Horror Manga: An Evolutionary Literary Perspective
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Adam C. Davis
Abstract
This article provides support for the argument that horror media “works” by activating evolved cognitive and affective systems that are flexibly tailored to local socio-ecological contexts. Guided by previous work using evolutionary theory to study horror literature (e.g., Clasen 2012, 2018, 2019), I investigate horror manga’s popularity and international market, which indicate a cross-cultural preoccupation with horror transmedia that is explicable in terms of the form’s ability to target evolved psychological systems. Specifically, these multimodal texts elicit the evolved emotions of anxiety, fear, and disgust in response to culturally specific and evolutionarily relevant narratives, characters, antagonists, and environments. Thus, horror manga reflects the myths, folklore, and religious traditions of Japanese society in addition to salient ubiquitous evolutionary threats such as predators, antisocial conspecifics, and infectious diseases.
© 2022 by Academic Studies Press
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Table of Contents
- ARTICLES
- Horror Manga: An Evolutionary Literary Perspective
- Two Servants, One Master: The Common Acoustic Origins of the Divergent Communicative Media of Music and Speech
- Courtliness as Morality of Modernity in Norse Romance
- Evolution, “Pseudo-science,” and Satire: Edith Wharton’s “The Descent of Man”
- REVIEW ESSAYS
- Ancient Voices, Contemporary Practice, and Human Musicality
- Narrative Theory and Neuroscience: Why Human Nature Matters
- What Nature Gave Us: Steven Pinker on the Rules of Reason
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Steven Brown. The Unification of the Arts: A Framework for Understanding What the Arts Share and Why
- Mathias Clasen. A Very Nervous Person’s Guide to Horror Movies
- James E. Cutting. Movies on our Minds: The Evolution of Cinematic Engagement
- Jonathan Gottschall. The Story Paradox: How our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down
- Emelie Jonsson. The Early Evolutionary Imagination: Literature and Human Nature
- J. L. Modern. Neuromatic; or, a Particular History of Religion and the Brain
- ARTICLE REVIEWS
- Audiovisual Media
- Imagination
- Law
- Literature
- Music
- Neuroaesthetics
- Paleoaesthetics
- Politics and Ideology
- Popular Culture
- Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Table of Contents
- ARTICLES
- Horror Manga: An Evolutionary Literary Perspective
- Two Servants, One Master: The Common Acoustic Origins of the Divergent Communicative Media of Music and Speech
- Courtliness as Morality of Modernity in Norse Romance
- Evolution, “Pseudo-science,” and Satire: Edith Wharton’s “The Descent of Man”
- REVIEW ESSAYS
- Ancient Voices, Contemporary Practice, and Human Musicality
- Narrative Theory and Neuroscience: Why Human Nature Matters
- What Nature Gave Us: Steven Pinker on the Rules of Reason
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Steven Brown. The Unification of the Arts: A Framework for Understanding What the Arts Share and Why
- Mathias Clasen. A Very Nervous Person’s Guide to Horror Movies
- James E. Cutting. Movies on our Minds: The Evolution of Cinematic Engagement
- Jonathan Gottschall. The Story Paradox: How our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down
- Emelie Jonsson. The Early Evolutionary Imagination: Literature and Human Nature
- J. L. Modern. Neuromatic; or, a Particular History of Religion and the Brain
- ARTICLE REVIEWS
- Audiovisual Media
- Imagination
- Law
- Literature
- Music
- Neuroaesthetics
- Paleoaesthetics
- Politics and Ideology
- Popular Culture
- Contributors
