Japan Studies Centre: The Religion of Anime

For the last several decades, animated films and television series produced in Japan have captured the imaginations of global audiences.

As exemplified by Studio Ghibli’s box office smashes (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away), Shinkai Makoto’s recent string of equally record-setting works (Your Name, Weathering with You, Suzume) and influential new series like Demon Slayer, some of the most internationally popular anime include recognizably “religious” content such as deities, spirits, shrines, and temples. But finding religion in anime is too easy. This talk instead focuses on the religion of anime, showing how key aspects of the animation medium can help us construct a generalizable theory of religion that applies far beyond the Japanese case.

Date: Monday, 20 October 2025

Time: 5-6.30pm

Venue: Case room 3 (055), Level 0, Sir Owen G. Glenn Building, University of Auckland Business School, 12 Grafton Road (pay parking available beneath the building), Auckland

Bio

Jolyon Thomas is an Associate Professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies religion in conjunction with illustrated media, religious freedom law, public education, and taxes. Trained primarily as a scholar of Japanese religions at the University of Hawaii (MA 2008) and Princeton University (PhD 2014), his expansive research agenda covers religion in Japan, the United States, and their respective empires from the nineteenth century to the present. He is the author of Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime, and Religion in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2012) and Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan (University of Chicago Press, 2019). He is also the co-editor of the New Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions (University of Hawaii Press, 2025).

We look forward to greeting you on the day.

Host or Publisher University of Auckland, Business School