Anime’s Other Identities: New Frameworks for Black Anime and Beyond

This paper is based on a ‘Black anime’ presentation given at the first ‘Transnational Perspectives on Anime’ symposium at Lancaster University in 2025. It introduces the topic of ‘Black anime’ as emerging from the globalisation of Japanese anime. By exploring the development of ‘Black anime’ over time, it charts this new genre’s increasingly delineated form as a complex process and hard-fought battle for ownership and identity, overcoming academic and cultural barriers and borders.