Jonathan Clements's Blog, page 22

Anime Syndrome

The big names of the anime world might be old duffers today, but they all started frightfully young. Osamu Tezuka told everyone he was 36 when Astro Boy was released, but he was lying. In fact, he was only 34. The anime business needs its workers to be young and energetic, otherwise they can't keep up with the pace.

When Astro Boy's cut-price animation style shook the industry in 1963, the grand old men at Toei Animation went searching for a staffer who could produce TV animation at a similar rate. None of the old-timers thought it was possible; only Sadao Tsukioka, then in his early twenties, was young enough and gullible enough to think it could be done. Which is how he became the director of Ken the Wolf Boy.

Tsukioka's recruitment was part of a larger, industry-wide grab for staff, which also snapped up Hayao Miyazaki, Gisaburo Sugii, Rintaro, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and many other future anime directors. Studio shills lurked outside Toei Animation trying to lure staff to work for other studios. And at Tezuka's company, Mushi Production, the animators in one office were all caught with freelance Toei work hidden under their desks.

One of the reasons we saw a huge rise in industry deaths in 2010 is that the anime business itself quadrupled in size fifty years ago. If you were a young kid of 23 in the year that Astro Boy came out, you're going to be 70 now, which is why so many seem to be dying off at once. However, that doesn't explain everything, because some of this year's deaths have been significantly younger. Directors Satoshi Kon and Umanosuke Iida, both of whom passed away this year, were only in their forties. What's going on?

Animation is an unforgiving lifestyle. Crunch times demand 20-hour days under harsh conditions. Nobody animates at the full 24 frames per second, so everything is already compromised and can benefit from a bit of extra tinkering. There is always something that could be improved just a little bit, which means it is never possible to just stop and proclaim that something is as good as it will ever be. There is literally no hope that your work will be perfect, and meanwhile you are working odd hours, living off instant noodles, and not getting any exercise. Nor is this anything new. During production on Kimba the White Lion, the animator Yoshinori Rachi dropped dead of a duodenal ulcer, aged 24. "Without a doubt," wrote the director Eiichi Yamamoto, "he was killed by work on television animation."

It was Yasuji Mori who first gave a name to compromised immune systems born of chainsmoking, lack of sleep and bodyclocks thrown off-kilter. He called it Anime Syndrome, and he saw it all over the 1960s business. Peer back into the war years and there are still more tales of nervous exhaustion, and long convalescences that treat a production completion party like a remission from some terrible affliction. Anime has always been a tough master, as has peer pressure. That little cough, that little twinge, are all things that the animators put off dealing with. You can see the doctor tomorrow…. Next week… When this episode is done…

Jonathan Clements is the author of Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade. This article first appeared in NEO #80, 2010.

The Complete Schoolgirl Milky Crisis Index

It has come to my attention that the Kindle version of Schoolgirl Milky Crisis omits the book's infamous index. Oh, all you digipeople are so smart with your searchy buttons, you think you don't need an index! Well, the SMC index was my little tribute to Joe Queenan and came in for particular praise from many reviewers… and hopefully not because it just meant that the book was almost over. Here it is in full.

100 Greatest Cartoons, 266

119, 327

2001: A Space Odyssey, 34

2046, 107-8

300, 162

8-Man, 258

A Da, 140, 145, 146

A.Li.Ce, 96, 370

abandon, lemming-like, 275

Accidental Death of an Anarchist, 65

actors, bitchiness of, 62; bizarre whims of, 267; control of, 53; in cupboards, 53; ideal conditions for, 235-6; questionable dedication of, 10, 65, 235; drinking habits of, 56; pets of, 57; poor quality of, 334; resemblance to shop dummies of, 335; residuals of, 209; smell of, 54; shitty life of, 59

ADV Films, 98, 277

Affleck, Ben, 261

afros, desirability on samurai of, 265

After Life, 323

Aguilera, Christina, 288

Ah! My Goddess, 67-9

Aim for the Ace, 317, 324, 329-31

Ainsworth, John, 61, 63

Aki's Goal, 332

Akira, 35-7, 47, 109, 164, 251, 255, 271, 272-3, 276, 304, 309, 347, 351, 391

Aladdin, 153

Alakazam the Great, 134

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, 31

Alien³, 34

Aliens, 8, 61, 63

al-Jazeera ninja movie, 126

Alpert, Steve, 43, 239

Alton, David, 274

Amano Yoshitaka, 40-1

America, nationwide melancholy of, 187

Amino Tetsuro, 356

Anderson, Gerry, 121, 370

Anderson, Paul, 360

Ando Mitsuo, 343

Angel Heart, 93, 246, 297

Angel Tales, 291

Angel's Egg, 41

Animalympics, 365

animatics, 9, 57-8

Animatrix, 277-8

Anime Center, 56

Anime Expo, 170-1

Anime Weekend Atlanta, 168

Anne of Green Gables, 31

Anno Hideaki, 283

Antique Bakery, 167

Aoki, Mike, 182

Appleseed, 43-6, 48-9, 97-8, 268, 309-10, 376

Aramaki Shinji, 48

Arishima Ginko, 194

Arishima Ishiro, 130

Armageddon, 253-5

Army of the Apes, 122

Asami Mitsuhiko, 189

Asano Tadanobu, 107, 307, 320-1

Aso Taro, unexpected diplomacy of, 100

assassins, disguised as florists, 259

Astro Boy, 35-6, 76, 303, 391

astro turfing, 160-1

athletes (jiggling), 316

Atlas, 44

Atomic Bomb Victim Medical Care Law (1957), 27

Attack Number One, 317

Attack on Tomorrow, 317

Audiofile (used as coffee table), 19-20

Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification, 292-3

Avalon, 34

Azumi, 330

Bacall, Lauren, 209

Backdraft, 327

Bakumatsu Sorcery, 332

Bale, Christian, 209

Ballard, J.G., 306

Bandai, 123, 213-4

Bangkok Dangerous, 296

Barefoot Gen, 28-9

Batman, 8, 38, 254, 270, 272, 345, 392

Battle Angel Alita, 349

Battle of the Planets, 126, 148, 259

Battlestar Galactica, 313

Bayside Shakedown, 172

Bean, Mr., with sniper rifle, 321

beautician, resemblance to Grim Reaper of, 324

Beauty Seven, 328

Bee-Fighter, 123

Beetleborgs, 123

begonia, distressed, 287

Beneath the Black Rain, 27, 30

Beowulf, 173

Berlin Film Festival, 260-1

Bester, Alfred, 36

Betamax, 73

Bewitched, 324-6

Big Comic Spirits, 181

Big X, 303

Big, 282

bigatures, 133

bikini, as rhetorical device, 357; impractical, 198; steel, 206

Bird Charmer, 195

Birdy the Mighty, 121

BITC, 382

Black Magic, 44-5, 309-10

Black Rain, 172

Blade Runner, 33, 34, 301

Blades of Glory, 162

Blink, 296

Block, Tim, 237

Blood: The Last Vampire, 277

Bloomsbury Publishing, 283

Blue Bird, 306, 390

Blue Gender, 157

Blue Pearl, The, 128

Blue Remains, 371

Blue Submarine Number Six, 251, 370

Blue Uru, 309

Blu-Ray, 73, 168, 392

Bondage Queen Kate, 383

bongo-playing dog, 217, 220

Bonnie and Clyde, 35

boobs, recommended size of, 187; reaction to air-conditioning of, 202

brains, freshly scrubbed, 68

Brave New World, 44

Briggs, Raymond, 142, 149

British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), 83, 213, 274-5

British Centre for Literary Translation, 224

British Film Institute, 262

Brother Dearest, 319

Bubble Fiction, 171-3

Bubu Chacha, 291, 305

Bulger, Jamie, 275

Bullet Ballet, 308

Burnham, Nicole, 188

Bush, George W., as cosplay judge, 66-7

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 35

Caddyshack, 184

Camel's Dance, The, 138

Cameron, James, 309, 346-9

Cannes, 14, 157-8, 164, 247

CAPCOM, 360

Captain America, 343

Captain Caveman, 266

Carey, Mariah, 288

Case Closed, 303

Cashaan/Casshern Robot Hunter, 41, 122, 125-6

Castle of Cagliostro, 31-2

censorship, 81-3, 219, 292-3

Chan, Andrew, 141

Chang Guangxi, 141

Channel Four, 266

charlatanry, 268-9

check-discs, 174

Chiang Kai-shek, 145

Chiba Akira, 182

chickenshit outfit, extraction from, 63

Chikamatsu, 301

Child's Play 3, 275

Chinese Ghost Story: The Animation, A, 141, 151

Chobi's Work, 202

Chobits, 299

Chou, Jay, 336

Christmas in August, 247-8

Chungking Express, 107

CIA, blacklist of, 28

Clarke, Fran, 63

Cleopatra: Queen of Sex, 76-7

Clouds on the Hill, 249, 390

Cockpit, The, 229

Coker, Vernon, 213

colorists, 20-1, 37-8

Columbia, 276

combat waitresses, 259

comedy Negro, 288

commentaries, 52-3, 61, 267-8

Company That Shall Remain Nameless, The, 8-9, 215

Complete Book of Scriptwriting, 11

computer games, erotic, 83-4

Conan the Boy Detective, 303, 389

Conceited General, The, 139

conflagrations, monstrous, 327

Confucius, unwelcome thoughts of, 214-5

Consultation on Possession of non-Photographic Depictions of Child Sexual Abuse, 212-3

Cook, Jared, 28

Cool Ship, 75

Cotterill, David, 387

Cowboy Bebop, 265, 313

Crash, 306

Creeping Corridor, 193

critter, half-witted, 267

crocodile kebabs, 104

Crowe, Russell, tragic absence from porn films of, 80

Cruise, Tom, 331, 341

Crying Freeman, 321, 344, 345-9, 352

cult of consumption, pointless, 290

curly hair, as sign of evil, 330

custard glove, 16-17

Cyber Angels, 219

Cyber Weapon Z, 141

Cyborg 009, 122

Czech Film Festival, 29

Dacascos, Mark, 346

Dagger of Kamui, 386

Daily Star, 274

Dairugger XV

Dallos, 78

Damen's Walker, 207-8

Daredevil, 126

David, Hugh, 98

Day Break, 221

DC Comics, 38

de la Cruz, Edwin, resistance to taunts of, 79

de Niro, Robert, resemblance to Chinese animator of, 93

Death Note, 101-2

Deccult Five, 201-2

Deep Throat, 77-8

Degas, Rupert, 236

Delicious Liaisons, 167, 389

Demolished Man, The, 36

Dempsey & Makepeace, 319

Demy, Jacques, 318

Depp, Johnny, (Japanese voice of), 351

desire to conquer world, author's, 1, 53

Dessloktoberfest, 168

Dezaki Osamu, 329, 365

Dick, Philip K., 253

Diggs, Taye, 221

Digimon, 103, 283

Dingding versus the Monkey King, 147

Dirty Pair, 332, 356

Discontent of the Baby Zappers, 100

Discovery Channel, 270-2

Disney, Walt ('the Osamu Tezuka of America'), 75-6, 132, 142, 161, 167, 173, 276, 348

Doctor Slump, 369

Doctor Who, 120, 213; in East European supermarket, 22; jiggery-pokery of, 21; resemblance to Godzilla of, 385

Domain of Murder, 381

Dominion, 47, 48

Domu, 37

Don't Call it First Love, 189-90

Donner, Richard, 346

Doom, 48, 292

Doraemon, 271

Dracula, 343; malnourished cousin of, 96

Dragon Ball, 94, 170, 349, 392

Dragon Head, 321

Dream Warrior Shadow, 332

DreamWorks, 276

drunks, see Stockwell

Dumpling Brothers, The, 291

Dune, 307

Dunst, Kirsten, 341-2

Duran Duran, 220

Eagle of the Pacific, 128

Eastwood, Clint, Japanese voice of, 33

Easy Rider, 35

Ebert, Roger, 77

economic policy, 67

Elric of Melniboné, 41

Emergency 10:10 10:4, 121

English teaching, 209-12

erectile dysfunction, 198, 335

Escaflowne, 66, 157

estate agents, influence on global politics of, 106-7

euphony, strange, 359

Evangelion, 66, 98, 121, 124, 159, 199-201, 240, 265, 299

Eye 2, 296-8

Eyes of Laura Mars, 296

False Love, 334

fansubbing, 102-3

Fantasia, 174, 287

Feeling From Mountains and Water, 139-40

Fernandez, Peter, 134, 303

Ferrell, Will, 326

filth, cavalcade of, 272

Final Fantasy, 41, 261, 371-4

Fincher, David, 33

Finland, 94-6, 108-10, 167

Fire Boys, 324

Fireball, 35

Firefighter Daigo, 326-8

Fist of the North Star, 344

Fleischer brothers, 114, 138

floozy, blonde, 190

Flower of Eden, 206

Flowers for Algernon, 330

Fly On Dreamers, 30

Fly Pegasus, 259

Fo, Dario, 65

foley editing, 15-17

For Mrs, 332

foreigners, big-nosed, 202

France, 98-100

Frank, Jason, 124

Frankenstein, 298, 343

Frasier, 159

Frightening Theater Unbalance Zone, 120-1

From the Heart, 331

Fuji TV, 119, 317, 327

Fujishima, Kosuke, 67-9

Fumimura Sho, 344

Gaiman, Neil, 38-43, 239, 389

Gainax, 284, 330

Galbraith IV, Stuart, 135

Gamera, 130, 134

Gans, Christophe, 345-9

Gantz, 306

Gashuin Tatsuya, 321

Gekko Kamen, 119

Geller, Uri, 276

Gemini, 307

Geneon, 391

gerund, declension of, 211

Get Carter, 247

Gettler, Nina, 191

Gettysburg Address, similarity to Gundam of, 67

Ghost in the Shell, 33, 46-7, 48, 277, 309, 346, 368; GITS2, 34; GITS SAC, 48, 308-13

Giant Robo, 303

giant rotating swastika, 82-3

Gigantor, 36

Gilliam, Terry, 346

Gladiator, porno version of, 80

Gleicher, Marvin, 349

glimmer of hope, vague, 200

goats, people with morals of, 226

Godard, Jean Luc, 313

Godzilla, 114-9, 120, 128-9, 132, 282, 302, 384-5

Going to the Castle, 188

Gold Lightan, 259

Golden Bowl, 330

Golf Lesson Comic, 180-5

Golgo 13, 132, 365-6

Goshogun, 221, 356

Goths, lonely, 192-3; geeky, 201-2

Goto, Elliot, 182

Gouda Hiroaki, 67

Grand Theft Auto, 292-3

Grandma and Her Ghosts, 138, 141, 150-2

Grant, Hugh, 8

Grave of the Fireflies, 29

Grey: Digital Target, 302

Gunbuster, 220-1, 283-4, 330

Gundam, 67, 149, 196, 214, 271, 282, 304, 356, 380

Gundress, 309

Gunslinger Girl, 167

Guyver, 345

hairdressers in disguise, 194

Halcyon Sun, 226

Hallmark, 286

Hamill, Mark, 345

Han Suk-kyu, 248

Hana to Yume, 186

Hana Yori Dango, 333-5

Hanks, Tom, 282

Hanson, David, 213

Happy Together, 107

Harada Rika, 195

Harada Taizo, 325

harizu (Japan nuts), 287

Harlequin, 186-91, 192

Harmagedon, 36, 344

Havoc in Heaven, see Uproar in Heaven

Hawker, Lindsay, 211-2, 278

Heat Guy J, 300, 305

Heaven Cannot Wait, 323

Heaven's Kiss, 323

Heidi, 31, 271

Heinlein, Robert, 355-8, 386

Hello Kitty, 109, 142, 172, 284-92; as cause of military action, 288; as unlikely brand of chainsaw, 289; suspicious 'massager', 289; murders, 289-90

He-Man, 159

Hepburn, Katharine, 287

hibakusha, 26

High School Teacher, 330

Himura Soraha, 188

Hirai Kazumasa, 344

Hirata Toshio, 29

Hirokane Kenshi, 218

Hiroshima, 26, 30, 114, 133, 229, 300

Hirosue Ryoko, 172

Hit Parade, 132

Hitchcock, Alfred, 33

hitman in a tank-top, 321

hitting each other with sticks, 13

Hoffman, Dustin, 331

Hoichi the Earless, 189

Holiday Inn, inevitable depression at, 105

Hollywood Reporter, 347

Honda Inoshiro/Ishiro, 114-6, 127-8, 132

Honda Kimi, 114, 116, 128

hookers, 198

Howard, Ron, 327

Howl's Moving Castle, 32, 97-8, 164, 209, 265, 305

Hsu, Barbie, 333-5

Hsu, Vivian, 334

Huang Yet, 335

Hulk, 126, 270

Hung, Sammo, 140

Hungry Best Five, 251

Hur Jin-ho, 248

Hutch the Honeybee, 41

Huxley, Aldous, 44

Hyper Police, 266

I & I, 132

I Bombed Pearl Harbor, 128

I Love Bubu Chacha, 291, 305

I Want to be a Shellfish, 131

I'll Be Back, 323

idol, pneumatic, 198

Ifukube Akira, 384-5

Iijima Ai, 172, 323

Ikeda Riyoko, 317-9

Ikegami Ryoichi, 321, 344-5, 352

Ikeuchi Shinichi, 183

IMAX, 173

In the Mood for Love, 107-8

Infernal Affairs, 336

Infrared Music, 121

Initial D, 335-6

Inoue Takehiko, 206

Inoue Yo, 380-82

Interview with a Vampire, 340-3

Inu Yasha, 301

ire, smidgen of, 202

Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto, 307-8

Ironfist Chinmi, 218

Iseya Yusuke, 125-6

Ishii Katsuhito, 321

Ishinomori Shotaro, 122

Island World, 273

Ito Kazunori, 310

Ito Tsunehisa, 356-7

Ito, Emi and Yumi, 132

Ito, Jerry, 129, 132

Iwaaki Hitoshi, 347

Izuki Reigo, 184

Jackson, Michael, shitty scansion of, 232

Jade Animation, 141

James Clavell's Shogun, 131

Jamieson, Cathy, 213

Jang Dong-gun, 249, 252

Jansson, Tove, 11, 95

Japan Expo, 99

Japan's Longest Day, 128

Jazz on Parade, 130

Jetee, La, 372

Jinbo Shiro, 316

Jin-roh: The Wolf Brigade, 34

Jodorowsky, Alejandro, 307

Joint Security Area, 247, 249, 252

Jones, Bridget, neurotic self-regard of, 189

Joshibi University of Art and Design, 286

Journey Through Fairyland, 287

Journey to the West, 140, 142-4, 145-6 (see also Monkey)

Judge Dredd, 60-1, 247, 270

Jurassic Park, 123

Kagawa Kyoko, 131

Kagawa Yumie, 344

Kaguya's Sound Rains, 193-4

Kamio Yoko, 333-5

Kamiyama Kenji, 310

Kanei Tatsuo, resemblance to Shakespeare of, 183

Kaneshiro Takeshi, 334

Kang Je-gyu, 249

Kappa Mikey, 59

Kase Mitsuko, 301

Kassovitz, Mathieu, 349

Katayama Kazuyoshi, 47, 49

Katsura Chiho, 287

Kawajiri Yoshiaki, 277, 366

Kawasaki Hiroko, 194

Kawasaki Hirotsugu, 351

Kawasaki Takeshi, 183

Kayama Kosuke, 343

Kekko Kamen, 82, 201

Kelly, Grace, 33

Key the Metal Idol, 298

Kidman, Nicole, as belly dancer, 88; as witch, 326; as more interesting than author, 367-8

Kiki (ballerina), 307

Kiki's Delivery Service, 141, 151, 276

Kill Bill, 277, 324, 374

Kimba the White Lion, 76

Kimba, see Simba

Kimizuka Ryoichi, 172

Kimura Hakusan, 75

Kindness of Women, 306

King Kong, 115

Kiriya Kazuaki, 126

Kiseki Films, 274-5, 382-3

Kishibe Ittoku, 321

Kiss, 191

Kitahama Haruko, 325

Kitakubo Hiroyuki, 277, 309

Kitamura Ryuhei, 322

Kitano Takeshi, 307, 389

knickers, 81, 202

Knopp, Patricia, 319

KO Century Beast Warriors, 165, 232-4, 236-7

Kobayashi Ai, 48

Koga Shinsuke, 202

Kohinata Shie, 321

Koike Kazuo, 345

Koizumi Hiroshi, 132

Koizumi Junichiro, 66

Kon Satoshi, 276, 297

Konaka Chiaki, 371

Konishi Manami, 328

kontentsu, 262-3

Koreeda Hirokazu, 323

Koseki Yuji, 132-3

Kousaki Kei, 195

Kresel, Lee, 134

Kubo Akira, 115

Kurata Mayumi, 207-8

Kurobe Susumu, 120

Kurosawa Akira, 118, 127-8, 131, 165, 248

Kusakabe Tomoko, 182

Kwok, Philip, 297

Ladd, Fred, 303

Lady of the Manor, 334

Lady Oscar, 318

ladyboys, see Stockwell

Landlock, 309

Lang, Fritz, 37, 251

late-night anime, 266

Lau, Andrew, 336

Leblanc, Maurice, 32-3

Lee Chooman, 141

Lee Hyun-se, 253-5

Lee Simyung, 253

Lee, Christopher, 261

Legend of Arslan, 273

Legend of the Four Kings, 149, 159

Legend of the Paper Spaceship, 386

Leica reel, 9, 57

Lensman, 11, 366

Leung, Tony, 108

Libération, 98

lightboxing, 206-7

Limit the Miracle Girl, 298

lingerie, 81

Lion King, The, 153

Lisberger, Steven, 365

Little Jumbo, 287

little men, odious, 322

liver, stiffness of, 335

Locarno Film Festival, 147

Loeb, Lisa, 288

London Anime Club, 387-8

Longworth, Toby, 61

Lords of Marketing, 175

Lorimar, 341-2

Lost Memories 2009, 249, 252-3

Lotus Lantern, The, 141, 147, 152-3

Love Comic Aya, 192

Love Generation, 334

Love Outside Marriage, 323

Love Suicides at Sonezaki, 301

Lovecraft, H.P., 346

Lower Depths, The, 131 (see also Stockwell)

Lucky Dragon V, 26, 114

Luna Varga, 259

Lupin III, 32, 271

MacColl, Catriona, 319

Macron One, 221

Macross, 293, 369, 380

Madhouse (studio), 277

Magical Heroine Mahi Mahi, 200

Mahoromatic, 299

Mak, Alice, 149

Malice Doll, 371-3

Man From U.N.C.L.E., 121

man in a pub, authority of, 274

Man in the High Castle, The, 253

Manabe Masashi, 199

Manga Entertainment, 240, 268, 273, 277, 349

Manga! Manga!, 28

Mao Zedong, 139, 140, 145, 147

Margaret, 186, 329

Marine Boy, 134, 303

Marker, Chris, 372

Marmalade Boy, 334

Marvel Comics, 343

Mask of Glass, 330

Masked Rider, 122, 124

Massive Attack, 221

Matrix, The, 262, 277, 306, 376

Matsuda Kazunari, 184

Matsumoto Leiji, 196

Matsumoto Mimiko, 202

Matsumoto Rio, 330

Matsuoka Shuzo, 329-30

Matsushita, 263

McDowall, Roddy, 287

McEnroe, John, 329

McFarlane, Todd, 352-4

McMug, 142, 149

McWilliam, Ian, 239

Media Blasters, 79

Meet the Robinsons, 173

Megazone 23, 300

Memoirs of a Geisha, 336

Memories, 37

Mes, Tom, 307-8

Meteor Garden, 333-5

Metropolis, 37, 126, 251

Mighty Jack, 121

Mills & Boon, 186, 192

Mimi's Tales of Bad Slotting, 202

Minagawa Ryoji, 350

Minegishi Nobuaki, 246

Miss Marple, and Transformers, 194

Mister Magazine, 320

Mito Komon, 7-8

Miyamoto, Karin, 191

Miyazaki Hayao, 31, 37, 103-4, 239, 260-1, 267, 271, 272, 276, 348, 391; more interesting than pornography, 72; similarity to French presidential candidate of, 100

Mizoguchi Kenji, 131

Mochinaga Tadahito, 139

Mochizuki Akira, 316

Mochizuki Minetaro, 320-2

moe, etymology of, 83

Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors, 133, 139, 144

Momotaro's Sea Eagles, 144

money laundering, 77-8

Monkey Conquers the Demon, 147

Monkey Punch, 32

Monkey, 40

Monkeys Fish For the Moon, 140, 146

Monster Rancher, 282

Montgomery, Elizabeth, 324-5

Moomins, 11; cruelty to, 94; revenge of, 95

Moonlight Mask, 119, 122

Moorcock, Michael, 41

Moore, Mandy, 288

Moore, Michael, awards of, 247; size of, 34

Morikubo Shotaro, 350

Mortal Kombat, 360

Mothra, 127-35

Moving Picture Company, 165

Mr Marine, 133

Mulan, 40

Murphy's Bitter, 277

music, 18-20

Muslims, nice things about, 213

MVM Entertainment, 67-9, 277

My Life as McDull, 142, 149-50

My Neighbor Totoro, 31, 33, 141, 151, 271

My Neighbors the Yamadas, 142, 150

Myerson, Robert, 134

MySpace, 161

Mystery of Mamo, 32

Mystery Shopper Ichiko's Report, 194

Nagai Go, 82, 201

Nagano Tadashi, 28

Nagasaki, 26, 133, 300

Nakagawa Shoichi, 67

Nakajima Haruo, 114-6

Nakamura Toru, 252

Nakano Minoru, 118-9

Nakayama Matsuhi, 200

Nakayama Miho, 389-90

Nakazawa Hiroshi, 201

Nakazawa Keiji, 26-31

naki game, 301

Naruto, 170

Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, 31, 33, 109

NBC, 159

Necronomicon, 346

Nemoto Tetsuya, 182

Neo-Tokyo, 36

Nerima, 18, 55, 58

neutron flow, polarity of, 64

New Yorker, The, 312

Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, 140, 146, 147-9

NHK, 132, 385

Nickelodeon, 138

Ninja Scroll, 277

Nintendo Wii, as sex aid, 87

Nishio Daisuke, 167

Nishizawa Akira, 328

Nobody's Boy, 131

Nomura Hirotoshi, 182

nostril hairs, as comedy sidekicks, 259

Nozawa Hisashi, 306, 389-90

NTV, 331

Oba Tsugumi, 101

Obata Takeshi, 101

Oh! My Goddess, 67-9

Ohmasa Kimiko, 196

Oikawa, Kaoru, 193

Okada Kaai, 316

Okonomi Ha-chan, 30

Old Boy, 246-7

Old Master Cute, 141

Oliver, Jamie, lack of books in Milton Keynes by, 61

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 313

One Piece, 170

one-child policy, 291

Ono Kosei, 344

Ooka Echizen, 7

Operation Mystery, 121

Optimum Releasing, 97, 277

Oricon, 57

orientals, evil, 358

Orion, 47

Osaka Fine Arts University, 44

Oshii Mamoru, 41, 48, 310, 367; posture of, 33; basset hound demeanour of, 34

Ota Masanori, 45

Otomo Katsuhiro, 17, 27, 35-6, 47, 255, 267, 271, 309, 347, 351

Otto Carius: Tigers Covered With Mud, 103

Out of the Inkwell, 138

Overfiend, see Urotsukidoji

Ozaki Yutaka, 301

pachinko, 197

Pang brothers, 296-8

Panzer Dragoon, 273

Paprika, 164

parasite singles, 286

Parasyte, 347

Parent Trap, The, 132

Park Chan-wook, 247

Parker, Alan, 297

Party 7, 321

Patlabor, 34, 207, 273, 301, 310-1, 346, 356, 367, 380-1

Peanuts, 285

Peanuts, The, 132

Pegg, Simon, 60-3

Pepper, 218

Perfect Blue, 37, 297, 391

Photo Chemical Laboratory (PCL), 127-8

Pioneer, 69

Pippi Longstocking, 31

Pitt, Brad, 341

Pixar, 167, 173

Planet of the Apes, 122

Plastic Little, 229

Platonic Sex, 323

Pokémon, 94, 159, 171, 240, 263, 272, 275-6, 278, 282, 392

polo shirts, 15

Pompoko, 261

Poppy's Passion, 189

Porco Rosso, 31, 276

Potter, Dennis, 248

Power Rangers, 123-4, 343

Price of Blood, 138

Prince's Tutor, The, 188

Princess Iron Fan, 138-9, 142-4

Princess Knight, 318

Princess Mononoke, 33, 38, 42-3, 239, 260; plus Viking helmet, 206

Princess, 218, 332

Private Gladiator, 80

Pro Slo, 199-200

producer, uncontrollable flatulence of, 267

Production IG, 277

Project Gen, 28

ProTools, 19

Psychic Wars, 273

pterodactyl, in pursuit of Norwegian girl, 284

pudenda, Sanskrit for, 63

Pulp Fiction, 322

Pure, 331-2

Qian Jajun, 139

Qian Weishan, 333

Qian Yunda, 139, 145

Quart & Half, 340

Quiet Days of Firemen, 307

racial profiling, 291-2

Radiohead, 220

Raiders of the Lost Ark, 349

Rail of the Star, 29

Rain Man, 331

Ranma ½, 11

Ratatouille, 167-8

REC, 59

rectum, as inadvisable place to keep dragon, 259

Red Army Bridge, 139, 144-5

Red Hawk, 251, 255

Reeves, Keanu, 109

Reluctant Bridegroom, The, 188-9

Resident Evil, 359-60

RG Veda, 273

Rice, Anne, 192, 340-3

Richmond, Emma, 188

Riley, Michael, 342

Ring Out, 86

Ringing Bell, 287

Rintaro, 255

Rise of the Meritocracy, 44

Rising Sun, 172

RoboCop, 258

Robot Carnival, 36

Rocinante, 328

Romero, George, 360

Rose Mystery, 192-6

Rose of Versailles, 317-9

Roujin Z, 17

Royal, Ségolène, 99-100

Running Boy, 359

Russel, Kurt, 346

Ryder, Winona, 346

Ryo Atsumi, 189-90

Sager, Matthew, 165

Sahara Kenji, 115

Saikano, 298-302

Sailor Moon, 152, 196, 282

Sakai, Frankie, 130-1

Salaryman Kintaro, 324

Salinger, J.D., 312

Sanctuary, 344

sand, as filling for dog, 215

Sandman, 38-43, 389

Sang Ilsim, 255

Sanoff, Gerald, 325

Sanrio, 285

Sansho the Bailiff, 131

Sarkozy, Nicolas, 99-100

Sasaki Nozomu, 381

Sato Dai, 126

Sato Masahiko, 291

Sato Noriko, 325

Sato, Sugar, 183

Satomi Kotaro, 7-8

Satsuma Kenpachio, 116-8

Sayama Yoshinori, 369

Sazae-san, 271

Schodt, Frederik L., 28, 44

Schulz, Charles, 285

Schwarzenegger, Arnold, as beautiful lesbian, 86

Scott, Ridley, 80

Scunthorpe Polytechnic, unsuitability for supplying romantic heroes of, 190

Sea Prince and the Firechild, 287

Seagal, Steven, 346

Seberg, Jean, 313

Section Chief Kosaku Shima, 67

Seinfeld, 267

Seishinsha, 45, 47

Seiun Award, 46

Sekizawa Shinichi, 129-30

Serling, Rod, 119

Seven Eldorados, 331

Shadowed Heart, The, 191

Shaku Yumiko, 323-4

Shall We Dance?, 131, 317, 326

Shame on Miss Machiko, 259

Shark-skin Man & Peach-Hips Girl, 320-2

sharp stick, as means of actor control, 53

She: The Ultimate Weapon, 298-302

Shelton, Helen, 189

Sherlock Hound, 32, 37

Shiba Ryotaro, 390

Shigeno Shuichi, 336

Shim Eun-ha, 248

Shim Hyunok, 305

Shimamoto Sumi, 33

Shimizu Yuko, 285

Shinjuku Punk Rescue Squad, 328

Shinohara Udoh, 340-3

Shinozaki Kakuko, 189

Shiri, 249, 252

Shirow Masamune, 43-9, 166, 308-13

Shiseido, wall of beige, 54

Shoda Michiko, 190

Shojo Friend, 316

Shonen Jump, 28-9

Shonen Sunday, 327

Shooting Stars in the Twilight, 218

Shrek, 260, 262

Shu Qi, 296

Sight & Sound, 247

Sign is V, The, 316-7

Simba, see Kimba

Simpsons, The, 250, 254

Six Feet Under, 322

Sixth Column, 358

Sixth Sense, The, 296

Sky Blue, 250-51

Sky High, 322-4

Slam Dunk, 206

Slater, Christian, 341

Sleeping Forest, 390

Slot Evolution, 201

slut, wavy-haired, 190

Smith, E.E. 'Doc', 11

Smith, Toren, 46-7

snog, merest prospect of, 189

Soap Bubble Holiday, 132

Soda Masahito, 326-8

Sogami Makoto, 201

Sol Bianca 2, 226-8, 229, 234

Sommelier, 167

Sonatine, 307

Sony, 263, 325

sorcery, as illegal hockey tactic, 101

Sori Fumihiko, 376

Soul Hunter, 148

sound effects, 15-17

Spa!, 56

Space Giraffe, 27

Spaced, 62

Spark One, 27

Spawn, 254, 351-4

Speed Racer, 134, 303, 346

Spider-Man, 343-5, 352-3

Spielberg, Steven, 174

Spirited Away, 32, 33, 161, 260-2, 276, 305

Spriggan, 349-51

Srungle, 221

Staccato, 194

Stallone, Sylvester, 126

Star Fleet, 374

Star Trek, 325

Star Wars, 8, 345

Starship Troopers, 355-8, 386

Steam Boy, 35, 37, 96-7, 265

Steamboat Willy, 174

stegosaurus, inflatable, 143

Stepmother's Sin, 85

stereoscopic movies, 173-4

Stewart, Rod, haircut of, 183

Stingray, 121, 370

Stockwell, 61-3

Storm Riders, 141, 336

Stracynzski, J. Michael, (and bondage), 10

Straw, Jack, 275

Street Fighter II, 360, 388

strippers, politicians' love of, 67

Strontium Dog, 53, 60-3

Studio Ghibli, 43, 209, 276, 277, 348

Studio Pierrot, 259

Studio Proteus, 46-7, 68

Suetsugu Yuki, 206

Suga Shotaro, 126

Summer With Kuro, The, 30

Super Mario Bros, 360

Super Pachislo 777, 197-202

Super Soap, 140

Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, 123

Superman, 114, 119, 270, 345; by Leni Riefenstahl, 126

Suzuki Toshio, 260-1

Suzuki, Anne, 336

Swansea Animation Days, 72, 165

sweater (world's worst), 18

Swimming Upstream, 321

Swinnerton, Alastair, 10

Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, 247

Taboo, 390

Taegukgi, 248-50

Tagami Yoshihisa, 218

Takahashi Rumiko, 11, 41, 326

Takahashi Shin, 301

Takahashi Tsutomu, 322-4

Takahata Isao, 29, 142, 150, 261

Takamara Shun, 322

Takarazuka Theater, 318

Takashige Hiroshi, 350

Takenaka Naoto, 326, 327

Takesaka Kaori, 193-4

Taketori Monogatari, 196

Tale of Genji, The, 40

Tamagotchi, 282-3

Tamala 2010, 290

Tampopo, 167

Tanaka Tomoyuki, 128

Tani Masaki, 182

Tarantino, Quentin, 42, 239, 247, 277, 322, 324, 352, 374

tart, evil blonde, 190

Tatsunoko, 259

TBS, 120, 317

Te Wei, 139

Tekken, 152

teledildonics, 87

tentacles, 82, 274

Terajima Susumu, 321

Terminator, 86, 309

Tetsujin 28, 36, 302-4

Tetsuo II, 308

Tezuka Osamu, 37, 75, 76-7, 139, 143, 166, 303, 318, 391

There's a Secret in My Soup, 290

Three Monks, 140, 145

thrills, inarticulate/brassy, 273

Throne of Blood, 118, 128

Thunderbirds, 12

Time Machine, The, 251

Time of the Apes, 122

Time Traveller Ai, 172

Timestripper, 86

Titan Magazines, as repository for cartoon porn, 383

Titra Sound, 134

Titus Andronicus, 246

To Catch a Thief, 33

To, Chapman, 336

Tobe Keiko, 331-3

Toe Yuen, 142, 149-50

Toei, 31, 55; Movie Village of, 6-8

Together With Sister, 201

Tohoscope, 134, 364

Tokoro Juzo, 352

Tokyo Fist, 308

Tokyo Pop, 328

Tokyo Underground, 304-6

Tom and Jerry, 153, 272

Tomb Raider, 293

Tomorrow People, The, 121

Tong Che Chen, 335

Top Gun, 357

Touge Hiro, 201

Toyama no Kinsan, 7

Transformers, 159; and hairdressing, 194

translation, 224-42; conditions for, 63-4; ethics of, 64-5, 67, 102-3; self-appointed experts in, 68-9; intellectual property issues in, 208-9; price of, 238

Trnka, Jiri, 145

Tron, 365

True Romance, 321

Tse, Brian, 142, 149-50

Tsuburaya Eiji, 114-5, 119-21, 128

Tsui Hark, 141, 151

Tsuji Shintaro, 285-6

Tsukamoto Nami, 307

Tsukamoto, Shinya, 306-8

TV Asahi, 122-3, 271, 325, 329

Twilight Zone, 119

Uchino Masaaki, 329

Uchiyama Rina, 328

Udine Far East Film Festival, 138-53

Ueda Momoko, 181

Ueto Aya, 317, 329-30

Ultra Q, 120

Ultraman, 120-2, 124, 344

Under One Roof, 331

underwear, 81

University of East Anglia, 224

University of Leeds, 225

University of Stirling, 225

Uproar in an Art Studio, 138

Urano Chikako, 317

Urotsukidoji, 69, 73, 80, 157, 213, 216, 267, 274, 383

Urusei Yatsura, 326, 380

Urushikawa, Yumi, 380-2

Ustinov, Peter, 287

Utena, 318

V for Vendetta, 389

Vampire Princess Miyu, 40, 305, 357

van Damme, Jean-Claude, 346

Vangelis, 220-1

Variable Geo, 259

Variety, 346

Venetian Fantasy, A, 191

vertical integration, 263

Vexille, 376

Video Girl Ai, 298

Vital, 306-8

voice acting, 9, 52-63, 325

Voices of a Distant Star, 98, 375-6

Wachowski brothers, 277

Wacky Races, similarity to golf of, 183

Wakabayashi Maiko, 181

Waley, Arthur, 40

Wan Laiming, 138, 140, 147

Wanderings of Sanmao, 140

Wang Films, 141

Wang Shaudi, 141

Warner Bros., 143, 153, 173, 278

Watch With Mother, 291

Water Boys, 328

Water Margin, 303

Weekly Asahi, 128

Weinstein, Harvey, 261

Weiss Kreuz, 259

Wells, Herbert George, 251

West Wing, The, 313

Where's Mama?, 139

Whitaker, Steve, 388-9

Whittingdale, John, 278

Who are the DeBolts and Where Did They Get 19 Kids?, 287

Wife in a Box, 195

Wild at Heart, 321

wild boar vindaloo, 104

Wildenborg, Patrick, 292-3

Will & Grace, 159

Williams, Kenneth, 62

Window of Orpheus, 319

Windows XP, as masturbatory aid, 74

Witchblade, 270

With the Light, 331-3

Witness, The, 196

Won Bin, 334

Wonder Woman, 270, 272

Wong Kar-wai, 106-8, 297

Wong, Faye, 334

Wong, James, 349

World Apartment Horror, 37

World-Con, 97-8, 106

wrecked cars, see Stockwell

wrestling, lesbian, 86

X-Files, The, 214, 350

Y (letter), script lacking, 15

Yamada Takayuki, 326, 328

Yamada Yasuo, 33

Yamamoto Isoroku, 128

Yamamoto Sumika, 329-31

Yamauchi Noriko, 194

Yanase Takashi, 287

Yang Dingxian, 140

Yano Tetsu, 386

Yen, Jerry, 333

Yeung Chi Gin, 290

Yokoyama Mitsuteru, 36, 302-4

Yonekubo Setsuko, 285

Yonekura Ryoko, 325

Yoo Yong-kil, 248

York, Dick, 324-5

Yoshida Tomoko, 328

Yoshizawa Yu, 330

Yost, David, 124

You Only Live Twice, 121

Young & Dangerous, 336

Young Jump, 322

Young, Michael, 44

Young, Rodger, 358, 386

Your Gentle Hand, 194

Yousling, Jim, 290

Y-style, 199

Yuasa Noriaki, 130

Yuzna, Brian, 345

Zhang Leping, 140

Zhou Keqin, 140

Zhou, Vic, 333

Zo Gari, 199-200

zombies, bridal, 190

எந்திரன்

60 Years Ago: Mannerheim's Last Battle

From Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy by Jonathan Clements, available now in the UK and in the US.

—–

Mannerheim began his eighties still talking of responsibility and struggle. As he saw it, Finland still ran the risk of drifting irrevocably too far to the left, and he was determined to hold this off by the last means available to him – writing his memoirs.

'Was it not my duty,' he wrote, 'now that the West seemed to have forgotten the gallant Finnish people, to communicate to all our friends near and far what I knew about its indomitable battle for all that a nation holds sacred, and had not my countrymen a right to hear my interpretation of the causes that had led to the position where Finland now stood?'

His decision was unsurprising, but also unwelcome to some of his successors. Mannerheim's avowed intent was to educate the Cold War world about recent Finnish history, but his memoirs were sure to attract the attention of readers back home. President Paasikivi, in particular, fretted that his illustrious predecessor would write a tell-all book that was sure to land Finland in hot water with the Soviet Union, with which relations were still strained. Mannerheim did exactly as Paasikivi had feared but was steered into being less forceful in his published comments on Bolshevism and 'Reds', and also in his attitude towards the Swedes. In private, Paasikivi grumbled that if he paid heed to every one of the field marshal's grim warnings then everyone in Finland might as well walk into the forest with a pistol and shoot themselves in the forehead.

Despite the politicians' concerns, Mannerheim was left to write his memoirs in peace with the help of a small staff of assistants. He seems to have originally planned on doing so in Kirkniemi, a manor house he had bought in what is now the Helsinki suburbs, but continued ill health lured him out of Finland to Switzerland in the late 1940s. 'If on this earth there is a place to be found which is dedicated to forgetting,' he wrote to a friend, 'it is Switzerland, with all the convenience which makes life easy, hotels, communications, order, food and the beauty of the landscape, but above all, the mountains, the Alps which give the impression of being somewhere in the atmosphere, above the clouds, between earth and sky.' Mannerheim also observed that Switzerland, unlike so many other parts of Europe, had been spared the damage and destruction of the war – it was, in many ways for him, a reminder of the lost Europe of his younger days.

His circle of true friends, always small, dwindled predictably in old age. 'I begin to see only graves around me,' he commented, although his dry melancholy was economical with the truth. In fact, he spent much time in the company of a new lady companion, the elegant Countess Gertrud Arco-Valley. Some 30 years his junior, the divorcee countess was a friend of Mannerheim's younger daughter and was often seen accompanying him on his travels.

Mannerheim spent increasing amounts of time in hospital, troubled in particular by stomach and intestine problems. A perforated ulcer nearly killed him in 1946, and kidney stones and haemorrhages laid him low in 1948. He began to lose weight drastically, and is noticeably thin and frail in the photographs of him at the clinic in Val-Mont, Switzerland, where he both took spa treatments and continued to work on his memoirs.

In early 1951, Mannerheim was hospitalised again in Lausanne with a distended abdomen, and had emergency surgery for a blocked intestine. It was, he joked with his surgeon, his last battle, and one that he was likely to lose. He said his goodbyes to those around him on 27 January, and fell into a sleep from which he never awoke. His heart stopped half an hour before midnight, although in Finland's time zone it was already the following morning – the anniversary of his decisive strike against the Reds in the Finnish Civil War of 1918.

Public Lending Right

A little later than usual, the Public Lending Right sent me last week a statement of the number of times that my books have been taken out of British libraries. As I explained last year, many civilised countries have a scheme like this, whereby authors are reimbursed by the state if libraries loan out their books. This year, my finances are enriched to the tune of 6.25 pence per loan.

Here are the JC top ten library loans for 2010:

Confucius: A Biography (hardback and paperback combined).
Beijing: The Biography of a City .
Wu .
Chinese Life .
A Brief History of the Vikings .
A Brief History of the Samurai .
The First Emperor of China (hardback and paperback combined).
Marco Polo .
The Pirate King (in paperback as Coxinga).
Darwin's Notebook .

Regular readers will note that there is a new entry, straight in at the number 6 slot, for a book that was only published a couple of months before the year's deadline - we can perhaps expect the samurai to go further up the charts next year. Meanwhile, all the manga translations have dropped out — does this mean that Bloomsbury's Ironfist Chinmi books are finally succumbing to wear and tear after 15 years, or simply that this year's sampled libraries didn't have so many comics on their shelves to begin with?

Twelve years ago, I wrote a little children's book under a pseudonym in a matter of days — I think it took me no more than a long weekend. It has since been reprinted several times, by three different English-language publishers, and translated into some very rare languages, including Moldovan and Malay. Ever since, it has consistently generated a full 25% of my annual library royalties. There's no predicting what book will be the one that makes one's fortune. Not that this book makes me a fortune, but it puts a smile on my face every year when I discover another legion of people have checked it out of their local library.

Salon Futura #5

The latest issue of Salon Futura is up online with a lovely Judith Clute cover, and includes a large review-article from me about Ranpo Edogawa, the "Fiend with Twenty Faces" and the remake thereof, just released in the UK as K20: Legend of the Mask.

Also in this issue: Paul Cornell and Paolo Bacigalupi interviewed, Judith Clute interviewed, Jon Courtnay Grimwood… interviewed; more interviews than you can shake a stick at.

Plus Sam Jordison on Venice, and editor Cheryl Morgan with a rant on "genre".

The Italian Job

Online now, an interview with me by Armando Rotondi of the Italian webzine Asia Express, in which we get into imitable violence, the Western canon of Eastern animation, and the threat, or lack thereof presented to Japanese animation by the nascent industries of Korea and China.

Also check out their reviews of Schoolgirl Milky Crisis ("un libro esplosivo"), The Anime Encyclopedia ("davvero mirabile in tutto"), and The Dorama Encyclopedia ("un testo essenziale").

Goes Well With Beer

Satoshi Nishimura, Jonathan Clements and Shigeru Kitayama

Satoshi Nishimura has little round spectacles.

"Just like Vash the Stampede, people say. I get that all the time. They think I am doing permanent cosplay. But these are just my regular glasses."

He wants me to take his photograph outside the Glasgow Film Theatre, where his Trigun: Badlands Rumble is having its UK premier. If he were a live-action director, he'd order a boom and a dolly and knock through a couple of walls to get the shot. But because he works in anime, he is strangely conscientious about not upsetting the world around him.

I try to get him to stand in the middle of the road, so I can get frame the logo behind him; it's the only way anyone who sees the photo will actually know he's in Glasgow.

"But, the cars!" he hisses.

I look theatrically around me, at the depopulated side street. It's a Saturday, and there are no cars around.

He steps gingerly into the street and looks down at the white line in the middle of the road. And then he turns to the camera and gives me a big thumbs-up.

Nishimura is taken by the simple things in life. The festival organisers at Scotland Loves Anime have offered to take him to Loch Ness, Stirling, Kintyre, anywhere. But both he and his fellow visitor, Trigun's producer Shigeru Kitayama, have eschewed all tourist experiences in favour of glimpsing "real life". On his day off in Glasgow, Nishimura wanders the streets incognito, stocking up with joke-flavoured Halloween sweets to torment his minions back home, and soaking up the inscrutable occidental ambience.

"They have an alien drink in all the shops," he says, "It is orange, bright orange. And they say it is made in Scotland, from girders!"

Just as elements of everyday life in mundane anime seem so far removed from our own experience, Nishimura draws unexpected connections when taken far from home.

"An ambulance went past me on the main street," he adds. "The sirens here are totally different. It went nee-naw, nee-naw! It was just like the sound they make in Thunderbirds!"

Inside the darkened cinema, he waits anxiously during the movie's opening scene.

Someone titters at the onscreen action, and Nishimura permits himself a smile. Other audience members begin to laugh and enjoy themselves, and Nishimura visibly relaxes.

"It's not supposed to win any awards," he notes. "It's supposed to be consumed with beer and laughter." And now he's happy, too.

It takes almost an hour to shift the crowd outside. Nishimura and Kitayama willingly sign autographs, not so much for the adulation as for the chance to quiz the audience on their thoughts. The Trigun TV series ended 12 years ago, but anime can have a strange half-life in other countries, and still has an audience abroad.

A man reverently proffers a battered DVD box set, and tells Nishimura that he has saved it so that he can watch it again when his son is a little older.

"Please," says Nishimura, visibly touched, "watch it as father and son."

He hands back the box, and his eyes sparkle.

A man standing next to me sighs in annoyance.

"I should have thought of that," he mutters. "I downloaded it. Now I've got nothing for him to sign."

Jonathan Clements is the author of Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade. This article first appeared in NEO #79, 2010.

My Book of the Year

My reading this year has been all over the place, from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet to a new book on Mannerheim, to a literary biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, and oodles of Japanese-language books about the animation business.

In the meantime, among the dozens of books I read this year, there have been a few stand-out successes. I began the year nose-deep in Massimo Soumaré's Japan in Five Ancient Chinese Chronicles, a superb survey of the occurences of the term "Land of the Rising Sun" (and indeed "Hairy Dwarves of Wa") in mainland dynastic chronicles. Jamie Bisher's White Terror: Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian, is a gripping documentary history of the last survivors of Tsarist Russia as they fought a losing battle across Asia, along the length of a railway line that terminated in Vladivostok. It may form part of a book I am supposed to be writing next year, so it was a wonderful resource. I can't get enough of the White Russians, which added bonus excitement to my reading of Martin Booth's Gweilo: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood. I stumbled across Booth while Googling him as the original author of the George Clooney vehicle The American. But I stayed for Gweilo, in particular for its reminiscences of the "Queen of Kowloon", a senile, opium-addled vagrant in 1950s Hong Kong, who seemed to have once been a beautiful Tsarist duchess. Meanwhile, an interest in blockade runners (don't ask) led me to Eric Graham's Clyde Built: Blockade Runners, Cruisers and Armored Rams of the American Civil War, which retells the North-South conflict from the point of view of the Scottish shipbuilders and profiteers whose tricked-out steamers were smuggling supplies into the South from Bermuda.

But my 2010 Book of the Year was another part of my Scottish haul from ten days at the Scotland Loves Anime film festival. It's Scott-Land: The Man Who Invented a Nation by Stuart Kelly, a biography and "thanatography" of Sir Walter Scott. There are other books about Scott, but they all too often skirt around the issue that his books are unreadable. Kelly is a happily hostile witness to his subject, intrigued by the career and output of an author who was a global celebrity during his own lifetime, to the extent that his Edinburgh monument is still the largest memorial to an author anywhere in the world. And yet Scott today is largely unread, confined to the bargain bin of literary history, his works written off as risible whimsy, his style dismissed as florid and twee. That's where the thanatography comes in, with Kelly charting the fame and fortune of Scott after his death, with his works forming fundamental building blocks of the Scottish national identity, and indeed that of America - did you know that "Hail to the Chief" began as a song from an unauthorised musical, based on a Scott book about Highland bandits?

Kelly's book opens a fascinating window on the bestsellers of yesteryear, treating Scott as the tin-eared, ham-fisted, yet inexplicably popular Dan Brown of his day, as well as a cunning literary wheeler-dealer, whose ownership of his publisher's printing company allowed him to double-dip from his books' profits. Literary biography is fast becoming my favourite genre, as I unwind from writing my own books by reading about other people writing theirs. On which note, thanks to one publication being six months late, another being six months early, and a third being bang on time, I ended up publishing three books in the calendar year 2010: A Brief History of the Samurai, Admiral Togo: Nelson of the East, and A Brief History of Khubilai Khan. You'll have to keep busy with those, because if I publish a book at all in 2011, it won't be out until October. But there's already something on the slate for 2012, and for 2013, too, which seems far off in the future, even though I am already working on it. Other projects may slot in in the interim. In fact, one of the things that kept me busy in 2010 was the writing of large-scale proposals for big book projects for publication in 2014. See, planning ahead: no news on those yet, but why should there be when publishers wouldn't need delivery for another two years? If I were really smart, I would buy up 50% of a printing company, like Walter Scott.

Then again, Scott ended up losing his shirt. Maybe I should invest in print-on-demand instead…

2010: The Year in Anime Books

After so many positive responses to the round-up of anime reading last year, I thought I would continue with a brief precis of some of the anime books I have encountered in the ensuing twelve months.

Largely overlooked in Anglophone anime studies was Hu Tze-yue's Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building from Hong Kong University Press. For those who have read Hu's essay on Hakujaden in the journal Animation, this is more of the same, extending her conclusions out of the Toei era and into the careers of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Meanwhile, Toshie Takahashi made a valuable contribution to studies of TV in general with Audience Studies: A Japanese Perspective, which has given me some great ideas about the history of early anime on television. Andrew Osmond placed anime in an international context with his 100 Animated Feature Films for the British Film Insititute. Phaidon's Manga Impact was actually a book about anime, which says it all.

There were two excellent articles on Grave of the Fireflies and Space Cruiser Yamato, to be found in Stahl and Williams' Imag(in)ing the War in Japan: Representing and Responding to Trauma in Postwar Literature and Film. This year I also caught up with Ian Condry's 2009 essay 'Anime Creativity: Characters and Premises in the Quest for Cool Japan' in Theory, Culture & Society, worth noting here because it seems to be a fragment of a book-length work in progress. The same issue included Marc Steinberg's 'Anytime, Anywhere: Tetsuwan Atomu Stickers and the Emergence of Character Merchandizing,' continuing to ensure that the Astro Boy era is one of the best documented in anime studies. Mechademia put out another strong volume. Oh, and Schoolgirl Milky Crisis came out on the Kindle.

The 2006 Clements and McCarthy Anime Encyclopedia remains the largest and most comprehensive book in English about Japanese animation. However, if you can read Japanese, there is now an even bigger tome to bend your shelves, the 1000-page Stingray/Nichigai Associates Dictionary of Animation Works: the biggest book ever written on the subject. It's an odd work with rather short entries, omitting running times, for example, and concentrating instead on the origins of the anime discussed. This makes it an indispensable resource for anyone documenting the source material from which anime is made, as it lists the Japanese editions of Moomin books, the Bible and obscure children's classics. It also covers non-Japanese animation, with a total of over 6000 little entries. But I can't help wishing that it spent more time discussing the anime themselves, rather than vast bibliographies of the books related to them — a massive multi-volume list, for example, of Richard Burton's Arabian Nights translation, in order to point to the origins of Tezuka's 1001 Nights. Still, very handy, even at the astronomical cover price of $175.

In Japan, this year has been quiet in terms of big new books on the anime industry, although Toshio Okada got in just under the wire with his new warts-and-all memoir, Testament. This year, I have instead been reading many older books on anime history, including memoirs by Shinichi Suzuki, Yasuo Otsuka, Ryuichi Yokoyama, Tadahito Mochinaga, and Yoshiyuki Tomino. Meatiest among them was Eiichi Yamamoto's tell-all confessional, The Rise and Fall of Mushi Pro (1989). Written as Tezuka lay dying, it is a detailed analysis of the period from the early 1960s to the early 1970s, from the beginning of production on Tales from a Street Corner, up to the collapse of the studio in the wake of Tragedy of Belladonna. One wonders, perhaps, if now that Yoshinobu Nishizaki is dead, Yamamoto will write a sequel about the troubled 1970s in the anime world, during which he worked for Nishizaki on the Yamato series.

I also found much of interest in Nobuyuki Tsugata's 2007 study Japan's First Animation Creator: Kitayama Seitarō, a book which pieces together vital pieces of the anime puzzle from the 1920s and 1930s. Tsugata is the best author in the world on anime history matters, and this book is an amazing detective story. So little early animation survives that Tsugata has to piece together Kitayama's career from old magazine articles, wall charts enhanced and enlarged from the background of staff photographs, and odd sources such as the proceedings of the Federation of Japanese Dentists.

In the interests of leaving better testimonials for the Tsugatas of the future, the Madhouse studio continues to preserve production details and interviews of its newest films in its own rather pricey series. The Plus Madhouse series of creator-specific books have proved to be a mixed bag. Some, such as the volume on Rintaro (Shigeyuki Hayashi), fill in vital historical and personal gaps in our knowledge of the industry. Others… don't, and risk diluting the brand by becoming little more than puff pieces for someone's latest film.