The Dazzle and the Dragon – The history of manga and animes in Europe
Front cover of Marco Pellitteri's latest book
It is with great pleasure that I advertise the recent release of the English translation of Marco Pellitteri‘s latest book: The Dragon and the Dazzle: Models, strategies and identities of Japanese Imagination, edited by Tunué. Although I have only started reading the Italian original version (I have never really learned Italian, which means that I read it only very slowly), which was published two years ago, I have no hesitation giving this new book some publicity, because what I have read so far is very clear, insightful and well-documented. In other words, the author knows what he is talking about! Marco Pellitteri is a good friend, whom I got to know 7 years ago, through the now defunct Yahoo! Anime Manga Research Group , and with whom I share an interest in understanding better, through an academic lens, the success of Japanese audiovisual entertainment in Europe. When I accepted to meet in “real life” with him for the first time in Bologna (Italy), in 2004, in the context of a conference on “emotions in comics” (including manga), which he suggested to attend, I didn’t realize that I would encounter one of the best expert on the issue of the animes and mangas reception in Europe. Although his initial books and articles have focused on the phenomenon in Italy, rightfully not only because it is his homeland but also because it is the main European market for these products, he expanded his scope to include France and other European countries when he joined Professor Jean-Marie Bouissou, Senior Researcher at the Center for International Study and Research (CERI) in Paris, and founder of the Manga Network, of which Marco has become one of the most active members. This long course has resulted in the present 700-pages book on the history of the contact between Japanese audiovisual entertainment and European youths from the 1970′s until today.
The explicit aim of this book is to show how the reception of mangas, animes and video games by young consumers both impacted and was influenced by the sociopolitical discourses that were generated among the various actors of the public spheres in these countries by the massive marketing of this particular type of popular entertainment. The author identifies two phases for the establishment of these popular culture artifacts in the general audiovisual entertainment field in Europe. The first one running from the 1970′s to the mid-1990′s (the Dragon) and the second from the late 1990′s until now (the Dazzle), covering overall roughly 2-3 generations of audiences.
This book is prefaced by Yui Kiyomitsu, Professor of sociology at the University of Kobe, Japan, and specialist of Japanese modernization. It also includes an essay by Professor Jean-Marie Bouissou.
For more information, please consult the book’s page on its editor’s website, Tunue.
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Check out what others are saying...[...] industry and fandoms. I’m particularly going to dive into Marco Pelliterri’s book The Dazzle and the Dragon: Models, Strategies and Identities of Japanese Imagination – A Europ…, of which I just received a copy this morning. I’ll definitely post a comment on this [...]