Guests' Web Picks

I guess it's my turn to tell you my "current views on life, anime and mankind in general" (I hope you don't mind the quote here, Nikkou). While I won't bore you to death with my views on the first and the last, I'm more than happy to share my views on what is in the middle. But I will digress a little and you'll notice that a large part of the links are rather manga-related than anime-related, because that's my thing.

I started this column by taking a look at previous "guest stars" and if I'm not mistaken, I'm only the second person in this column who's been born and raised in Europe. More exactly, I'm living in a small, trilingual country in Western Europe of which the capital is better known world-wide than the country itself.

How did I get into the world of Anime, and Manga in particular? Well, it's been a converging process of three obsessions in my life: animation, Japan and comics.

• First of all, I've watched animation as long as I can remember. One of the advantages of living in my country is that you get to see the television channels of all our big neighbours. In one of them (France), anime has had a steady exposure and following since the seventies. It wasn't called anime at that time, we didn't even know it was Japanese, but when I was in primary school, I and most of my friends used to watch lots of series popular at the end of the seventies/beginning of the eighties on French channels.

Amongst those were great series like UFO Robo Grandizer (called Goldorak in France),   (called La Bataille des Planètes in French), , Captain Flam, and many others that I forgot...

My favourite series was (), a French-Japanese joint production with a very original idea and great stories developed into a wonderful anime (by Shingo Araki). That's where I got my interest in Greek mythology from.

After a few years of silence, my interest in anime got renewed around 1986 when I was intrigued by the maturity of series like and especially (Signé Cat's Eyes in French). These series were very mature compared to other kid stuff on television and they made a big impression on me. Moreover, the dub was very good and the soundtrack was great. After that, I went to university and I stopped watching anime for the sake of my good grades.

I would probably never have bothered again, if it weren't for my discovery of Maison Ikkoku. For this series, I don't have enough superlatives to do it justice. The French dub had some flaws, but the voice acting was good and especially Godai's voice was superb (it took me a while to grow accustomed to the Japanese counterpart, where Godai is done by the same actor who also did the voice of Chibi from Urusei Yatsura, but now I'm convinced that the Japanese voice is even more fitting the character and I'm cherishing my LD collection of it - which cost me a small fortune).

Finally, realising that all the animation I had been attracted to was Japanese, I was totally lost and started watching whatever I could lay my hands on. Nowadays, I've become somewhat more picky.
 

• Japan, the Japanese culture and language have always fascinated me. Though I've never been to Japan till recently (lack of time and money), I've got the feeling I know the country better than some of my neighbouring countries.

It's very haughty to say this, I know. Some things have contributed to this feeling: reading books, watching documentaries, studying the language for several years (and collecting the appropriate certificates to prove that I've done so, which still doesn't mean anything by the way), having frequent contacts with the big but secluded Japanese community in my country, having some good friends in Japan.

For those interested, I can recommend (only a few basic links):

On Japanese language:
: alternative sci.lang.japan Frequently Asked Questions.
. : online Japanese lessons.
: it was a sad day when I heard of the passing of this wonderful resource, it's still somewhat alive here.
: a great archive of freeware/shareware on the Japanese language.


On Japanese culture:
: this should provide you with the basic info you need.
 

• I happen to live in a country that has a rich comics culture (called 'stripverhalen' in the northern part and 'bandes dessinées' in the southern part). It may not be considered an artform in the same way as it is in France, but many of the great masters of European comics are fellow countrymen. My collection of European comics is about the same size as my collection of manga, and though it doesn't grow that quickly, I value it a lot as most of them are high quality works.

Actually, I'm a bit of an exception in the sense that I equally cherish Japanese as well as European comics. Most of the people over here that read one of the two won't touch the other. They don't mix. This can lead to strange things. Every autumn, there are two conventions. One on European comics, and another on manga, anime and American comics. I'm nearly the only person who visits both. I find this single-mindedness really a shame. For those of you who are interested anyway, here is a link to an extensive linklist that provides you with a viewport on another world of comics:

It's not the only resource and I'll give you some links to sites (Japanese and others) that I've found interesting enough to visit regularly.

Woaw, look at the time. I could go on "ad infinitum" citing great manga series, but I'll wrap it up here. Go to my site if you want to know more. I hope it has been as nice a trip for you as it has been for me.