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awful book
Jun. 22nd, 2007 07:45 pmI really feel the need to rant about the book I just read (skimmed). The Anime Encyclopedia, which I picked up at the library this morning.
It is so bad.
The plot summaries were usually missing the main point (at the least) and in many cases felt like the author had only seen/heard about the first two or three episodes (which is understandable in an 800+ page book, but not excusable). One example that just sticks in my mind from later events in the day: In the entry for Bastard!! the main female lead is referred to throughout as “Tia”. Her full name is Tia Note Yoko. She is universally known in the series as Yoko (or occasionally by her full formal name), but never Tia. And calling her a princess a couple times, which she is not.
It was anything but objective and non-opinionated and professional. It disliked (and flamed) nearly everything and was perfectly open about its opinion of anime. And, in my admitted biased fan opinion, most of what it insulted in many shows were completely unjustified. And many things in many shows that I think might deserve mention if one was doing constructive criticism are left out. Like the Inuyasha entry is completely vague but unjudgmental.
And it hated fandom. So clearly the author had once had an otaku tell him exactly how stupid he was and how uninformed he was about what he was talking about, and here’s the kickback. There’re all these massive rants about elitist “in-group”-only shows and fan, by someone who obviously thinks they’re well informed but even against a lesser otaku than I would be so obviously shown wrong. The terminology section was where I first understood just how this book was going to be. Most of the terms weren’t too wrong, but they were still often wrong in smaller but still important ways. Many of the terms I’ve never heard and if I haven’t ever heard it, it’s probably not anything actual fans use. And whenever there was a good show with a rich, multi-layered plot, they went on about a too complicated plot only an elitist insider could follow. And I’m not talking Ergo Proxy here (they didn’t try and for once I agree completely; what can you say about that?) The first example I see flipping to a random page is Howl’s Moving Castle.
Honestly, if I had a month or two with nothing else to do (yeah… like that will ever happen in my lifetime) I could rewrite the entire 800-something page book. Correctly.
It is so bad.
The plot summaries were usually missing the main point (at the least) and in many cases felt like the author had only seen/heard about the first two or three episodes (which is understandable in an 800+ page book, but not excusable). One example that just sticks in my mind from later events in the day: In the entry for Bastard!! the main female lead is referred to throughout as “Tia”. Her full name is Tia Note Yoko. She is universally known in the series as Yoko (or occasionally by her full formal name), but never Tia. And calling her a princess a couple times, which she is not.
It was anything but objective and non-opinionated and professional. It disliked (and flamed) nearly everything and was perfectly open about its opinion of anime. And, in my admitted biased fan opinion, most of what it insulted in many shows were completely unjustified. And many things in many shows that I think might deserve mention if one was doing constructive criticism are left out. Like the Inuyasha entry is completely vague but unjudgmental.
And it hated fandom. So clearly the author had once had an otaku tell him exactly how stupid he was and how uninformed he was about what he was talking about, and here’s the kickback. There’re all these massive rants about elitist “in-group”-only shows and fan, by someone who obviously thinks they’re well informed but even against a lesser otaku than I would be so obviously shown wrong. The terminology section was where I first understood just how this book was going to be. Most of the terms weren’t too wrong, but they were still often wrong in smaller but still important ways. Many of the terms I’ve never heard and if I haven’t ever heard it, it’s probably not anything actual fans use. And whenever there was a good show with a rich, multi-layered plot, they went on about a too complicated plot only an elitist insider could follow. And I’m not talking Ergo Proxy here (they didn’t try and for once I agree completely; what can you say about that?) The first example I see flipping to a random page is Howl’s Moving Castle.
Honestly, if I had a month or two with nothing else to do (yeah… like that will ever happen in my lifetime) I could rewrite the entire 800-something page book. Correctly.
