The good folks at Cinephile, the student journal put out by the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, recently sent me a copy of their special Reassessing Anime issue. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but its list of international contributors is certainly impressive — though I’m surprised there’s no UBC students or faculty among them — which includes Philip Brophy, author of 100 Anime, on “The Sound of an Android’s Soul: Music, Muzak, and MIDI in Time of Eve, and Paul Wells, author of Understanding Animation, on “Playing the Kon Trick: Between Dates, Dimensions and Daring in the films of Satoshi Kon.” It’s available at several Vancouver bookstores or you can subscribe here.

Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas, the book I helped Fred Ladd write about his involvement with anime (as producer and adapter of films/programs for the American market), as well as his view of the post-Astro Boy history of Japanese animation, is now available as a Google eBook. (It can be ordered here.)

The list price is $24.99 versus $35.00 for the original softcover edition, which is still available from MacFarland and various online booksellers). However, Google is currently selling it for $14.74, which is marginally cheaper than the  $14.99 Kindle edition. The latter originally sold for $9.99, but the new pricing reflects the increased leverage publishers now have in pricing e-books.

Google eBooks, which officially debuted today, will be available from a variety of sellers, including independent bookstores, so you are not stuck with one vendor as is currently the case with, for instance, Kindle eBooks. I did quickly check the Powell’s Books website and found the book selling for $23.12, but I suspect pricing will vary widely as the market matures.

I just received a copy of Tze-Yue G. (“Gigi”) Hu’s long-awaited Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building recently published by Hong Kong University Press, and distributed in North America by University of Washington Press ($28.00 paperback and $55.00 hardcover). Gigi, who teaches Asian Studies at the University of Oklahoma’s School of International and Area Studies, is someone I’ve known and liked for many years. Thus, when she asked me to write a blurb for her book, I was quite happy to do so. My blurb, which accurately sums up my opinion, was that:

Frames of Anime provides a wonderfully concise and insightful historical overview of Japanese animation; more importantly, Tze-yue G. Hu also gives the reader a much-needed frame of reference — cultural and historical — for understanding its development.

The Japanese-language edition of  Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas, by Fred Ladd (with my assistance) has been published by NTT in a translation by Kumi Kaoru, the author of two books on Hayao Miyazaki.  The Japanese title is Anime ga Anime ni naru made (How the Japanese Cartoon Became “Anime”’).

Kumi-san emailed me that “Nihon Keizai Shimbun (the Wall Street Journal of Japan) published a brief notice last Sunday, which he roughly  translated (with some editing on my part) as:

Osamu Tezuka’s Tetsuwan Atom, which began in 1963, appeared in the US in the autumn of the same year as Astro Boy, and turned out to be a precedent-setting event for the international reputation of Japanese animation.  Mr. Ladd, who directed the English dubbed version, wrote this memoir with the support of Mr. Deneroff, cartoon scholar. It is full of previously unknown stories about the very early days of anime’s English adaptation, such as how the adaptation staff beat their brains to soften the “violence” in Atom so that it could meet American TV standards.

It is available from Amazon Japan here (and presumably other outlets) for ¥2,940 (about $31.50).

 Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas, Fred Ladd’s personal history of his involvement with producing the American versions of such early Japanese animated TV series as Astro Boy and Gigantor, has now been made available as an Amazon’s Kindle Book for only $9.99, which you can order here. (The original print edition is, of course, still available in its original softcover edition from MacFarland for $35.00.) Unfortunately, as far as I know, neither Fred Ladd or myself will be able to personally autograph your Kindle Edition, but I suppose there are other compensating virtues to getting it via Kindle.

The Japan Times just published this story by Mark Schilling about an appearance by Hayao Miyazaki’s at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo on November 20th. He notes that, "After the event, his most widely quoted remark was a dig at Prime Minister Taro Aso, who has often publicly proclaimed his love of manga. "It’s an embarrassment," said Miyazaki. "He should do that sort of thing in his private time."

Schilling added:

Miyazaki also lamented that today’s children live too much in the virtual worlds of TV, games, e-mail, mobile phones and comics, and too little in nature. "It takes away their strength," he said.

In other words, he occasionally sounded more like a cranky 67-year-old (his actual age) than someone who has devoted his entire adult life to creating manga and anime himself ….

Miyazaki’s latest film, Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo On the Cliff by the Sea), is another winner at the box office, having "grossed nearly ¥15 billion [over $161 million] since its July release."

The story notes that,

Miyazaki does not expect his films — or any films — to find wide appreciation 30 years after their release. "That is, audiences today can no longer enjoy films that are more than 30 years old, save in a historical sense," he said.

When an elderly journalist countered with the example of the 1942 classic "Casablanca," Miyazaki was unfazed.

"The films you value can be lifelong friends, but if "Casablanca" were released now, it wouldn’t be a hit," he said. "If (Yasujiro) Ozu were making his movies today, they would play in one theater."

On the perennial question on who might succeed him at Studio Ghibli:

He has not formally appointed his successor at Studio Ghibli, though his son Goro, who made his directorial debut in 2006 with the hit fantasy "Gedo Senki" ("Tales from Earthsea"), is the obvious heir apparent.

"I don’t favor him because he’s my son," Miyazaki said, with a hint of irritation. "He’ll face his true test (as a director) the next time around."

In the meantime, here’s a trailer (in Japanese) for his newest film:

Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas: An Insider’s View of the Birth of a Pop Culture Phenomenon by Fred Ladd, with assistance from myself, has now been officially announced by McFarland, which is publishing it on November 30th. (It is also available for pre-order at Amazon.) The book is Fred’s story of his involvement in producing the English-language versions of Astro Boy, Gigantor and Kimba, the White Lion, among other pioneering anime series, and his dealings with the such figures as Osamu Tezuka. In addition, he gives a personal history of the phenonemon that is anime.

The book is something Fred and I have been working for several years. Actually, the idea developed during conversations we had preparing for a panel discussion I was chairing  which Fred organized, for the Postwar Japanese Anime/Manga Exhibit at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles, in April 2003.  I  will have more to say about the book closer to publication, but thought it’s time to break silence and begin putting the word out.