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Masaaki Yuasa's 2014 series Ping Pong: The Animation approaches the ideas of play, competition, and victory in unique ways, especially when compared to other series in the sports anime genre. Through the protagonist Smile, Yuasa encourages viewers to engage with play in a childlike, empathetic and naïve way, as opposed to focusing on victory. By analyzing the series using De Koven's ways to approach play, scholars and fans can better understand the variety of ways in which the characters approach play, and how each of them eventually learns to play well. Analyzing this series through the perspective of metamodernism as defined by Robin Van Dan Akker and Thomas Vermeulen helps viewers to understand how Yuasa approaches the cynical nature of sports and competition while ultimately deciding to focus on and encourage the sincere and optimistic approach to competition and play. He uses the conventions of the sports anime genre and the broader conventions of anime to make the series accessible, while also subverting traditional expectations. Susan Napier's work on analyzing anime will give context to the study and research done on this series as a piece of the anime medium. Some of Yuasa's other works are also briefly analyzed in order to show his consistent themes and subverting of conventions across other anime genres.

This thesis addresses the issues of traumatic war memory concerning remembering and forgetting as presented construction of war memory in popular culture by closely examining the Japanese television anime series The Big O. The thesis proposes that the story told in The Big O can be seen as a vehicle for understanding why the Japanese wished to forget traumatic war memories related to the defeat of Japan in World War II. The Big O is a science fiction story that is set in a postwar defeated society. The protagonist of the story is Roger Smith, who searches for his lost memories. He is a social advocate for the people who want to recall their lost memories and acts as a negotiator in Paradigm City, a city that lost its own memories forty years ago. Drawing upon memory studies, the thesis explores various aspects of Japanese ambition and social concerns that emerged in Japan’s postwar society, including the national pride for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the rising economic success, and the revision of World War II’s history in school textbooks. The thesis examines dialogues by the characters in The Big O by paying attention to two major arguments surrounding memories: remembering and forgetting. By doing so, the thesis attempts to elucidate the ways in which war memories are at times remembered and often forgotten by those recovering from the wounds of war.

The focus of this thesis is to examine representations of otaku and fujoshi (i.e., dedicated fans of pop culture) in Japanese anime and manga from 1991 until the present. I analyze how these fictional images of fans participate in larger mass media and academic discourses about otaku and fujoshi, and how even self-produced reflections of fan identity are defined by the combination of larger normative discourses and market demands. Although many scholars have addressed fan practices and identities through surveys and participant observation, many of these studies work with Western groups of fans whose identities may not be consistent with those of Japanese otaku and fujoshi, and fewer studies have addressed the way these fans are reflected in the very media (anime and manga) they consume. I examine both negative and positive depictions of otaku and fujoshi, as well as the representations of fan gender identities and sexualities, across a broad range of anime and manga, including Rusanchiman (Ressentiment), Genshiken, N.H.K. ni Yokoso (Welcome to the N.H.K.), Otaku no Video, Kuragehime (Princess Jellyfish), Oreimo, and Moso Shojo Otakukei (Fujoshi Rumi). The varied depictions of otaku and fujoshi in these works illustrate the tension between otaku and fujoshi identities and normative social roles, the problematic elements of identities defined through consumerism, and the complexities of the interaction between fans' fictionalized and lived desires.

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This study examines the relationship between music and image in two of Hayao Miyazaki's films. Based on literature studies on film music and narrativity, together with an analysis of how the music is used in the films Howl's Moving Castle and Kiki's Delivery Service, the study shows how the music affects the narrative. The questions discussed in this reflective essay are: What is the narrative function of Hisaishi's compositions for Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films? What is the function of the leitmotifs and are any musical codes used? Does diegetic music appear in the films? How are the leitmotifs associated with the characters in different situations? Do the motifs convey objects, characters, emotions, places or something else? The conclusion of the paper shows that by using leitmotifs, musical themes and codes, Hisaishi has managed to strengthen and enhance the narrative of both films. Hisaishi's compositions for both Howl's Moving Castle and Kiki's Delivery Service have been shown to play a significant role in the viewer's experience of the film and its plot. Hisaishi's use of leitmotifs varies depending on the character, event or emotion it represents. Some of the leitmotifs convey the characters' emotions and expressions to the audience, which we would otherwise not see through dialogue alone. The composer also uses a lot of musical codes and even diegetic music. Several cultural musical codes can be heard that make the audience associate with a Western culture.

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This essay discusses the becomings of the character Saya in the visual novel Saya no Uta (2003), developed by Nitroplus. Being perceived as either girl or monster, Saya is trapped between these notions, within the endless becomings of her conceptualisation. Using the idea of becomings developed by Gilles Deleuze in Logic of Sense (1969) this essay aims to understand how Saya could be perceived through her becomings. Compared to the character of Alice from Alice in Wonderland, which is a prevalent subject through Logic of Sense, Saya shows many similarities with Deleuze's unofficial heroine. Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto (1985) is used to understand the underlying machinic desires of Saya, and how she becomes a productive force through consumption of the notions that try to define her. The dichotomy of girl and monster is further explained using Rosi Bradiotti's Nomadic subjects (1994), where the monster not only becomes a manifestation of the grotesque, but also a subject of the monstrosity within its discursive concept. The ambivalence of the monster is the duality between the abhorrent and the adored. The analysis shows that Saya, whether she is released to the world or not, renders the dichotomy useless in relation to the force of the materiality that somehow persists through, whatever its meaning, and what it ultimately is subjected to.