Ghost Animation

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This is the first book in any language to examine the animated works of the Manchukuo Film Association, known as Manying in Chinese, a studio established by Japanese authorities during the occupation of Manchuria. Long thought lost to the war, Manying’s films were rediscovered in 1989—yet, in contrast to the studio’s newsreels, documentaries, and live-action feature films, its animated works have largely gone ignored. In this book, Daisy Yan Du draws on research in multiple languages and rarely accessed archives to reveal that Manying made animation central to its mission, even harboring ambitions of building an animation empire across China and beyond. This unrealized dream did not simply vanish with the end of the war, however: its specter lingered, playing a previously untold role in the development of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean animation industries. Filling a critical gap in our understanding of the development of East Asian and world animation, this groundbreaking work tells the story of the surprising lives, deaths, and afterlives of Manying animation.

Contents

List of Figures

Note to Readers

Introduction: A Hauntology of Manying Ghost Animation

1. The Dream of an Animation Empire: From Manying to Tōei Animation

2. From the Senga Unit to the Empire of Special Effects: The North China Film Company and Animated Filmmaking in Wartime and Postwar Beijing

3. Ghost in the Cel: Manying and Japan’s Animation Outsourcing Empire in Asia

4. From Luminous Pearl to Astro Boy: Puppet Filmmaking in Manying and the Rise of Anime Empire in Postwar Japan

Epilogue: The Second Death of Manying

Acknowledgments

Appendix 1: Former Manying Staff in Tōyoko and Tōei

Appendix 2: Wartime Film Periodicals in North China

Notes

Bibliography

Index