Top Researchers: Salomon Doncel on Mechademia

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The Word “Otaku” Becomes “Oshare”

He is one of the best known and respected manga and anime researchers and translators in Europe. This month, his publication “The Genesis of the Otaku Phenomenon: A Journey through Fanzines, Associations and Conventions from the 1990s” in the journal Mechademia by the University of Minnesota Press has been recognized as the best research article on manga and anime studies published last year. 

There is no other study, to date, that uses fan literature in order to explore and narrate in such detail the history of the manga and anime sociocultural phenomenon in a country outside Japan. Doncel’s research is primarily based on fanzines and bulletins from the 1990s, almost non-existent and irretrievable material nowadays, offering us a unique and unprecedented viewpoint of the transnational otaku phenomenon. Doncel’s self-financed research is the first of its kind to use empirical evidence when narrating the historical facts detailed throughout this genesis. 

Based in Tokyo since 2017, Salomon Doncel graduated from the University of Granada, a worldwide referent in Translation and Interpreting Studies. However, part of his research was developed at Waseda University after his arrival in Japan. Currently, he works at the first and only Center for English as a Lingua Franca in the world at Tamagawa University, Tokyo. One of Doncel’s latest translation projects is Netflix’s new release Sailor Moon Eternal with his friend and co-translator Alessandra Moura, one of the major manga and anime activists in Spain during the 1990s.