[Subject playing with flat images: Transmedia spreadability of anime and manga character images]

Anime and manga characters are so ubiquitous in Japan that people see them anywhere, regardless of public or private. The two-dimensional flatness of line drawing allows the character images to straddle the boundaries of the worlds of works and media. The analysis of individual artworks needs to be revised to understand the transmedia spreadability of characters and our living conditions. This paper, thus, overviews the preceding discussions of anime and manga scholars on human-character relations and compares them with the theory of subject formation in film studies, whose realist tendency once emphasized the three-dimensional space and time. While psychoanalysis-influenced theories such as suture and male gaze model after one-point perspective and subordinate two-dimensionality, Thomas Lamarre formulates a de-unified perspective in relation to the multilayered image field of Japanese anime. In conjunction with the orientation of cultural and fan studies to emphasize audience agency, this article discusses the de-unified perspective on flat images which has the potential for understanding the complexity of subject formation through the interplay with two-dimensional images.

Social Atmospherics, Affective Response, and Behavioral Intention Associated With Esports Events

The purpose of this study was to conceptualize social atmospherics in the context of esports attendance and examine the relationship among social atmospherics, affective responses, and behavioral intention. Based on review literature, we conceptualized social atmospherics as five dimensions in esports events’ environments: social density, suitable behavior, similarity, cosplay, and cheering behavior. Notably, cosplay (i.e., a portmanteau of the words “costumes” and “play”) and cheering behavior factors adopted from extant social atmospherics served to capture the unique features associated with esports events. Via an online survey, data were collected (n = 372) from esports fans who have experienced attending esports events. The data set was split into half; the first data set (n = 189) was used to examine the psychometric properties of the measurement model and the second data set (n = 184) was employed to test the hypothesized model. The initial model fit was not shown to be acceptable. The model was re-estimated using the second data set after dropping four items with low factor loadings, resulting in the acceptable model fit. The results via structural equation modeling indicated that cheering behavior, similarity, cosplay, and social density positively and significantly influenced affective responses and behavioral intention. However, there was no significant relationship between suitable behavior and affective responses. In terms of theoretical contributions, we tested a five-factor model of social atmospherics associated with esports events and its effects on behavioral intention through affective responses. The findings in this study extend the sportscape model (Wakefield and Sloan, 1995) by incorporating the mediating effect of affective responses and expand the utility of the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) framework as a viable theory that can explain esports consumption behavior.

Miku's mask: Fictional encounters in children's costume play

Children's engagement with Japanese toys and fictional characters has taken on new significance in the age of YouTube. Drawing on ethnographic research on technology-mediated play among 8- and 9-year-olds in Norway, this article shows how boundaries between "real" humans and "fake" non-humans are blurred and undermined when children take on the perspective of a fictional pop star known as Miku. I argue that YouTube provides a platform for children's playful experimentation with posthuman subjectivities, where they orient themselves toward the future not in terms of becoming adult but in terms of multiple becomings.