HAGEN, Jill Ashley
- Posted
- 2026年1月22日(木)
- Program：Doctoral Program
- Enrollment in：September 2025
- Directed Research: Visual Culture
Message
As paratextual frames that mark the beginning and end of an individual episode, TV series’ credit sequences have often been overlooked in academic research while the episode’s narrative and formal structures have been favoured in critical analyses. Nevertheless, the continuous presence and high-production value of credits, makes their importance undeniable. My doctoral project is nestled within that research gap and tries to expand on and move beyond the already existing, albeit small, amount of previous research conducted on this specific media type. My research centres specifically around credit sequences for anime productions. This is both connected to but also departs from my master’s thesis research project for which I conducted a close formal analysis of a select few animated music videos that are produced for the Japanese singer and songwriter Eve focusing on the line in animation and its ability to visually convey the emotional world of characters.
Similarly to music videos, credits combine image, sound (music) and text, however, they are usually not considered music videos themselves. Therefore, they could be seen an intervention which is meaning making and raises questions about their form and function. As paratexts, opening sequences invite the viewer into the story world, while end credits release them back into the real world. Both could be considered thresholds that the viewer crosses to engage with the main product (the episode) or leaving it behind after consuming it. Moreover, credits cover a wide range of visual styles, and some can be considered more stimulating than others, however, there are formal overlaps and they all resonate with the main story in some way or another.
While the credits’ imagery and song stand in relation to the main narrative, the seemingly creative freedom that gives rise to a variety of visual styles addresses issues prevalent in animation and anime studies today: questions about spatiotemporality, and movement and stillness, among others, can help us to better understand why credits often subvert narrative or spatial conventions in favour of becoming a threshold that successfully transitions the viewer in and out of the episode while adequately framing the main story.