We are very happy to report that a new open access volume, featuring research from the JVMG project, titled “Japan’s Contemporary Media Culture between Local and Global: Content, Practice and Theory” and edited by Martin Roth, Hiroshi Yoshida and Martin Picard is now available online.
Luca Bruno’s chapter “A Glimpse of the Imaginative Environment: Exploring the Potential of Data-driven Examinations of Visual Novel Characters” building on the results of TUC 3 offers extensive theoretical background on his work with visual novel games and the characters featured within them (see also TUC 1 and TUC 5). Zoltan Kacsuk’s contribution “Using Fan-Compiled Metadata for Anime, Manga and Video Game Research: Revisiting Azuma’s “Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals” Twenty Years On” further elaborates on his statistical explorations featured in TUC 2 and presented at JADH 2020, and also ties back his results to the space of theories around anime, manga and otaku.