From the Icelandic film Astropia, here is a brief apologia for anime. Flóki is a clerk at the titular comics/DVD/RPG shop and Hildur is the innocent new employee.
Flóki: Here we have Japanese Anime.
Hildur: Why aren’t they in the Asian section?
Flóki: Because I say so. They’re special cartoons. Some people like anime, but never watch Asian cinema. And vice-versa. Here we have some great titles, like My Neighbor Totoro, Akira, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ghost in the Shell.
Hildur: And grown-ups watch this?
Flóki: — Oh yeah. You’re just thinking of the Disneyfication of animation. Anime has much more to offer.They’re not all family films, but they respect their audience. They’re open-ended and multi-layered.
Disney has bought and hidden away many of the jewels of Anime to keep them from western audiences. To make a buck off The Lion Kingdom of the Mouse House.
Astropia is available for the reasonable price of $18.10. Unfortunately, shipping from Iceland is $32.99, so I hope that the film soon finds an American distributer.
Bonus link: My familiar is a purple snow leopard. The election as a RPG campaign. (Via Naked Villainy.)
Someday, my friend, we will find a hobby that does not require shipping and handling or encourage the receipt of mail from faraway foreign lands. But it is not today. 🙂