Articles

In 1992, i started a cross-cultural study of children's artistic development based on drawing from Japanese and US children. As a result of analyzing more than 3,000 drawings. I found Japanese children had unique ways of creating 3-D space on 2-D surfaces that US children seldom did.

Why do Japanese children draw in their own ways? How do they invent unique patterns of spatial treatment? I concluded that the reason for Japanese children's inventions in the pictorial worlds is manga's(Japanese comics) influences. With this as a start, the phenomenon of Japanese pop culture became an interest as it relates to the relationship between universality and cultural specificity in children's artistic, aesthetic, and cognitive developments.

I hope that this site will be a good forum for discussing popular visual culture from different points of views.

Hosogaya, Atsushi

• The Documentary Value of Manga and Their Conservation

Kinsella, Sharon

1. Universal Orientalism for Future Global Citizens?
2. Japanization of European Youth
3. Amanteur Manga Subculture and te Otaku Panic
4. Cuties in Japan
5. Adult Manga: Pro-Establishmenit Pop-Culture and New Politics in the 1990's

McLelland, Mark

1. A Mirror for Men? Idealized Depictions of White Men and Gay Men in Japanese Women's Media (PDF)
2. Kamingu auto: Homosexuality and Popular Culture in Modern Japan' in the Asian Homosexualities (PDF)
3. A Mirror for Men? Idealized Depictions of White Men and Gay Men in Japanese Women's Media (PDF)
4. Kamingu auto: Homosexuality and Popular Culture in Modern Japan' in the Asian Homosexualities (PDF)
5. Why Are Japanese Girls' Comics Full of Boys Bonking?'Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media
6. Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social Realities
7. Local meanings in global space: a case study of women's 'Boy love' web sites in Japanese and English

Natsume, Fusanosuke

1. Japanese Manga: Its Expression and Popularity
2. Comics in Thailand and Indonesia
3. Japan's Manga Culture
4. Introduction of Manga: Short Comics from Modern Japan

Ruh, Brian

1. The Animatrix and Anime's Burgeoning Influence

Schodt, Frederick

1. Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama and The Four Immigrants Manga

Takahashi, Mizuki

1. Love or Hate?: Relationship between Manga and Japanese Contemporary Art

Toku, Masami

• The Power of Girls' Comics: The Value and Contribution to Visual Culture and Society
• "Boys' Love," Yaoi, and Art Education: Issues of Power and Pedagogy
• Influence of Pop-culture in Children's Art: Possibilities of implementing manga in art educational curricula
• What is Manga?: The Influence of Pop-culture in Adolescent Art
• Children's Artistic and Aesthetic Development: The Influence of Pop-Culture in Children's Drawings
• Cross-cultural Analysis of Artistic Develop

Wilson, Brent

• Becoming Japanese: Manga, Children's Drawings, and the Construction of National Character
• Becoming a Mangaka
• "Boys' Love," Yaoi, and Art Education: Issues of Power and Pedagogy