• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.41
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• pp.253-277
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• 2015

When was launched in 2014, it was immediately ranked 2nd in English gross sales record in the first half of 2014, attracting huge attention from avid game users. Colin Moriarty(2014) states that the worldwide popular game, , lies on the alternative history assumption, 'what if Nazi Germany won the second world war? In regard to this, this research addresses how the characteristics of alternative history was adopted and visually represented in FPS game trailer. In terms of research method, firstly, literatures will be reviewed about definition of alternative history and some of the previous examples where alternative history was applied in novels, films and games. Secondly, narrative composition of alternative history is categorized as three sequential phases, (1) borrowing real history material, (2) connection between real and fictional history and (3) reconstruction of history through reinterpretation. Thirdly, the live-action game trailer will be analysed by three sequential phases of narrative composition, and CG game character and background will be analysed by spatial background, characters and props. The phase of 'borrowing' has used the historic images related to the World War II, and the phase of "connection' has composited by "connection through circumstantial events". The phase of 'reconstruction' has unfolded its fictional narrative in the form of "limited fictional history" In addition to this, has constructed dystopia world through composing of historic images and CG characters by SF design. In the light of this, the narrative composition of alternative history successfully extends to game area.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.37
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• pp.45-82
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• 2014

Comics and cartoons of superheroes in the West have adopted various semiotic systems and other art-forms, including their politico-socio-economic condition, and made parody of other popular texts, as well. Based on the idea of the development of superhero genre, this article focuses on how East Asian popular texts appropriate and reconstruct the genre, which was once considered the realization of American idea, by analyzing a series of TV animation (Japan, Sunrise,2011). Through the feature of parody with intertextuality, provides East Asian value and sensibility of characters as corporation-centered modern humans in capitalist society. This animation has similarity and difference, compared to that of Western superhero cartoons. It satires Western capitalist society and emphasizes Eastern family-oriented value. The performances of superheroes on TV represent the satire on Western style individualism and estimation through each one's achievement. It metaphorically criticizes the situation in which modern human falls into dependency on capital and media, and the capitalistic system in which public good is used for the method of private profit. emphasizes East Asian value of human and society, the cooperative relation for the success and maintenance of community by combining members of state and society through familial sensibility. Tiger functions as a spiritual leader in the group of superheroes who have been obsessed with competition for their own private purpose rather than public cause, Bunny and other colleagues are gradually influenced by Tiger's familial communicative style. emphasizes community-centered view and self-sacrificing sensibility as an international citizen to solve social pathology of modern world.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.50
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• pp.75-99
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• 2018

Makoto Shinkai, an animated film maker in Japan, has been featured as a one-person production system and as a 'writer of light', but his 2016 release of "Your Name" was a departure from the elements that characterize his existing works. At the same time, by the combination of the traditional musubi(むすび) story, ending these, it was a big hit due to its rich narratives and attraction of open interpretation possibility. As it can be guessed from the title of this work, this work shows the encounter between the Japanese ancient language and the modern language in relation to the 'name', and presents the image that the role of the name(language) is repeatedly emphasized with various variations in events for the perfect 'encounter'. In this work, the interpretations of $Signifi\acute{e}$ for characters and objects are extended and reserved as a metaphorical role of the similarity, depending on the meaning of the subject which they touch. The relationship between words and objects analyzed through the structure of Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$ is an epoch-making ideological discovery of modern times revealed through F. Saussure. Focusing on "the difference" between being this and that from the notion of Saussure, Derrida dismissed logocentrism, rationalism that fully obeyed the order of Logos. Likewise, dismissing the center, or dismissing the owner had emerged after the exclusive and closed principle of metaphysics in the west was dismissed. Derrida's definition of 'deconstruction' is a philosophical strategy that starts with the insight on the nature of language. 'Dissemination,' a metaphor that he used as a methodological concept to read texts acts as interpretation and practice (or play), but does not pursue an ultimate interpretation. His 'undecidability' does not start with infinity, but ends with infinity. The researcher testifies himself and identifies that we can't be an interpreter of the world because we, as a human are not the subject of language but a user. Derrida also interpreted the world of things composed of Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$ as open texts. In this respect, this study aimed to read Makoto's works telling about the meeting of a thing and a thing with name as a guide, based on Derrida's frame of 'deconstruction' and 'dissemination.' This study intends to re-consider which relationship the Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$ have with human beings who live in modern times, examine the relationship between words and objects presented in this work through Jacques Derrida's destruction and dissemination concepts, and recognize that we are merely a part of Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$. Just as Taki and Mitsuha confirm the existence by asking each other, we are in the world of things, expecting musubi that a world of names calls me.