Tag: reading

The more observant of you might have noticed that Twilightners has been showing up on my side bar as one of the books I’m currently reading for a while now. Well, the short version is I’ve already read it once but will need to read it again to review it.

The long version is I started reading it before going on my Japan trip and had intended to continue reading it on the plane, but I forgot to take it with me. After two weeks of mind-blowing traveling, I came back picked up the book and started reading it again where I’d left off. Then I sat down to write a review of it and my mind went blank as to what it was about or who the characters were.1

Was this because the book was bad? Not at all! I was just so wasted with jet lag that I didn’t absorb the book like I normally would and couldn’t think of anything to say about it. I plan on rereading it soonish and will write up a review of it afterwards. I apologize for the inconvenience.

1 Note to self: Reading with the intent to review afterward while suffering jet lag is just plain stupid.

While giving blood is a noble thing –and something that everybody who is able to do should do– giving it while you’re suffering from jet lag is perhaps not the smartest idea that I have ever had. I had been feeling back to my normal levels of awareness at work, until I gave blood yesterday. Then it was suddenly like I hadn’t slept at all and I was wasted for the rest of the day. This was particularly bad because when I got home I remembered I still had to write that final journal entry for my Japan trip/class. Damn. I guess I’ll just get it written up tonight and suck up the drop in grade for being late.

Oh and if you’re reading this AWelkin; this is not a plea to be excused from any “late fee” on my assignment. I knew the rules and I broke them; so I’m willing to pay the penalty.

I’m back from Japan now. I have 2 more days of Japan to write up and a brief journal/paper that wraps the trip up, but I’ll get to that tomorrow. I’d also like to mention that I’ve started reading a book that was written by a friend of mine. That book is called Twilightners and is available from Amazon.com or from Lulu.com. For the record, while I may seem to complain about the trip a lot; I did enjoy it immensely. I plan to have some photos of it posted soonish but that might take a while as I still need to figure out how exactly I want to post them (e.g. what web-image gallery do I want to use). Once I have that all figured out; I’ll try to add appropriate images to the posts I made abotu Japan and will see about making an announcement that the images are available.

Well, I finished reading Patrick Drazen’s Anime Explosion! The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation over the weekend. It’s not a bad read but it’s also something that I never would have read on my own1. Mostly because I think I can grasp enough of the culture concepts presented in the Anime I watch from the context that they are given in to get the jokes. Though I will admit some of the things mentioned in this book do help with my comprehension (e.g. the concept of yasashii and some of the Japanese mythology mentioned in the book). It’s a lot more interesting than any textbook that I had to read in my college years and makes a pretty decent introduction to anime for the uninitiated.

Something to keep in mind while reading this book is that the author tends to speak about the Japanese people and their beliefs/culture as though they are a monolithic whole. While I have never been to Japan (yet); I think this is overly simplistic as there are variations in all cultures and differences between individuals2. This would break down some of the authors points, but then going into that sort of thing would probably be better addressed in some sort of advanced book about the Japanese culture rather than a beginners introduction to anime.

My only other complaint is the author seems to feel compelled to spend a large portion of the book talking about ecchi/hentai and the differences in how Japanese & Americans think about nudity. Perhaps I’m not a perfect fit for the target audience of this book; as I’ve heard about this many, many, many times before and I would have prefered the author to devote more time to other topics.

Even given my complaints, I think I would recommend this to any recent fan of anime that wants to learn more about anime’s background. At least, any fan who asked me about it in the next year or 2. Anime shows are very in-the-now and in a few years the new anime fan will not likely have heard of any of the animes mentioned by this book, which would reduce it’s value to them. As a plus3, the author does not include a must-see list of anime. This helps keep the book feeling timely as there’s no ancient list of anime to make one wish to scorn the book as being outdated and anybody who recommends the book to a new anime fan will surely have their own list of favorites to recommend as well.

1 This book is required reading for the course I’ll be starting in a couple of weeks.
2 While the Japanese due to seem to generally put the group ahead of the individual; anybody who’s looked at their J-Pop musicians can say there is definitely some variation in there!
3 I saw some reviews of this book on Amazon.com that complained there was no recommended list of anime to watch; but if those reviewers had read the book carefully, they would have realized this was deliberate due to the very ephemeral nature of anime.

I know I probably spend too much time online reading websites and what not, but of late I’m finding that many of the sites I normally visit are becoming a bit dull. So, I’m looking for suggestions on what other interesting sites are out there1. If either of my 2 readers have suggestions; I’ll be happy to check them out.

Note: Before making your suggestion; please visit my portal page and make sure it’s not one that I already visit. Thanks!

1 We’ve got to have something to do at work, right? 🙂