Animation Secondary Creation in the Context of Participatory Culture : Focussing on the Development and Transformation of MAD in the 1970s-2000s

The study of secondary creative works in Japan has been centred on manga doujinshi. In contrast, this study aims to explain the development and transformation of secondary creative works in Japan by focusing on anime secondary creative videos, many of which have been circulating on the Internet in recent years. Media culture has undergone drastic changes under the influence of the digital revolution, and MAD has emerged as an important example of self– expression and creativity amidst these changes. This paper will explore how MAD came into being and how it has evolved over the decades, with the hypothesis that this culture of participation existed even before digitalization, although it is now mainly distributed through video sharing sites, from a media studies perspective. In conclusion, MAD as we know it today was born in Japan in the 1970s, evolved from videotape editing in the 1980s to digital editing in the 2000s. And now, it has formed a large participatory culture community with more works and audiences based on video sharing sites. This study aims to identify the position and meaning of MAD as a participatory culture in the digital age.