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Now I bet you're wondering ... who is Chris Davies?

Beats the hell out of me.

(Hey, when someone asked "Who is John Galt?", it took a bloody huge and turgid novel to explain. Don't complain, at least you're getting your answer fast.)

Anyway, he apparently writes fanfiction and was asked to contribute a list of his favorite anime-based websites to the Anime Turnpike after a certain friend of his (who insists that he mention that she doesn't even like anime) finally got tired of listening to him bitch about the people who had been chosen and volunteered him for the job. Thanks heaps, Rachel. Remind me to do something nice for you one of these days. Like, getting you drunk and enlisting you in the Forces ...

The problem arose when Nikkou asked me to do it in my "style". Now, I don't really think that I've got a style. I've got a lot of styles. Whichever should I choose? I finally settled on "lyrically angry", also known as "Hunter S. Thompson as channeled by Harlan Ellison". Hence, if you dislike anger and bitterness, venom and general viciousness, skip this column. I'm gonna revel in them.

[sound effect: cracking knuckles]

Now given that I'm an author of anime-inspired fanfiction, you'd expect me to gab for the whole column about fanfiction sites. Well, guess again. I am going to give you one fanfic site, but this is an overdetermined decision, because there are a number of reasons for it. Number 1, it has a lot of high quality fanfics (along with a bunch of crap from former Guest Picker of the Month and number one in my personal rogue's gallery, Marco de la Cruz), but, Number 2, it also has high quality stories that *gasp* *shock* *amaze* don't have an f---ing thing to do with anime. Because contrary to popular belief, you cannot learn to write fanfiction if all you read is fanfiction. You're gonna have to read books, too. And the Number 3 reason that I'm posting it is that it's maintainer, Ms. Jeanne Hedge, is one of the classiest people involved in anime fandom, even if she has threatened my life on several occasions. So go check out

I also give two pointers to the two traditional forums for the publication of fanfic, the usenet group rec.arts.anime.creative (and its associated archive, ) and While I have had many troubles with both of them (many many many troubles with RAAC) they remain the places that you should send your stuff if you want to ensure that lots of people read it -- and can keep on doing so. Too many authors are content to just slap their work on some webpage, somewhere. The proliferation of free webservice providers encourages this, but it's too easy to fall behind and let your website get terminated by the provider because you obviously weren't using the space. The ftp archives that the FFML and RAAC use are going to be around for a long time.

Anyway, that's it. No more talk about fanfiction. Let's talk about anime instead.

Now, a certain Bigoted, Evil, Nasty, Callous, Antagonistic, No-good, Trolling, Reactionary, Idiotic, Conniving Knucklehead of my acquaintance on Usenet (no names mentioned, of course) once wrote that "most of the people who used to like Sailor Moon have probably moved on to the new crappy shows like Rurouni Kenshin and Utena". As a matter of fact, I do like both shows. Geez, I guess wallowing in the past must give some people supernally clear vision into my soul. NOT.

However, the thing about Revolutionary Girl Utena (or as the inevitable purists will insist that I call it, Shoujo Kakumei Utena) is that thanks to the excellent work done by Yasuyuki "Mikage" Sato on his site -- currently known as The Utena Encyclopedia -- I was actually able to keep up to date on the series while it was being shown on Japanese television in late 1997. (Which kind of torpedoes comments about "the new cool thing" doesn't it?) Even today, this is the Mecca of Utena fans, with scripts (not of the official translation released by CPM, of course), synopses, and a mailing list.

The site that serves most of my Kenshin needs goes by the title of Kenshin's Rurouni Resource Center. Althought it provides scans from the ongoing manga, along with translations of the story, there actually isn't a lot about the animation here. On the other tentacle, the anime has ended, and I have to agree that the quality of the series really dropped after the Kyoto saga. (Geez, am I engaging in critical thought?! Heavens! What shall I do?)

Well, since I do have an obligation to plug something related to Sailor Moon in this column, let's just give a pointer to my wolfy pal's site of Sailor Moon movies/video captures/whatever they're called. Check out In addition to the well done scenes from the Sailor Moon anime, there are a number of excellently crafted music videos there, all created by Nikki "Jet Wolf" Purvis, one of the all-time fun people. I only wish that I could listen to them so that I could see how well the music matches the images.

What else, what else? Hey, I know ... why don't I talk about some decidedly non-mainstream anime? Yeah, that'd show that I'm cool and with it. Also, I want to do it. Guess which influences my decision making?

Lots of people are familiar with the tendency of Japanese animators to "borrow" from North American films like Star Trek, Blade Runner or Top Gun ... but I bet you hadn't realized that the anime Battle Athletes, from Pioneer, borrows from the 1982 movie Personal Best! Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of sites dedicated to this little gem. The best in the English language is probably the review of the series on (which only talks about the first two OAVs) while the definite best is in Russian! Go figure.

Now, I know what you're all going to think when I plug , the best D-- eek, Lovely Angels-based site I've ever encountered. (God that was close!) You'll think, wait a minute, that particular show with the rather offensive nickname isn't not-mainstream! It's a staple! There's hundreds of sites dedicated to the twin goddessess of Death, Destruction and Skimpy Combat Wear! Hah! Shows how much you know. Sadly, there's a real dearth of sites about Kei and Yuri, but this one is linked to most of the ones that are out there. Plus it plugs one of my stories. I too have my vanity.

Hm. What else. Oh, I suppose that I ought to plug the anime club to which I belong -- (don't look at me, I didn't name it) -- and the anime festival they'll be throwing this summer, . Yes, I will be there, making a target of myself to any two-bit fanboy weasel who wants to take me out. Go ahead. Make my day.

Anyway, I seriously do hope that you find these recomendations interesting and useful, and that Xplo Eristotle will be thrown in front of an oncoming train. Have a nice day!