To view and read

I have added some additional items to the recommended title pages.

For live action:

- Aragami: The Raging God of Battle
- Seven Samurai
- Shiranami Gonin Otoko

For Prose:

Several works by Kikuchi Hideyuki:
- Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition
- Vampire Hunter D
- Wicked City
- Wind Named Amnesia / Invader Summer
- Yashakiden: The Demon Princess

and by Uchida Yasuo:

- The Togakushi Legend Murders

These titles range from sophisticated to pulp. The good stuff is found both in the high and low.

Getting around and destroying stuff

I've added some new entries to the Recommended Prose page.

 This time two practical books for travelers to Japan and two funs books for fans of space opera science fiction.

 The new entries are:

 Bilingual Atlas of KYOTO

 Bilingual Atlas of TOKYO Covering All 23 Wards

 The Great Adventure of the Dirty Pair by Takachiho Haruka

 The Dirty Pair Strikes Again by Takachiho Haruka

Check out their entries on the page for my descriptions. The two atlases are a must for travelers, the novels are fun, I've been re-reading them on my morning commute.

Adding to the recommendations

Just a short note this week.

I've been adding some new manga titles to my recommended lists.
Black Jack by Tezuka Osamu
MW by Tezuka Osamu

These are not new releases, I rarely do new releases for a couple of reasons, I've been slow to add things and I don't go with the latest hot-to-be-soon-forgotten titles.

I am working on new entries for the live action movie and the prose lists. Expect word on those within the week.

Changes and additions

I've been puttering on a few changes to my website Gilles' Service to Fans Page I removed some sections that were out of date and not likely to be updated and then tackled my recommended title pages. Before today I had three such pages, one for anime, one for manga, and one for live action movies.

What I have done is two things:

Each of the pages had a list of people and studios involved in production. This list was to help readers track favorite directors, writers and studios. As in some cases the same people are involved in different media you had to check each page separately to get information. So I created a new page Creators - Those Behind the Works I Recommend. Now you can go to the list and find if a movie, anime or manga has been based on one of their works, it works other ways too.

The second thing I did was create another new page for Recommended Prose Translated from Japanese and on Japan. This page will be both works translated from Japanese and books about things Japanese. At the moment it only lists the works of Edogawa Rampo that are available in English and my books. I list my books because of the requirement that authors be shameless in promoting their works.

All of this means I have to continue adding titles to the recommended pages to flesh them out and provide more options for people to consider.

Oshii's Virtual Worlds

I just added two new titles to my Recommended Japanese Live Action Cinema web page. These are both directed by Oshii Mamoru who is better known for his animation work.

These two stand out as among the best of his works, and interestingly enough both movies are, while Japanese productions, not in the Japanese language. These two movies are Avalon and its sequel of a sort Assault Girls.

 I had been meaning to add these for some time but was delaying as the Miramax release of Avalon has been out of print for years. Then I was happy to discover that the Japanese editions of Avalon all have English subtitles. In the entry for Avalon I link to CDJapan as I have found CDJapan's prices to be lower than most other sites for Japanese products.

Edo gangsters

Sometime you just want to watch a classic. Not something high falutin', something well done but intended to be entertaining. Why not go for a classic. So I fixed my dinner and popped in the DVD for Shiranami Gonin Otoko. This has it, a complex con to get some cash from a merchant, deceptions within deceptions, a lost child found (two actually), a lost family treasure, thieves, a rooftop sword fight, great visuals and more than a few laughs.

These discs, region free by the way, are not cheap by US standards but not bad if you remember what foreign films used to cost. In this case it is a kabuki play, something you may be able to get a chance to see live in the US every decade or so if you can get to the few cities where a showing may be taking place, and if they are not sold out. CD Japan has the best prices I have seen online for these. Click on the picture to be taken to the DVD I am referring to. BTW while it does not have subtitles it does have a good voice over that allows you to watch the program and understand what is going on.

Spooky stuff to chill out to

Yesterday I walked into the Cartoon Art Museum store in San Francisco, it is just down the street from where I work so I often go there.

While wandering about looking at their manga and Japanese culture section I spotted a new book I have eagerly awaited for some time. Yurei Attack! The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide

This the latest of the "Attack" books by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt, the other two books in the series, Yokai Attack and Ninja Attack, are also out in new all color expanded editions from Tuttle. Do keep an eye out for these rather than getting the older Kodansha International editions.

Delighted with such fun spooky stuff I read part of the book on the commute home which put me in the mood for a good Edo Period ghost story movie. So when I got home I fixed dinner and sat down to watch Haunted Lantern [Otsuyu - Kaidan botan dourou]. It was a perfect choice, BTW Haunted Lantern is out of print and the link I have to it here is for a great price.

So sit yourself down, turn the rest of the lights in the house off, and enjoy a good book, perhaps followed by a movie.