By Zoe Crombie. Since its initial release in 2013, Jonathan Clements’ Anime: A History has served as a unique resource for anyone looking to contextualise their love of anime. The just-published new edition elucidates this complex history further with newly added sections on timely conversations around the medium. Refreshingly, Clements’ book doesn’t adhere to the […]
Oct 20, 2023 • Subscribe
More like this
Books: The History of Sushi
By Jonathan Clements. Eric C. Rath observes that in the anime series Sushi Police, fish are portrayed weeping at the injustices done to them by culinary criminals. Luckily,…
Books: History of Modern Manga
By Jonathan Clements. “The history of manga,” notes the back-cover blurb for Matthieu Pinon and Laurent Lefebvre’s new book, “is inextricably tied to Japan’s social, economic, political, and…
Books: History of Chinese Animation
By Jonathan Clements. Released as part of a Routledge series of translations of Chinese scholarship, Sun Lijun’s two-volume History of Chinese Animation is the largest work yet published…
Books: A Development Strategy…
By Jonathan Clements. In 2011, Steve Jobs signed the death warrant on Adobe’s popular Flash software, with an open letter to the developers, citing security issues and the…
Books: Crunchyroll Essential Anime
By Andrew Osmond. As long as new fans are stepping tentatively into anime, there’ll always be a need for an up-to-date guidebook, helping them tell their moe from…
A Brief History of Anime Power Systems
"Make a fun little video on shonen power systems" I said. "It'll be quick and easy" I said. Sponsored by DLSite & Secret With Sophia. Get the FREE PC…
Books: Ascendance of a Bookworm
By Jonathan Clements. And then a pile of books fell on top of her, and she was dead. That can’t possibly be the beginning of a tale, can…
A History of Takarazuka Revue Influences in Anime
The Takarazuka Revue's theatrical adaptation of Rose of Versailles and other plays have been profoundly influential on the aesthetics and narratives of Japanese shoujo stories. ZeroReq011 looks at…
A Brief History of Anime Penguins – PART TWO!!
In the light of Polar Bear’s Cafe and it’s high Penguin content, it’s time to look back once again at the penguins through the history of anime. CHECK…
Books: Ghibliotheque Anime Movie Guide
By Andrew Osmond. Last year saw Ghibliotheque: The Unofficial Guide to the Movies of Studio Ghibli, a book by the hosts of the popular Ghibliotheque podcast, which I…
Books: Anime Streaming Platform Wars
By Jonathan Clements. Sneaked out this week by Concordia University’s Platform Lab, Anime Streaming Platform Wars might sound like an oddly business-focussed computer game, but is actually a…
A History of Murder
detective fiction, 推理小説、games, mystery, murder, locked room, Japanese, translations,
Anime History Time Dilation
2006 was about 5 years ago, right?
My History with Anime
Hello to all guys, gals, and enby pals. I am 7Mononoke, but you can call me Mono. For new readers who might discover me, as well as anyone…
Exploring Anime Boston's History
►DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE! --- People interviewed for this video: Lou Arruda, Greg Ayres, Chris Beveridge, Christian Daly, Patrick Delahanty, Samantha Ferreira, Jenna Leary, Brian T. Price, Mike Toole, Doug Wilder,…
Not a Fan of E-Books
I’m watching Skull Face Bookseller Honda-san / Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san on VRV / Crunchyroll. It’s a slice-of-life anime, with some comedy sprinkled in. I love bookstores, so I…
A New Decade of Anime: A History with Author Jonathan Clements
Historian Jonathan Clements discusses the advent of artificial intelligence, what fractured the Chinese-Japanese anime investment pipeline, and the buying power of otaku.
[Anime News Network] “A History of Takarazuka Revue Influences in Anime”
Non-management: I’ve always been fascinated by the intersectional synthesis of cultures, which partly explains why I find the Taisho period such an aesthetic delight. Western culture meets Ja…
A Woman Behind History: Kitanomandokoro
Kitanomandokoro was the first wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the men who helped unify Japan during the Warring States period. Kitanomandokoro proves an interesting person, namely…
Abortion In Japan: A History
A look at how abortion in Japan evolved throughout the ages, from a financial necessity to a call for the acknowledgment of women's rights.
Books & Sake
「高円寺古本酒場ものがたり」狩野俊 Story of Koenji Books & Sake, by Suguru Karino The “Story of Koenji Books & Sake” is Suguru Karino’s account of how he started a bookstore and…
Books: Sexiled
By Shelley Pallis. Tanya is twenty-five years old. She’s got half a decade of adventuring behind her, looting treasure from dungeons, spell-casting to protect her friends from goblins…
Books & Sake
「高円寺古本酒場ものがたり」狩野俊 Story of Koenji Books & Sake, by Suguru Karino The “Story of Koenji Books & Sake” is Suguru Karino’s account of how he started a bookstore and…
Books: Ghibliotheque
By Andrew Osmond. The Ghibliotheque podcast started in 2018, and soon became an institution. It offered a journey through the films of Studio Ghibli, presented by Michael Leader…
Books: Orienting
By Jonathan Clements. “My stay here has been so short,” said Rabindranath Tagore to Japanese students in 1916, “that one may think I have not earned my right…
Anime & History | Fabiola | Black Lagoon
An anime video essay analyzing Fabiola from Black Lagoon, and her ties to the history of Venezuela and Capoeira. Black Lagoon, the 2006 anime from Hiroe’s manga by the…
The History of Anime & Japan
Anime or Japanese Animation (アニメ) is perhaps one of the most influential forms of media in the modern world. It has a history spaning over a century and…
Books: A Lily Blooms in Another World
By Shelley Pallis. In a refreshing change from all those light novels that begin with someone dying, Ameko Kaeruda’s A Lily Blooms in Another World has something different.…
Books: My Next Life as a Villainess
by Jeannette Ng. Probably one of the most successful of the fast-growing “reborn as a villainess” subgenre of stories, My Next Life as a Villainess by Satoru Yamaguchi…
Books: I Could Never be a Succubus
By Shelley Pallis. The story of I Could Never be a Succubus begins with a striking Gotterdammerung, as a bold hero and an evil demon lord fight for…
Inu-Oh: A Japanese History Musical
Man, I really hate seeing adaptations of stuff before reading the source material. The phrase “the book is better than the film” cannot be truer in the anime…
Learning Japanese Through Subculture: A History
Whenever I go to classes, pubs, or restaurants, friends and classmates often asked me what kind of books I read. I would take out some bunko I’ve been…
Outlanders: A Divided History | KYOTO VIDEO
In 1986, an anime flopped in its home country. Years later, it became a big-selling title off the momentum of being one of the first official manga releases…
Tokyo Roses: A History & Growing Guide
Get to know some of the most beautiful made-in-Japan roses as well as the history of roses in Japan.
A Brief History of Shoujo Isekai
Today we're taking a look at shoujo isekai, where it started and where it is now. Special thank you to Gaby on my discord who helped me collect some…
A brief history of Kaname Pro
Unlike other great and influential studios with a distinct animation philosophy, like A Pro, Ghibli, Sunrise or Kyoto Animation, the Kanada school never had a single, durable place…
Dallos, Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Once Upon A Time
Books: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
By Shelley Pallis. And we’re off again, sucked into the world of an online game, and forced to remain there, sorry-not-sorry to discover that we have all sorts…
Books: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom
By Shelley Pallis. And with an abrupt rip, like a needle scratching on a record, Kazuya is suddenly spirited away to a medieval kingdom under attack by a…
Small History and Big History
History has two different and related types: small and big. Big history is what you learn in school. It’s the major events of the past: the American Revolution,…
An Illustrated History of Anime Penguins
Here is a video of the panel I ran at Ayacon this year based on these posts from this very website. Eventually there will be a third post…
My anime viewing history, 2021 edition
I posted versions of this graph back in 2017 and 2018… Seems I haven’t updated it since then… So I thought it might be fun to do so.…
The GREATEST Fight In Anime History!
Hold up. Let me cook with this one! Got a little personal by the end, and I meant every word! #fatestaynight #fategrandorder #anime Thanks for watching! Music in…
Books: Japanese Drinking
By Shelley Pallis. Masaaki Watanabe’s anime series Bartender is part of a long tradition of TV shows about smart loners who help others in secret. Its leading man…
Books: Spirit Chronicles
By Shelley Pallis. Yuri Kitayama’s Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles has several different beginnings, and to be frank, I am not sure that it has stopped beginning yet, even…
Books: Otherside Picnic
By Shelley Pallis. Sorawo Kamikoshi is a loner, a twenty-year-old nerd studying cultural anthropology at a Saitama university, whose hobby is exploring spooky places. Nor are these randomly…
Books: Tearmoon Empire
By Jonathan Clements. Then she woke up, and it was all a dream. Or was it? The teenage princess Mia Luna Tearmoon vividly recalls being eight years older,…
Books: Hell Mode
By Shelley Pallis. Kenichi is a gamer suffering from that common modern malaise, a frustration with games that make life too easy for him. He’s just spent three…
Books: Monster Kids
By Jonathan Clements. In his lively new book Monster Kids: How Pokémon Taught a Generation to Catch Them All, Daniel Dockery talks us through the original plans in…
The Best Books
Buying books, especially old books, is a fascination and my biggest weakness. I love the old wear and tear on antiques, and sitting and pondering where the scraped…
Books: Anime’s Identity
By Jonathan Clements. Stevie Suan’s new book, Anime’s Identity, cannot resist telling a story from the production of King’s Avatar (above), a 2019 Chinese animated series that subcontracted…