any common elements of Japanese animation--slapstick humor, romance, hard-core action--come across clearly to even the most culturally indifferent fan. As long as the characters are fighting or smooching, it's fairly obvious what's going on. But when stories get more serious or more mundane, particularly when the characters are living out ordinary human lives, the details can be harder to understand. Curious fans may wonder a lot of things: why do the trees have woven belts in My Neighbor Totoro? Why does Sakura wave around streamers of diamond-patterned folded paper when things get weird in Urusei Yatsura? What's with the smiling cat figurine, or the paper ghost hanging in the window, or the badger statue at the shrine?
A lot of answers are available in The Anime Companion, which is not so much an anime reference guide as a scattershot catalogue of Japanese cultural trivia as seen in anime. Hundreds of Japanese terms are listed in alphabetical order, each with a translation (if the term is a word rather than a proper name), a brief explanation, and at least one example of the listing as seen in anime or manga. An English translation index in back proves useful for readers who have some idea of what they're looking for but don't know the Japanese word. Anime stills illustrate many of the entries while author notes in the form of personal asides, or sometimes "rants," address motifs that don't correspond to a particular entry.
Only the hard-core need apply
Obviously, this The Anime Companion is intended for a pretty narrow niche market--otaku with a lot of cultural or linguistic curiosity and pre-existing broad anime experience. (Presumably the examples are for recognition's sake, not so fans can rush out and get a movie purely to see a traditional choshoku or the kashiwade ritual for themselves.)
That said, The Anime Companion's an unquestionably fascinating book for anyone in that proper niche. It's jam-packed with information covering a broad range of subjects, from the names of historical periods to varieties of ghosts. Types of foods, household items, traditional articles of clothing, national holidays, architectural segments of a typical Japanese home--all are cross-referenced and broken down into broad categories.
The book's certainly not perfect. Some of the omissions are a bit glaring. (Why entries for only six of the Seven Lucky Gods?) The side commentaries are often under-researched (the aside on nosebleeds as symbols of lust amounts to "I don't know why"; the one on anime eye size ends with "It's just a cartoon!") and the "rants" are largely irrelevant Andy Rooney-style "doncha hate it when ..." gripes.
But the entries themselves are usually concise, clear, well-documented, and above all, educational. While indispensable as a reference material to answer specific questions as they come up at the weekly anime club meeting, The Anime Companion's also good reading simply as a basic overview of how Japanese lives at work and around the home differ from our own.
