GIVING VOICE TO THE SILENT: A MARGINAL NARRATIVE APPROACH TO THE RESTRUCTURING OF YAOGUAI IN CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ANIMATION THROUGH NOBODY

Abstract

Amid transformations in East Asian literature and the arts in the early 21st-century, the reinterpretation of traditional cultural materials has become an important means through which contemporary works engage with the past and address the concerns of modern life. Focusing on Nobody (浪浪山小妖怪, 2025), directed by Yu Shui (於水), this paper examines how the film reconstructs the traditional yaoguai figure through a marginal narrative approach. By shifting the narrative focalization from Tang Sanzang and his disciples to four nameless minor demons, the film transforms marginal figures from objects of the gaze into subjects capable of self-expression and choice. It further humanizes the yaoguai by incorporating them into everyday life and weakening the binary opposition between “human” and “yaoguai” while transforming them into representations of ordinary individuals in contemporary society. The analysis demonstrates that the film challenges the hierarchical structure of the grand narrative not by replacing its center but by granting marginal figures the agency to see, speak, choose, and construct meaning for themselves.