DrGan Sheuo Hui

Academics

Dr Gan Sheuo Hui

Lecturer, Animation
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  • PhD in Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Japan
  • Master of Communication (Screen Studies), University of Science Malaysia, Malaysia
  • Bachelor of Communication (Film Studies), University of Science Malaysia, Malaysia

From the beginning of her career, Dr Gan has pursued questions relating to cinema, anime, manga, and related forms of Japanese popular culture and their international popularity in Asia and the West. She approaches these areas with interests that range from practical aspects of production and distribution to theory. Her investigations have often involved meeting creators, curators, and fans as a way of uniting abstract speculations with field work.

Dr Gan’s research include aspects of authorship, censorship, copyright and means of expression in animation; the interrelations between manga, anime and live-action films and the Japanese-inspired forms of artistic content created and performed in Southeast Asia. She has given invited lectures in various countries (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, UK, US, France, Germany and Canada) at many institutions including the Sorbonne, Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, Tokyo University, and Keio University.

She has taught modules on Japanese film, manga and anime, popular culture and its visual representation. Some of her teaching highlights at the National University of Singapore (NUS) included the design and teaching of a module that focused on the contemporary Japanese visual culture and society that brought students to Japan for their field studies.

Dr Gan’s graduate work at Kyoto University and subsequent postdoctoral research on the historical development of Japanese anime was supported by a two-year grant by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. She has been a guest researcher in the Manga Department at Kyoto Seika University and awarded a fellowship from the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures and spent some time in the UK. After spending almost a decade doing research outside Southeast Asia, she joined the Department of Japanese Studies at the NUS as a visiting fellow in 2012.

Her current projects include a book of essays on contemporary Japanese animation. She is also working on interview surveys of the production and distribution of comics and the related contents industry in Malaysia. This study focuses on the function of publishers of comics, as they diversify from comics to games and anime production while reacting to the global changes in the digital media environment.

Research and Practice

Chapters in books

  • Motion and Emotion in Anime: Beyond the Aesthetics of the Multiplane Camera. The Cambridge Companion to Manga and Anime, edited by Jaqueline Berndt, Cambridge University Press, in press, (Spring 2024)
  • The Sound of Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba『鬼滅の刃』の音." In Global Anime Discourse グローバル・アニメ論: Body, Archive and Transnationalism 身体／アーカイブ／トランスナショナル, edited by Minori Ishida and Joon Yang Kim, Sekyusha 青弓社, Tokyo, pp. 97-112 (2022)
  • Exhibiting Anime: Archive, Public Display, and the Re-narration of Media History. In Archiving Movements: Short Essays on Materials of Anime and Visual Media, edited by Ishida Minor and Kim Joon Yang, Archive Center for Anime Studies, Niigata University,, pp. 2-11 (2019)
  • 「マレーシアのマンガ――少女マンガ家カオル（Kaoru）を通してみる文化混交（ルビ：ハイブリディティ）へのアプローチ」『女性MANGA研究欧米・日本・アジアをつなぐＭＡＮＧＡ』　大城房美編著（青弓社、２０１５）、６２−８３。Manga in Malaysia: An Approach to its Hybridity Through Shōjo Mangaka Kaoru. In Women Manga Research in Europe, Japan and Asia, edited by Ogi Fusami. Tokyo: Seikyusha, pp. 62–83 (2015)
  • Auteur and Anime as Seen in the Naruto TV Series – An Intercultural Dialogue between Film Studies and Anime Research. In Manga’s Cultural Crossroads, edited by Jaqueline Berndt and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer. London: Routledge, pp. 220–242 (2013)
  • 「セレクティブ・アニメーションという概念－「リミテッド・アニメーショ ン」の限界を超えて－」『アニメーションの映画学』加藤幹郎編 (臨川書店、2008)、245-308。The Concept of Selective Animation: Going Beyond the “Limited” in Limited Animation. In The Cinema Studies of Animation (Animēshon no egagaku), edited by Kato Mikiro. Kyoto: Rinsen Shoten, pp. 245–308 (2008)
  • Prefiguring the Future: Tezuka Osamu’s Adult Animation and its Influence on Later Animation in Japan. In The Proceedings of the Asia Culture Forum 2006 – A Preliminary Project, October 26 – 29, 2006, Cinema in / on Asia, edited by Shin Dong Kim & Joel David. Seoul: Asia Future Initiative, pp. 189–200 (2006)
     

Journal articles (peer-reviewed)

  • Physicality in Animation. Japanese Journal of Animation Studies. Vol. 18, No.2, 2017, pp. 59–72 (2017)
  • Stimulating Thoughts Rather Than Appetite: On TAKAHATA Isao's Animation Aesthetics. The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies. Vol 21, No.1, 2020, pp. 111–125 (2020)
  • To be or Not to be: The Controversy in Japan over the Anime Label. Animation Studies Online Journal, Vol. 4, 2009, pp. 35-43. Reprinted in Animation: Critical and Primary Sources, Vol. 3: CONTEXT, edited by Chris Pallant, Bloomsbury Academic (2021)
  • Manga in Malaysia: An Approach to its Current Hybridity through the Career of the Shōjo Mangaka Kaoru. International Journal of Comic Art. Vol. 13, No.2, fall 2011, pp. 164–78 (2011)
  • The Transformation of the Teenage Image in Oshii Mamoru’s The Sky Crawlers. Animation Studies – Peer-reviewed Online Journal for Animation History and Theory (2011)
  • To Be or Not to Be: The Controversy in Japan over the Anime Label. Animation Studies – Peer-reviewed Online Journal for Animation History and Theory, pp. 35–43 (2010)
  • The Newly Developed Form of Ganime and its Relation to Limited Animation for Adults in Japan. Animation Studies – Peer reviewed Online Journal for Animation History and Theory, pp. 6–17 (2008)
  • Re-evaluation of Mushi Pro’s Three Adult-Oriented Films. Cinema Studies. Vol.2, pp. 63–90 (2007)

Translations

  • Sebastien Denis, L’Harmattan. The Poetics of Selective Animation – Japanese Anime and the Notion of Limited Animation. In The Aesthetic of Full and Limited Animation, in press, expected publication date to be confirmed. 
  • Watanabe, Yashushi. The Walt Disney of Japan: Masaoka Kenzo. In Japanese Animation: East Asian Perspectives, edited by Tze-yue G Hu and Yokota Masao. MS: University Press of Mississippi, pp. 98–114 (2013)
  • Inomata, Noriko. Bande Dessinee (BD) in Girls’ Oriented Magazines in France. In Comics Worlds and the World of Comics: Scholarship on a Global Scale. Proceeding of Kyoto Seika University International Manga Research Center’s First International Conference, edited by Jaqueline Berndt and Yoshimura Kazuma. Kyoto: Daigo Shobo, pp. 165–76 (2010)
  • Wen, Tien-Hsiang. Hsiao-Hsien: A standard for evaluating Taiwan’s cinema. In Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Vol.9, No.2, pp. 211-238 (2008)

Resource materials

  • The Dictionary of Animation, Asakura Shoten (2012)

Confereces and seminar papers (select)

  • A World is Born: Emerging Arts and Design in 1980s Japanese Animation. The Archive Center for Anime Studies, Niigata University (2018)
  • Cosplay as Gijinka – The Metamorphosis of the Anime Body in Fan Cosplay, June 11-12 (18th Japan Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference at Niigata University. Plenary paper) (2016)
  • Reading Manga-esque Girls-themed Comics in Southeast Asia, July 4 (Mutsumi’s World – From Ribon for Girls to Manga for Women, Kitakyushu Manga Museum, Kitakyushu, Japan) (2015)
  • Locally made! The gag comics in Malaysia, January 22-23 (Manga and The Manga-Esque: New Perspectives to a Global Culture at Ateneo De Manila University, Manila, Philippines. Plenary paper) (2015)
  • The Poetics of Selective Animation – From the Spell of Tezuka and Astro Boy to the Appeal of The Tatami Galaxy, November 6–7 (Full or Limited? The “Quality” of Animation on TV, between Economy and Aesthetics. International Symposium by Labex ICCA & Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris. Keynote Paper) (2014)
  • The Concept of “Limited Animation” in TV Anime and Japanese Animation, December 15–17(4th International Conference JSA-Asean 2014 in Bangkok: State and Non-state Actors in Japan-ASEAN Relations and Beyond) (2014)
  • Selective Animation: Why “Limited Animation” is not Limited, July 14-26 (Media Mix Summer Program 2014 Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan) (2014)
  • Cool Japan Initiative and its Implications in Southeast Asia, April 24–May 1 (Nomura Cool Japan Lecture Series at Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University Japan, Kanagawa, Japan) (2014)
  • Mixed Media in the Digital Age – Corporate Standard vs. Creative Vision, February 10 (Mixed Media in the Digital Age, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany) (2014)
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Research Interest
  • Japanese anime and anime

See also

List of Academics