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Jeez, have I really been doing this for ten years? A solid decade of writing about classic Japanese animation here at this whatchamacallit, this blog thing? Rambling on about goofy cartoons from before many of us were even born? Wallowing in nostalgia for long-gone broadcast frequencies, dead video formats and the underpaid, labor-intensive cel animation of yesteryear, while at the same time

SUMMER, 1970s: The suburban neighborhood is full of active children. Baseball, Big Wheels, yellow metal Tonka dump trucks, plastic army men, Barbies and GI Joes create a carnival of playtime - until 2:30 in the afternoon, that is. That’s when the yards clear of children, when kids up and down the street vanish into houses. It may be your house or that of some family you’ve never met. Just come

Is it 2017 already? It seems like just yesterday that we were sorting out boxes of VHS tape and wiring together laser disc players and putting flyers in all the comic book stores, advertising our first Anime Weekend Atlanta, way back in 1995. Well, time flies when you're having fun, and suddenly it's 22 years later and we're gearing up for the latest version of our local anime con. AWA has been

As an anime fan in the late 1980s I felt a certain complacency; I'd seen Robotech and Captain Harlock, Space Battleship Yamato and Bubblegum Crisis and Dirty Pair. I'd spent all night copying VHS fansubs of Ranma 1/2 episodes and the Patlabor movie and showing the Daicon III-IV videos to packed rooms at comic cons. Everybody wanted to see Akira or Project A-Ko or the Macross movie over and over

The Osamu Tezuka Story Toshio Ban and Tezuka Productions translated by Frederik L. Schodt Stone Bridge Press, 2016 The Osamu Tezuka Story is, like Tezuka's body of work, a gigantic, awe-inspiring thing that both stuns and entertains. Part corporate/pop cultural history, part struggle of the artist as a young, middle-aged, and older manga-ka, the book delivers four decades of the

Well, it's that time of year again, when the flowers bloom and the trees start greening and the anime fans descend on Toronto for Anime North 2017. Shain and Dave (of Mister Kitty and Let's Anime fame) will be there as well, holding forth on a wide range of topics for the entertainment of all, and that includes you if you're anywhere near Toronto! Please come by the con and enjoy these, our

If you're like me, you grew up watching Battle of The Planets. Well, actually, I preferred Star Blazers. It took a while for me to really understand what was going on with those 5 bird ninjas and their struggle against Galactor. Actually, what it took was finally catching the original 1972 Tatsunoko Japanese version, the tremendously popular Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Created by manga