Superstar
Clemmo payed a flying visit on Monday. He arrived around 9pm, so I wasn't able to get more than a few hours with him. We nattered over beer and he gave me the latest 'gen' on his researches into the Japanese animation industry in Manchuria.
Jon is digging up some cool stuff. There's a tendency in western fandom to think that there was little in manga or anime before Tezuka came along, but Jon is unearthing many creators who came before. It's all material for a book that probably won't appear for a couple of years, but some of the stories are fascinating. On Monday I learned about the connection between the feature length Navy-sponsored anime Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors and the Doolittle Raid, as well as the Japanese contribution to Maoist propaganda.
Jon also dropped off his latest book, Togo: The Nelson of the East. It's a jolly little read about the unassuming man who was amongst the last of the samurai while at the same time being one of the first generation to reject the samurai way in favour of modernism and technology.
The Battle of the Yellow Sea and Tsushima are a small portion of this book. I was far more interested in his early career through the Boshin War and up to the sinking of the Kowshing. There's also a nice portrait of the man in his later years, both as mentor to Hirohito and as the eccentric old admiral who still sewed his own socks and buttons and did his laundry in the sink.
Clemmo does a great job of describing the phenomenal interest of Americans and Britons in Togo, back when Japan was regarded as the 'Britain of the East'. His treatment in Britain and the US was that of a superstar; the man who had soundly beaten the Russians. His name and likeness was to appear on all sorts of products from shoes to soap. It seems out of kilter considering how Japan, within less than a generation, would have a black name within the international community.
Jon is digging up some cool stuff. There's a tendency in western fandom to think that there was little in manga or anime before Tezuka came along, but Jon is unearthing many creators who came before. It's all material for a book that probably won't appear for a couple of years, but some of the stories are fascinating. On Monday I learned about the connection between the feature length Navy-sponsored anime Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors and the Doolittle Raid, as well as the Japanese contribution to Maoist propaganda.
Jon also dropped off his latest book, Togo: The Nelson of the East. It's a jolly little read about the unassuming man who was amongst the last of the samurai while at the same time being one of the first generation to reject the samurai way in favour of modernism and technology.
The Battle of the Yellow Sea and Tsushima are a small portion of this book. I was far more interested in his early career through the Boshin War and up to the sinking of the Kowshing. There's also a nice portrait of the man in his later years, both as mentor to Hirohito and as the eccentric old admiral who still sewed his own socks and buttons and did his laundry in the sink.
Clemmo does a great job of describing the phenomenal interest of Americans and Britons in Togo, back when Japan was regarded as the 'Britain of the East'. His treatment in Britain and the US was that of a superstar; the man who had soundly beaten the Russians. His name and likeness was to appear on all sorts of products from shoes to soap. It seems out of kilter considering how Japan, within less than a generation, would have a black name within the international community.