Syllabus: Intro to Japanese Animation - Volume 5 - pages 294-314

Aug 20, 2026

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This syllabus introduces an undergraduate-style course on Japanese animation, tracing how the curriculum evolved from a lecture-discussion and writing-centered model toward creative group-oriented responses. It emphasizes critical thinking and philosophical engagement with anime as a medium shaped by Japanese culture and context, while addressing assignment integrity concerns raised by generative AI. The preface details core activities such as ethics-focused debate and strategies for replacing low-engagement writing prompts with scaffolded animation assignments.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time53 min

AccessFree to download

Preface

Course goals and evolution

Assignments and student engagement

Debates and ethics of fansubbing

Creative formats and AI-integrity concerns

Scaffolded animation project approach

Syllabus: Intro to Japanese Animation LINDSEY STIREK Volume 5, Pages 294-314 Keywords: Syllabus, Anime, Class, Teaching, Education Author Bio: Lindsey Stirek is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design and the Assistant Director of Academic Programming at Japan House at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Stirek earned her Ph.D. from the Ohio State University where she specialized in premodern Japanese literature and manga. Currently, her research centers around how storytelling through manga and anime is used to create models of activism for Ainu people. Dr. Stirek teaches courses on manga, anime, and Japanese artistic practices, including chanoyu and lacquer repair. Her writings can be found in The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies, Experiments in Art Research: How Do We Live Questions Through Art?, and the upcoming Handbook of Japanese Aesthetics. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License PREFACE Among the several courses I teach, my introduction to Japanese animation class is probably the most sought after, and I am endlessly impressed by my students’drive togo beyond passive consumption of anime in order to connect with Japanese culture. Students crave a deeper understanding of this medium and the contexts from which it arose and within which it exists. I created this course to respond to that demand for knowledge, but it has changed substantially over the years. When I first developed this course, I intended for it to be both a survey of Japanese animation styles and a way to explore philosophical questions, but ultimately it was a critical thinking and writingfocused, lecture-discussion course. Initially, my approach to assignments was quite traditional; there were discussion assignments, a debate assignment, and a final paper. These were not bad assignments at all, and the debate, which centers around the topic of the ethics offansubbing, continues to feature as a key assignment in the course with many students reporting that they found it fun and less stressful to work with a team on this assignment and that it gave them a chance to re-acquaint themselves with formal debate through a less divisive topic. However, the discussion board posts and final papers seemed to elicit less student engagement in addition to being tedious to grade on my end, and with the advent of generative AI threatening to throw the integrity of written assignments into question, I began to think of ways I could elicit responses to the deep philosophical questions around which I had originally structured the course without relying so heavily on writing prompts. In my other courses, I had been challenging the primacy of the individual written assignment by prioritizing creative group assignments such as manga creation in my introductory manga class, which led to the online publication of a class zine that has been ongoing since 2022. I measure the success of these assignments by the level of engagement with the materials and with each other, and each semester, students have created high-quality collaborative manga and worked together to edit each others’ works and publish the zine, so I count this change of approach to assignments as a huge success. Naturally, I wanted to replicate this success in my anime class, but where my other courses were relatively art-focused from their conception, this animation course had always been “about” anime rather than “making” animation, and since it is a general education course under the category of historical and philosophical perspectives, I couldn’t completely change the focus away from those topics. So, I decided to open up the final project to alternative formats, intending to encourage students to be creative in their response to the course content. The first time I taught it this way, I received mainly video essays, which was fine and many of them were incredibly deep e

FAQs

What was the original goal of the Japanese animation introduction course?

It was initially designed as both a survey of Japanese animation styles and a way to explore philosophical questions connected to the medium and its cultural context.

Which assignment remains a key part of the course?

The debate assignment, centered on the ethics of fansubbing, continues to feature as a core activity and many students report enjoying teamwork and revisiting formal debate skills.

How did the instructor adjust assignments in response to generative AI concerns?

The instructor sought ways to elicit engagement with deep philosophical questions without relying too heavily on written prompts, reducing integrity risks associated with individual written work.

Aug 20, 2026

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