Otakon is this upcoming weekend and the most dangerous crew at Insert Disc are going to be there!

May’s edition of the Manga Moveable Feast features To Terra as the title for discussion. As a collaborative project, I wondered why I should bother with an intro to the story with a lengthy and detailed introduction written by Kate Dacey already available. I would recommend those unfamiliar with the series to read that link before continuing on. I planned to write more on this month’s topic, but end-of-school-year obligations held up my progress.

To Terra is a very interesting example of late 70s Japanese science fiction. It clearly displays elements …

My mother teaches a fourth grade classroom. We decided that to put a volume of Yotsuba on the shelf and see what happens. It was instantly popular. Volume one quickly made its way around the class, with complaints made if one kid was reading it too slowly. My mom picked up the rest of the series from a used bookstore and her students were overjoyed. Yotsuba&! is the cool thing that most of the class is into. When they doodle on the pack of papers, it is of Yotsuba. Parents have asked my mom what Yotsuba is, since their kids have been asking for their own copies.

Both of these series have a lot of “otaku jokes for the otaku” that come in many forms. Sometimes the characters are just name-dropping various series in conversation, jokes can be made about the fandom or in-show characters too deeply involved with anime, or even entire scenes can be a parody of another. There are many ways that a show can add humor by taking advantage of the otaku target audience.

In 2007, Del Rey released the first volume of Yuki Urushibara’s Mushishi to the US market. Having received an award at the 2003 Japan Media Arts Festival and the 2006 Kodansha Manga Award, expectations were high for this series. At the time, I wasn’t too familiar with Seinen manga outside of the cutesier titles such as Yotsuba. While I can’t imagine who would sell it so soon, I found my copy on the shelves of a used book store only a -week- after its initial release. I was intrigued after …

After receiving a review copy of the second volume, Scott VonSchilling (Anime Almanac) wrote a review of Yokaiden without first reading the first in the series. I know nothing about Yokaiden, beyond what I read in Scott’s review, but that is irrelevant here. The focus here is on the idea of reviewing something without starting from the beginning.
This is far from a new concept, and reviewers have been doing this for quite some time. Here is an excerpt of a review of the final volume (28) of Rurouni Kenshin by …

This story is a complete mess. I have never seen so many elements jumbled up together so sloppily that it comes out completely seamless. It is as if Tezuka combined all of his early influences into one story.

If you hang around the anime blogosphere long enough, chances are high that you have heard of Patrick W. Galbraith. He gets around a lot and has written for many websites and periodicals, especially for Otaku2.com and Metropolis magazine. Galbraith is perhaps best known for his presence at and giving tours at Akihabara while dressed as Goku. His most recent notable work was the completion of The Otaku Ecyclopedia which has been released in Japan and scheduled to release in North America in October. I have acquired an early …

Once upon a time, I was browsing my local Waldenbooks and came across a new series titled “Yotsuba”. I purchased it simply because it was written by Kiyohiko Azuma, the author of Azumanga Daioh. What I got though, was beyond my wildest imaginings. I was sure it would be good, since I love Azumanga, but Yotsuba became the greatest thing I had ever read. That night, I lie in bed and read the volume three times before going to sleep. When the second volume was arriving, I went to the …

Jonathan Clements has always been one of my favourite writers on anime. His columns in Newtype USA and Neo are reason alone to buy the magazines. As a translator and dubbing director of over seventy anime titles, he has a great deal of insider information and surprising stories from dealing with fandom, businesses, and the Japanese creators. Clements is the author of the Anime Encyclopedia and the Dorama Encyclopedia. He received the Japanese award for “outstanding contributions to the understanding of Japanese culture”.

Schoolgirl Milky Crisis is a “generic-sounding” name that …