Wise Turtle Publishing

Hello guys,

A quick new thread from me here, just an idea I've had this week. I noticed once again how many interesting-sounding professional research books have been published in English about anime, i.e. books written by cultural researchers, art critics, journalists, lecturers on Japanese Studies, essayists, and plain old film buffs.

The last couple of years have luckily seen a new wave of scholarly research. Every now and then I really regret I'm not in college anymore and can't just immerse myself in all those tomes as much as I would like to sometimes.

Anyway, I've made a list of titles here. Is anyone on this forum familiar with any of the following books (except the two or three that are forthcoming, I've included those as recommendations FYI ...)?

Any of the following you could send me a few comments on?


Christopher Bolton et al. (ed.) Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime
(University of Minnesota Press, 2007)

Roland Kelts. Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S.
(B&T, 2008)

Mark Wheeler Macwilliams. Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime
(M.E. Sharpe, 2008)

Gilles Poitras. The Anime Companion: What's Japanese in Japanese Animation?
(Stone Bridge Press, 1998)

Patrick Drazen. Anime Explosion: The What? Why? and Wow! of Japanese Animation
(Stone Bridge Press, 2002)

Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy. The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation since 1917
(Titan Books Ltd., 2007)

Trish Ledoux, Doug Ranney, and Fred Patten. The Complete Anime Guide: Japanese Animation Film Directory and Resource Guide
(Tiger Mountain Press, 1997)

Andrea Baricordi, Massimiliano De Giovanni, Andrea Pietroni, Barbara Rossi, und Sabrina Tunesi. Anime: A Guide to Japanese Animation, 1958 - 1988
(Protoculture, 2000)

Any insights and reviews are definitely welcome!

Only one I have read from this list was the Anime Companion and part of Poitras' other books. I've also browsed an old edition of Napier's From Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation (previously Akira to Princess Mononoke). It's a very dense, scholastic read that bored me at length, but it had interesting thoughts and might be right up your alley.

I've also heard Dreamland Japan repeatedly recommended, though I believe its focus is on manga instead of anime.

Thanks, Clay.

I have Dreamland Japan by Fred Schodt at home, but have never read all of it, kind of browsed it years ago. Yes, it is all about manga and manga anthology magazines, discussing famous cases from manga history, including scandals and controversial ones like the manga comics published for the outlawed Aum Shinrikyo sect (the cult that was behind the 1995 Tokyo subway nerve gas attacks).

A shorter, less scholastic book that concentrates on animation is Antonia Levi's Samurai From Outer Space. Not a bad read, but only a handful of 1980s anime are thoroughly discussed, like Ranma 1/2 and Bubblegum Crisis.