This study explores comparative moments between the Japanese and the recent English translations of two of Tezuka Osamu’s manga Faust adaptations: /One Hundred Tales/ and /Neo Faust/. It focuses on the Mephistopheles figure, who is female and feminized in these works. Neither Mephisto nor Sudama are outright villainous and both compete for the romantic interest of the arguably anti-heroic Faust figure.

Here, I investigate not only how they are graphically represented as female, as devil, and as their respective narrative's central (anti-)heroine, but also how their narrativization as active agents that “help the good by doing evil” or as “spirits of negation” play into their relationships with both the Faust figure and Gretchen figure of each adaptation. This is most significant in the equivalent of the Dungeon scene at end of /Faust, Part One/, where Mephistopheles declares that the girl has been judged by heaven. In both works, the Mephistopheles figure declares that the Margarete figure is lost or has given up, suggesting that the Faust figure should let her go. There is no clear counter-declaration that this heavenly judgment pronounces her salvation instead of damnation: that she has been redeemed and not—as the devil would like Faust to believe—lost. Furthermore, the new English translation of /One Hundred Tales/ (Ablaze, Dec 2023), for example, translates Sudama’s line as “She’s ready to move on.” (panel 1, p. 62); the original reads “ano musumesan mo akirametadesho yo”, where “akirameta” can be translated to Masago having given up. While not incorrect, the former translation does not share the finality of Mephistopheles’ “Sie ist gerichtet!” often translated to English as “She is judged”. For comparison, Ōgai translation reads: “are ga shioki da” [あれが処刑だ]. It is thus that the Faust figure’s abandonment of the young girl appears final in both /One Hundred Tales/ and /Neo Faust/, but the adaptations and their translations also, and arguably inevitably, lend to nuance the scene in unprecedented ways.

As Ablaze’s /Neo Faust/ is still pending release as of this writing (initially slated for November 2024, it is now planned for March 2025), the preliminary version of this study may consider the French and Italian editions for comparison, but hopes to extend that study to the newest English rendition once available.

This paper examines how traditional comic book heroes have been revitalized through webtoons, with a specific focus on Indonesian webtoons targeted at young female audiences. By analyzing selected works, I explore their distinctive characteristics and the impact these narratives have on the superhero genre and local girl culture in Indonesia.

Superheroes have held a significant place in Indonesian comics since their early development. One of the earliest examples is Sri Asih, introduced in 1953 by R.A. Kosasih, which was inspired by Wonder Woman and integrated Western superhero motifs with Indonesian traditions (Kurnia 2020; Idrus 2024). Meanwhile, webtoons—originating in South Korea in 2003—gained traction in Indonesia with the launch of LINE Webtoon in 2014, and by 2015, Indonesian became one of its language options (Putri 2024). By 2021, Indonesia had emerged as the largest webtoon market in Southeast Asia.

Among the notable Indonesian webtoon adaptations is Virgo and the Sparklings, serialized on LINE Webtoon Indonesia from August 2017. The protagonist, Virgo, was originally created in 1973 by Jan Mintaraga as part of the Ghorghon series within the Captain Halilintar comics. The character was revived through a collaboration between Annisa Nisfihani and Ellie Goh under PT Bumilangit Entertainment Corpora (Bumilangit), a company established in 2003 with the goal of revitalizing Indonesian comic superheroes across various media platforms. Nisfihani, who has been publishing shōjo-style comics since 2011 and was a prominent artist for re:ON magazine (founded in 2013), played a key role in reimagining Virgo as a superhero tailored to young female readers. The series' emotional depth and manga-influenced style contributed to its widespread popularity, leading to three serialized seasons and a live-action film adaptation in 2023.

Through an analysis of Virgo and the Sparklings, this paper aims to elucidate the characteristics of new superhero representations emerging in webtoons and their significance within contemporary Indonesian media culture.

This presentation outlines how the presence or absence of an identifiably human enemy in the role of the “villain” in Japanese cartoon animation movies (_anime_) on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki influences the respective films’ positioning towards the domestically applied narratives of “Hiroshima of Anger” (怒りの広島) and “Nagasaki of Prayers” (祈りの長崎).

Following the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War 2, both cities have been placed in starkly contrasting narrative discourses, outlining Hiroshima and its citizens as angered over what was lost, and Nagasaki and its citizens as forgiving and oriented on rebuilding. Within these discourses, products of popular culture, such as comics and films, play an important role in supporting the respective images. Most prominently, the works of the late cartoonist (漫画家) Nakazawa Keiji, led by his most successful and repeatedly re-adapted work _Barefoot Gen_ (1973-1987), can generally be understood to underline the anger of Hiroshima, as do most of the animated adaptations of Hiroshima-centered stories. On the other hand, such works that show Nagasaki do so with a strong emphasis on forgiveness rooting in a religious context that stems from Nagasaki’s longstanding position as center of Catholicism in Japan.

However, in this presentation I argue that the religious context that defines Nagasaki also coincides with a greater presence of presumed ‘enemies’ in the city, as Catholicism is not a native Japanese concept and was actively promoted in Japan by foreign missionaries, both prior and following World War 2. This is to say that Japanese people in Nagasaki had a greater exposure to those people presumed enemies by the Japanese government than did the people of Hiroshima. This circumstance is reflected in anime on the atomic bombings.

Since the dehumanization of the ‘enemy’ is a common tool used in propaganda, withholding human appearances of said enemy in film can be used as an emotional catalyst that enhances either anger or feelings of victimization.(1) In the concrete example of anime on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings it then stands out that those films depicting Nagasaki also stress the human character of the ‘enemy,’ whereas those films focusing on Hiroshima mostly avoid such representations.

Accordingly, I introduce various sample films, discuss their respective properties, and locate them within a wider body of anime painting the Japanese experience and memory of World War 2.

(1) For example, as explained in: Dower, John W. (2012) _Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World_. New York: The New Press, p. 34.

While western science fiction works are looking up to the future and displaying themes such as cyborgs, artificial intelligence, and exploration of the universe, some Chinese science fiction works are also looking at the present, and have revived the traditional literary form of fable by taking all kinds of animals as their objects, which not only extends the science fiction works to the future, but also has a deep and solid metaphor of the reality as the foundation, and thus also reflects the inheritance of Chinese science fiction to the tradition of ‘trusting objects to speak of their will’ in classical literature, and thus makes a unique contribution to the global future imaginations. ‘This also reflects the inheritance of Chinese science fiction from the allegorical writing of classical literature, and thus makes a unique contribution to the global future imagination. Therefore, this paper will discuss animal symbols, man and animals, and man and nature at three levels, and summarise the national characteristics and literary styles of animal fables in Chinese science fiction works in comparison with Western science fiction literature.