Dear Colleagues,

The Department of East Asian Studies - Japanese Studies at the University of Vienna would like to draw your attention to the upcoming hybrid u:japan lecture:

Stevie Suan (Hosei University, Tokyo):
"Coloration Strategies of (Non)Place in Anime: Globalization, Hybridity, and Mediating Japan"

Date and time: Thursday, January 15, 2026, 18:00~19:30 (CET, UTC +1h)

Location: Onsite @ Campus of the University of Vienna Department of East Asian Studies, Japanese Studies room JAP 1 (2K-EG-21), University Campus Hof 2.4, Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Vienna, Austria
https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/index.php?id=23548#c646040

Online: Join the lecture via Zoom (no registration necessary):
https://univienna.zoom.us/j/67883614789?pwd=Kwq2dOhewyjqdcybAp4SDD6cwHJ26j.1
Meeting-ID: 678 8361 4789 | Passcode: 184031

Abstract: Examining some of the ways color operates in anime allows for an exploration of place production in anime as it mediates Japan in a global context. Specific strategies of utilizing color to depict place will be revealed through a comparison of two anime: Bakemonogatari and Non Non Biyori.

Employing large blocks of segmented solid colors, the former anime tends toward the production of what Marc Augé calls "non-places," but ones that do not exist in the real world; the latter tends toward a painterly pastoral image, producing the impression of a locality in Japan through a textured merging of various colors. Both can be read as depicting places engaged with globalization in distinct ways. Bakemonogatari echoes the tensions of the breakdown of classically considered localities, presenting non-places of "passing through" (like airports) prevalent in contemporary globalization. Based on disparate parts of rural areas of Japan (but with some backgrounds painted in Vietnam), Non Non Biyori presents the sense of a local place, but one of hybridity and interlinking of dispersed places to produce that locality.
Through the specific strategies of coloration, both tendencies--segmented solid colors and non-place, and painterly pastoral imagery and place--are never fully subsumed by the other and appear in varying degrees in these and other anime. Such methods of analysis open a means to explore mediation, hybridity, and the various forms they may take to better navigate notions of place in relation to Japan and beyond.

For more information on the speaker and future events at u:japan, please follow the link below:
https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/

We look forward to your participation!
Hanno Jentzsch, Lola Moreau, Anna-Maria Stabentheiner, Ralf Windhab and Julian Wollinger

PS: If you missed a lecture or want to review, head to our recorded lectures section:
https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/records/

u:japan lectures
Department of East Asian Studies / Japanese Studies at the University of Vienna
E-mail: ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at

Kindly sponsored by the Toshiba International Foundation:
https://www.toshibafoundation.com/