The major aim of this study is to clarify the historical transition of education concerning animation in primary and secondary art education in Japan. This paper surveys how animation subjects were treated in school textbooks for art in high school education focusing on their education purposes. This research surveyed 44 animation subjects extracted from 113 textbooks published between 1950s and 2010s. The results of text analysis show the first example was the subject in 1972 and since then there has been 2 continuous educational purposes for animation subjects: Media Education and Education for Visual Communication. Since the 2000s, the number of animation subjects has increased rapidly and the perspective of education has expanded to 3 more purposes: Constructive Education, Education for Creativity and Education for Collaborative Communication.

Recently, digitization is progressing rapidly throughout society. Along with this phenomenon, the number of user-generated contents (UGC) is rapidly increasing on platforms such as posting sites. Some UGC are made from anime, and these can be expected to have effects such as promotion and monetization of anime works. However, there are some UGC that can damage the right holder of content or impair the quality of the content. Based on this situation, while overviewing the current situation of UGC and the Japanese animation industry, I investigated the issues to be considered and countermeasures for establishing a good relationship between them. As a result, although there are legal responsibilities associated with UGC creation and complicated rights structures regarding animation as issues related to them, it was confirmed that efforts by platformers, companies, right holders, users, countries, etc. are underway. Then, when I contemplated whether these efforts could contribute to building a good relationship between UGC and the animation industry, I found the possibility in the efforts.

Watching animated works brings various psychological experiences to people. On the other hand, it is not fully understood what kind of work factors and viewer factors are related to the occurrence of the experience. The purpose of this study is to clarify the factors that elicit psychological experiences. Therefore, for this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 54 undergraduate and graduate students and was analyzed using the KJ method. The results indicated that the animated work’s factors can be identified as [the way the character lived] and [work’s style]. Viewer-related factors include [the viewer’s traits], [their attitude toward the work], [their desires and inquisitiveness], and [their daily burden on the mind and body in everyday life]. Impeding factors include: [the viewer’s preference], [the sense of discomfort], and [the sense of distance from the work]. In this way, we were able to sort out each factor based on the data. Then, we get suggestions on how each factor works in the process of watching animated works and is related to the psychological experience.

This paper analyzes Japanese manga and anime using a perspective of posthumanism, in order to explore how this posthuman idea exists within Japanese popular cultural imagination, and what its meaning might be for the audience.

There are many Japanese SF anime since the 1950s. This research focuses on Knights of Sidonia (2009-2015), which was an innovative Japanese manga series created by Nihei Tsutomu. The anime adaptation aired on Japanese television as a series (2014 to 2015), and was released as an animated film in 2021. The story has typical Japanese SF aspects, with gigantic robots fighting alien enemies. However, all human bodies in the story have been technologically enhanced. The innovative point of this anime is its “queer” characters, specifically, non-sexed humans and mix-sexed creatures.

Interpreting this anime’s imagination of posthuman and post-sexual characters, I employ theories from the pioneer of posthumanism, Donna Haraway, and the Japanese anatomist and thinker, Yōrō Takeshi. This analysis will show how the series challenges the dualistic boundaries of body and mind, female and male, monster and human, etc. Through this analysis, we can see how Japanese popular culture presents avenues for conceptualization of transgressive sex and sexuality through its imagination of posthuman characters.