Book Review: A Rough Guide to Anime

With the popularity of anime cons and cosplayers showing up at cons across the world, a handy guide to navigate through the many different anime genres and key shows is needed.

Print is having a difficult time with everything online and up-to-date, however real books that you can hold, touch, and actually flip the pages is still desired by many. When all the gadgets fail and only a light source is available, a book will come through for you.

That is why the Rough Guide to Anime by travel writer, Simon Richmond, is the perfect gift for new friends and even old schoolers may find some interesting tidbits here and there.

Published back in 2009, the Rough Guide starts off with a solid history of anime and not just the titles but the dedicated artists and animators who toiled long hours to get it right.

The early history of anime is still valid and well researched by Simon Richmond and shows the fan just how far the art form has evolved up to 2009. Is you really love something, you should take in a little history to better appreciate what is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Next, the Rough Guide moves into the 50 titles that make up the Canon. This is where the newbie will have a field day. When you have exhausted all the current season shows and you are still wanting more, you can glance at the Canon and read up on a specific title to see if it is right for you. The reviews are intelligent and well researched and provide just enough information not to spoil anything.

The Rough Guide also has a chapter on how anime is created, and another chapter on the many genres, and a listing of books, magazines, websites, podcasts, and online stores that carter to the raging anime fan.

What I found particularly useful, and something less likely to change even in an older book, are the places in Japan to go to see anime and find stores to get your fix. I know the obvious choices like Akihabara and Nakano Broadway, but I didn't know the Toei Animation Studios has a free museum opened to the public or that Ishinomori Shotaro, creator of Cyborg 9 and the wonderful Kamen Rider, has a museum in Ishinomaki called Ishinomaki Mangattan Museum.

However with all these good points there are a few flaws. There are numerous grammar errors that were somehow messed by the proof reader. Also, Simon Richmond, writing about Gatchaman says that it is 60's anime when it actually debuted in 1972. The biggest flaw is that there is no mention of Den Den Town the electronics, anime, and manga shopping district of Osaka. Nakano Broadway is only briefly mentioned and only in connection with Mandarake, when there are so many cool otaku shops worth checking out.

For all it faults, The Rough Guide to Anime is still an entertaining read. Now that it is out-of-print, a good used copy can be found at many online used bookstores for only $1. This is something to give to that new fan who wants to dig a little deeper than what is currently popular.

Overall, I give it a solid C. It would earn a B it better care was taken at the proof reading stage. This is a book that seriously needs an update.

My Otaku Dating in Osaka: 1999 - 2000

 

            Before leaving for Japan, I shared an apartment with three Japanese roommates. When they found out I was going to be studying in Japan, I got advice from everyone.

           My friend, Junichi told me to never tell Japanese girls that I like anime, manga, or video games and avoid referring to myself as a otaku. 

            My other roommate, Midori, a 19-year old female, said the same thing but she told me that certain manga was acceptable like Case Closed (Detective Conan.) I knew that I shouldn’t be taking the train, on a date, reading a big oversized hentai manga so I never did that.  Midori gave me two volumes of Case Closed, in the original Japanese, to read on the flight because it’s so long to get there and to help me improve my Japanese reading ability.

            I wisely stored this information, somewhere deep inside my brain, because I wanted to meet hot Japanese women and I wasn’t going to let some hobby get in the way.

            When I first got to Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan (in Hirakata City) there were girls everywhere because it’s a language college. 

            I started getting numbers and going out right from day one at college. On one date, I tried to appear very normal and thinking, “I’m not going to let my otaku side come out at all. I really want this to work.”

           So we strolled the streets of Umeda with the Kanji signs blazing bright red and orange against the black night. We had dinner at Meguro’s in Umeda near a shopping arcade. In all my time living in Osaka, I have never found a better cheap restaurant than Meguro’s. At Meguro’s women get a discount and men eat for around 1800 yen and it’s an all you eat buffet. The first floor is Kaiten Sushi, which I always thought of as Roto-Sushi. You sit at a small table next to a conveyor belt with different types of sushi and sashimi rolling by. In addition to sushi, Meguro’s had bananas with chocolate and various cakes. For the most part, Japanese women are very thin, I believe my date was around 90 pounds so she didn’t eat much. I had 12 plates of various sashimi plus 2 plates of cake, then it was time for the second floor which was pizza, fries, spaghetti, different pastas, and salad. Again, I over did it. I wisely avoided the salad and consumed half a large pizza (around 6 slices) myself. My date was still trying to keep up, eating only one pizza slice.        Next was the third floor with soba and udon noodles and more sashimi. So of course I wolfed down a big bowl of udon.

            We had a great time at dinner, as we walked around Umeda’s shopping district, then tragedy hit. While walking around I noticed Mandrake, a big store packed with retro anime and manga goods. I might have looked at it too long because my date asked me what I was interested in. I could have lied at this point and made up some story about helping humanity by joining the Peace Corps but I didn’t. I believe in being honest and real with people so I let it out. I said, “I like watching One Piece and reading Case Closed to help me practice Japanese.” She didn’t response. So I passionately pursued how much I love watching One Piece to which she replied her 8-year old brother liked it too. She was just looking for a Western guy to hang out with and I wasn’t normal enough so we didn’t really talk that much afterwards.

            I decided I was going to be myself around Japanese people and not take my roommates advice and tell people exactly what I was all about.

            A month later, I met Ikumi (see photo at the top) and her friends at the International Center.  We hit it off right at the start and I found out she was a big fan of Final Fantasy VII and I told her that I liked Cased Closed and she didn’t mind at all. We took the train out to Amerika-mura (American Village) to eat at a nice garlic restaurant Ninnikuya, a Japan wide restaurant chain, and I ordered my usual garlic pizza with white Alfredo sauce.

            The next time we went out, she invited her friends along for karaoke. I sang a few Japanese songs like Morning Musume’s Love Machine and when I started dancing, her friends joined it and we all sang the chorus together. That was fun. She had some otaku friends that sang anime songs like Sobakasu from Rurouni Kenshin by Judy and Mary.

            The best time was close to the end of the year for me. On my birthday, May 3^rd, she invited me to hang out at her dorm room. My friends advised me on the usual pre-date talks. I was really excited about this. I was finally just being me and it was working out just fine.

            I got to her dorm apartments for female students and quickly ducked into her tiny room. You really should be discreet in Japan.  I have no idea what Ikumi wanted to do but I was about to find out. Ikumi told me that she was a whiz at playing FF VII so we decided to do that.  Being polite I offered to go get something to eat and I snuck back out like a ninja.  Back in middle school I read several Stephen K. Hayes books on Ninjutsu and stealth, never knowing when such knowledge would be practical until that night.

            I returned with a bento for her and my usual snack consisting of 12 fried takoyaki balls, 24 doughnut holes from Mister Donuts, and 2-quarts of Chocolate ice cream from Lawsons.  Watching Ikumi play Final Fantasy VII was just breathtaking. She never once read a strategy guide or looked up FAQs online. She was so into that game and made few mistakes playing.  We took turns playing until 8am and then I decided to go.  I wanted to leave earlier before other students woke up but I got so immersed in the game that I lost all sense of time.  It does help to play with a hot Japanese girl.

         I dashed out of there and returned back to the men’s dorm rooms a couple of blocks down the road.  That was one of my best dates in Japan and I wasn’t ashamed to bring out my otaku side at all. It actually helped me better to be direct about it. Also, Ikumi and I are still good friends.

Comic City Osaka 28 Intex-Osaka 2000.3.12 (Sun): My First Doujinshi Con

During the freezing cold winter month of February 2000, I went on a class trip with Professor Hester’s Youth Culture and Consumption class.  Professor Hester was a lecturer at Kansai Gaidai and he had the best field trips.  There was a huge convention devoted to amateur manga or Doujinshi. From all over Japan, different artists and writers would self-publish and mass-produced their own manga stories.

            On the big day of the convention, I was sitting there, next to a thousands of Japanese people, with two of my classmates, Trevor, the most hardcore otaku in the class who started up his own anime club at WSU,  and Casim, the casual fan who just wanted to go out and see a con, close by.  I remembered talking to Trevor about anime when I first arrived at Kansai Gaidai. and when I brought up how popular Dragon Ball Z was, he didn’t take to that idea very well. He told me his anime club prohibited watching Dragon Ball Z.  That seemed like a strange idea to me. I was planning on finding some Dragon Ball Z stuff to bother him with.  Just for fun, but I think Trevor took it all extremely serious, which wasn’t really my true intention at all.

            Sitting around and waiting for the convention to open, Professor Hester walked by gave us each a big thick book with a cute boy and girl anime picture across the colorful cover.  Trevor looked through it like a nuclear scientist studying the blueprints of a nuclear reactor.  I never saw him so taken with anything so intensely.  So I decided to look through my own guide.

 

            The first few pages were sample manga stories followed by a layout of the many different rooms, and then all the titles were listed alphabetically in Japanese.  If you couldn’t read the Japanese the book showed the same listings with pictures.  There must have been over 5000 booths set up. 

            I think that these artists and writers captured the true spirit of manga.  They were free to create their own storylines and they could use or disregard known characters at will.  They have much more freedom then their professional counterparts who had to work within a certain framework and who had to publish by set standards.  Here, everything was laid out, exactly as the artist had envisioned it.

            As the Con started, we all got up and people went running around to get to different areas. I wasn’t really sure about what I wanted to look for so I just stuck with Trevor and Casim.

The fun for me was walking around and speaking to different people. I took several flyers from people selling their manga or just on the verge of putting their own manga together so all they had were one sheets and small flyers for free. Some manga were printed and sold on expensive paper and others were just drawn onto construction paper.

 

Always on the search for the unusual, I bought my first yaoi manga that was based on Konami’s Castlevania, and featured Simon, Dracula, and female bisexual vampires called, Dracula X:  Sweet Angel. Simon was in it but he had a minor role. The artwork was excellent.

 

Other strange manga included a hentai version of Cardcaptor Sakura, that I passed up.  I saw a homosexual version of Dracula, from the Castlevania series, called Alucrad that I did buy just because it was so different.

 

Video gamers have grown up playing Castlevania but how many of them have seen the Count get it on with Simon in a rare expression of man-to-man loving.

            On my buying spree, I bought another one called X-Day that depicted those wonderful sexual events associated with the Christmas season.  Inside, there was an ultra-cute anime girl in sexy Santa attire.

 

Also, Easter is a nice holiday but it’s not really a great holiday unless you have a happy, voluptuous bunny, playing with a huge carrot that I saw on a cover of Cardcaptor Sakura.  The artwork was incredible. The lines were drawn lightly and had a dreamlike quality that I really admired. 

 

            Overall, the biggest sells at the manga convention were yaoi comics, based on popular characters like Cased Closed, Final Fantasy, and even Dragonball Z.  I remembered Dragonball Z because Trevor seemed so mad when he said:

“There’s your Dragonball Z!”

And there it was, showing Goku as a homosexual.  Japanese females in their 20’s, were buying tons of yaoi manga.  Most of the yaoi was man to man and I wanted to see more lesbians but that’s not want the paying customer wanted.  There were so many lesbian possibilities, such as the women living together at the onsen in Love Hina.  That would have made an interesting spin.

            Browsing around,  I met someone ever nerdier than me.  His level of geekness was astounding.  He was in his early 20’s and he was with his young Japanese wife.  She had on glasses and she told me that she met her husband at a Star Trek Convention back in America.  Trevor, Casim, and I hang out with them for a while.  They took us around showing us different cool stuff.  His wife told me, during one of the many conversations, that she liked to dress up in a Star Trek uniform with her husband.

 

 

            As the day ended, it was very sad to leave the convention.  There were still so many booths that went unseen.  You could have spent a good week, just going through all those manga books.

 

Case Closed: Captured in Her Eyes Movie Review

    Have you ever wanted to go back to being a kid knowing what you know now?  You would probably hesitate to do so after watching Captured in Her Eyes. 

     Jimmy Kudo is an intelligent high school student who is forced to take a poison that transforms him into a kid.  Kudo takes the name Conan Edogawa and helps Detective Richard Moore by solving cases that Moore can’t on his own. Moore’s daughter, Rachel, casually dated Kudo when he was full sized.  Part of the appeal of the Case Closed series is how much fun childhood looks to adults and how Conan gets a second change to do so.  However, there are many frustrations such as Conan, who is still in love with Rachel, unable in his current condition to do anything about it.  If only Conan could reverse the effects of the poison and terminate his situation.

 

         Watching Captured in Her Eyes, there are several scenes that make childhood look fun set up against the problems and frustrations of childhood.  During the opening sequence at Tropical Land amusement park, Rachel and Jimmy are seen laughing and enjoying each other’s company for the moment.  Towards the end, there is a similar scene set at Tropical Land that show Rachel and Conan together, but it is not the same for Conan because he can only remain a kid in Rachel’s eyes.

 

            In the beginning, Conan witnesses the murder of a detective in broad daylight.  This mysterious killer will continue to baffle police and the Moore Detective Agency throughout the movie. 

 

            When the killer murders another detective during a wedding party, Rachel develops amnesia and is it up to Conan to use his small size and great thinking ability to save her and hopefully bring her memory back.

 

            Captured in Her Eyes does a great job of capturing your attention right at the beginning.  Like in any good mystery, smaller mysterious are solved and explained as Conan desperately tries to solve the big mystery of who the mysterious killer is and what is his motive.  The scenes move fluidly from the start, however the ending was a letdown.

 

            For all the build up and empathy invested in the characters, when the action kicks in during the ending, Captured in Her Eyes falls flat.  Part of the reason is how hokey the scene looks with Conan riding a high-speed skateboard sailing through the air to land on a roller coaster.  There was a lot of realism in the movie up to that point.  If this was a crazy anime like Fooly Cooly it would work fine because the viewer would expect something that could never happen in real life.  However since Case Closed is presented as being somewhat possible the ending jars the viewer by showing hokey stunts and situations that could only occur in animation.

 

            Overall, Captured in Her Eyes has a lot to offer anime and mystery fans of all ages.  If only the ending was tighten up more, this would have been a great movie.  There are still wonderful moments and sly humor to make Captured in Her Eyes worth the DVD purchase.  You may want to re-watch it to see how certain mysterious as set up and explained. 

 

           

 

 

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Case Closed: Captured in Her Eyes on the Big Screen

Springtime in Japan in 2000, with Cherry Blossoms in full bloom and a lot of free time for a college kid with nothing to do.  I walked over to my school’s bookstore to pick up the latest Kansai Walker, a travel and entertainment guide, to see what was playing at the movies.  Scanning past the usual American movies, I could see them much cheaper back home, I saw an ad for a Case Closed movie.  One thing I hadn’t done in Japan was to go see an Anime movie.  I had seen Godzilla 2000 because I am a life long kaiju fan ever since seeing Ultraman as a child back in the 70’s and I also saw Owl’s Castle, a ninja movie.  Those were the two main genres to see in Japan, kaiju and ninja.  My fascination with ninja movies began when HBO and Cinemax aired Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja, Ninja III:  The Domination and countless others all with ninja in the title.  My favorites were the one with Sho Kosugi and I also liked the American Ninja series. There was one remaining genre and that was anime. 

So I spent most of the day trying to convince my friends to go see it.  No one was interested.  I found my old roommate, Justin, and he agreed immediately.  It is nice to have friends you don’t always have to sell an idea to.  

 On opening day, which was a Wednesday, we both skipped class to catch the cheaper matinee.  Looking around we were surrounded by babies and children, accompanied by their parents.  I felt really dumb.  I’m sure the five-year old sitting next to me will understand this movie in Japanese better than I can.

 Standing in the lobby after buying a ticket, I saw a program guide.  I hadn’t seen movie programs in the US for a long time so I decided to buy one for Case Closed.  The movie program had a lot of detailed information about the director, animators, and crew, plus nice glossy pictures.

 Before start time, Justin and I nervously discussed just how hard this movie would be to follow with no subtitles and only 3-years of Japanese language study.  

 Finally the lights went out and Case Closed began.  At first it was difficult to follow.  Case Closed has a lot of information that the viewer needs to comprehend to have any chance at all in solving the mystery.  I would probably have had a better job at understanding by picking an easier to follow movie like Doraemon.  I had already read the Doraemon Japanese manga and it was the perfect place to start with a basic Japanese reading ability.  Case Closed was so much harder to follow.  So I did what I always did when watching a foreign movie, I discarded the dialogue and concentrated on the images, the sounds, and the action.  

 As the ending credits rolled, I was so confused about the actual plot.  Hopefully the movie will be released on DVD with English subtitles. (that took 10-years to come to light. See my review of Case Closed:  Captured in Her Eyes.)

 Exiting the theater, Justin and I walked over to a nearby McDonald’s to try to piece together what we had just seen.  We both agreed that the umbrella was the key to solving the murder.  After recently watching the DVD version so many years later, we were on the right track.  Plot aside; it was definitely worth watching with a nice loud booming audio system, a big screen to catch all the beautiful colors and details.  

 For anyone planning a trip to see an anime movie in Japan, I say go for it. Depending on your listening ability I would start with Doraemon for the beginner and move on to One Piece and Case Closed after you have the basics mastered.  Kaiju movies are much easier because you can skip a lot of the dialogue and just watch the crazy monster battles.  

 

 

Looking for Manga

 Growing up in Tampa, FL back in the 80’s, you were very lucky to get any manga at all.  I first saw manga titles and it didn’t register with me that I was looking at manga.  Rather, when I was browsing my local comic store, I was looking for titles of current shows that I enjoyed.  That is how I picked up Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman) by Gold Key, Robotech by Eternity Comics, and Ben Dunn’s Ninja High School also from Eternity.  When I was in junior high school, someone recommended a violent comic with cute girls beating the crap out of each other and so I decided to run to the store to check out Ninja High School.  I admit that NHS is not a true manga but it was heavily influenced by manga titles and it was good for that time.  

 Sometimes I would be looking through old comics at the Goodwill in South Tampa and I was lucky enough to find First Comic’s Lone Wolf and Cub with covers by Frank Miller.  This was also the time I was taking advance placement art classes and my favorite comic book artist was definitely Frank Miller.

 I also found Mai:  The Psychic Girl and Legend of Kamui back in the late 80’s.  Mai was interesting and I got engrossed in the story only to discover that new issues were hard to find.  Americans just wasn’t really into manga revamp as comics.  Legend of Kamui was about a young Ninja trying to get away from his clan.  

 I admit that I was lucky to get anything as I studied Japanese and prepared for my first trip over.

 Arriving in Japan, I quickly met other American students who grew up on the same stuff that I liked.  However, I also met fans who had knowledge of niche titles that were hugely popular in Japan but only known by hardcore fans back in North America.

 The best place to go were used bookstores because you didn’t have to pay a lot to check out a series and see if you were interested in reading more.  Plus the used bookstores would sell entire collections.  

 The first manga that I really enjoyed was Jo Jo’s Bizarre Adventure that is now already translated and marketed by Viz Media.  I was lucky enough to read Jo Jo’s in the original Japanese, which helped my reading ability tremendously and got me into niche titles.  

 Someone recommended Dr. Slump and all the references that were both Japanese and American like Superman, Ultraman, Star Wars, and numerous video game characters hooked me. What I really liked about Dr. Slump was all the dirty jokes that made the manga so great.

 There are a few manga that I own in Japanese that have yet to be translated in English like Sister Princess and Asakiyumemishi, the latter is a manga based on The Tale of Genji which I think could possibly find a market in the US.  As more and more college students study Japanese literature in Humanities, Asakiymemishi can be a valuable visual aid.  

 The biggest manga that has crossed over is Doraemon.  Doraemon is a cultural phenomenon in Japan and I believe that it can become a hit in the US for the children’s market.   

 Just like 50ish fans fondly remember Astro Boy, Doraemon could become something like that to the next generation.

 Each time I visit a Barnes and Nobles, I usually take a peek at the manga section and I can’t believe how much it has grown since my time in the 80’s when I was lucky to find a used copy of Mai with a torn cover for a buck.

Spice and Wolf Season One Review

 Finally that rare find in current anime, a compelling story with interesting dialogue along with stunning visuals.  Spice and Wolf is an epic journey that focuses on the lives of Kraft Lawrence, a traveling merchant, who hooks up with Holo, the Wise Wolf of Yoitsu.  Holo provides her town with a good harvest only to come to the sad conclusion that her town called Pasroe no longer cares. Holo is a wolf deity in human form that reminds one of werewolves.  Except, Holo is a step above the common werewolf fare because she doesn’t go into a rage and lose all the faculties of her human side.  When Holo is in her true wolf form she can still communicate with others and make rational decisions. 

 Since Holo has been in Pasroe for so long she has become isolated from the rest of the world. She decides to travel with Lawrence to see what she has been missing all those years gone by.
 Like a good TV mini series like Stephen King’s The Stand, it is easy to get into Spice and Wolf and to keep watching it.  One of the series strengths is that several of the good episodes end in a cliffhanger that forces the viewer to watch the next one because the story is so engaging. 

 The visuals are just beautiful and each cell could be framed as art and hung on a wall.  Rich details of trees, towns, and characters cause the viewer to forget that Spice and Wolf is an anime.  It is more like watching an Anime movie with all the attention to detail of Akira or the mechs in the Gundman series.

 However, all the pretty colors in the world cannot save an Anime if the story is boring.  Spice and Wolf has an engaging storyline that is character driven and although the action is less than other series, it is the dialogue that stands out.  As Spice and Wolf hint at romantic feelings for one each other the dialogue is very playful and allows the viewer to care for both characters.  This works on many levels such as when Spice gets into trouble dealing with Holo, in human form, as his lack of understanding all women, deity included.

 The medieval setting also works well to provide a framework of a simple time when people traveled by horseback, farming, and merchants bartering for trade were all still daily facts of life.   Each town is provided with detailed buildings that look so real, it is easy to forget that this is animated. 

 The action sequences are well done and are added in the just the right places to enhance the story.  This is not some action-oriented anime with only a hint of plot.  As a result the action becomes necessary to tell the story.  When Holo and Spice are trapped underneath the sewers, Holo changes into her true wolf form to deal with the pursuers.  Since Holo’s true form is kept to a minimum it works so much better then if every other scene had a transformation or fight scene.  The approached worked in Ultraman but would fail in Spice and Wolf.

 Overall, Spice and Wolf is an excellent series that covers several key anime angles from romantic, to detailed backgrounds, a natural realistic flow to the animation, to well developed characters, great use of dialogue, believable action sequences, and a plot that develops with each episode and causes the viewer to want to keep watching.