mechademia

Translation from 2B-dan in Mechademia 14.2

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I’m very pleased to say that the current issue of Mechademia: Second Arc contains a translation by me of a chapter from a book written by Yonezawa Yoshihiro and Shikijō Kyōtarō, 2B-dan: Gindama sensō no hibi (1983; Squad 2B: The days of the silver ball gun wars), specifically Chapter 3, “Putting a Hand into the Fountain of Knowledge.” Yonezawa of course is justly famous for his involvement with Comiket from its foundation when he was a college student to his death in 2006, and for the posthumous archive of his personal collection at Meiji University. This issue of Mechademia is themed around “New Foundations of the Otaku” and I’m very pleased to have found a home for the translation here–there are many great articles alongside my own contribution.

I was tipped off to the existence of this book by a Twitter user who has since apparently deleted their account. Never let anyone tell you that social media is exclusively bad.

Mechademia 12.1, “Transnational Fandom”

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I’m very pleased to note that the issue of Mechademia: Second Arc which I guest-edited, “Transnational Fandom,” is now available. You can purchase a physical copy via the University of Minnesota Press, and through the end of 2020, you can also access the entirety of the Second Arc run thus far online, via the academic database JSTOR.

My article “What You Watch Is What You Are? Early Anime and Manga Fandom in the United States” is published in this issue, four years after I first wrote it for a different issue of Mechademia. Thanks again to everyone at the Eaton Collection at the UC Riverside Libraries, where the bulk of the research for the article was conducted in 2014.

Baruch College Manga Symposium

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In belated updates, I wanted to thank everyone who attended the Baruch College Manga Symposium: Untold History of Japanese Comics in April. I spoke about “Norakuro and Friends: The Rise, Fall, and Triumph of Children’s Manga, 1916-1957.” Anne Ishii, the English translator of Gengoroh Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband, spoke about “From Niche to Mainstream: The Crossover Success of Gay Manga.” I want to thank Anne for a fascinating talk and also Prof. C.J. Suzuki for organizing the symposium and inviting me to take part in it. Hopefully I’ll be back in New York City soon.