While not light reading, this three part book is comprised of extended essays by a group of writers who given a great deal of academic consideration to animé art and history. This is a good thing since I have found it difficult to convince older academia on the intellectual merit of some animé. Susan Napier does this right from the start with her 20 page contribution on spectatorship and the feminine form, specifically in the work of Kon Satoshi. I was delighted to see his work put in such a perspective, since to my knowledge, a monograph on his works has yet to surface. Brian Ruh was also a noticeable name, since he has written an excellent book on the works of Mamoru Oshii. He weighs in on issues of adolescence and maturity in the cyborg culture, a position he asserts as relevant since, as he states in his first paragraph, "modern humans have become cyborgs." Although I believe this assertion is driven more by an eagerness for the future than a reality of the present, the article is still engrossing. Anyone who has read Hughes' "Citizen Cyborg" would enjoy this book, since the over zealous writers often seek to prematurely fit future politics into a society still working out past politics. But in this case, it works, since they take their cue from an art form that is very convincing in its dichotomous worship and angst of the future.