'In This Corner of the World' and the Challenges of Intermedial Adaptation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/9157Keywords:
Japanese television, manga, anime, adaptation, fidelityAbstract
In This Corner of the World, a Japanese television drama broadcast in summer 2018, is an adaptation of Kōno Fumiyo’s critically acclaimed manga with the same title and also its feature-length anime version directed by Katabuchi Sunao. Released in 2016, Katabuchi’s film, along with the latest work in the Godzilla franchise Shin Gojira (directed by Anno Hideaki) and Shinkai Makoto’s blockbuster anime Your Name, became a widely recognized social phenomenon. This article examines the television drama In This Corner of the World in relation to the original manga and anime adaptation to explore the problematics of intermedial adaptation. First, it briefly reexamines the discourses on fidelity in adaptation studies, and then discuss what the idea of fidelity can or cannot elucidate when it is applied to the interconnection among the three different versions of In This Corner of the World. Second, through a close analysis of the television drama and the original manga, it attempts to elucidate the formal challenges posed by cross-media seriality, including the issue of translatability of reflexive style and form from one medium to another, and explore the socio-political implication of a general shift from narrative seriality to cross-media seriality in the Japanese media landscape.References
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