Some very nice new reviews recently for my Anime: A History, out now from the British Film Institute. I don’t think I’m able to point you directly at the very positive reviews in print mags such as Neo, MyM and Sight & Sound, although the online ones are just as complimentary.

Over at Cartoon Brew, Neil Emmett notes that: “Anime: A History is heartily recommended for anybody who wants an insight into the industrial politics that lie behind the on-screen images.”

PD Smith at The Guardian says: “This study is authoritative and detailed, and will be essential reading for anime fans and scholars alike.”

At the London School of Economics blog, Casey Brienza says it’s: “a magisterial effort and will undoubtedly prove invaluable for scholars, particularly in the social sciences, who are interested in the political economy of anime production. Indeed, while Clements may profess to be skeptical of history as a narrative project, his book may well shape the discourse on the subject for years, if not decades, to come.”

Andy Hanley at UK Anime net says: “[T]hese links from the past to the present, and the insight they present towards how the industry may change in the future, that make Anime: A History such an important book — it’s educational, but the information you glean from it extends well beyond a historical appreciation of the medium, enabling a deeper understanding not just of the anime that we all love but also how, and why, it has come to exist in the form that we recognise as anime.”

And a woman I have never met before says: “Anime: A History is no tedious chunk of verbiage made purely to advance a clueless academic’s quest for tenure.  From the earliest days of the medium, whose date of origin, first screened title and first auteur still have enough ambiguity around them to drive whodunnit lovers crazy, to the current century where fluidity of formats and markets has introduced whole new areas of uncertainty, Clements takes us on a thrill-ride through a hall of mirrors where nothing is quite as it seems and fifty shades of undisclosed lurk in the shadows.”