Anime Haibane Renmei (Charcoal Feather Federation): An Enclave for the Hurt, Alienated Souls

Anime is an audiovisual, symphonic narrative form characterised by diversity, fluidity, hybridity and intertexuality. The abundant borrowing of images is a common practice in both manga and anime, and is considered as homage to the pretext and/or the establishing of a provocative dialogue between texts. This paper will discuss some of its distinctive characteristics, mainly intertexuality, using Yoshitoshi ABe's enigmatic 'Haibane Renmei' series (2002) and Haruki Murakami's novel, 'Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World' (hereafter HBW/EOW) (1985)

‘Nothing dirty about turning on a machine’: Loving your Mechanoid in Contemporary Manga

Relationships between humans and humanoid machines, like robots, androids and physical embodiments of computer programs, render permeable the boundary between human and machine, nature and culture, born and made. Artificial intelligence entities are shown with a capacity for emotional development and on the other hand people become cyborged under social and familial pressures to perform the roles expected of them and basic communication is through the mediation of technology

Images of a Greek Goddess in Anime: Athena and Nausicaӓ in Nausicaӓ of the Valley of the Wind

AbstractGreek mythology is a rich and powerful inspiration shared by numerous people in different times and place, without which, numerous artistic works worldwide would not have been created. In Japan, despite being far from their place of origin, Greek gods and their stories have also been a part of the commonly shared culture - initially through children’s stories, and often related to the constellations. Having a deep-seated animism (‘feel’ rather than theorised religious belief) as a fundamental element of their culture, the Japanese exhibit obvious affinity to Greek mythology and to its humanlike gods in different forms, powers, and emotions, and their relationship to each other and with humans

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

Another half and/or another individual : representation of twins in manga

Who am I? Is there anyone who loves me as I am? A quest for ‘individual identity’ is a major topic in manga (and anime) texts, which combine visual art forms with strong narrative-driven structures that portray a diverse range of social phenomena. This paper examines the characterisation of ‘twins’ in manga and anime, paying particular attention to ‘identical twins’ in girls’ manga, in terms of the following: the fashioning of self and the individual’s quest for / negotiation of subjective forms of agency through their struggles with actual and/or internalised pressures for social conformity. As De Nooy (2005) claims, tales of twins figure as a significant motif in contemporary culture and these narratives continuously evolve to respond to the place and the period of their (re)telling, often representing an account of an ambiguous self and/or ‘other self’ in relation to issues of gender and sexuality. Twins in manga (and anime) are the same, yet such characters are often created by female artists for female readers as embodiments of personal, psychological struggles for individual independence rather than as a gendered girl, unlike western novels, plays and films. Perhaps reflecting the general impression of ‘twins’ as the identical, Japanese twins in manga (and anime) are generally limited to the identical (same sex) or male/female twins with similar appearances. Male/female twins tend to represent the strong, affectionate, (mythic) bond, with incestuous overtones. It can deconstruct pre-determined gender roles but only lightly, as exemplified by the first twin manga, Tezuka Osamu’s ‘Futago no kishi’ (Twin knights) from 1958. In contrast, tales of identical twins often focus on their rivalry and their conflict, where jealousy plays a critical role. It explores psychological issues, in which the twins may be interpreted as dramatisations of the self and the mirrored self, the split and fragmented self, and the internal conflict between unconsciousness and the social self or the ego and the super-ego. Many identical twins narratives in manga revolve around deep-seated anxieties and uncertainties about individual identity, especially that of girls. As Fujimoto (2001) sums up: twin tales in the 1950s demonstrate a recovery of lost wholeness, which end with the happy reunion of twin girls who grew up separately, followed by darker and more suspenseful stories, entwined with jealousy, rivalry and conflict between twins with contrasting nature (e.g., the good and the bad). From 1985, along with a general interest in ‘identity’, twin narratives of both girl twins and boy twins flourished, with a specific focus on psychological issues, such as inner conflict; conflict between the self and the expected self, which also closely related to other narratives (e.g., clones, multiple personalities and reincarnations), all of which relate to issues concerning individual identity. In recent manga publications twin tales are increasingly characterised by playfulness, lightness and positive tones in their depiction of identical twins’ development of independence - from the double to two individuals as exemplified by Minako Narita’s Cipher.10 page(s

Diffused reflection of body imageries : dolls as humans and humans as dolls

17 page(s

Kantaro, the new learing experience

5 page(s

Ayashi no Ceres : mythological past and present in manga and anime

18 page(s