Worldcrunch
Public broadcaster TV3 in the Spanish region of Catalonia has decided to air Dragon Ball, a ’90s anime classic that marked an entire generation in the autonomous community of Spain. But despite its cultural significance at the time — as the first series broadcast in the Catalan language — Dragon Ball’s return seems more like a comfortable wink to the past than a brave commitment to the future.
With Spirou as the latest case in point, some of the world’s most beloved comics and graphic novels contain depictions that are antiquated at best — and downright racist at worst.
The visiting American writer pieces together how the French culture of comics (bandes dessinées) mixes with their deepening love of Japanese anime’.
Japanese artist Takashi Murakami has unveiled a large fresco capturing the history of economics, from the Sumerians to Elon Musk, at a gallery in the suburbs of Paris. French journalist Yann Rousseau met him in his studio near Tokyo.
In the fifth grade, a 10-year-old Noh Blaghen discovered graphic Japanese comics, otherwise known as mangas. It was in the early 2000s in Benin, Nigeria, and they were rare there. A friend’s parents, who had been traveling in France and in Belgium, returned home with stacks of them, which Noh devoured with his friends. In […]
Recently several authors of a BL fiction website were arrested. The injustice is so glaringly obvious that I can’t stop myself from saying something about this. The so-called BL (Boy’s Love) fiction is a particular interest of a minority of people. The concept comes from Japan: it refers to female-oriented fiction featuring idealized romantic relationships […]