What Is Aaron Gerow's Japanese Film Website and What Resources Does It Offer?

Aaron Gerow's Japanese film website, Tangemania, is the personal research page of Aaron Gerow, a professor who teaches Japanese and East Asian cinema, media, and culture at Yale University. It is primarily an English-language resource for Japanese film studies, with a separate Japanese-language section covering his activities in Japan. Use it if you want a scholar's bibliography, articles, reviews, and curated links on Japanese cinema rather than a general streaming or news site.

Who runs the site

Aaron Gerow is the author of Kitano Takeshi and Visions of Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship, 1895–1925, among other works. According to the site, he:

• Teaches Japanese and East Asian cinema, media, and culture at Yale University
• Helps run a combined doctoral program in East Asian cinema between Yale's Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and its Film and Media Studies Program
• Holds an MFA in film studies from Columbia University, an MA in Asian Civilizations from the University of Iowa, and a PhD in Communication Studies from Iowa
• Spent nearly 12 years in Japan working for the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and teaching at Yokohama National University and Meiji Gakuin University

The site's name comes from Tange Sazen, the one-armed, one-eyed ronin from Japanese cinema most famously played by Okochi Denjiro.

What you can find there

The navigation reflects the site's structure. Main sections include:

Books and publications

The site lists his own titles, including Visions of Japanese Modernity, Kitano Takeshi, A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan, and the Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies. It also points to collected volumes he contributed to, such as City Secrets Movies and Defining Moments in Movies.

DVDs and film projects

Gerow notes DVD work on The Roots of Japanese Anime (available via Zakka Films) and A Page of Madness (via Flicker Alley). These entries are useful if you want to see how his scholarship connects to accessible editions of early Japanese film.

External links

The links section points to resources such as Kinema Club, Midnight Eye, David Bordwell's site, Japan Focus, KitanoTakeshi.com, Mark Schilling's Tokyo Ramen, Nippon Connection, Nishikata Film Review, VCinema, Wildgrounds, and Zakka Films. These are worth checking if you want criticism, festival information, or further academic networks beyond Gerow's own writing.

How to use it for Japanese film research

1. Start with the bibliography. Browse the Books and Articles sections to identify key scholarly titles and journal articles on Japanese cinema, then look them up through your library.
2. Use the Research Guide. Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies is listed on the site and is designed for exactly this purpose—finding sources and navigating the field.
3. Follow the links for current criticism. Sites like Midnight Eye and Kinema Club complement the academic material with reviews and industry coverage.
4. Check the Japanese section if you read Japanese and want to follow his activities in Japan.
5. Expect a personal academic page, not a database. The site introduces his research and offers selected resources; it is not a comprehensive catalog of every Japanese film or a place to watch films.

What it is not

The site does not present itself as a streaming service, ticketing platform, or news outlet. No pricing or login requirements are stated in the available site information, so treat it as a free-to-browse academic homepage unless you find otherwise. For general Japanese film news in English, the external links it recommends are a better starting point than the site itself.