Category: Presentations

Between April 17 to April 19, we had the great pleasure of presenting the JVMG-Project at the “Soundscapes of Storytelling. Music, Atmosphere, and Narrative in Studio Ghibli Films”-Workshop at the HMT Leipzig. Organized by Christoph Hust, Professor for Music at the HMT Leipzig, the program featured a thematically diverse range of topics and perspectives on the music in Studio Ghibli Films: from rural and urban imaginaries, nostalgia, and instrumentations, over aesthetics, atmospheres, and the tension between the West and Japan, to contexts and fan-reception. This led to rich discussions and exchange of perspectives and ideas in a supportive and appreciative setting.

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The 4th EAJS Japan Conference at Tohoku University gave us an opportunity to argue for understanding data collections as datascapes, meaning spaces that both describe domains (and as such, may shape their user’s perspective on a domain) and reflect the community that curates them (and as such, may speak to the relevances and practices in the community). We showcased this perspective by looking at the ACDB data collection, with particular interest in the ways in which it reflects the community’s interests, curatorial decisions, and the changes these undergo.

The presentation was well-received and followed by an intense discussion with researchers from diverse fields, which was exciting as it drew our attention to fantastic research initiatives in neighboring fields and institutions, such as the digital humanities initiative of the National Institute for the Humanities, represented by Tamako Kitaoka at the EAJS, and the metadata research Kathryn Ibata-Arens does on biomedical innovation. This helped support our hope that the concept of datascapes might be relevant beyond our immediate focus.

Overall, the conference was a great opportunity to hear about a wide range of research focusing on the Japan area and related questions, to catch up with colleagues from Europe, and to get to know Tohoku University.

– A short report by Saskia Dreßler –

On Tuesday, October 21 the Japanese Visual Media Graph (JVMG) Project had the wonderful opportunity to present its research and ongoing work at a special seminar event organized by Alba Torrents González at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The event featured four presentations (in-person and online) that introduced the aims, structure, and methodologies of the JVMG.

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We, Martin Hennig and Christopher Zysik, had the pleasure to present our research and the JVMG project at the Annual Conference of the German Society for Media Studies (Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft) at Paderborn University from September 16^th to 19^th. The Society for Media Studies brings together scholars from different disciplines involved with research around theories, practices, and structures of mass media and other forms of mediatization, such as communication, data, or transportation. This year, the hosts invited researchers to present and discuss the topic “Macht” (in engl.: “power”). We contributed with a presentation on “Macht in fankuratierten Datenbanken” (“Power in fan-curated databases”) and how the JVMG project enables a new perspective and method to approach this topic.

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We had the great pleasure of presenting our research and the JVMG project at the 19. Deutschsprachigen Japanologentag at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main two weeks ago. The conference, held every three years, is a gathering place for researchers working on topics related to Japan and the Japanese language from a multitude of disciplines. We contributed to one of the joint panels of the information and resource science section, organized by Nobutake Kamiya and Cosima Wagner, and the media studies section, organized by Björn-Ole Kamm.

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Last weekend and Monday (June 7-9) saw the JVMG team represent the project at one of the most highly anticipated events for us, the Mechademia 2025 conference in Kyoto with a whole panel on some of the new results of the second phase. Taking place once again at Kyoto Seika University and the Kyoto International Manga Museum the conference was even bigger than two years ago, with multiple parallel panels running throughout the three days and more than a hundred and fifty presenters from all over the world. Furthermore, for the first time the conference featured both English and Japanese as official languages of the event, allowing for an even more inclusive exchange of ideas around researching anime, manga, video games and related fields of Japanese popular culture.

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– A short report by Saskia Dreßler –

On May 3, 2025, the Japanese Visual Media Graph project was invited to give a presentation at MondoCon in Budapest. There the JVMG project members had the opportunity to present their research and work related to Japanese popular media. MondoCon is the largest anime and manga convention in Hungary and one of the most prominent events of its kind in Eastern Europe. The convention has been running since 2009 with multiple events each year.

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– A short report by Saskia Dreßler –

The JVMG project was invited to give three presentations at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut) in Essen on March 25. Our visit took place as part of the Institute’s event series Guilty Pleasures and was coordinated by Ádám Havas. Under the overarching theme The Pleasures of Anime and Manga Fandom, Zoltan Kacsuk, Mathieu Mallard, and Saskia Dreßler presented excerpts of their research as well as the JVMG project itself.

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June 25-26 saw the coming together of a host of researchers working on the cutting-edge of various aspects of characters for a super-intensive long-form workshop organized by Jaqueline Berndt at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Stockholm University, the Characters: Rights and Roles, International Workshop. And we were fortunate enough to be there to witness the inspiring intensity of the talks and discussions, and to also contribute with our own experience from the JVMG project.

This event was one of those special occasions that are more like a true master-class on the state of the art of the topic woven together by all the participants through the constant discussions and cross-referencing of themes and questions, where the sum of the workshop became indeed more than just its individual parts, which in themselves were packed with so much detail – with an hour allotted for ample delivery and deliberation for each presenter – that this report can in no way do justice to them.

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