helencmccarthy

That was when I was writing my book on Miyazaki. My publisher had to clear the book and get permission for quotes and images from Tokuma Shoten, Ghibli's sponsors at the time, and they asked if I wanted to come over and talk to him. I hadn't thought it would be possible but they told me he had a window in his schedule in three weeks, so three weeks later I was in Japan.

It was a really fascinating experience and left me with just as much respect for the man, and rather more affection. Despite his renowned curmudgeonliness he is a very courteous and considerate human being when not stressed out at work.

Two of my favourite memories from that interview are Miyazaki getting misty-eyed and sweet about a visit to Buta-ya (his private studio where the interview took place) by the children from a local school for kids with learning difficulties. The main room of the studio has this huge three-storey-tall void with a narrow wooden bridge slung across it. He was telling me how they lined all the children up on the bridge and they all smiled huge smiles and he took a photo; and all the while I was thinking how here in the UK he and the teachers would probably have been arrested for allowing the kids on the bridge in the first place.

Also, while we were talking there was a loud bang against the window - I thought at first someone had thrown a ball at it, but the interpreter told me that because it's a very green area with lots of birds, and the windows are tall wide panes of glass, they regularly get birds flying into the glass and getting stunned. Miyazaki said excuse me and dashed out onto the verandah and picked up this bird - I don't know what sort of bird but it was about the size of a British song thrush, and the same kind of brown colour. There was much discussion as to whether or not it was alive, so he wrapped it up in a cloth that his secretary brought from the kitchen and found a cardboard box and put the bird in it, with a magazine balanced across the top to keep the box dark so the bird wouldn't be frightened when it came round, then he put it on the hearth next to his woodburning stove. We went on with the interview and then after about twenty minutes the bird started chirping and he said oh, good, it's not dead. Then he excused himself again and went off and called the local animal shelter to get soemone down to check it over so he could be sure it was OK to be released.

He was doing all this himself, dashing out, picking the bird up, finding a box, wrapping it up - it has all the elements of a classic British stage farce, in Miyazaki's office, in the middle of my interview. It was absolutely charming.

The most valuable to me are the ones that give me a personal moment of delight. When I saw Escaflowne first, I didn't know whether to cry or cheer - it was like a journey back in time to the first time I saw Macross. When I saw - no, still when I see Night on the Galactic Railroad I am moved almost to tears. We dig for those nuggets of real feeling and when we find one, it's a joy.

I'm not the best person to comment on Naruto. It has never moved me and it's not intended to. I look at it as a clever artefact with no relevance to me whatsoever, like one of those marvellous multigear mountain bikes or a Swiss army knife. I can see it's made for its purpose but it never engages me.

It didn't seem to me to have anything new about it. As Jonathan said earlier, we are both to some extent jaded in that we've seen most shows several times under different titles with more or less money thrown at them. To a new viewer that show is fresh and charming, to us it's a retread of x and y with a bit of z, and not the best retread of either. I'm glad you're enjoying it nd I hope you'll continue to do so, even if you decide with wider viewing that it's not as great as all that. I lvoe a number of shows that are quite silly, but hold a place in my heart for other reasons than quality.

Oh goodness, you'd have to show them quite a lot of different things!

My default position is always start with Totoro. Or something Ghibli anyway, but Totoro has worked for everyone I've ever shown it to.

I would also check out what they liked in other entertainment and then try and find an anime that was in that area, but maybe a little leftfield or offbeat.

So a big heavy metal fan might be a natural for Detroit Metal City, or might be the kind of metal fan who'd find the subtext offensive and splat me.

Showing anime to others is a minefield... even your mates sometimes look at the show you've been raving about for weeks and go "..."

Jonathan's experience is different than mine because he's from second- (or maybe even third-) wave UK fandom.

I was introduced to anime as anime - that is, as a distinct Japanese artform - by my then new boyfriend Steve Kyte. He'd been to Europe and picked up some Mazinger Z material in Spanish. Seeing the manga and the merchandise, I was blown away. Then I realised it was similar in stylistic and narrative terms to some of the TV material I'd seen in France. (I went to a French school so I was unusually Francophile for a Northern teenager.) I was intrigued by the way the image was allowed to carry so much of the narrative.

So I went on a hunt for more information and found that apart from a few insubstantial and patronising mentions in books on world animation, there was nothing written in English. I decided that had to change.

That was 1981. The book I wanted was The Anime Encyclopedia. Twenty years later Jonathan and I wrote the first edition, and now another fourteen years on here's the third.

Isn't that magically ironic? I've spent over half my life looking for the book I ended up writing myself...

And I didn't actually decide to turn into into a career. I just started writing about it and haven't yet found a reason to stop. I've always felt that if other people would write the books I wanted, I'd just get my coat. But they don't.