Anime: A History

Addictively rich

An amazing book. Has just the right amount of information, enough to feel complete without reaching into something inessential. If you're into anime you'll get a lot from it, and even if you aren't you might like it. A few of the cool things about this book: Extremely frank about the biases of it's first person sources. By showing what a lot of different people think about something, and why they might think this way, we get a deeper understanding of the subject. The book spends as much time on pre-Tezuka anime as post, covering a range of history that hasn't been covered in other books. It's really interesting to see the first animation studios pop up in Japan, and the chapter on anime during WWII is really really cool. It's a strange choice in some ways, as less was happening during this time than after, meaning that those chapters feel exhaustive while the post-Tezuka ones are distilled to the highlights. This is not a problem at all, as it makes trends and influences easy to track on an emotional level as you feel the passage of time. Read more