Matt Thorn (Matthew Allen Thorn)

Education

Teaching Experience

• Associate Professor, School of Comics Production, Faculty of Manga, Kyoto Seika University, April 2006 to present.
• Associate Professor, Department of Comic Art, School of Cartoon & Comic Art, Faculty of Art, Kyoto Seika University, April 2000 to March 2006.
• Adjunct lecturer, Doshisha University, Apr. 2001 - July 2002.
• Adjunct lecturer, College of Humanities, Kyoto Seika University, Sept. 1997-March 2000.
• Adjunct lecturer, International Exchange Center, Konan University, Jan.-May 1999.
• Adjunct lecturer, Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies, Jan.-Apr. 1999.
• Instructor, Department of East Asian Languages, Hamilton College, Aug. 1990-May 1991. Japanese language.
• Instructor, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois, Aug.-Dec. 1989. “Japanese Hero Types.”

General Audience Publications

• Article: “Amerika megahitto manga jijou” (“Overview: Megahit Comics in the U.S.A.”), KINO, April 2006.
• Article: “Japan: The Hollywood of Manga,” Japan Echo, April 2006. (Note: The title was supposed to have been “Japan: The Hollywood of Comics”. This is a translation by the staff of Japan Echo of the Ronza article below.)
• Article: “Chôhen manga taikoku Nippon” (“Japan: The Hollywood of Comics”), Ronza, February 2006.
• Bimonthly column on popular culture for Shukan ST (magazine), May 2004 to November 2005.
• Bimonthly column, “Gendai no kotoba,” for Kyoto Shinbun (newspaper), Aug. 2002 - June 2003.
• Monthly column, “Komikku hihyou” (“Comics Review”) for Dokushojin (weekly literary journal), Jan. 2002 - Jan. 2003.
• Periodic column, “Girls’ Stuff” (a column about Japanese girls’ comic books), for Animerica: Anime & Manga Monthly, 1993 to 1995.

Scholarly Publications

• Book chapter, “Girls and Women Getting Out of Hand: The Pleasure and Politics of Japan’s Amateur Comics Community” in Fanning the Flames: Fandoms and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan.William W. Kelly, ed. New York: SUNY Press, 2004.
• Book chapter, “Amerika ni okeru eiyaku manga” (“Translated Manga in America”) in Manga no shakaigaku. MIYAHARA Kohjiroh and OGINO Masahiro, eds. Kyoto, Sekai Shisôsha, 2001.
• Journal article, “Shoujo Manga: Something for Girls,” Japan Quarterly, July-September 2001: 43-50.
• Journal article, “Shoujo manga no bungakusei tte, are no koto?” (When You Say the Literariness of Girls’ Comics, Do You Mean...?), Kino Hyouron (Kino Review), Extra Issue, Oct. 1998. (Japanese)

Review

• Review of Themes and Issues in Asian Cartooning: Cute, Cheap, Mad, and Sexy (John Lent, ed., Bowling Green, Oh.: Popular Press, 1999) in The Journal of Asian Studies; Ann Arbor; Nov 1999.

Research Experience

• August 2003-August 2004, Research on mutual images of Japanese and Americans as reflected in popular culture, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University.
• July 1994-August 1995, Doctoral research on the place of comic books in the lives of adolescent Japanese girls, Japan. Funded by the Japan Foundation.
• July-Aug. 1993, Preliminary doctoral research on the place of comic books in the lives of adolescent Japanese girls, Kobe, Japan. Funded by the Sheldon Scheps Summer Research Grant.
• Aug. 1989Research on Japanese girls’ comic books, Kobe, Japan. Yielded a conference presentation, “Unlikely Explorers: Sexual Ambiguity in Japanese Girls’ Comic Books” (see below).
• Dec.-July 1988, Research on Japanese comic book culture, Kobe, Japan. Yielded a conference presentation, “Adolescent Liminality in Japanese Manga” (see below).

Conference Papers/Symposium Presentations

• “Commercialization and the Loss of Innocence: Children's Manga from the 1920s to the Present,” presented at “Comics and Childhood: The 4th Annual University of Florida Conference on Comics,” February 24, 2006.
• “The Fate of Girls’ Manga in the Digital Age,” presented at symposium, “Marauding Rabbits, Starry-Eyed Girls, Battling Boys, ‘Ordinary Ladies’: Japanese (American) Manga in Review,” Pomona College, California, February 17, 2006.
• “The Terms of Endearment: Japanese Girls’ Comics in America,” presented at symposium, “Gurôbaru jidaino nichibei bunka kôryû: shinnichi/kennichi-shinbei/kenbei no dainamikkusu” ("U.S.-Japan Cultural Exchange in the Global Age: The Dynamics of Pro-/Anti-Japan and Pro-/Anti-America Sentiment," Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, July 9, 2005.
• “Manga no hon’yaku ga urenai wake” (“Why Translated Comics Don’t Sell”), presented at symposium, “Gakujutsuteki manga kenkyuu no kanousei to kadai” (“Possibilities for and Issues in the Scholarly Study of Comics”), Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, June 2000.
• “Girls and Women Getting Out of Hand: The Pleasure and Politics of Japan’s Amateur Comics Community,” presented at the American Anthroplogical Association meetings in Washington, D.C., Nov. 22, 1997.
• “What Japanese Girls Do with Manga, and Why,” presented at the Japan Anthropology Workshop (“JAWS”) at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Jul. 10, 1997.
• “Unlikely Explorers: Alternative Narratives of Love, Sex, Gender, and Friendship in Japanese ’Girls’’ Comics,” presented at the New York Conference on Asian Studies in New Paltz, Oct. 16, 1993.
• “Future Cars, Past and Present: Driving to the Promised Land,” presented at the Central States Anthropological Society meetings in Cincinnati, Mar. 31, 1990.
• “Adolescent Liminality in the Manga of HAGIO Moto,” presented at the Seventh Annual Association of Teachers of Japanese Seminar in Washington, D.C., Mar. 16, 1989.

Translations (from Japanese to English, except where noted)

• Text for a book of computer-generated stereoscopic images, Stereogram, for Cadence Books, 1994.
• Subtitles for an animated film, Project A-ko, for U.S. Manga Corps, a division of Central Park Media, New York.
• Script by John Vincent Curtis of Interactive Simulation for a “virtual reality” amusement park attraction, “Terabyss: A Rockers Underwater Adventure,” featured at Marine Park on Rokko Island, Kobe, Japan (from English to Japanese).
• Text for a book of photographs by Mitsuaki Iwago, Nature Calls, for Cadence Books, 1993.
• Text for a book of photographs by Nishi F. Saimaru, John, Yoko and Sean: A Family Album, for Cadence Books.
• Text for a book of photographs by Kenji Ishikawa, Moonlight Blue, for Cadence Books.
• Text for a book of photographs by Junichi Shimomura, Art Nouveau Architecture: Residential Masterpieces 1893-1911, for Cadence Books, 1993.

Translations of Japanese Comic Books

From 1990 till 1999, I translated Japanese comic books—more than 5000 pages—for VIZ Communications, a subsidiary of the Japanese publisher Shogakukan based in San Francisco. Titles of comics books I have translated include:

• Banana Fish, (volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4), by Akimi Yoshida.
• Dance Till Tomorrow, vol. 1, by Naoki Yamamoto (1999).
• Love Song, by Keiko Nishi (1997).
• Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, vols. 5, 6, & 7 in the original edition, vols. 3 & 4 in the “Perfect Collection” edition (1993-4).
• Four Shojo Stories, by Moto Hagio, Keiko Nishi, and Shio Sato (1996).
• Sanctuary, 9 volumes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, by Sho Fumimura and Ryoichi Ikegami (1994-8).
• Mermaid Forest, Mermaid’s Scar & Mermaid’s Gaze, by Rumiko Takahashi (1995-7).
• A - A’, by Moto Hagio (1997).
• They Were Eleven, by Moto Hagio (monthly, Feb. 1995 to May 1995).
• Promise, by Keiko Nishi (Feb. 1994).
• LUM: Urusei Yatsura, by Rumiko Takahashi (serialized in Animerica: Anime & Manga Monthly, Dec. 1993 to ????).
• The Age of the Flying Boat, by Hayao Miyazaki (serialized in Animerica: Anime & Manga Monthly, June 1993 to Aug. 1993).
• Maison Ikkoku (vols. 1 & 2), by Rumiko Takahashi (1994-5).
• Ranma 1/2, by Rumiko Takahashi (monthly, from May 1992 to ????).
• Macross II, by Tsuguo Okazaki and Sukehiro Tomita (monthly, from Sept. 1992 to May 1993).
• Battle Angel Alita, vol. 1 (1994).
• Crying Freeman (Part 5), by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami (monthly, Nov. 1992 to Sept. 1993).
• AD Police, by Tony Takezaki (1994).
• Silent Mobius (vol. 1), by Kia Asamiya (1995).
• The Supergal, by Rumiko Takahashi (short story published in Animerica: Anime & Manga Monthly, Nov. 1992).
• Striker: The Armored Warrior, by Hiroshi Takashige and Ryoji Minagawa (1998).
• Midnight Eye, by Buichi Terasawa (monthly, Sept. 1991 to Feb. 1992).
• Saber Tiger, by Yukinobu Hoshino (May 1991).
• The Professional: Golgo 13, by Takao Saitoh (monthly, Apr. 1991 to June 1991).
• Hotel Harbor View, by Natsuo Sekikawa and Jiroh Taniguchi (Dec. 1990).
• GUNHED, by Kia Asamiya (bimonthly, Nov. 1990 to Mar. 1991).
• 2001 Nights, 3 vols.: 1, 2, 3, by Yukinobu Hoshino (1996).
• HOROBI, by Yoshihisa Tagami (monthly, Aug. 1990 to June 1991).
• The Legend of Kamui, vol. 1, chapter 1, by Sanpei Shirato (1999).