Anime and Animation

Update – Sailor Moon Book!

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Well here’s the latest update on the Sailor Moon Book . . . the research phase is done!

. . . this is not exciting as it sounds.  First, because we’re not doing an in-depth historical book so it’s pretty basic.  Secondly, most information on Sailor Moon is limited, biased, or piecemeal.  The best sources for discussing the experience were Sailor Moon Reflections and Warriors of Legend – both of which ironically focused on aspects of Sailor Moon different from our focus.  Go figure.

The biggest surprise so far seems to be the ill-explored history of Magical Girls.  Everyone traces it back to Sally the Witch, but Sailor Moon seems closer to Princess Comet (the manga, not the 2000’s anime based on it), but there’s really little on that series.  Probably worth revisiting.

Meanwhile Bonnie finished editing the entire book, and integrated new interviews, so now I’m taking this week to do an editing run.  As the book itself is roughly 120-140 pages that’ll go pretty quick.  In fact, I’m rather glad it’s not voluminous – it’s got a friendly, intimate feel.  It’s like a documentary or series of con panels s a book, and we’ve kept a bit of an informal feel inside the formal organization.

Once I do that pass it’s time for her and I to sit down and read it together – then it goes to prereaders and contributors.

Still not dropping until September or so – sorry folks, we want this done right.  But if we can accelerate it . . .

  • Steve

Sailor Moon Update: Oh Thank Goddess

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Well the big announcement for the Sailor Moon book is we’re sort of done with the initial draft. However, let me qualify done:

  • We decided to make room for more interviews. So we’ve got more to integrate.
  • We’re editing the heck out of it . . . well, Bonnie is, because . . .
  • I’m doing research for the book. We debated how much is going to be used and the resulting choice was “enough for the book” and “to point people in the right direction”

 

So where is it now?

We’ve got a pretty good sense of the impact of the show and how the various “sub-impacts” tie together. It needs to be fleshed out a bit, arranged a bit differently, and of course include some more research and data on the show. But frankly, it’s pretty good for an unpolished book.

(As I jokingly put it, it’s currently at “blog post” quality and we’re going to get it into ‘book quailty.”)

And what did I learn?

Well, the last big lesson from finishing up is its very hard to extract the show’s impact on WHAT people did – from fanwriting to learning Japanese to finding carers. Originally we deconstructed the impact to three major influences – activities, careers, and an interest in Japan. However after we examined it, we realize the impact more clearly split on “inspired me or led me to do X” and “I got really interested in Japanese stuff.”

And boy, you shouldn’t underestimate those impacts. People were led to cosplay, fanfic, entire careers, counselling others, and more. People learned Japanese, launched careers in languge, and had their interest lead them to living in Japan. Again Sailor Moon was some kind of ur-anime for inspiring people.

Much more so as it was targeted at women, and as we know from the latest Star Wars merchandising debacle, people forget women in fandom.

Now that it’s in a rough draft, I feel a bit iritated there weren’t more studies done of its impact, even in our “pschological travelogue” style. There’s so much that should have been done – but at least we’re doing it now.

More, I feel a kind of profound awe. THis crazy weird show/series, this fairy tale soap opera sentai drama comedy, changed lives. I knew it, but I never knew the depth – now I do.

I just want to do it justice. Because it deserves it.

  • Steve

Civic Geek Catalog Update 11/23/2014

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So here’s your pre-Thanksgiving roundup of good causes and civic geekery to get involved in, from a comic historical guide to the infamous Desert Bus.

As always you can find the Civic Geek Catalog at CivicGeek.com, where it’s sorted by Geekery and by Category.

Anime

  • Academics
    • Anime And Manga Studies – Focuses on news and articles on the academic studies of anime and manga. It’s owner also does a symposium an Anime Expo.

Comics

  • Academics
    • Comics Research – A curated guide to books and resources about comics books, comics trips, and fannish information. Open to contributions of material and suggested resources.
  • History
    • Digital Comics Museum – An enormous archive of researched, curated, public domain golden age comics available free – and always open for donations and assistance!

Video Games

  • Charitable Work
    • Desert Bus – Since 2007 Desert Bus has been raising money for Child’s Play via webcasting marathons of the infamous never-ending bus driving game “Desert Bus.”
    • Donate Games – Partners with publishers and collects donations of games and equipment, then re-gifts items or sells them when appropriate to raise money.
    • Game To Aid – A charity that raises money via broadcast video-game marathons, often with various creative (and at times painful) themes.
    • Games Done Quick – Does game speedruns to raise money for charity.
    • Gaming For Others – A UK group that does marathons for charity, and works with Special Effect.
    • Global Gaming Initiative – Delivers positive mobile games – and then contributes 50% of the proceeds to appropriate causes.
  • General
    • Genes In Space – A game that uses game data and environments to “gamify” analyzing cancer data.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.