Amazon.com
In this important book, Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy present an enormous amount of information about 2,000 series and features, detailing their plots and relationships to other anime properties. In these areas, the book is definitive, and readers can only wish a comparable volume existed for American animation. The authors are less sure about non-Japanese influences (Cowboy Bebop owes more to noir detective films than to Route 66), and they focus more on storylines and the business of anime than on visuals. They don't discuss the influence of American Saturday morning TV on early anime designs (Speed Racer, the component series of Robotech) or the art nouveau styling in Revolutionary Girl Utena. The editorial evaluations are much harsher than McCarthy's The Anime Movie Guide: some of the most popular anime series in America--Tenchi, Evangelion, Ranma 1/2--receive sharp criticism. The result is a book that anime fans will either love or love to argue with. --Charles Solomon
Book Description
Bigger and better! Our first edition rocked the anime world with its in-depth entries on anime famous and obscure and its superb index/film finder. Now this fantastic book is 40 percent larger-with all-new entries on hundreds of anime released after 2001, updates on older entries, and over fifty thousand words on anime creators (like Tezuka and Otomo) and genres ("Early Anime," "Science Fiction and Robots," etc.). An absolute must-have for every anime shelf!
Customer Reviews:
Only as good as the latest edition.......2007-05-14
There haven't been any major format changes or content revisions since the prior edition. More content has simply been added, which is fine, I suppose.
It's a fun encyclopedia for browsing and perhaps stumbling across an anime you'd never heard of before. However, due to the haphazard and inconsistent amount of detail provided on each entry I wouldn't really recommend this as a serious research tool.
Bought it as a gift........2007-03-20
The friend I bought this book for has not put it done since.
I recommend this book especially if you are buying it as a gift and know nothing about Anime.
You cannot go wrong.
Good idea, bad execution.......2006-08-12
The idea of a book like this was a great one, and the fact is you are able to find out about a lot of anime in this book that are completely overlooked, not just by companies in the US, but fansubbers as well. The book sure is epic, and covers an absurd amount of stuff.
That said, this is a severly flawed book. First off, the amount of errors in this book is absurd. Its obvious that the authors are completely unfamiliar with many of the animes in this book, and have not seen many of them. Take just one example, Space Runaway Ideon, which contains by my count, 5 errors:
1)The book claims it has 38 episodes, it actually has 39.
2)The book claims the second movie recaps episodes 35 to 38, it actually recaps the final episode and then features all new footage
3)The book describes a character as a pilot when they are not one
4)The book states that multiple adults are children
5)The book claims one of the characters pilots the Ideon when they don't
Or how about Angel's Egg, which the book states is 101 minutes when its actually only 71 minutes? And the book states one of the characters kills themself when the character is shown clearly still alive at the end of the film.
As has been mentioned in other reviews, the book lumps entire franchises together, not giving them enough space. The various Gundam series for example are barely given a sentence since they're all grouped into one section.
The author's bias at times is absurd. For example, the labelling of every single mecha show after 1995 as an Eva ripoff, no matter how different the show is from Eva. They bash many shows with little to back up their argument.
I have a tough time recommending this one. Use the internet instead, you'll get more objective and factual help.
the seventh wonder of the anime world.......2004-11-05
if the first wonder of the anime world is astro boy
osamu tezuka the second
akira the third
hayao miyazaki the fourth
ninja scroll the fifth
ghost in the shell the sixth
then this book is the seventh.
full of useful and really appreciated information about the diverse and colorful world of anime. you'll get mostly everything you want to know about your favourite anime. from writer to director to animator to studios to the english and japanese titles and date of production.plus the enjoyable and amazing information of the cross-references. every few pages you turn in this book you discover an anime you saw ,heard about or looking for.which makes reading this book a long and very enjoyable read.
written by jonathan clements. a former editor of manga max magazine and contributing editor to the online edition of newtype.
and helen mccarthy .a founding editor of anime uk/fx magzine and subsequently editor of manga mania. she is also the author of anime! a beginners guide.which was the first english language book on the medium.
both authors won the japan festival award for outstanding contribution to the understanding of japanese culture.
the writers deserve more credit than the half page about the authors ,in the last page of this book.
this book is a cherished property no anime fan can resist owning.
the ultimate anime guide.......2004-02-13
This is the only one of my college text books that I hung onto last year when it was all over. Why? Because i love it so much. It has something contentious or fascinating to say about most of the anime in the world, and it draws the most incredible links; the authors really know their film, TV and popular culture references, which is a refreshing change from certain other authorities, who have either watched no anime at all, or nothing *but* anime. Either way Clements and McCarthy beat them all. Before this book, anime was a wasteland.
Amazon.com
In the West, Japanese culture comes in the form of Power Rangers, Godzilla movies, and Sanrio products, but of course the indigenous pop culture is much richer. Rather than focus on what the rest of the world has already encountered, Mark Schilling provides an encyclopedic compendium of books, movies, music, comedians, and cultural scandals that have had the greatest impact in Japan. Thus, for the outsider, The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture is an insider's guide to post-war Japan. Not content to simply catalog his entries, Schilling provides real depth and analysis in his articles, opening up Japan's rich pop heritage to the world at large.
Book Description
In the West, Japanese culture comes in the form of Power Rangers, Godzilla movies, and Sanrio products, but of course the indigenous pop culture is much richer. Rather than focus on what the rest of the world has already encountered, Mark Schilling provides an encyclopedic compendium of books, movies, music, comedians, and cultural scandals that have had the greatest impact in Japan. Thus, for the outsider, The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture is an insider's guide to post-war Japan. Not content to simply catalog his entries, Schilling provides real depth and analysis in his articles, opening up Japan's rich pop heritage to the world at large.
Customer Reviews:
Japan is always not anime culture........2005-01-11
Everybody of the world may know Hayao Miyazaki's animation movies because his movie won an Academy Award. On the other hands, forigners may have the thought that Japan is a developing country on animation genre. But true Japan charm never finish by only that off course.
The Japanese uniqueness expand to many genres, anime, TV culture, movie, manga, music...
Comics are called Manga in Japan. The manga culture started after World War 2 mainly, the flame work as manga was made by Osamu Teduka(he is no alive now). His famouse manga is Tetsuwan Atomu. The main story is very simple that the main character Atom(robot) beat the evil character. But the age that the manga was published was 1950'. At those days, people worked very hard in debris because the time after WW2 had finished was very short. Atomu was a hero for such hard workers in poverty.
Even now Teduka is a hero for all Japanese manga or anime creaters, for all Japanese even. That reason is always not just the pioneer on the genre, he included hisself messages to his mangas always, for instance anti war philosophy, the opinion for environmental destruction and so on.. By doing such things, manga became to be not just fun genre.
Or as Japanese unique comic genre, there are Syoujo comic(comics for girls). The genre is very unique Japan only. The most famouse manga may be Berusaiyu No Bara. The main theme was Europian knights story in the Middle Ages of France. By using beautiful atmosphere like old France style or pure love story of knights, the creaters tempted girls very well. Japanese girls want such pure love story manga in some cases. Though I do not know the detail emotion because of a man, they may do the imaginary romance in such manga. The tendency have not change until now.
Japanese movies are unique genre in Japan too. Some foreigners may know the name Takeshi Kitano who won Europian movie awards. Japanese movie genre is variouse so that I can not explain by one word. When I dare to explain, the most famouse theme is Yakuza story(Japanese gangu). Off course some Japanese feel fears to Yakuza. But on the other hands, some Japanese watch Yakuza movies. On Yakuza world, the relationship between up and down posiion is very important. For instance, in the some movie, low position yakuza say"I can die for senior yakuzas", that is, absolute loyalty exict in Yakuza world.
Such unique stance will tempt some Japanese watcher, in the age that such stance is being lost, whether the stance is bad or not.
Thank you for reading poor English.
pop culture encyclopedia = contradiction in terms.......2003-04-12
it's not possible. It just is -not- possible to do a pop culture encyclopedia no matter how hard one tries to. If you're going to do one, though, the key ingredients are to pick the lasting phenomenas and to assure your reader there's a depth in it worth covering.
Schilling doesn't cover most of what I remember from Japan. He doesn't cover rock music. He doesn't cover kogaru. He doesn't cover ramune or pocky. Honestly, on an encounter level with other similar books I've found myself insulted by the lack of knowledge presented in their so-called "encyclopedia". But with what he covers, he covers it well and authoratatively and with an expressed but not hideously overt sense of irony about the entire situation.
I've found myself keeping it for a reference piece because what he does cover tends to get incorporated into a lot of what he doesn't.
A good attempt.......2000-12-12
Before you purchase this book, as yourself, "when have I ever seen a review of popular culture that covered everything?" The answer, probably, is never, and if so, this book won't change that. The author states as much in the introduction. Having said that, the book is very good at what it attempts to do, namely give novice readers a basic understanding of the key elements of Japanese popular culture in the post-War era. A book which covered every fad, popular music group, TV program and movie during that time period would be larger than several phone books and would have a hard time selling. What this book does well is describe, in a fair amount of detail, the important cultural icons, from Misora Hibari and Sazae-san, through Pink Lady and Doraemon, ending with SMAP and Sailor Moon. If you're looking for a primer on Japanese pop culture over the last 50 years, this is the book. If you already have deep personal knowledge or are interested in only one thing (like anime), you may be disappointed. One other small problem with the book is that because it is in print form, the information is fixed in time, but Japanese culture goes on. In other words, some of the stuff in this book is dated. The concept of the book might better be served by a web site, but I doubt that Mr. Schilling could make a profit with such a site. If anybody decides to try though, please let me know. I'd visit!
Japanese popular culture you might not know about.......2000-10-27
Instead of cataloging the people and subcultures on the commercial fringe that Americans and other non-Japanese may be more familiar with, Schilling takes care to give the reader a broad view of actual Japanese pop culture from the post-WWII period through the mid-nineties. As to the criticism that Schiller chose to leave many things out of his encyclopedia: any other 320 page encylopedia on pop culture that spanned fifty years would be much the same. As Schiller says himself in the Introduction, "The book could easily have contained twice as many articles, but I tried to put more emphasis on depth than breadth of coverage ..." I feel I now have a better understanding of Japanese 20th century pop culture, not just of the quirky, fringe, or subcultural elements that happen to make their way to other countries or have a large presence on the internet.
Terrible.......2000-09-29
This book is a disgrace to Japanese pop culture. I lived in Japan for 28 years before I moved here to America last year, and I remember there being a lot more than that. There was no color, some pictures were difficult to make out, and the author was very sloppy on the outline. I would rate this book a zero if I could.
Average customer rating:
- A fun book for English speaking J-dorama enthusiasts
- A unique and useful resource
- Great content but useless to the Japanese
- Comprehensive, but...
- Finally a book for Japanese dorama fans!!!
|
The Dorama Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese TV Drama Since 1953
Jonathan Clements , and
Motoko Tamamuro
Manufacturer: Stone Bridge Press
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Similar Items:
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The Couch Potato's Guide to Japan: Inside the World of Japanese TV
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The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917, Revised and Expanded Edition
ASIN: 1880656817 |
Book Description
Deeply connected to Japanese anime, manga, music, and film is . . . Japanese TV. This encyclopedic survey of the next cultural tsunami to hit America has over one thousand entries-including production data, synopses, and commentaries-on everything from rubber-monster shows to samurai drama, from crime to horror, unlocking an entire culture's pop history as never before. Over one hundred fifty of these shows have been broadcast on American TV, and more will follow, perhaps even such oddball fare as a Japanese "The Practice" and "Geisha Detective." Indexed, with resources for fans, couch potatoes, and researchers.
Jonathan Clements is contributing editor to Newtype USA Magazine and coauthor of The Anime Encyclopedia.
Motoko Tamamuro is an art historian and contributor to Manga Max.
Customer Reviews:
A fun book for English speaking J-dorama enthusiasts.......2006-05-24
This is a really entertaining book for native English speaking J-dorama enthusiasts. It suffers a bit from deculturalisation, going so fas as to invent English titles for shows that have never been translated either officially or as fansubs instead of using romaji and parenthesized English.
I also find it a little irritating that fansubs are nowhere mentioned in this book, since there are many more J-dorama that have been fansubbed than there are officially authorised translations. I am sure the authors realise that without the fansub community there would be no market for their book, making the omission doubly baffling.
Excellent fan produced subtitle sets for J-Dorama series that will never see official release outside of Japan can be downloaded from D-Addicts.com.
A unique and useful resource.......2005-12-21
Thank you for the Dorama Encyclopedia. I am an avid fan of Japanese dorama and have been watching them subtitled in English for over 20 years. I was very excited to find out about this book. It really is the only "hardcopy" reference resource I know of for dorama.
It's true the doramas are listed by their English titles, but the Japanese title is also given and is referenced in the index. I've used this guide to look up descriptions of a show and information like the original broadcast station, year it was broadcast, cast, number of episodes, theme song etc.
True, you can find a lot of this information on the internet, but even an internet junkie like me can look up information a lot faster with this guide. And there are many, many entries in this book that you will just not find on the internet.
One thing I would like to see in future guides are category lists. For instance, shows categorized as comedies, romance, horror, family drama, etc. Or by favorite actor, actress, or producer. It would help someone find shows in a genre they like or avoid ones they dislike.
This book is an interesting supplemental reference guide for the dorama fan.
Great content but useless to the Japanese.......2005-10-06
I recently purchased the book after hearing about it the last couple of years. A little about myself... I'm an active drama researcher and contributor to the English-speaking Japanese drama community on both the Internet and in my home state of Hawaii. I'm very active on the DramaWiki, a drama-specific wiki system where we try to document as many trendy and other types of dramas as we can. This DORAMA book is a great resource if you're looking for detailed information on a given drama. But, I find the book very weak when it comes to retaining the original Japanese feel. For example, virtually all the drama titles used are the English versions. It would be much more valuable to the purists like myself if the writers at least included a cross-reference appendix listing the Romaji and English names (ex: "Hoshi no Kinka" is "Heaven's Coins".) Also, the book is very weak on NHK dramas, such as the Asadora and Taiga dramas. And, I really don't know why tokusatu and sentai shows were included in the book. For me, I'd rather have a separate book focusing on kids shows, and keep this book's focus on the REAL dramas you would coin the phrase DORAMA with. To be honest, you'll find much more accurate and complete data on the Internet, via systems like JDorama.com or D-Addicts.com, rather than reading 2nd-rate collected data from two anime writers.
Comprehensive, but..........2004-05-03
This is an interesting concept. I'm a big drama fan, and I never thought there'd be an English language book about them. I like how detailed and comprehensive this book was. The main gripe I have is that series are listed under the English translations of their titles. You can look up the original Japanese title (in romaji) in the index, but it's an extra step you shouldn't have to take, especially since translations of the titles can be inconsistent. I rarely see series listed by their English translations online too.
Finally a book for Japanese dorama fans!!!.......2003-12-29
This is the book that Japanese drama fans have been waiting for. As a fan and also a creator of the online J!-ENT Japanese Dorama Database, it is a real pleasure to see a book not only covering Japanese drama but also sentai and including anime references for the anime fans who have discovered Japanese dramas. Within the last five years, there has been a significant Japanese dorama boom in many countries thanks to the growing popularity of anime, Japanese music and Japanese/Asian entertainment. Although Japanese drama is not readily available as Japanese animation or Asian cinema on DVD, there is a growing fandom for dramas thanks to the International channels, Japanese rental stores, fan-trading/subbing, BT and VCD's. What I like about this book is that it has something for everyone. For fans looking for information on trendy Japanese dramas, the very long duration NHK and TBS dramas (especially those samurai/historical dramas), sentai and of course, dramas within the last fifty years, I was very impressed how the authors handled and included them in this book. What I worried about the most was the translation or the titles that would be used for the drama because what other countries have used as their English title for a Japanese drama has nothing to do with the translated title and thus, I was happy by the way this book handled that. One thing that also impressed me is the author and Stone Book Press's dedication to update the encyclopedia (there are dramas missing and a few errors but they are not as numerous and can be fixed in the next version especially with the input from readers). For a freshman book, it actually surpassed what I was expecting and I highly recommend the purchase of this book. So, may you be the trendy drama fan like me or the fan who just watched the live version of GTO or You're Under Arrest and are hooked and want more! This book is THE ONLY SOURCE that you will find this much information on Japanese dramas.-KNDY
Customer Reviews:
Almost Perfect.......2002-03-20
This is absolutly one of the bibles for anyone into strange cinema. Whilst the book has its faults (hence not a full 5 star rating) it does provide a major survey of a little regarded (even in Japan)aspect of world cinema. It contains details of so many mouthwatering films, that one feels compelled to foregive the numerous mistakes in the film synopsise. However the main difficulty with this book is that films are listed under the literal translation of their Japanese titles, so be prepared to examine your video cases to try and work out what title the film is listed under (a cross index of titles in English/ International release titles would be v. welcome). Having said that it is an utterly invaluable volume, which sets a benchmark for the rest of the Weissers' series. Recommended for anyone into World Cinema not just exploitation anoraks!
STUNNING ACHIEVMENT!.......2000-05-09
This book, by Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser of Asian Cult Cinema fame, takes on the "Pink Film" era with an unprecedented scope. The era of the "Pink Films," one of cultural and artistic daring and experimentation in Japan, has hardly been chronicled in the English language, but this book solves that problem! The book is a giant volume, filled with reviews and articles. The Weissers made it their intent to catalog every "Pink Film" that had a theatrical release, and they come as close to doing that as possible! Add to that the intelligent, thought-provoking articles on the history of the medium and an introduction by "Pink Film" star of stars, Naomi Tani, and the result is an absolutely stunning achievement in film history and criticism! A must-have work for any Japanese film completist.
Customer Reviews:
good concept, but book too loaded with errors!.......2004-03-09
This would have been a very interesting book but there are simply too many factual and typographical errors to recommend it. As far as I'm concerned, the book's only redeeming value is in the cross-listings given in each entry, which allow basic navigation through this genre for those who are new to it.
A great work of fiction!.......2003-02-07
Did Thomas Weisser actually watch any of these movies before writing about them? I find that hard to believe as I've managed to track down a lot of these films, only to find them completely different than his reviews. Weisser's never had much credibility - this just continues to add to his legend.
From The Author Of Asian Cult Cinema - An Outrage.......1999-08-30
I really wonder about this author. He professes to love the Asian cinema so much yet what he writes about Asian men and women tend to be degrading. Regarding women, the author obsesses on appearance rather than acting ability. As for men, he has a tendency to lump them into a faceless, violent, crazed mass. I'm not really sure if this author means it or not, but his books have the feeling of borderline racism or voyeurism disguised as movie reference books. The subject of Asian cinema deserves much better than this and Asian people should be outraged.
Good reference, some gaps.......1999-06-28
Here is a shining little star in the otherwise empty universe of the Japanese Cinema reference books. Why a "little" star? And who is the reader? For serious buffs ("otakus" of Japanese movies) it contains not enough infos, and has too many gaps (where, for example, is "Kujakuoh"?) On the other hand, in case of beginners of the genre, it is almost sealed by the red tape. Personally, I enjoyed it, but what about the others?
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