Abjection and Anime in the Anthropocene: Amano and Oshii’s Angel’s Egg

Abstract

Tembo writes of a contemporary reimagining of the urban Gothic in Anime, through the lens of aesthetic. He suggests that Angel’s Egg brings a surrealist aesthetic to anime that is unique in its dystopia. Locating his discussion within the context of a World’s End tale, Tembo looks at how each part of the text portrays a different image of post-apocalyptic Gothic space and what he terms as ‘psycho-emotional Otherness’. Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s discussion of abjection, this chapter also seeks to examine how Oshii directs his anime in combination with the Gothic and the surreal to represent the Gothic urban space as one of existential stasis, crisis, and reflection.