Q. What is Anime? (back)

A. Anime refers to the genre of Japanese Animation, similar to American cartoons in the fact that the characters are animated, but all similarity ends there. Japanese Anime can exist either as movies, OAVs (Original Animated Video), OAV series, or TV series. Anime is not just for kids, although there exists anime for children (those are most likely brought over America, i.e. Sailor Moon, Pokemon). Anime can either be comedy (Ranma ½), or dark tragedy (X/1999), epic fantasy (Vision of Escaflowne) or historical fiction (Rourini Kenshin).

As Gilles Poitras says in The Anime Companion: "While the U.S. continues to pump out cartoons with gag stories, musicals with cute animals, animated sitcoms and testosterone-laced TV fare, the Japanese have been using anime to cover every literary and cinematic genre imaginable in a highly competitive market that encourages new story ideas and the creative reworking of older ideas and themes (p vii)."

Q. What is manga?(back)

A. Now that you're an anime expert, you're probably wondering, what the heck is this "manga" thing. Manga are Japanese comic books, and are different from the American variety in a number of ways. First, they come in black and white, with color illustrations only for the cover, or special art books. Secondly, they come compiled in a phone book sized anthology. Many manga go on to become popular anime, moving from black and white, to full color motion! (Sailor Moon, Please Save my Earth, X/1999 and other favorites all started out as Manga.)

Q. So, why a digi-lib (digital library)? (back)

A. Why not? Seriously though, while surfing the 'net, we noticed that while most sites will provide links to other sites, very few actually review those sites. We strive to provide novices a place where they can judge which sites are worth their time.

Q. Hey, you forgot to include (blank), it's my favorite anime! (back)

A. Hey, give us a break, we're only three grad students. If you love a series so much, consider submitting a fact sheet to us. We could always use the help :)

Q. How do I use this digi-lib? (back)

A. That's a good question. If you've never seen any anime before, you might want to browse our anime by title index, click on a few fact sheets, and see if anything interests you. Say you've heard of a particular title (and we've reviewed it!) you can check out the fact sheet and see if it sounds interesting. If you'd like to check out a few websites on the anime, go back to the index and read some of our reviews. If you'd rather find sites that cover anime in general, or something particular like fanfiction, browse our index by website type. Or you could always search our site for any term.

Q. Can I submit a review? (back)

A. Sure, use our handy form. However, all submissions will be fact checked and edited per our standards