Japanese manga and anime are becoming more and more common in America. However, finding professional and 100% realiable information about the who, what, where, when, and why of anime and manga may be quite challenging. Stone Bridge Press, publisher of the all-time anime fan favorite Anime Encyclopedia, has published numerous titles not only about anime and manga, but on Japanese culture, language, and more! Focusing on the land of the rising sun, Stone Bridge Press seems to have every aspect of Japan covered. Akadot conducts an exclusive interview with Peter Goodman, publisher and editor-in-chief at Stone Bridge Press.

Akadot: Of all your titles, which book is the most popular? Why?

Peter Goodman: It varies. Right now, our Anime Encyclopedia is selling the most, but that's obviously attributable to the huge burst of interest in anime over the past two years. As a publisher, it's just as important that we find good long-term sellers. The Encyclopedia may be such a book, especially if we continue to update it. But we also have Kanji Pict-o-Graphix, a guide to Japanese characters, and Wabi-Sabi, a mini treatise on traditional Japanese aesthetics, each of which has sold over 50,000 copes.

Akadot: You have two new anime books, Anime Explosion! and Animation on DVD coming out this fall? Can you please tell Akadot readers a little bit about these two titles?

PG: Anime Explosion is by Patrick Drazen, who lives in Chicago and has done some very deep thinking on the cultural underpinnings of anime themes. Like many of our other books on popular culture, it's densely informative, not just a collection of pictures. We've tried to present it as a bridge for "serious" folks to get acquainted with anime and see it as more than cartoons or twisted adult fare, which, believe it or not, is still the attitude of most of the literate population of the USA. It's a hefty book, but not academic, although it has been carefully researched and thus should provide a lot of new information for fans too.

Animation on DVD is more like a typical movie guide. It has reviews and information of over 1,500 animated films on DVD (a lot but not all of it anime), with production notes as well as info on DVD-only special features, Easter eggs, storyboards, interviews, etc. The author, Andy Mangels, has written quite a bit for entertainment media and will probably need a new pair of glasses by the time he's done! Unlike most other movie guides, we will have box art for almost every film listed, making this a very attractive as well as practical reference guide.

Akadot: If it is possible, could you tell us some other topics you are planning to publish next year? Why did you choose to publish those topics?

PG: Next spring we have a superbly comprehensive Yakuza movie guide from Mark Schilling plus a new book by Fred Schodt on Ranald MacDonald, not the hamburger clown but a very brave adventurer who snuck into Japan in 1848 and ended up teaching the Japanese a lot of what they needed to know about the West before Commodore Perry forced them to open up the nation a decade or so later.

In the fall we have another book coauthored by the amazing Jonathan Clements on Japanese TV dramas, many of which have their roots in anime and manga. Plus, a celebration of the centennial birth anniversary of director Yasujiro Ozu via a book by Donald Richie about his film masterpiece "Tokyo Story." And perhaps a couple more surprises.