Reimagining the Mato : Spatial and Temporal Displacement of Shanghai in Japanese Anime Night Raid 1931

Abstract This article examines how the anime Night Raid 1931 reimagines 1931 Shanghai as mato (magic city), using spatial and temporal displacement to negotiate Japan’s imperial past. Drawing on heterotopia and hauntology, it analyzes how the anime reconstructs Shanghai as a phantasmic space, where historical time fragments through supernatural narration and stylized aesthetics. By setting the story in 1931, the series uses nostalgia and speculative imagination to articulate lost possibilities of Japan. This enables trans/national recentering, allowing Japan to reassert symbolic centrality in Asia through popular culture rather than political dominance, reconfiguring unresolved memory and regional identity.