the cover art on this book caught me at the oakland museum gift store.
apparently the artist works for pixar, thus it is being featured during that
exhibit. the art inside is the same: awesome, reminiscent of samurai jack.

figured i should buy from the museum to support them instead of helping
amazon transform into a 10-headed demon, then found out at the register
that the copy is signed. bonus! karma!

the text is very sparse, like a children's book, but since the introduction
explains that the complete translation is 3000 pages, so shorter is fine by me!
i still absorbed the basic story enough to understood a contextual joke in the
serendipitous last episode of "outsourced", which was about the Hindu holiday
of Diwali ("Crouching Tiger... Flying Monkey?" "Well, there IS a flying monkey").

definitely interesting in the context of having just read Zelazny's Lord of Light,
which built on this mythology, and even Tolkien borrowed the crux premise
here for Eowyn( and Merry!)'s slaying of the Witch-king of Angmar.

strongly recommend for those with coffee tables supporting books, love
of highly-stylized animation, and interest in folklore of other cultures.