A Study of “Transformation” in Children’s TV Animation

Abstract

This paper focuses on the representation of “transformation” in TV animation produced for children broadcast in Japan. Among the works based on trading card games, which are at the center of contemporary children’s TV animation productions, the depictions of transformation in the pioneering works “ Cardcaptor Sakura” and “ Yu-Gi-Oh!” In previous studies of children’s TV animation, “transformation” has been regarded as a means of entry into adult society, but in both works, “transformation” functions as an expression of the instability of the protagonist’s identity, and it becomes clear that, underlying this, the line between “adult” and “child” is blurred in the values depicted in the works. The underlying cause is the blurring of the line between “adult” and “child” in the sense of values depicted in the works.