The popular film critic Chris Stuckmann edited this collection of brief essays on over 100 anime titles, from Astro Boy (1963) to Violet Evergarden (2018). The essayists range from The Martian author Andy Weir to YouTuber comicbookgirl19. The book earns its title by showing how anime has impacted both Western culture and the lives of the essayists. For someone like me who enjoys anime but has not watched a lot of it, this book is a helpful resource for building a watch list and developing greater appreciation of anime. But I wish it had an index so I could quickly look up titles, directors, and essayists. And it's devoid of still frames and illustrations, which is unfortunate given the visual splendor of the medium. ( )

I have some major reservations about this. I started by giving it 5 stars for breadth and ambition, then knocking off 2 stars for execution, then putting one back because it's easy enough to skip what one doesn't like (unlike in a novel), then taking 1 off again for missed opportunity.

The main problem is the author has distributed his workload with uneven results. Some contributors write wonderfully evocative essays that arouse your interest without spoiling too much, convey a great sense of the tone and beauty of a show, and entice you to watch it (or lead you to realise you wouldn't like it). But other writers have crafted essays that either (a) tell you a lot about the writer and little about the show, or (b) expect you to have seen the show to be able to appreciate their article, or (c) describe the plot and events and characters with the intricacy and excitement of a perseverating tweenager, or (d) bore you to death:

"Please Teacher! and Please Twins! is a rare media-mix in which the two texts form a "worldview" that bears its own reflexivity."

Gee, I was hoping the next anime I watch would be a show which bore its own reflexivity. Thanks for the hot tip!

But as I've said, if the essay is sub-par, skip it (but either way you won't be motivated to watch the show the bad essay describes, which could be a shame. The one about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (one of my faves!) does a terrible job of explaining what makes the show so interesting to those of us who like it. Among everything else, I think it's the gayest anime out there, like Liberace crossed with Tom of Finland crossed with Wayland Flowers and Madame level gay. Oh, and the article on Sword Art Online was given to a hater--apparently a famous hater who receives death threats via his youtube channel based on fans (crazy fans, obviously) reacting to his hatred. That's not who should be writing about the anime.

There should have been a template: what's it about? what makes it distinctive? who would like it? who wouldn't like it? what is it similar to? How is it different/better/worse than those similar shows? etc., etc. Like the OED--you don't read the definition of "asthma" and think "wow, if only the guy who wrote "slattern" had handled this word. It all matches.

Nonetheless, thanks to this book I've been exploring older anime that I never would have thought I'd be interested in. Galaxy Express has turned out to be particularly weird but haunting, and I'm glad I'm watching it.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve! ( )