Ada's work on manga history focuses on the 1940s to the present, with some study of earlier Japanese art history and popular culture. Her particular focus is the works and influence of the "God of Manga" Osamu Tezuka, especially his use of the "Star System" and his treatments of Buddhism. Another area of interest is gender in manga, particularly the evolution of women's manga (shoujo and jousei) and their effects on men's manga (shounen and seinen).
Ada is best known in the manga world as the founder of TezukaInEnglish.com, which has become the primary English language web resource for information about Tezuka's life, works and Western publication history. She developed the site as a supplement to the official Japanese page, located at TezukaOsamu.net, and has worked with Tezuka Productions and numerous American and international publishers to develop resources for English, French and international audiences and to facilitate cooperation between Tezuka Productions and other international and fan-run Tezuka web pages.
Ada's recent essays on anime and manga include, "'You, God of Manga, are Cruel!': Karma and Suffering in the Universe of Osamu Tezuka," (Manga and Philosophy, 2010) and "All Life is Genocide: the Philosophical Pessimism of Osamu Tezuka," (upcoming 2010), as well as "Film is Alive: The Manga Roots of Osamu Tezuka's Animation Obsession," for the event series "Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, Father of Anime" at the Smithsonian Freer and Sackler Galleries, Nov-Dec 2009. Her essay "Black Jack: the Excluded Issues, and Tezuka's 'Star System'," appears in the special edition hardcover of vol. 3 of the Vertical Inc. English edition of Black Jack. She was a guest lecturer for the History of Manga course at Harvard University, and assisted Professor Adam Kern with the development of Harvard's new Manga Library. She is also involved with the anime fan community, having spoken and organized programming at numerous coast literary and anime conventions, mainly on the US East Coast.
Ada's interest in anime and manga evolved out of leisure reading, but her training as an historian turned her interests in more academic directions. European Intellectual History remains the focus of her writing and research, but she finds that secondary study of a non-Western cultural form keeps her from slipping into the trap of thinking that concepts and developments that are universal in Europe are universal everywhere. She hopes, as she moves on to teach and publish in European history, that continuing her supplemental work on anime and manga will keep her from falling into Eurocentric thinking.