ArtOrg with support from the Carleton Cinema and Media Studies department, announce a four-week Japanese Animation Festival titled ” Anime Genres: Aspects of a Global Cultural Consciousness”.

Frenchy Lunning of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) will be leading the series with lectures on at least the first and last showings of the series. Frenchy is well-known for her annual large animation festival at MCAD called Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits. The festival happens on four consecutive Friday nights in October: October 7, 14, 21, and 28. The shows start at 7 pm each night in room 104 of Boliou Hall at Carleton College. Boliou Hall is located on the main campus of Carleton College on the north end overlooking Lyman Lakes. Driving out of Northfield, turn right off Highway 19 directly before Lyman Lakes; this lot is the shortest walk to Boliou Hall.

Frenchy writes: “This anime film series will examine four of the many narrative genres covered by both manga (Japanese comic books) and anime (Japanese animation). The global interest in these Japanese art forms imply a larger cultural connection to these narratives, that contemporary western audiences find intriguing and perhaps even illuminating. It is that fascination and its connection to culture that the short accompanying lectures will discuss. The anime selections will address the genre, but will also show the remarkable tendency of these works to go beyond formulaic boundaries, provoking deeper questions into the nature of our desires and fears. The selections were chosen for both their power and their adherence to genre. Each anime is part of a longer series of episodes, but audiences will be able to sample the work and draw conclusions on the nature of the genre in culture.”

October 7: “Transcendance, Transformation, and the Apocalyptic”
“Akira” (1988) Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo

October 14: “The High School Melodrama: Relationships in Miniature”
“Fruits Basket” (2001) Directed by Akitaro Daichi

October 21: “Cybernetic Masculinities and the Dreams of Agency”
“Macross Plus” (1994) Directed by Shoji Kawamori

October 28: “Desire, Death and Life: Adventures of the Body in Horror”
“Hellsing” (2001) Directed by Yasunori Urata