Book Review: Watching Anime, Reading Manga
Skwigly
With the interest in Japanese animation (anime) becoming a world-wide phenomenon, by both professionals of the animation industry and countless fans, it’s not too hard to find people who write about and research the subject. But Fred Patten was there first. He has been writing on anime long before the interest in it became a world-wide phenomenon. He’s been writing on anime long before it became a cult phenomenon. In fact, he’s been writing about anime long before it became a phenomenon anywhere outside Japan.
Patten’s new book, “Watching Anime, Reading Manga”, collects essays, reviews and articles written over a period of twenty-five years, on the subject of Japanese animation and comics (despite the title, however, the “Watching Anime” part is definitely more dominant in the book). It’s packed with historical overviews, items on upcoming titles and growing of anime fandom, creators’ profiles, and a look at the author’s favorite titles. While many fans will probably find themselves disagreeing with some of Patten’s opinions (especially his support of anime producer/distributor Carl Macek, who wrote the introduction for the book), it would be impossible for them to ignore the fact that he pretty much single-handedly pioneered anime journalism as we know it. And he did a very good job at it, too: Patten’s writing is clear, informative, interesting, and it doubtlessly played an important part in bringing many people into the field.
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Being a pioneer also means making mistakes. When Patten started writing, there was no internet, almost nothing written on the subject in English texts, and very few sources in Japan that could provide information in English on anime. So, inevitably, factual errors found their way into his writing. For the pieces included in the book, Patten chose not to correct these errors, but to add each one of these pieces a text box detailing what went wrong with it and why. While this is a commendable decision, it also brings up some of the more frustrating aspects involved in reading the book. When reading about a subject like the history of anime, I’m looking for relevant information. If it means sacrificing the original form of the article and presenting a re-written version, than it’s a sacrifice I’ll gladly make. This brings up another problem: there are many repeats throughout the book. A lot of the features included in the book (pretty much all the early ones, but surprisingly, a few recent ones as well) were aimed toward readers who had no idea what anime is, and required explanations. So there is a lot of introductory material. Problem is, it repeats itself in the following article. And in the one that follows it. And in the next one. It gets tedious fast: including just one of these articles for old times’ sake and moving on would have been better.
However, as mentioned before, there are many interesting pieces within the book. Highlights include a very personal account of Patten’s acquaintance with the “God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka, a lively report from the press conference held with anime auteur Hayao Miyazaki, celebrating the US release of his film “Spirited Away”, behind the scenes features on recent hits like “Metropolis”, “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust” and “Blood: The Last Vampire”, historical analysis of such classics as “Gigantor” and “Astro-Boy”, and Patten’s personal view on the sometimes-negative public image of anime, and how to deal with it. Perhaps most impressive is the 40-pages essay, written exclusively for the book, covering the Kimba-Simba controversy (when accusations were made claiming that Disney’s mega-hit film “Lion King” was a rip-off of the anime classic “Kimba the White Lion”). While not really bringing any fresh perspective on the subject – which is probably impossible, considering it’s been discussed to death, too many times already – this essay is perhaps the most complete and balanced piece written on it.
“Watching Anime, Reading Manga” could have benefited from a better editing job – a more careful picking of what will be included, and some re-writing of existing material. Nonetheless, it does contain many gems written by one of the leading anime experts. You’ll just have to do some digging in order to find them.
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