Group items tagged

"'BL' (Boys' Love), a genre of male homosexual narratives (consisting of manga, novels, animations, games, films, and so forth) written by and for women, has recently been acknowledged, by Japanese and non-Japanese scholars alike, as a significant component of Japanese popular culture. The aesthetic and style of Japanese BL have also been assumed, deployed and transformed by female fans transnationally. The current thrust of transnational BL practices raises a number of important issues relating to socio/cultural constructs of BL localization and globalization.

Scholarly endeavors in relation to BL can be enriched by further research concerning the activities of transnational BL fans, fan communities, fandom, and the production of fan fiction. Most previous BL fan studies have remained circumscribed to Japan and North America. Therefore, in order to further develop transnational BL fan studies, we are seeking contributors who are engaged in the exploration of non-Japanese and non-North American contexts (e.g. Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, and others). Transnational BL fan studies may also be incorporated into the broader socio/political critical frameworks offered by studies in economics, gender/sexuality, race/class, and other areas. "

For those who are studying fandom and Boy's Love, this might be an opportunity to share your researches!

This is my first contribution to this group since a long time, and unfortunately, it is in French only, but I thought it would be interesting nonetheless, since it is the website of a French mag devoted to Boy's Love.

alias evatronica´s - Photoblog about Anime, SciFi, Manga, Comic, Cosplay - Fans around the globe. Since 2006 more then 1000 people have been photographed and interviewed, more then 10 000 pictures to post… updates every week

The Ankama Group has announced their plans to move deeper into comics publishing, specifically manga publishing, with an initiative to kick off January 2011. Ankama, the Roubaix, France-based developer and publisher of comics, games, and cartoons in the DOFUS and Wakfu universes, has always maintained a sensitive if not sentimental connection to the visual and narrative disposition of manga artwork. Now, the group will put their passions for underground Japanese comics and art to healthy use by publishing a manga anthology, Akiba. The monthly collection presently aims to print the works of young or new Japanese manga-ka for consumption by French-speaking comics enthusiasts.

Die neue Initiative namens Anime Copyright Allianz stellt eine Kooperation von Fans, Conentanbietern und Medienakteure dar, die gemeinsam die Respektierung des Urheberrechts in der deutschsprachigen Manga- und Animeszene fördern will.

This is a German website about promoting the respect of copyrigths in the field of animes and mangas. I know that this is an issue of debates, but I think it is worthwhile to read what people on both sides have to say.

"Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is an international, peer-reviewed journal published by the Organization for Transformative Works. TWC publishes articles about transformative works, broadly conceived; articles about media studies; and articles about the fan community. We invite papers in all areas, including fan fiction, fan vids, film, TV, anime, comic books, fan community, video games, and machinima. We encourage a variety of critical approaches, including feminism, gender studies, queer theory, postcolonial theory, audience theory, reader-response theory, literary criticism, film studies, and posthumanism. We also encourage authors to consider writing personal essays integrated with scholarship; hyperlinked articles; or other forms that test the limits of the genre of academic writing."

This online journal is opened to work on anime and manga fandom, so I thought this would be of interest to this group!

Hikaru Sasahara, president of Digital Manga Publishing (Berserk), revealed, this week, to Anime News Network, a new venture his company is planning, by which fans will be able to provide their scanlations online, and these would then be distributed legally with the permission of the original copyright holders.

Connecting the dots between popular media and social culture.

This is an excellent blog by an anime fan who turned his passion into a subject of academic inquiry. His aim is, as he says, to "connect the dots between popular media and social culture". Of course, animes and mangas are particularly suitable for this kind of research!

This is a brief introduction to amvs, these forms of fanart based on the combination of the person's favorite animes, animes' scenes and musics. It is a perfect manifestation of the desire to appropriate bits and pieces of contents and recombine them into something new and personal.