Anime Web Turnpike: Guests' Web Picks

Frederik L. Schodt is a writer, translator, and interpreter based in San Francisco. The author of several books on Japan, he is also a long-time manga fan. In 1983, he wrote Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics (Kodansha International), and in 1996 he finally brought out a sequel, Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga (Stone Bridge Press).

The Gundam Project
http://gundam.anime.net/

Gundam is an example of an enormously popular and by now quite old Japanese anime series that has thus far never been available in English -- at
least through official channels. A recent announcement by Bandai indicates
that we can look finally look forward to seeing some of the videos in English.

For years, dedicated Gundam fans have kept the fandom flame burning in North America, and they deserve a tip of the hat. There are several Gundam-themed sites on the web, but The Gundam Project is a
particularly classy one, with a great sense of design.

The Tezuka Osamu World
http://www.tezuka.co.jp/
Japanese companies were slow to realize the potential of the web, but when they did figure things out, they began putting up web sites very quickly.
The late Osamu Tezuka's company, Tezuka Productions, has a rapidly
growing and ambitious web site, with information on Tezuka, his works, character-merchandise, and the soon-to-be-built Tezuka World theme park. Most of this site is Japanese, but there are many sections in English, too.

The Asahi Newspaper's
Osamu Tezuka Culture Award
http://opendoors.asahi-np.co.jp/av/tezuka/

Now approaching its third year, this award is given every year to manga
of distinction. In Japan there are many manga awards issued by publishers
each year (some with substantial cash prizes), but this one is unusual in
that it is offered by a prestigious national newspaper. Yours Truly is
one of over thirty people on the nominating committee.

This year one of the winners was the very literary (and literate) Botchan no Jidai (the Botchan Era, by Natsuo Sekikawa (story) and Jiro Taniguchi (art). This book is part of a series that reveals the intellectual underpinnings of modern Japan through the lives of a few famous late-nineteenth century writers.
(Japanese only)

The GOO search engine
http://www.goo.ne.jp/
One of the biggest problems with the Web today is finding what you want. There are lots of search English-language search engines, but until recently, most of them weren't capable of searching Japanese sites. GOO is one that has worked well for me, and it also indexes English words on the Japan-based sites, too. (Japanese instructions, English-capable searching).

The Japanese Comic Book Search
http://www.cec.co.jp/usr/hasegawa/Docs/book_search.html
There's always a need for a good manga search engine....
(Japanese only)

The Official Shungicu Uchida Home Page
http://www.uchida-jp.com/
I've never met Shungicu Uchida, but I wrote about her in my book, Dreamland Japan. She's one of the most unusual and creative women
manga artists in Japan today, known not only for her manga,
but her novels and music and personal flamboyance.

Finally, in the interests of self-promotion, don't forget to stop by
and visit my cozy little web site at: http://www.jai2.com/.

Anipike not being responsible for Acts of God or the vaguaries of humans ;)
this column will appear 'as and when' articles come in. New articles will
be announced on the "New List" page. (So original, da yo..^^)

Would you like to suggest a guest? Write Nikkou.