Japanese Mythology in Film - A Semiotic Approach to Reading Japanese Film and Anime

This book introduces film semiotics and demonstrates its use as a theoretical tool for reading Japanese popular movies and anime. Using eight case studies, including well-known films by Miyazaki and Oshii, the author showcases each film’s use of common mythological motifs such as death and rebirth while unveiling more covert cultural signifiers and folktale motifs encoded in the Japanese filmic text.