Compared to fifteen years ago, anime fandom in South Africa has come a long way. Back then it was a whole different ballgame. The Internet was in its infancy at the time, and downloading quasi-legal fansubs was unheard of. No, we had to rely on a handful of distributors to keep us in a steady [...]

Anyone who is familiar with Shinichirou Watanabe’s directorial style probably always expects something unusual. One of his favourite quirks is the way he likes to take two far-removed themes or ideas and mix them together. Cowboy Bebop, for instance, with its odd mix of jazz and science fiction, had a very unique flavour, and the [...]

I am both an avid sci-fi fan (both of books and visual media), and hope to eventually publish a novel or two, so it was with some excitement that I received this book, written by a local lad. I was also particularly impressed to discover that he had knuckled down and churned this title out [...]

If there is one genre of anime that grates more than any other for its lack of originality, it’s the shounen genre. Shounen is an action focused genre aimed at boys and young male adults – for those who don’t know. Some famous examples of shounen anime are Dragonball, Naruto, and Yu Yu Hakusho. It [...]

I’ll admit, I’m a bit jaded as an anime fan, but then I’ve been watching for roughly fifteen years, so I have my reasons. After so long, it really does become apparent how bland and unoriginal the anime industry can be, and it’s getting worse, lately. For anyone for who is over the buzz of [...]

If you don’t know the whole story of Robotech, then you’d probably best check out the Wikipedia article on it, because we don’t have space to explain it here. But to sum it up, what we call Robotech in the West was actually three completely separate, yet remarkably similar, anime series which were rewritten in [...]

The first season of Black Lagoon was well-received, among Japanese and Western anime fans alike, for its fresh approach to the action anime genre. Impartial attitudes towards violence and criminal conduct are fairly common in anime, but Black Lagoon took this concept to a whole new level. The second season of the BL, The Second [...]

This is a little complicated, so try to stay with me here. The Negima!? manga is the comic book accompaniment to the Negima!? anime series, which is a retelling of the first Negima! anime which is based on the original Negima! manga. Did you get all that? If you didn’t, well, it’s not all that [...]

Cape Town, the not-too-distant future. Corporate fascism is the ruling party, its self-interested protocols ruthlessly enforced by a corrupt police force, biotechnologically engineered dogs, restrictive socioeconomic mobility, and centrally-controlled 200-volt defuser discharges from your government-issue cellphone (Our Prerogative, Your Nervous System!). Meanwhile, out beyond the sunbed-dappled fringes of corporate privilege, a disenfranchised nation writhes choking [...]

After the decline of interest in Japanese animation in the West during the mid to late ’80s, one anime feature film in particular is credited with spearheading the Western revival of Japanimation fandom that occurred from the early ’90s onwards. Of course, I’m referring to Akira, the film adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo’s famous manga epic. [...]

When I read, a few years ago, that the World Cyber Games (or was it the Cyberathlete Professional League? I can’t remember which, now…) would be including mobile (i.e. cell-phone) games among the various events, I was, to say the least, a bit sceptical. To be fair, though, at that time my perspective excluded console [...]

It’s difficult to review Watchmen without resorting to “Just go out and buy it right now”, but keep those words on your mind at all times while reading this. Watchmen is the product of the legendary Andy Moore’s writing and Dave Gibbons’s artwork. Both are veterans in their fields and responsible for titles such as [...]