicists, Scottish Enlightenment Annihilation Strike, and Moral Psychology Unstoppable Wave. Using these techniques, Andrew has produced essays for Manga and Philosophy, Supervillains and Philosophy, and The Onion and Philosophy, as well as an article on nineteenth-century economic thought. Despite all his training, he fears that his inability to stomach the Philosophy-Philosophy Fruit puts him at the mercy of anyone who can employ Nihilistic Kicks of Post-Modern Deconstruction.
D.E. WITTKOWER, or Dylan as we like to call him, teaches ethics and the history of philosophy at Coastal Carolina University, and is the editor of iPod and Philosophy and Facebook and Philosophy. On the other side of The Gate he is an alchemic researcher, given the title of the Transcendental Alchemist, working on transmutation theory.
MARGO COUGHLIN ZIMMERMAN completed an undergraduate degree in Film and Video from Columbia College Chicago in 2000. While attending Columbia, she became an intern at Manga Entertainment and was quickly hired full-time. During th
is time she worked on US and International distribution for Perfect Blue, Noein, Blood: The Last Vampire, Street Fighter Alpha, and Karas, among others. In addition, Zimmerman was production and distribution manager for Manga’s parent company and was production manager for the Masters of Horror series for Showtime and Masters of Science Fiction for NBC. She also produced the DVDs for Hellboy: Animated, the TV series Eloise, and Stan Lee’s Condor and Mosaic.
Subtitles
Akihabara. A famous shopping district in Tokyo that once specialized in electronics but now specializes in fan products like anime, manga, and games.
AMV. “Anime music video;” any clip or compiled clips from anime that have been put to music that was not part of the original production.
Animanga. Japanese manga that uses images (or individual frames) from anime series, films or OVAs instead of standard drawn panels.
AV. “Adult video;” used to designate material prohibited for those under eighteen years of age.
Baka. Idiot.
Bara. “Men’s love” or ML; a genre of anime or manga that focuses on male same-sex desire; unlike yaoi, bara is usually created by and for homosexual men.
Bishōjo, bishoujo. “Beautiful young girl”; anime and manga girl characters below university age and drawn in a cute, pretty style. Bishōjo characters are seen in almost all genres of anime and manga, especially in dating sims and visual novels, known as bishÿjo games, and harem anime and manga.
Bishōnen. “Beautiful youth (boy)”; an aesthetic that can be found in disparate areas in Asia: a young man whose beauty (and sexual appeal) transcends the boundary of sexual orientation; in anime or manga, a type of male character who would be considered androgynous or in some cases effeminate.
Cosplay. “Costume roleplay”; a term heavily associated with anime and manga fandom where participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea; see also “kosupure.”
Cyborg. A person or entity which is part human and part machine; an organism that has both artificial and natural systems.
Dōjin or doujin. Anime, manga, or computer games made nonprofessionally and self-published, usually by fans. Dōjinshi or doujinshi in particular refers to fan manga.
Ecchi. An anime or manga visual aesthetic or art style (rather than a type of plot) that has vague sexual content in the form of sexual humor and fan service for males, such as bare breasts, panty shots and girls in erotic positions; though this style often features nudity and suggestive imagery, there is no explicit sex.
18-kin. Material prohibited for those under eighteen years of age.
Gunpla. Both the vast amount of Gundam model kits produced by Bandai—and there have been hundreds upon hundreds of different kits produced over the years—and the building of these model kits.
Fan-sub, fansub. Short for “fan-subtitled;” a film that has been translated and subtitled by fans and then made available for viewing; the distribution of fan-subtitled content is controversial because it is a violation of copyright laws in most countries.
H. See “ecchi.”
Hentai. In the West, this Japanese word refers to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those that originate in Japan.
Josei. “Woman”; manga created mostly by women for late teenage and adult female audiences; stories tend to be about women’s everyday experiences involving family, motherhood, even high school.
Jutsu. A technique or skill; for example, in Naruto the three jutsu are: gen-jutsu (illusion techniques), taijutsu (physical techniques), and ninjutsu (all other techniques).
Kami. Japanese word for the spirits within objects in the Shinto faith. In some instances, kami are personified deities, similar to the gods of ancient Greece or Rome. In other cases, such as those concerning the phenomenon of growth and natural objects, kami can refer to the spirits dwelling in trees or forces of nature.
Kanji. “Han characters”; Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana, katakana, Arabic numerals and the occasional Roman alphabet (rōmaji).
Kana. Syllabic Japanese scripts (or syllabograms) that include hiragana, katakana, and man’yōgana forms.
Katakana. “Fragmentary kana”; the simplest of the Japanese scripts, this type of syllabogram is most often used for the transcription of words from foreign languages.
Kodomo, kodomomuke. Anime for children of both genders.
Kosupure. Costume roleplay (see also “cosplay”).
Ki (Dragon Ball) or chakra (Naruto). Names for the life force energy that is used to power superhuman martial arts techniques.
Lolicon, rorikon. A genre of manga and anime wherein childlike female characters are depicted in an erotic manner.
Mahō shōjo, mahou shoujo. “Magical girl”; a subgenre of shōjo, where the heroines get magical powers to fight against evil. Flashy costumes, wands, spells and action are a common element.
Mahō shōnen, mahou shounen. “Magical boy”; the opposite of mahō shōjo and less common, where the main male characters get magical powers.
Manga. “Fanciful pictures”; Japanese comics and graphic novels.
Mecha, meka. Genre of anime where characters wear huge mechanical suits in order to protect their bodies and fight battles. Mecha, also known as meka or mechs, are walking vehicles controlled by a pilot and are generally, though not necessarily, bipedal, with arms, hands, and fingers capable of grasping objects.
Min’yō, minyo. A genre of traditional Japanese folk music.
Moe. “Sprout”; a burning passion, or worse, a fetish, for some type of character or feature of a character. For example, “I have moe for girls with glasses,” “I have forehead moe.”
Otaku. A fan, especially a fanboy or fangirl of popular culture.
OVA or OAV. “Original Video Anime”; anime that is neither made for television nor theatrical film but released directly to the home market. These direct-to-video or direct-to-DVD releases are often maturely themed.
Posthuman. The perspective that technology has dramatically changed what it means to be human
Real Robot. Anime or manga where robots are more commonplace, often as a tool/weapons platform for the military. There are normally limits on the abilities of the robots—such as fuel, ammunition, or mechanical failures—that make them a bit more identifiable to the audience.
Samurai. “Those who serve;” military nobility of pre-industrial Japan with strong principles of honor and ethics.
Scanlation, scanslation. Manga that has been scanned and then had the original Japanese text replaced by text that has been translated into the distributor’s language; this usually occurs with manga not available in the distributor’s native language, and these unauthorized translations are most commonly found on the Internet. This is the manga counterpart to anime’s fansub.
Seijin. Men’s adult erotica.
Seinen. “Man”; anime and manga aimed at teenage boys and young men. It is generally more complicated and sophisticated than shÿnen anime, with more psychological and sexual elements, and puts more focus on plot rather than action (if the show is also under the Action genre, which it usually is). In its character development and relationship side, it is similar to shōjo, but is usually darker and more like the Drama genre.
Sentai. “Fighting team;” anime and manga that deals with superheroes and superhero teams, closely associated with the shōnen and kodomo genres.
Shōjo, shojo, shoujo. Girls’ anime (aimed at a primarily elementary through high school female audience).
Shōnen, shonen, shounen. Boys’ adventure (aimed at elementary and middle school male audience).
Shotacon. A genre of manga and anime wherein childlike male characters are depicted in an erotic manner.
Shōjo ai, shōjo-ai, shoujo ai. “Girls’ love;” a subgenre of shōjo that focuses on the love between women; less explicit than yuri.
Shōnen ai, shōnen-ai, shounen ai. “Boys’ love;” a subgenre
of shōjo anime that focuses on gay male relationships, written primarily by and for female audiences; less sexually explicit than yaoi.