One need not be a fan of Asian cartoons — filmed or printed — to pick up SCHOOLGIRL MILKY CRISIS: ADVENTURES IN THE ANIME AND MANGA TRADE, but I think you’d be bored otherwise. For this eyebrow-raising-titled collection, journalist Jonathan Clements has rounded up nearly 20 years’ worth of columns, articles and speeches he’s written on the subject for various magazines like NEWTYPE USA.
Divided handily into niche categories from games to porn, the book is thick, thick, thick, with each essay generally numbering but three pages (exception: a few speeches and DVD notes run longer), making the flip-through rate as high as an anime character’s eyes are wide.
His critical reviews and interviews are well-done, lively and more than competent, void of the fanboy stench that taints so many other similar efforts. But what I enjoyed most were the behind-the-scenes pieces that open SCHOOLGIRL. Among other things, Clements has toiled in the anime trenches as a screenwriter and director, and his remembrance of an American voice session where he was treated with less than respect from the talent is a sympathetically funny one, because the oversized egos of actors — no matter how minor — make for guaranteed fireworks.
In other areas, Clements tours the Toei backlot, discusses the history of Godzilla movies, runs through Japanese TV adventure series from ULTRAMAN to POWER RANGERS, and breaks down the whole penis-as-tentacle metaphor so inherent in the anime medium.
Oh, and the title of the book comes from the de facto moniker he disparagingly referred to a show he once worked on, so as not to ruffles any feathers. Something tells me they got ruffled, anyway. —Rod Lott
