Marcos Centeno-Martin is associate professor at the University of Valencia specialised in Film and Japanese Studies. Previously, Centeno worked as lecturer in Japanese Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, where served as the Japanese Studies Programme director. Before that, Centeno had also been lecturer for the Department of Japan and Korea at SOAS, University of London where he coordinated the MA Global Cinemas and the Transcultural.  He has recently been research associate at the Nissan Institute for Japanese Studies, the University of Oxford, on a grant funded by the Spansih Ministry of Sciences, Council on East Asian Studies grant holder at Yale University and guest lecturer at the Centre for Japanese Studies, Nanzan University. His main research interests revolve around Japanese documentary film, transculturality, memory and visual representation of the Ainu people. Centeno has coordinated projects on Japanese documentary film, female director Haneda Sumiko and Japanese Transnational Cinema which have been funded by British, Japanese and Spanish institutions such as Sasakawa, Daiwa, Japan Foundation, Japanese Ministry of Education and Spanish Ministry of Sciences. Centeno is board member for the AEJE (Asociación de Estudios Japoneses en España), editorial board member for Mirai. Revista Estudios Japoneses, and was convenor for the EAJS (the European Association for Japanese Studies) Visual Arts section (2019-2023). He has been jury member for prizes such as ICAS/SEPHIS prize for the best books on Asian Studies in Spanish and Portuguese, Ivan Morris Memorial Prize on Japanese Studies (awarded by the British Association for Japanese Studies) and Cambridge Watersprite Film Fesitval.

• Website

Raúl Fortes-Guerrero received his BA in Audiovisual Communication, his BA in History of Art with Special Distinction, and his PhD Cum Laude and International Doctor Mention in History of Art from the Universitat de València (University of Valencia), where he has developed most of his career as a lecturer and researcher. He was granted up to four fellowships, thanks to which he could stay at Waseda University (Tokyo), Birkbeck College – University of London, and the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). He is a member of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS) and the Japanese poetry society Chikuhaku-kai, in whose renowned literary magazine Kokoro no Hana he gets his tanka poems published monthly. Besides his literary works (poems awarded at international contests and published in collaborative books as well as in Spanish and foreign poetry anthologies), he is the author of many scientific articles, book chapters, and books, including a monograph on Hayao Miyazaki (Hayao Miyazaki, Akal, 2019) and a film guide for his movie Spirited Away (“El viaje de Chihiro”. Hayao Miyazaki (2001), Nau Llibres/Octaedro, 2011). In fact, the oeuvre of Hayao Miyazaki is one of his two main fields of specialization together with the influence of Japanese performing arts on Japanese cinema, as shown not only by his publications, but also by his more than forty papers in national and international scientific conferences and symposiums organized by academic institutions such as Goethe University Frankfurt, University of Warsaw, and Salford University. Currently, he combines his job as a teacher of Japanese language and culture at the Universitat de València with his task as coordinator of the Asia and Oceania Committees at the International Observatory of Intangible Culture and Global Village of this academic institution. To this can be added his work as a member of scientific committees for congresses and scientific journals.

• Website

María Amparo Montaner Montava is a professor in the area of ​​General Linguistics at the University of Valencia and coordinator of the East Asian Studies area at this same University. She directed and coordinated the area in the first ten years of its existence. She has collaborated with several universities and participated in numerous conferences, both in the area of ​​Linguistics and in the area of ​​East Asian Studies, with special dedication to issues of Spanish-Japanese contrastive Linguistics. In addition, she has received scholarships from national and foreign organizations and has carried out research and teaching stays at various universities in Europe, Asia and America, such as Salamanca (Center for Spanish-Japanese Studies), University of California in Berkeley, Santa Barbara or UVA (USA), Mainz and Leipzig (Germany), Aarhus (Denmark), Waseda (Japan), Guadalajara (Mexico), etc. She has published four books and dozens of articles and chapters on theoretical linguistics and on Japanese-Spanish contrastive Linguistics and the linguistic typology of East Asian languages ​​and the Japanese language. In this last field, she has published two monographs and numerous articles and book chapters in publishers such as Tirant lo Blanch (2017, 2019) or Dickynson (2022), among others, or magazines, such as Rilce (2014), Pragmalingüística (2022), Hikma (2022), LynX (2022), etc.

• Website

Antonio Blat's research interests revolve around cultural interaction between Europe and East Asia. He developed this topic throughout his one-year scholarship at Waseda University, his master's degree on late modern and contemporary China nad Japan (UOC) and as a member of the research group GEINTEA (group fo study: Europe-Asia interactions) at the UCM. He has published several articles about Spanish diplomacy and became a member of the historian committee for the celebrations of the 400 years of Japan-Spain relations by the Japanese Embassy in Madrid. For his PHD thesis on late modern history (UV), he embraced a transnational perspective, linking  the study of diplomatic  and cultural interactions to global biographies. Blat undertook this approach during his fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (Tokyo University), his participation in a research project about the narration of the self and the coordination of a panel about Asia and the global perspective. He has teaching experience at Universitat de València (UV), Universidad de Salamanca (USAL), Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR) and Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM).

Jordi Tordera is a distinguished linguist, translator, and educator with a career that spans continents and languages.Jordi earned his B.A. in English in 1999 at the University of Valencia and completed an M.A. in Japanese Linguistics in 2008 at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies in Japan. In 2010, he achieved his Ph.D.at the University of Valencia, with a dissertation comparing Eastern and Western literary styles across English, Japanese, and Spanish. Tordera held at positions at the University of Valencia, Florida Universitaria, and the Valencian International University and at Japanese universities such as Kansai Gaidai and Himeji Dokkyo. Beyond academia, Jordi was part of Lladró Japan’s Tokyo branch, Coordinator for International Relations with the JET Programme, an interpreter, notably for the Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe and translator of Japanese literary classics, such as Vida de un idiota y otras confesiones by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and La vida de Budori Gusko by Kenji Miyazawa. His research delves into language teaching, translation studies, and cross-cultural communication, with numerous publications and presentations at international conferences.  

María R. Ferrer holds a PhD in Translation and works as an audiovisual translator, editor and researcher. She graduated in Translation and Interpreting from Universitat Jaume I in 1998, although her professional career had already begun in 1996 with her first literary commissions: Sandman: Book of Dreams and, shortly afterwards, Good Omens. Following her study period at Tokyo Daigaku (Japan), she began translating manga and entered the field of audiovisual translation by subtitling, from Japanese into Spanish, the Mikio Naruse retrospective for that year’s Donosti Festival, which included titles such as Magokoro, Tanoshikikana Jinsei and Yottsu no koi no monogatari. Her anime translation portfolio later expanded with series such as Fushigi Yuugi, Karekano, Evangelion and Captain Tsubasa; animated feature films including the HV edition of Akira; and live-action productions such as Onmyouji and Otogirisou. In 2008 she trained as a dubbing actress in Barcelona and adapted numerous fiction series, including The Mentalist, The Middle, The 100, Blindspot, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Search Party. Her manga translations include Akira, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHolic, Azumanga Daioh, Yotsubato! and many other titles. She launched the online training platform Translator Training Lab in 2010 and founded Taketombo Books in 2012, a publishing house devoted to the transcultural order of the world. In 2014 the Embassy of Japan recognised its contribution to the promotion of Japanese culture. After completing her PhD in 2016, she began her academic career, combining university teaching with translation, editing and voice work. She taught French language and French–Spanish translation at Universitat Jaume I and the Universitat de València before joining the faculty of Universidad Europea de Valencia (UEV) in 2018, where she is currently Senior Lecturer. She teaches Direct Translation, Audiovisual Translation and Professional Editing; directs the Master’s Degree in Audiovisual Translation; and coordinates the research group TRADULEMA, dedicated to translation, languages and media in intercultural digital society.

Ricardo Klein is Reader in Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Valencia. He holds a PhD in Cultural and Heritage Management from the University of Barcelona, a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of the Republic (Uruguay), and a Master’s degree in Japanese and Korean Studies from the University of Valencia. He is a collaborating member of the Japan Research Unit (UIJ-UV) and Director of the Research Group on City, Public Spaces and Culture (CICU) at the University of Valencia. He is Chair of the Visual Culture Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) for the 2026–2029 term. He has also served as President of the Sociology of Culture and the Arts Committee of the Spanish Federation of Sociology (FES) (2020-2024). His research lies at the intersection of the sociology of culture and the arts, urban studies, and cultural policy. His main research interests include urban art, creativity and cultural practices in public space, cultural participation, urban transformation, and visual methodologies. He has conducted research and fieldwork in cities across Europe, Latin America, United States and Asia. He is currently developing a Japan-related research strand focusing on urban cultures, creativity, urban art, everyday architecture, visual culture, and the production and appropriation of public space in Japanese cities from a sociological, visual, and comparative perspective.

Jeroni Méndez Cabrera is a Senior Lecturer in Language and Literature Education at the University of Valencia. His research focuses on children’s and young adult literature, the adaptation of literary classics in educational contexts, and the potential of comics and video games for multimodal learning. He is a member of the ELCiS research group (Reading, Literary and Linguistic Education, Culture and Society) and the Geografies Literàries 3.0 research group. He has published several studies on manga and Japanese culture, including “Educación literaria y manga: El caminante de Taniguchi como modelo didáctico de deriva poética” (Tebeosfera, 2019), “Las adaptaciones de clásicos literarios en el cómic japonés: una perspectiva didáctica” (Aiguadolç, 2023), “Educación literaria, diversidad cultural y manga: una propuesta para la formación de lectores” (Ocnos, 2023), and “Entre el cómic y el haiku: sobre Poesía en cómic, de Grant Snider” (Caràcters, 2025). He has served as a member of the Scientific Committee of the “International Congress on University Studies in Comics” (2018 and 2021) and as a member of the Organising Committee of the “1st International Congress Teaching With Comics” (2022). He taught on the Master’s Degree in Comics and Education at the University of Valencia (2020–2023) and has collaborated with the Aula del Còmic in courses on promoting reading through manga. He has also participated in various regional, national, and international research projects and has undertaken research stays at several European universities, including the University of Kent, the University of Minho, Palacký University Olomouc, and the University of Jyväskylä in Finland.

Luis Pérez Ochando (1982) is professor titular of Film History in the Department of Art History at the University of Valencia. He has published over seventy scholarly articles and book chapters, and is the author of four monographs on horror cinema: Pozo de sangre. Fantasmas del cine de terror contemporáneo (2013), George A. Romero. Cuando no quede sitio en el infierno (2013), Todos los jóvenes van a morir. Ideología y rito en el slasher film  (2016), and   Noche sobre América. Cine de terror después del 11S (2017). He has also written the novel Trol (2020) and the short play Papel telón de fuego (2008). Regarding his research on Japanese culture—in addition to the book *Pozo de sangre*—he has published half a dozen articles covering 1950s Japanese cinema, popular literature from the 1920s, and the proletarian literature of Takiji Kobayashi.

Amparo Oliver PhD. Full Professor in Quantitative Methods in Psychology leading the interdisciplinary research group ARMAQoL (Advanced Research Methods Applied to Quality-of-Life Promotion) at University of Valencia, Spain. 30 years of research and 23 PhD thesis supervised. Elected Trustee at ADEIT Foundation (senior academics, business managers & CEOs in Valencia). Coordinator ESG Committee of EVAP (Business & Professional Women Association). Codirector Biogender Unit at CIPF (Valencian Biomedical Research Foundation). Awarded for innovative health ideas (by INCLIVA), for research transference (by Federation of Valencian Neighborhood Associations), for Academic Teaching Standards (by Social Council and Valencian Government). Currently responsible for STEAM teaching programs at OEI (Iberoamerican States Organization). R+I transference in education with patented software. RCC at Harvard granted visitor in 2018. Leading team H2020 European Project MESOC (870935) 2020-23, research and innovation action to propose, test and validate an innovative approach to measure social value and impacts of culture, policies and cultural practices. Principal Investigator of consecutive national funded research projects in ageing & quality of life. UV’s Certificate in Japanese Studies, 1st edition. In Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China) professor in Culture-driven approach for sustainability: Global practices in the Cultural and Creative Industries. In Japan, Kyoto University, current member of the ISSC Social Capital network and regular invited researcher at Kondo’s lab in Social Epidemiology. Expertise in ageing and social determinants of health based in JAGES & SHARE longitudinal database analyses. These waves of data involve information in many types of variables from thousands of Asian & European citizens.

Yuki Sugiyama is a Japanese language instructor at the Language Centre of the University of Valencia. Previously, she worked at the Embassy of Japan in London, following the completion of her studies in Japan and a professional stint in the financial sector, where she worked for a securities firm. After passing the Japanese Language Teaching Proficiency Test, she qualified as a Japanese language instructor and currently holds official accreditation as a teacher of the Japanese language. Furthermore, she holds a SAKE DIPLOMA certification and actively contributes to fostering cultural ties between Japan and Spain by promoting Japanese culture—notably through its cuisine—and by organizing cultural activities and language exchanges.

Alberto Porta-Pérez holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from Universitat Jaume I, where he teaches in the Bachelor’s Degree in Audiovisual Communication and in the Bachelor’s Degree in Video Game Design and Development. He is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Valencia, where he contributes to the Master’s Degree in Japanese and Korean Studies, specifically in the course Japanese Audiovisual Culture: Manga, Anime and Video Games. He completed the Master’s Degree in New Trends and Innovation Processes in Communication (Extraordinary Master’s Award, 2019/2020) and the Bachelor’s Degree in Audiovisual Communication (Extraordinary Fourth-Year Award, 2013/2014) at Universitat Jaume I of Castellón. He developed his doctoral dissertation on moral dilemmas in video games, undertaking an international research stay at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto (Japan). He specializes in interactive narratives and ludonarrative design in video games.

Website
 

Jordi Serrano-Muñoz is a MSCA fellow at Ghent University focusing on comparative literature and climate crisis representation. His current research project explores disasters as a narrative device for representing the climate crisis in contemporary Japanese, Latin-American, and Australian literary productions. He has also worked on the literary representation of post-war Japanese trauma, particularly from Okinawa. He also teaches at the Open University of Catalonia and the University of Granada and is a member of the research groups GREGAL-UAB, INDOVIG-UOC, and STAND-UGR. He was lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at El Colegio de México (2020-2021) and has been a Japan Foundation Fellow at Waseda University (2021-2022). He co-edits Asiademica: Open Journal of East Asian Studies.

Antonio Loriguillo López (loriguil@uji.es) is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences at the Universitat Jaume I (UJI), where he teaches on the Audiovisual Communication and Video Game Design and Development degree courses, and on the Master's degree in New Trends in Communication. His interests focus on post-classical storytelling in contemporary audiovisual media and Japanese commercial animation. In this regard, he is the author of the book Anime complejo. La ambigüedad narrativa en la animación japonesa (Aldea Global, 2021) and the monograph Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1997) (Nau Llibres, 2020).