Elsewhere there are stunning omissions. Napier spends four pages (pp117-20) on 'shojo culture,' telling us that 'shojo literally means little female' (more conventionally known as girls) and that, 'In the worlds of manga and anime, shojo are everywhere.' She forgets, though, to mention that 'shojo anime' and 'shojo manga' are vast and significant sub-genres within the industries, complete with their own conventions, styles and complex histories. And this is the main problem with the book; there's no context or big picture. It may be 'impossible to sum up the world of Japanese animation' (p235), but surely Napier could go past the narrow selection of U.S. fan-favourites covered here? Despite the book title, she's not confining herself to post-Akira anime, discussing Nausicaa and Barefoot Gen. Nor is she confined to titles widely regarded as masterworks, covering such titles as The Guyver and Oh My Goddess (in favour of, say, Wings of Honneamise). Even if we assume some rationale, her structure feels contrived. One chapter links Akira with Ranma 1/2 because they both involve metamorphosing adolescents. Another four-way epic ties together Nausicaa, Akira, Overfiend and Evangelion as depictions of the apocalypse. One yearns for more pedestrian, old-fashioned analyses along the lines of genre and creator. For example, Beautiful Dreamer and Ghost in the Shell are discussed in separate chapters, when it would have been easy to connect them via their auteur creator, Mamoru Oshii.

In the end Napier, through attempting too much, produces a sub-standard book less informative or accurate than other anime books in English; try The Erotic Anime Movie Guide by Helen McCarthy and Jonathan Clements, or the non-specialist Encyclopaedia of Japanese Pop-Culture by Mark Schilling, which builds a context lacking in Napier. These books make less idiosyncratic connections, and use fewer words like 'othering,' 'liminal' and 'defamiliarise,' but don't leave you frustrated and unconvinced long before the last chapter.

NB: Unlike much other English-language writing on anime (including this review), Napier follows the Japanese convention of putting family name first. Hence the director of Ghost in the Shell is Oshii Mamoru, not Mamoru Oshii, and so on.

Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation by Susan J. Napier. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2001. 311 pages. ISBN: 0-312-23862-2 (hardback). ISBN: 0-312-23863-0 (paperback).

Alan Neal resides in the U.K. and is a freelance writer and animation fan, albeit a far more knowledgeable animation fan than he lets on.