Your favorite books about anime?

Herano

Brigade Leader
I really love to read about all facets of anime and I wondered if there are any recommendations you guys have?
My favorites are:

The anime encyclopedia - Jonathan Clements

I have an older version of this behemoth of a book and its just to fun to open it on a random page and learn about some obscure anime.

Megumi Hayashibara's The Characters Taught Me Everything
Megumi Hayashibara is one on my favorite voice actors and this book is an interesting introspective look into her work. She talks about how trying to be all these different characters taught her all kinds of life lessons and the hurdles and surprises she encountered along the way. It's a part biograpy, a part looking behind-the-scenes (I learned a lot about some of my favorite anime) and part a book of wisdom and I enjoyed it a lot.

The ghibliotheque anime movie guide - Michael Leader & Jake Cunningham

This is a '30 non-ghibli anime movies you have to see' book, with reviews of the movies in question and a lot of background information about the makers, how the movies where made and the impact they've had. I like that they start quite early in anime's history, with 'panda and the magic snake' and often learn about how these earlier titles inspired now famous directors and animators to get into the anime industry. I also now have the goal to collect all these anime on physical media:p.

I also have Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle - Susan J. Napier, which I think will be an interesting read, but its also written in a really academic style which I have to be in the mood for.

Have you guys read any of these and what did you think? And what do you think are books about anime that are must reads?
 
I really love to read about all facets of anime and I wondered if there are any recommendations you guys have?
My favorites are:

The anime encyclopedia - Jonathan Clements

I have an older version of this behemoth of a book and its just to fun to open it on a random page and learn about some obscure anime.

I don't really own any books about anime but I have experienced a similar thing from owning the 2003 (I think?) edition of the Radio Times film guide, you never know what you're gonna get! :p
 
One of the books that got me into anime criticism was another by Jonathan Clements: Schoolgirl Milky Crisis. It is a collection of articles, essays and talks he has written over the years.

Anything by Helen McCarthy is also good. I'm particularly fond of 500 Manga Heroes & Villains.

One older book that is nice to skim through is Manga: The Complete Guide by Jason Thompson, a collection of nearly 1,000 reviews of manga that had been released in English at the time.

If you are interested in something that dives into a particular topic, there is a book all about the manga collective CLAMP called CLAMPdown written by - oh, how embarrassing, me.
 
One of the books that got me into anime criticism was another by Jonathan Clements: Schoolgirl Milky Crisis. It is a collection of articles, essays and talks he has written over the years.

Anything by Helen McCarthy is also good. I'm particularly fond of 500 Manga Heroes & Villains.

One older book that is nice to skim through is Manga: The Complete Guide by Jason Thompson, a collection of nearly 1,000 reviews of manga that had been released in English at the time.

If you are interested in something that dives into a particular topic, there is a book all about the manga collective CLAMP called CLAMPdown written by - oh, how embarrassing, me.
Oeh, those seem interesting! Ill take a look! Does Clamp also have a hand in the anime that where made from their work?
 
The anime encyclopedia - Jonathan Clements

I have this book! Got it years and years ago for my birthday one year (I think). A bit battered, but it's still here with me. Like you say, it's fun to open a random page and try watching something at random.

Looks like there were three editions of this book; published in 2001, 2007, and 2015. Mine is a 2007 one.

IMG_20250128_204740.jpg

Blackwell's still have new copies of the third edition, but it's £80! Suppose it is a hardback and 1100+ pages long 😂
 


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