Here in Glasgow for the first leg of Scotland Loves Anime, which kicked off for me last night by talking myself hoarse at the Hogwarts-like university, detailing some of the gossip and scandal from the Japanese fantasy scene. For those who were there and interested in following up some of the strands discussed, I spoke about some of the machinations at Studio Ghibli, the very different careers of Motoko Arai and Hiroshi Yamamoto, the uses and abuses of the work of Kenji Miyazawa, as well as the Persian diversion of Yoshiki Tanaka, the Martian sidequels of Hitoshi Yoshioka, and Tomihiko Morimi‘s love of Kyoto.

Thank you to Rob Maslen of the School of Critical Studies for inviting me along, and for all those students who laughed along with me at some of the misfortunes of Japanese authors, particularly as regarding discovering that all their characters had been turned into cats. And for those of you in the audience who wanted to look at my doctoral thesis, you can read it here.