Disposable Lit Reviews

DH Publishing, 2003
96 pp.
ISBN 0-9723124-2-0

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DH Publishing/Cocoro Books has now sent me three of their fresh-of-the-press releases for review. The first, Japanese Movie Posters, was very much the subject matter of the Cold Fusion Video Reviews website; unfortunately, it’s also hard to write anything meaningful about a photo compendium of Japanese movie posters. The second, Secrets of the Ninja, was almost as pretty, but thin on content. I also don’t think I’m the obvious reviewing candidate for the subject matter, except via the tenuous link of having reviewed a few crappy ninja movies here and there.

This third book, though, is very much the worst of the three to send to me, because, despite two years spent living in Japan, I’ve studiously avoided getting into manga and anime fandom. (Please don’t write me and tell me how much I’d love it. I know I’d love it. That’s why I’m not getting started. My standard line here is “I don’t have time for any further obsessions.”)

“Cosplay,” for those even less anime-literate than I, is a contraction of the English words “costume play,” and refers to the segment of Japanese fandom which concentrates on dressing up like one’s favorite anime and manga characters. The fact that it really took off in the mid-’70’s, right about the time that Trek fandom was getting its legs on this side of the Pacific, pretty much cements it as the parallel to American sci-fi fandom. The main differences, according to the book (aside from the focus of the fandom, obviously), are that 1) cosplay enthusiasts are even more skewed to the female demographic than American media fandom, and 2) Japanese fan-geeks appear to be generally prettier and slenderer than their American counterparts.

And how can I tell this? Simple. The book is pretty much a photo album of cosplay girls at conventions and other gatherings, with pictures taken by “cameko” (the other half of the cosplay equation, the predominantly-male amateur photographers who show up just to add to their collections of snapshots). Page after page of Japanese girls in outlandish costumes, with short captions as to who they are, how long they’ve been cosplaying, and who they’re supposed to be.

So how could this go wrong? Well, for one thing, anime costumes look no better on real people than superhero spandex generally looks on real people. For another thing, aside from a few one- or two-page photoshoot spreads, just about everything is a candid, at-the-convention shot — which means that no matter how good the photographer or the camera is, the photos themselves are going to be less than spectacular. And for a third thing, I’m really not the target audience. I don’t know anime, so there’s no little “thrill” for me to see someone dressed up like Squalo from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure or Joe Shimamura from Cyborg 009.

If you like this kind of thing, though, then I guess you’ll like this kind of thing. And to help you decide whether this is the kind of thing you like, here are a few interior scans from the book. (On the other two they’ve sent me, I didn’t want to risk cracking the softcover spines by putting the books in my scanner. Here, though, I really don’t care.)

I’ve gone so far as to ask DH Publishing not to send me further review copies, at least not without querying me first. Books like these take me further afield of what I originally intended for Disposable Lit Reviews, which was to tackle some of the thousands forgettable fiction and other books filling my shelves. After all, if I don’t do it, who will?

Nathan Shumate