Anime Essentials: Everything a Fan Needs to Know: Amazon.co.uk: Gilles Poitras: Books

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4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intresting, Informative but American, 10 Aug 2003

By

R. WRIGHT "BigRicki" (Loughborough) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Anime Essentials: Everything a Fan Needs to Know (Paperback)

This book is a great introduction for people new to anime, and has lots of useful and interesting bits of information from all aspects of anime. This book covers the history, genres, distrabution, clubs & conventions and concerns of anime, and includes a list of other useful books and web resources.

The style and writing of this book is nothing speacial, but it does get the information across. The book as a few images, all in black and white, that only illistrate particular titles referenced in the text. It has small info boxes throughout that have more detailed descriptions of certain words used.

While this is an overall good book, it is written for the US audience in mind, with many references to the anime culture in America. If you are looking for a book that centers around anime in the UK, or a non region specific book then this isn't for you. But if you are looking for a book that gives a farily good introduction to anime then you might want to consider this title

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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, 30 Dec 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Anime Essentials: Everything a Fan Needs to Know (Paperback)

Even if you're not a big anime fan...even if you watch only one anime, this is a good book. It shows you what sort of animes there are out there. It has all sorts of information ranging from genres in anime all the way to the dub/sub debate. Entertaining AND informative.

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Amazon.com: 4.1 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book for Initiates AND Otaku!, 30 July 2001

By James M. Stafford III - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Anime Essentials: Everything a Fan Needs to Know (Paperback)

I already owned Poitras' The Anime Companion and regularly visit his Web site, so I knew Anime Essentials would be a great book. Anime Essentials has A LOT of great, useful information for those just beginning to learn about anime beyond the Sailor Moon and Pokémon crazes, covering many facets from history to distribution to making connections to merchandise. Also included are 41 recommended anime titles (films, series, and OAVs), as well as various anime resources.

As an otaku, I still found plenty of new information in this book, as well as a fresh new perspective on several anime titles. Of the 41 recommended titles, I have seen all but five, which I suppose marks my "status" as an otaku. Poitras' insights into the famous Otaku no video were especially interesting, and can teach even diehard anime otaku more about this great series.

This is a great book for parents, teachers, and anyone else who deals with children who regularly watch CardCaptors, Sailor Moon, Pokémon, and other anime what anime is really about, and this information will be especially useful as these children grow and move on to more "sophisticated" anime. (If only this book had been available when I first discovered anime.....)

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new for me, but valuable for some, 6 Feb 2001

By Brian Ruh - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Anime Essentials: Everything a Fan Needs to Know (Paperback)

I was sincerely looking forward to this book, as any new addition to the body of literature on anime is a good one. However, the first thing I noticed is how small the book is; it barely squeaks over 125 pages. At the same time, the font used for the main text seems excessively large. What this means is that there was far less actual reading material in this book than I had originally hoped for?

And the content? I didn't find much new in this book, which was another disappointment; I was hoping to discover some great insider information and maybe a few fan secrets. Admittedly, this book isn't written for fans like me. Rather, this is a fairly painless entry into the world of Japanese animation, and with that in mind it serves its purpose very well. Still, it should have been titled "A Basic Primer" rather than "Every Thing a Fan Needs to Know."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent starting place, 14 Mar 2005

By Michael K. Smith - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Anime Essentials: Everything a Fan Needs to Know (Paperback)

I'm too old to have discovered Japanese manga and anime in my youth, but I've made up for that the past few years. Being interested in Japanese culture and literature generally, I had some understanding of why anime is the way it is, and why it's so much different from American or European graphic art, but reading this well-written book, I found there was a great deal I had missed. Poitras writes from the fan's point of view, so he knows what questions he should be addressing -- everything from the "big eye" mania, to the difference between hentai and mainstream manga, to the nervousness among the U.S. morals police about "foreign" art, to actually setting up and publicizing a fan group, plus the ins and outs of model kits, imported publications, and so on. There's also an excellent rundown of recommended anime titles and series, which I've photocopied as a checklist. This book doesn't tell you everything you need to know, but it's a good place to start.

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