« Kyarakutâ » : le personnage au cœur des circulations médiatiques

• Main Author: Bounthavy Suvilay
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Société Française de Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication 2019-12-01
• Series: Revue Française des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication
• Subjects: anime; media mix; character; adaptation; licensing
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/7747

The economic convergence within the entertainment industries in Japan, particularly regarding manga and its televised counterparts (anime), has contributed to a growing transmedia circulation of fictional heroes (kyarakutâ) –even though these characters which are story elements are now gradually challenged by “mascots” (kyara). In both cases, the attachment to characters is produced by a kind of visual omnipresence, coupled with a commercial exploitation that goes hand in hand with the consumers’ tendency to collect, accumulate and create: media mix and media culture theories specific to Japan, which are still relatively little known within French and, to a lesser extent, English-speaking academic contexts, can be useful to understand these phenomena. After a historical reminder of the economic and legal stakes involved in the development of character-based licenses, the article discuss the case of the Dragon Ball manga and cartoons to show how transmedia dissemination is never neutral with regard to the media required by production and reception practices to expand these licenses.