The Persistence of Animation

Feminizing the Magic Pen: Excuse me…Gen. MacArthur…

Abstract: This paper is about the 11-minute black-and-white Japanese animated film, Magic Pen (1946), made immediately after the end of the Second World War and was directed by Kumagawa Masao. My paper discusses how, for self-survival and nationalistic reasons, the director designed and employed a set of animated images to appeal and communicate to the latest political and administrative leaders of Japan. It concludes that by “feminizing and fantasizing,” “things’” and “desires” can eventually come true if the methodology of animating is planned deftly and the narrative is communicated effectively to the right audience, however exclusive the audience is.

Biographical Statement: My book manuscript, Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building is due for publication by the University of Hong Kong Press in the spring-summer period of 2009. My paper is an expansion of a part of the manuscript where I wrote about the postwar development of Japanese animation. Here, I further discuss the mindset and ingenuity of the Japanese animators in adapting to the new democratic guidelines for film stipulated by the Allied Forces administration in Japan. The film Magic Pen (1946) is interpreted in detail in view of its fantasizing elements and its innocent childlike facade.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Japanese animation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.