Publisher Description

Despite the longevity of animation and its significance within the history of cinema, film theorists have focused on live-action motion pictures and largely ignored handdrawn and computer-generated movies. Thomas Lamarre contends that the history, techniques, and complex visual language of animation, particularly Japanese animation, demands serious and sustained engagement, and in The Anime Machine he lays the foundation for a new critical theory for reading Japanese animation, showing how anime fundamentally differs from other visual media.

Author Biography

Thomas Lamarre teaches East Asian studies, art history, and communication studies at McGill University.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: The Anime Machine
Part I. Multiplanar Image
1. Cinematism and Animetism
2. Animation Stand
3. Compositing
4. Merely Technological Behavior
5. Flying Machines
6. Full Animation
7. Only a Girl Can Save Us Now
8. Giving Up the Gun
Part II. Exploded View
9. Relative Movement
10. Structures of Depth
11. The Distributive Field
12. Otaku Imaging
13. Multiple Frames of Reference
14. Inner Natures
15. Full Limited Animation
Part III. Girl Computerized
16. A Face on the Train
17. The Absence of Sex
18. Platonic Sex
19. Perversion
20. The Spiral Dance of Symptom and Specter
21. Emergent Positions
22. Anime Eyes Manga
Conclusion: Patterns of Serialization
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Review

"Combining superb scholarship, a palpable passion for his subject, and a singular sensibility for the art of the moving image, Thomas Lamarre has produced a landmark work in cultural theory and media history. The Anime Machine navigates the intercultural and transmedia complexities of the worlds of anime with expertise and originality. Everyone from the anime enthusiast to the philosopher will come away with a heightened appreciation of one of the defining art forms of our era." —Brian Massumi, author of Parables for the Virtual

"With the help of thinkers such as Deleuze and Guattari, Thomas Lamarre identifies in anime an originary machinic force, one that traverses both animation and cinema, with a capacity for heteropoeisis through technological practices. This is an inspiringly sophisticated and imaginative book." —Rey Chow, author of Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films

Long Description

Despite the longevity of animation and its significance within the history of cinema, film theorists have focused on live-action motion pictures and largely ignored handdrawn and computer-generated movies. Thomas Lamarre contends that the history, techniques, and complex visual language of animation, particularly Japanese animation, demands serious and sustained engagement, and in The Anime Machine he lays the foundation for a new critical theory for reading Japanese animation, showing how anime fundamentally differs from other visual media.

Review Quote

"Combining superb scholarship, a palpable passion for his subject, and a singular sensibility for the art of the moving image, Thomas Lamarre has produced a landmark work in cultural theory and media history.The Anime Machinenavigates the intercultural and transmedia complexities of the worlds of anime with expertise and originality. Everyone from the anime enthusiast to the philosopher will come away with a heightened appreciation of one of the defining art forms of our era." -Brian Massumi, author ofParables for the Virtual "With the help of thinkers such as Deleuze and Guattari, Thomas Lamarre identifies in anime an originary machinic force, one that traverses both animation and cinema, with a capacity for heteropoeisis through technological practices. This is an inspiringly sophisticated and imaginative book." -Rey Chow, author ofSentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films

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