The Rough Guide to Anime

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Author: Simon Richmond

Book Review
Many books purport to explain the world of anime to readers. Many of those get lost in the weeds of fandom or fly so high in the clouds they're no more useful than anime's Wikipedia entry.

Simon Richmond's The Rough Guide to Anime blew me away with its breadth, depth, and clarity.

Its first chapter, the 30-page "Anime Chronicles," leads the reader on an in-depth journey through anime's history, from the experimental cartoons of the early 1900's to today's world of Mamoru Hosoda's films and multimedia franchies like .hack (this edition was published in 2009). I learned quite a bit about anime during its formative years in the 1960's and 1970's. Richmond's style sings here, as he packs clear information into relatively few pages.

The second chapter is the longest, consuming nearly half of the book, and lists "The Canon" of the "50 greatest anime." Much as I cringe at this attempt to canonize works of art, as well as the existence of yet another "top X list," the author chose legitimately revolutionary, hugely popular, or otherwise remarkable works.

The third chapter returns to history and describes various anime studios and creators chronologically, dividing them into "waves." The first wave consists of early studios like Toei, Tatsunoko, Studio Pierrot, and Tezuka Productions. The second and third waves (oddly, both combined into one section) are made up of studios spawned by the first wave: Sunrise, Madhouse, Studio Ghibli, and Gainax. The fourth wave contains more modern studios like Gonzo, Production I.G., and Studio 4°C (I'm surprised that he neglects Kyoto Animation). We're then treated to three more lists: influential directors and their works, including lesser-known names like Gisaburou Sugii and Osamu Dezaki, major Japanese voice actors, and composers (which only has two major entries: Joe Hisaishi and Yoko Kanno).

The first half of this chapter focuses on studio history that is likely uninteresting to all but dedicated otaku. Meanwhile, the latter half isn't as useful to hardcore fans; we know most of the major names in anime. That's part of the nature of a rough guide, though; it's a mixed bag that offers information for a wide variety of readers.

We move on to "The Manga Connection," which describes manga's history in brief but satisfying detail, and describes the difficulties of translating manga to anime. And then we get another list: manga-ka whose work has been tapped deeply for anime (Rumiko Takahashi, Masamune Shirow, etc.).

"Decoding Anime" attempts to explain some of the peculiarly Japanese aspects of anime, from Shinto to Japanese folk tales. Unfortunately, while sidebars helpfully explain terms and influences, this chapter devolves into a list of titles categorized by genre, so it's more useful if you're looking for shows that match a particular genre.

The final two chapters describe some of the global events and groups inspired by anime, and point to further anime resources (web-based and otherwise). The former is most useful in showing to a skeptical parent to prove that anime's cultured, and the latter is most useful to those who aren't yet completely plugged into anime fandom. That's a bit harsh: I'd never heard of several of the sites listed.

Overall, The Rough Guide to Anime serves a rich buffet with a variety of flavors; at least something is bound to satisfy.