In one way or another, Japanese animation has now been a feature on the Western cultural and media landscape for close to forty years. Throughout this period, though, writing on anime, especially as far as full-length books are concerned, has been sorely lacking. Dr. Antonia Levi's Samurai From Outer Space and Dr. Metropolis, means that it will first and foremost be of interest to those who are already fairly familiar with anime.

Anime Explosion! is composed of two broad parts, a short introduction that positions writing on anime in the general framework of media and cultural criticism, and an afterword on the “future of anime,” and the role of the reader/fan in this future. The bulk of the book, though, is contained in the first of the broad parts, which is entitled “Interpreting Anime.”

First of all, it sets out to do just that, by placing anime, both in Japan and in America, in a cultural and chronological context – to define what anime is, what it is not, and more important, how it differs from American cartoons in general and TV-based American entertainment in particular. The rest of this first part seeks to address in a number of individual chapters “themes” – by which Drazen appears to mean both concepts: bushido and “shojodo” (“the way of the teenage girl”), cliches and conventions, the uniqueness of anime as a Japanese medium; and thematic elements – among others, violence/war and its effects; nudity and nakedness; reincarnation; gender, (homo)sexuality, attraction and love. In each chapter, a number of titles are mentioned, even if only in ing, perhaps with the effect of showing that anime can in fact address as many themes as one wishes it to. The individual chapters, however, almost never refer to or expand on each other; each single one can be read as an individual article, rather than as an integral part of a larger work. Drazen attempts to trace the conflict between satisfying one's ego and fulfilling social obligations through all of the themes and thematic elements he mentions, in fact as the underlying conflict of the Japanese mind as a whole, but he is crippled by being far too frequently distracted. Extensive references to American popular culture, retellings of Japanese legends and tidbits of history, and listings of anime titles all combine for an information overload effect. The “what?” and “why?” of the title are devalued for the sake of the of the “wow!”

The second half of the book consists of what appear to be more in-depth looks at individual “films and directors.” A glance at the table of contents shows some chapter headings are nothing more than the names of particular series or films, while others present what are, in effect, thesis statements. The range of titles covered is fairly broad – from older films like Please Save My Earth) in the middle. The only really common thread is that all of the films and series featured in this section are commercially available in English.

A closer look at the actual individual chapters reveals they are essentially of three types. Some do in fact present self-contained studies of particular themes or concepts: Studio Ghibli oeuvre are covered in neary the same number of pages each. At best, this will prompt the reader to discover more writing on the subject, or to form a critical opinion of his or her own; at worst, though, it will simply leave one with a distinct feeling of being tempted and then left unfulfilled.

The overall format of this volume is also somewhat confusing; it can't quite decide what kind of voice it wants to adopt. There are plenty of notes in the wide margins of the pages, but those are a confusing mix of bibliographical citations, Internet links, things the author wants to say outside the flow of the main text, and nods to information resources like websites and magazines where much of the information presented was originally found. The language falls somewhere in between that of a popular non-fiction work and a scholarly volume, though occasionally, the tone is downright chatty, directly addressing the reader. Ultimately, this book is neither an anime “primer” nor a serious academic monograph in the field of cultural or film/media studies, but unfortunately, there is no comfortable middle ground between the two poles, not for a full-length work. As a collection of articles and thoughts, Anime Explosion! works quite well indeed. Expecting an authoritative work on the medium as a whole, though, would be expecting too much. Whether the breadth and width of Japanese animation can even ever be adequately addressed by a single work is another question entirely, and very much a valid one, too.