Introduction to Marc

Marc "Makosuke" Marshall, AAW Founder and Reviewer

Before I even get started, here's the important info: a basic rundown of where I'm coming from when I write a review, since I've written most of those here. Essentially, I like anime. Good anime, bad anime, indifferent anime, I pretty much enjoy everything--that's why I started AAW in the first place. I'm not a connoisseur, but I do know a "quality" show when I see one. I also won't shy away from recommending something that is basically bad, but creative. There are a lot of points to look at--plot, writing, characters, art, quality of animation, fun-factor, coolness, and more, so essentially, I'll let you know what I thought was good, what I thought wasn't, and what the bottom line was for me. But I'll also venture a guess as to the kind of folks who would enjoy something, even if I wasn't one of them. That's about it.

That said, here's a little biography of myself. For those wondering where the "Makosuke" moniker came from, it's based on what Akemi--yes, she's real, that is her name, and she's my wife of several years now--calls me, so it seems appropriate. This essay is supposed to be about my perspective on anime and how I got there, so I guess the best place to start would be my first anime experience.

The first anime series I can remember watching was Voltron; it may not compare too favorably to the greats in the transforming robot genre, but I loved that show as a tyke. To this day, I've got one of the toys in my closet, and along with Robotech it no doubt planted the seed of anime love in my psyche. Of course, it wasn't until years later that I even realized that it was Japanese animation--all I knew at the time was that it was better than all the other cartoons on TV.

Voltron went off the air, I forgot about it, and years passed. Then one day I ran across Akira in the video rental place. Despite my protests ("What do you mean you heard it's really violent? It's a cartoon!"), my brother rented it, and I was hooked. Next came Vampire Hunter D, the Castle of Cagliostro (I'm still a Lupin III and Miyazaki fan) and then a movie from the opposite end of the spectrum, Windaria.

Windaria was a turning point for me; violence and action were the reason most of the other people I knew liked this bizarre "new" animation, but something about a "cartoon" telling a serious story struck me. A little later, I ran across two subtitled tapes: Project A-ko and Gunbuster. My friends thought Project A-ko was just too weird, but I loved it, and had this strange desire to get all the in-jokes. And something about Gunbuster that I still can't quite put my finger on really caught my eye.

This was when I realized that I was a sub fan--the allure of the Japanese language must have sucked me in. But since my local rental place only had the first two volumes of Gunbuster, I had no way to find out how this story ended. A few letters (this was pre-email), a Books Nippan mail order catalog, and a whole bunch of allowance money later, I was in possession of my first anime video. (And yes, I was a member of the Books Nippan Japanese Animation Fan Club in the early '90s, way back when that was pretty much the only way you got your hands on untranslated manga.) From then on, there was no turning back.

The only other noteworthy milestone was when the teacher in a Japanese class I was taking (he was a bit of an anime fan himself) loaned me untranslated tapes of My Neighbor Totoro, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and Nausicaa. That both firmed up the hold of the language on me and reintroduced me to the masterful storytelling and visual talent of Miyazaki and his studio Ghibli.

I've seen quite a bit of anime since I first started out, amassed a respectable collection of videos (I even bought a LaserDisc player back when so I wouldn't have to worry about wearing out tapes, and I later bought a DVD player the day the first anime video was released on DVD), learned to speak some Japanese, and got into manga a bit. And, after surfing the fanweb for a few years, I got this urge to throw my own effort into the collective pool of the Internet. I'm still not quite sure why I did that, but if you're reading this, you've seen the fruits of my (and a few other folks') labor.

So now you know more than anybody (including me) wants to know about my anime background. I may sound like some kind of hardcore nut fan, but I have a slightly different take on the whole thing than some. I like anime, I watch it in my spare time, and I write about it. But I'm not really into the anime "scene"; I don't read magazines, hunt for insider secrets or rumors of upcoming releases, or go to cons. I don't even watch many fansubs, and I probably can't tell you what was released in the US this month. Not that there's anything wrong with doing any of those things, but I prefer to just sit back, pick up a DVD, and enjoy the show. No trivia, obsessions, or baggage, just a short escape to another time, place, or reality.

I should also say that I enjoy almost every aspect of anime itself. First off, I am a fan of animation as a visual art form, and I can enjoy any movie that looks good enough--watching fluid animation or well drawn art is a pleasure in and of itself. And yes, that means I do even enjoy an American movie or TV show once in a while. I may not think much of the plots or presentation, but there is no denying that Disney (and now Dreamworks) really knows how to paint a picture, and no matter how you cut it, when you spend tens of millions of dollars to animate a movie, it usually looks pretty good.

But if animation was all I went for, I would probably have done a web page devoted to Prince of Egypt. As with almost every other anime fan, I also love the characters, and nothing Disney has ever produced can match whatever that special something is that permanently endears a character to us fans. Whatever that something is, I enjoy spending some video-time with Ryoko, Lum, or Lupin III as much as the next guy. And yes, of course I like the babes, but who doesn't? (Ok, other than fangirls, but they've got plenty of fine masculine specimens to choose from, too.)

Finally, there are the stories. I won't try to claim that most anime writing is of any notable quality, but there are those gems out there that stay with you, and even when the writing isn't much worth noting, so many anime stories have a sense of wonder or vision that you don't often see elsewhere. The sheer imagination that goes into the setting of even some of the cheesier sci-fi stories makes them worth watching.

That pretty much sums it up. If you're wondering what kind of anime I prefer, the answer is almost everything. I enjoy a good-natured tug at the heartstrings (Kimagure Orange Road, for example), a finely crafted piece of action (Ninja Scroll), a subtle comedy (Patlabor), a wacky comedy (Tenchi Muyo), a really wacky comedy (Excel Saga), a downright strange comedy (The Ultimate Teacher), a quiet tale of suspense (Vampire Princess Miyu), an epic adventure (the Dagger of Kamui), and even the occasional shoujo series (Tokyo Babylon or Revolutionary Girl Utena). My favorite stories would probably be either light comedies (in the Tenchi Muyo vein), or intricate, subtle, and preferably well animated stories of vision (Boogiepop Phantom and Wings of Honneamise, for example).

I also try to take a broader look at anime in context; I'm not an anime historian, but I do go out of my way to track down the little known (outside Japan) series that form the foundation of modern anime. Things like Ge-ge-ge no Kitarou, Ninja Hattori-kun, and Doraemon, for example.

About the only thing that I don't much care for is dubbing, but I'm an "originalist" and I speak Japanese, so I won't be one to cast stones at those who prefer anime in their native tongue (if you enjoy it more, why not?). Heck, they even released a version of Ghost in the Shell in Japan that was dubbed in English with Japanese subtitles.

Well, that's about it, but if you're wondering what non-anime things I do, I have a BA in Physics (yes, a BA, not a BS) and I'm a Masters student in International Development Technology. I work as a control systems programmer and IT guy at an alternative energy research laboratory specializing in fuel cells. I have a flesh and blood Japanese wife who this site is named after who I spend most of my free time with. In the tiny amount of remaining spare time, I like spending way too much time fiddling with my computer (which everything at AAW was created with--always a Mac, currently a G5 dual 2.0GHz rev. A and a first-gen MacBook Pro 17"). I occasionally enjoy console video games (new and old--I've been a Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda junky since the first installment of each series) and paper and dice role-playing.

On a final and entirely unnecessary note, I was also exceedingly ill for the entirety of 2006, and though I'm doing much better now it lead to an almost complete lack of productivity of any sort and nearly no anime watching at all. It has also been a lesson that I really didn't need or want in how much you should appreciate any day you are able to eat, speak, stand up, take a walk outside, stand on the beach or in the forest, hang out with friends, watch a movie, play a game, go to work, or even just sit in the sun. I've gone for months straight without being able to do any of those things, and absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. Appreciate what you've got, and don't take it away from anybody else.

You can contact Marc via the AAW feedback form