Transforming Literature into Popular Culture: A Kristevan Intertextual Analysis of Bungo Stray Dogs
Keywords:
Bungo Stray Dogs, intertextuality, literary semiotics, literary adaptation, popular cultureAbstract
Bungo Stray Dogs is a Japanese anime adaptation of Kafka Asagiri's manga that reimagines renowned Japanese authors and their literary works as fictional characters with supernatural abilities. This study examines how literary elements are transformed into popular culture through intertextual relationships between canonical literary texts and their representations in the anime. Employing a qualitative descriptive approach, the research uses Julia Kristeva's theory of intertextuality to analyze three major characters—Osamu Dazai, Atsushi Nakajima, and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa—and their corresponding literary works. The findings reveal that Bungo Stray Dogs reconstructs authors' identities, literary titles, themes, symbols, and characterizations into a new semiotic system while maintaining recognizable connections to the original texts. Literary themes such as existential alienation, identity conflict, and moral ambiguity are recontextualized into narratives of heroism, self-discovery, and supernatural power. The study concludes that the anime functions as an intertextual cultural space that revitalizes Japanese literary heritage through contemporary popular media. It also demonstrates that anime serves not only as entertainment but as an effective medium for preserving, disseminating, and reintroducing classical literature to modern and global audiences.
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