Jonathan Clements's Blog, page 36

Jet lag be damned, I shall be up before I go to sleep on Monday morning, to appear on Finnish breakfast television. For the thousands of Finnish readers of this blog, that's MTV3, Huomenta Suomi at 0805 Finnish time. I shall be talking about my new book, Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy, the Finnish rights for which were sold before the English edition was even fully delivered.

It's the true story of an officer in the service of the Tsar's cavalry in the late-19th/early-20th century, who...

On to Vancouver, where I have spent several days amassing an insane amount of material on the First Nations, particularly the Inuit, Kwakwaka'wakw and Haida. Still not totally sure what I am doing with it, but I've already written about Native Americans a couple of times, both as part of the history of Vinland, and in my Doctor Who short story "Nonsense Songs of the MicMac Indians." I can feel a new story beginning to form on a similar topic. It has been bubbling away for several years, but t...

I couldn't go to San Francisco without dropping in on Toren Smith, founder of Studio Proteus and major mover of the manga scene in America. Despite only getting in on a plane from Canada that afternoon, he made sure he and his lovely wife Tomoko were available to help Mrs Clements and me chomp through a curry fit for six.

There is a universal language within the anime and manga business. I haven't mentioned my trip to see Madman Entertainment in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago, because I am...

Just stopped off for a week in Hawaii finalising materials for my forthcoming book on Admiral Togo, who spent a tense time there during the Hawaiian Revolution, and accidentally inherited an escaped murderer who claimed asylum aboard his battleship. I am sure I will write more about it here next spring.

In the meantime, on to San Francisco, spiritual home of anime and manga in the United States, where I have been staying with Frederik L. Schodt and poking around the alleyways of Chinatown...

"Actors," said Alfred Hitchcock, "are cattle." You control them with a pointy stick. You tell them where to stand. You leave them in a field all day, chewing regurgitated grass. You pull on their teats when you need a drink. No, I am not entirely sure where he was going with that. But actors should definitely do what they're told, otherwise how will the director's vision make it to the audience? Actors are the vital conduit between text and audience. And they make empty, melancholy mooing...

The inside of the Sydney Opera House is controversially unfinished; the original architect stormed off in a huff during construction, leaving the building looking nice on the outside but a sub-Barbican mess of concrete and tubes within. He supposedly came back to consult on the finish, but the toilets still seem like an afterthought.
Jacqueline in the bar was an accomplished saleswoman: "I would like to point out that we are 100% full, so it's a good idea to order your drinks for the interval ...

Just a housekeeping note for British readers — there's only a week to go until the notorious Sci Fi London Anime All-Nighter, running at *two* screens in the middle of town. Your chance to see what, as far as I can tell, amounts to two UK premieres (or near as dammit) and a taster of next year's big anime movie titles, while downing Red Bull and ice cream until past dawn.

24th October at the Apollo Piccadilly Circus.

THE SKY CRAWLERS

KING OF THORN

TIME OF EVE

EVANGELION 1.0

EUREKA 7 the movie

T...

To Germany, where Ayano Yamane's manga series Finder has been been rated as "harmful to young persons." From the shocked reaction on some message boards, you'd be forgiven to think that the Germans were dragging up every copy of Finder that they could… er… find, and burning them in the streets. In fact, the story has been simply "indexed" by an organisation with the Teutonically exacting title of Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons. The name pretty much does what it says on ...

This is probably not going to be approved as the author photograph for my biography of Admiral Togo, even if it does combine many crucial elements. That vessel in the background is his flagship, the Mikasa, which trounced the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. The statue is Togo himself. The beer is Amiraali, an obscure Finnish brand from the 1970s that once featured a bunch of famous Admirals on the label. The fact that Togo was on it charmed the Japanese, who now appear to brew it...

In the Komyoji, Sendai

Several years ago, the cost of obtaining the images for a book I'd written ended up amounting to more than I'd been paid to write it. Ever since then, I have worked on the policy that if I am going to be contractually obliged to get photographs and the expense is going to be several thousand pounds, I might as well get them myself and use the trip to amass more materials. Which is why I am here in Sendai, former seat of the Date clan, slowly assembling the pieces of...