A MIGHTY TOME OF INFORMATION IMEASURABLE
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Finding an informative and concise book on Anime can be difficult and expensive. I was unsure if this book was simply a movie guide rather than a resource about Anime and its complex history and themes.
After taking the plunge I was pleasantly surprised to find this book to be both. There are an estimated three thousand entries, each giving specific information about a particular Anime such as themes, influences and a brief summary of the characters and stories. Each entry is fascinating in its own right providing a wealth of information that can be surprising, funny and a little strange, especially when looking at Anime such as Urotskidoji. Reading entries can be addictive as they are also linked to other Anime within the book that are similar or have other links such as being by the same director.
This revised and expanded edition also has Thematic Entries which provide the reader with a wealth of information on the various themes explored within Anime. This includes entries discussing Horror and Monsters, Comedy and Fantasy & Fairy tales. There are also other entries that explore the Anime industry itself such as Censorship and localization which are equally as fascinating as those entries discussing Science Fiction and Robots.
This book is a must own for any fan of Japanese Animation. The entries about each individual Anime are clear, concise and well written providing the reader with invaluable information. The Thematic entries help make this book an indispensable guide and help put the numerous entries in to context. Each Thematic entry can vary in length from half a page to several pages, yet each entry provides clear and detailed information about an industry that is full of strange and wonderful ideas. A truly fantastic book that you will read for hours and hours and hours....
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Amazing, for now :)
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I have only purchased this book today and so should probably take time to consider its usefulness, but at first glances it seems to deliver exceedingly well on expectations.
I have been a fan of anime since 2003 now so I have had some time to familiarise myself with quite a few titles, from fairly well known ones like Ghibli's to lesser knowns I've stumbled across from friends or random showings at conventions. This book's listed all the one's I can think of, and plenty more besides. Not all get pages and pages of text, but hey, you can't expect the authors to have watched and deeply analysed EVERYTHING, and there's a lot of interesting and enlightening stuff here.
There's a slight review in many of the descriptions, usually enough to serve as a warning or reccomendation. Personally I'm really enjoying the commentary, I think it's quite funny in parts... but then if you've watched much anime you'll know it can be quite hard to do a significant number of descriptions seriously, and when you include more adult anime - well, it was surreal enough already.
There's also some commentry on themes of anime and other stuff, which is probably really interesting and useful for people properly interested, but I've spent most of my time looking up anime I've watched so far. I did read a bit about ratings of anime (as in people tuned in, or however it's measured these days). That was very illuminating, I'd always assumed anime must be highly rated in Japan, and also I completely bought that GTO (live action) was the highest rated series in Japan. Surprise!
But really, this is a very good book, and VERY UP TO DATE considering others I've read. It's up to sometime in 2006: 1917 to 2006 doesn't seem a bad span to me!
I can imagine a book like this might confuse a newcomer to anime, given the amount of content. But also, each description will ususally contain a mention of an anime of similar plot or style, giving thozse exploring the genre a bit of a tour, without having to ask the advice of someone else who m,ight have COMPLETELY different tastes?
Anyway, like I've said, I've only had this book a day, so maybe I'm speaking to soon. All I know is that having had it this long has given me more motivation to write a review than I think I've had in a long time.
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