Bonenkai and Last Minute Gift Ideas for Every Otaku on Your List

December and January are a time of many traditions, new and old, in Japan. One of my favorite workplace traditions in December is the bonenkai. This is usually a gathering of co-workers and the name means “forget the year party”. It is usually held in December and is designed to help dissolve the worries and problems of the previous year. Tasty food and copious amounts of alcohol are served. Most of these parties take place at izakaya-style restaurants. Traditionally, you will be forgiven for any drunken statement made at the bonenkai, even to the boss’s face, and what happens at the party is never to be discussed again. However, I hear this part of the tradition is beginning to fade away, and probably for good reason. I hade a friend nearly lose his job a few years back after some bonenkai antics that had been alright in previous years, but it sounds like Japanese businesses are moving in the right direction. He would have lost more than his job in the US.

This has been a tumultuous year for many Americans, and maybe a good time for us to start a sort of bonenkai tradition of our own.

What we can’t forget is gift-giving, and the titles I bring to you this month might make original and inexpensive holiday gifts.

There are nearly as many aspiring manga and anime artists as there are manga and anime fans, and although I can barely draw a happy face, I am very impressed by Style School: Illustration and Instruction. Volume 3 is the first one I picked up, and what impresses me is not the wide range of illustration technique taught, from water-color to Photoshop, but is the interactive nature of the book. This is touted as an “instructional magazine”, but it is more than a textbook and more than a periodical. Not only are hundreds of reader-submitted color illustrations included, but also Q&A from aspiring artists. Style School is a big and very high quality production that any artist or Japanese culture fan will want to collect. ($16.95)

Speaking of Japanese artists, few modern pop artists have made the impact on the art and pop-culture world like Junko Mizuno. Her artwork is inspired by shojo (girls) manga and her style is often called “Gothic kawaii” as it melds both cute and dark images into one. Her prints are very expensive, but her graphic novel, Pure Trance is large-scale and much more affordable. Pure Trance is Mizuno’s first full-length manga and one of the only ones ever released in English. Male characters are rarely depicted, and this adult story is set in a future where the life-giving Pure Trance pill causes society to overeat. The story is set in a hospital run by an evil director, and is focused on the nurses who work under her. This is a psychedelic sci-fi trip of a book with outlandish turns at every page. Mature J-pop culture fans will want to see this for themselves. It is a real mind-scramble. ($19.98)

The third great gift idea of the month is The Akiba: A Manga Guide to Akihabara. Akihabara, or Akiba to hardcore anime fans and other otaku, is the electronic haven in Tokyo which has grown into a Mecca for self-proclaimed geeks from around Japan and around the world. Filled with computer and electronics stores, Akihabara is also the home to maid cafés, vintage toy stores and giant manga shops. The Akiba is both an introduction to the culture as well as an illustrated walking tour any lucky visitor can use to see this now infamous area on his or her own. The story is secondary to the introduction to the culture of what Akihabara has evolved into in recent years. Easy to follow maps and introductions to dozens of shops are included. ($19.95)

Another thing you will find in Akihabara is video game arcades. Luckily the arcade phenomenon, which is all but extinct in the U.S., is alive and doing pretty well in Japan. Like The Akiba, it doesn’t matter if you are a newbie or expert, Arcade Mania!: The Turbo-Charged World of Japan’s Game Centers will be a great read for any gamer interested in Japan. Each chapter is a journey from the front doors of a Japanese arcade (U.F.O. Catchers and Sticker-Picture Machines) to the nether-regions of the smoky arcades (Games of Chance and Dedicated Cabinets) and everything in between. Author Brian Ashcraft speaks with the masters of ever type of machine he covers, and the sub-culture of video game arcades in Japan is explored in Arcade Mania! with careful reverence and eye-popping full-color design. This book is a lot of fun, and is also a good title just for straight-up gamers who are interested only in the consoles and arcade culture. They will drool over systems not yet (and probably never) available in the US. ($19.95)

One of my favorite novels to come out this year is a black comedy with the odd title Lala Pipo. This is actually six individual stories of unaware losers sucked into the sex industry that invariably exists in a city the size of Tokyo. Humorous but tragic, what makes Lala Pipo such a satisfying read is how author Hideo Okuda expertly spins each story together into one complete and beautifully perverted web. Lala Pipo is for free-spirits who don’t mind if their tragic heroes are pimps or aspiring porn stars. The situations sometimes induce cringes, but fans of downward spirals will find Lala Pipo an exciting underground rollercoaster ride in the nude. Movie version coming out soon in Japan. ($14.95)

Blood+ fans should know that Volume 3 of the novels was just released. This is a title I was privileged enough to work on and the Blood+ novels make a vital supplement to the animated series. Themes the anime doesn’t have time to cover are explored more deeply in the novels, making sense of some questions and completing the experience. For a slightly more mature take on the anime, be sure to check out the Blood+ manga, as well. Volume 4 was just released. (Blood+ novels: $8.95. Blood+ manga $10.95)

I am usually not a big fan of manga based on anime, but I am a fan of head-trip comics, and Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo happens to be both. More than anything I like the style of this retro-future retelling of Dumas’s classic story of a strange and rich aristocrat luring a young Parisian into his plot of revenge. This story morphs a couple times in this first volume from straightforward interplanetary Mardi Gras festivities among the elite to a psychedelic mind-scramble of Kubrickian sensibilities. It closes with a crash landing that is a little hard to follow with a lot of names and titles thrown about, but Gankutuou grabs your attention like few anime-to-manga titles can. ($12.50)

Also this month is a new title for older teens. Inukami is the story of Keita, a typical teenage boy who is assigned his own dog spirit, or Inukami, to assist him in his family’s tradition of exorcising ghosts who have lost their way. Do you think Keita’s spiritual assistant is really a dog? Of course not! She is a cute and sexy sprite with a tail named Yoko. Keita and Yoko go through the expected hormone-fueled angst-filled getting-to-know-you process, but the story starts to get good once its gets past the overdone sitcom antics so many titles like this wallow in. ($9.99)

Finally this month I want to wish a big congratulations to Ryan Sands for the release of “Electric Ant”. In the first issue of this high quality zine is a big interview with author and translator Frederik Schodt (Manga! Manga!, The Astro Boy Essays). There is a ton of fun stuff to read in this first ish, and it is great to see the legacy of the zine continue. Make no mistake, this is no Xerox paper and staple throw-together. "Electric Ant" is a slick and subversive (and often very funny) production. Go to the official site for more details.

Have a great new year!

[This is an expanded version of the Mecha Mecha Media column published in the December issue of The Yuuyake Shimbun]