"My first ever book was "I love my Tamagotchi" by Bronwen Kamatsubara. I pretended to be a Japanese schoolgirl for that one. It worked out nicely."
"I had come back from Japan where I was studying when I had just libeled my university in the press. "Anime UK" had just started up. I wrote to them and I offered them an article about comics in Taiwan. The reason that I offered them an article about comics in Taiwan was because I assumed that they all spoke Japanese. Who would publish an anime magazine that didn't speak Japanese? That would be insane. It turned out that none of them did. After about eight months of me giving them articles about China, Helen said that "We would quite like some articles about Japan because you can actually speak Japanese and that is kind of helpful". Then I started writing stuff for Anime UK."
No, I'm not Clements or his agent. Should have included this link too from the UK's Channel 4:
Jonathan Clements on anime
Q: Malice @ Doll is controversial in its depiction of sexual violence towards women (or in this case Dolls). In terms of censorship, anime seems to be able to get away with things (tentacle rape/violence) that would be condemned if captured on film with actors. Why do you think that is?
A: In fact, anime doesn't get away with it at all. The British Board of Film Censorship are keen to police "imitable and sexualised violence" and they don't cut anime any more slack than any other form of film. They have been known to be overly tough in their treatment of anime because of the public's belief that cartoons are by definition for children, and therefore more likely to appeal to children. In one notorious case, parts ten and eleven of the Overfiend series were refused a certificate point-blank by the BBFC on the grounds that they "might be used by paedophiles to entice children." That ruling was entirely justified.
The tits-and-tentacles sub-genre in Japanese animation has grown up in answer to Japanese censorship restrictions, but these movies often do better outside Japan than inside it. What is more shocking, that Japanese film-makers made a revolting film like Legend of the Overfiend, or that 60,000 British men have bought it?
