National Communities in the Context of the Transnational Anime Fandom (Case of the Russian Fan Community of Hayao Miyazaki)

The popularity of Japanese animation in the world is constantly growing and fan communities dedicated to anime include a large number of fans with their niche practices and features that are characteristic of different countries and cultures. At the same time, despite the global relevance of the study of anime fan communities, in Russia this area is not so much studied. Despite the presence of large, constantly developing and changing groups of anime fans, Russian researchers are just beginning to pay attention to Russian anime fandoms. With this work, I hope to fill this gap a little and contribute to the study of the development of anime fan communities in Russia. The object of study of this work is the Russian-speaking fandom of the Japanese director and animator Hayao Miyazaki. Fan communities dedicated to Miyazaki are practically unstudied both in Europe and the USA, as well as in Russia. The purpose of the study is to identify the features of the fandom and the online platforms on which it exists that are specific to the Russian-speaking space, as well as to identify how the Russian fandom Hayao Miyazaki differs from the American and European anime fandoms. This work is based on research in the field of fan studies and Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins, Matt Hills, Lori Morimoto and others. I will also draw on modern English-language studies of anime fan communities. I review and analyze fan groups on online platforms like LiveJournal, Diary.ru, and VKontakte. The study provides an analysis of the fandom in the historical layout, as well as monitoring its activity from October 2019 to January 2020.