St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Jon Pressner, Organizer of the St. Louis Anime Meetup tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: " Whether you're a jock or a nerd, you can find common ground." The paper adds: "That common ground is becoming even more common as anime fan clubs continue to spread."

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Adventures in anime
By Brian Jarvis
SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH
Tuesday, Feb. 28 2006

The images are as striking as they are unpredictable. Break-dancing samurai.
Alien-fighting catgirls. Scripture-quoting vampires. Afro-topped bounty
hunters. Welcome to the world of Japanese animation, known to its fans as anime.

Chances are, you've never heard of "Gunslinger Girl" or "Perfect Blue," but you
may remember the classic cartoons "Speed Racer" and "Transformers," or the
Pokemon phenomenon 10 years ago with its omnipresent lunch boxes and backpacks.
Or you may have caught the brief anime sequence in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill
Bill Vol. I."

"Anime is for everyone," says Jon Pressner, a video distributor who runs the
St. Louis Anime Meetup Group and owns more than 500 anime films and television
shows. "Whether you're a jock or a nerd, you can find common ground."

That common ground is becoming even more common as anime fan clubs continue to
spread. Local universities have groups that meet regularly, as do Kirkwood and
Horton Watkins Ladue high schools. A Google search for anime produces more than
30 million results. Full-service Web sites offer membership, forums and
reviews. Once the domain of specialty shops and dusty library shelves, anime
seems poised to hit the mainstream.

Don't call it a cartoon

So what makes anime so special?

For Katrina Panzer, a sophomore at Webster University and president of the
university's Anime Society, comparing Japanese animation to its American
counterpart is like comparing French cuisine to a hamburger and fries.

"Anime is like watching a good movie," Panzer says. "The stories have more
depth, the longer shots give you time to absorb the visuals. They're not like
American cartoons where everything comes at you a hundred miles an hour."

To label anime as cartoons, however, is like calling Harry Potter a children's
book. Much like graphic novels outclass comic books, anime outshines cartoons
with adult themes, gritty characters, plot twists and artwork so brilliant that
the techniques are now being taught in art classes.

For Panzer, watching anime is only the beginning. In May, she'll be taking her
school club to Anime Central, an annual convention for diehard fans that meets
in Rosemont, Ill., just outside Chicago.

Much like sci-fi and comic book conventiongoers, participants come dressed as
their favorite characters. Panzer is putting together an outfit she describes
as a "schoolgirl dress turned into a swimsuit, plus I'll be carrying a hammer
and sickle." She got the idea from "Sailor Moon," an anime TV series she grew
up watching.

"People have the misperception that conventions are a bunch of drunken nerds
drooling over a girl dressed as Catwoman," laughs Panzer, who has written
several school papers about the phenomenon of cosplay: a combination of the
words costume and play. "They're nothing like that. People wear the most
fantastic costumes, you get to see movies and play video games that no one else
has seen. It's hard to find people in normal life who share your interests,
but, at conventions, you feel at home."

Japan: Mecca of anime

Anime Stack meets twice a month in an auditorium at the University of Missouri
at St. Louis. After warming up with a plate of homemade cookies and a Japanese
music video featuring schoolgirls doing their best Britney Spears, the
movie-size screen cuts to today's pick: "Karin," a TV serial about a girly-girl
vampire who, between kills, frets over mysterious nosebleeds much like a
typical teen frets over a zit.

True to form, "Karin" follows anime's standard protocol: stunning visuals,
ongoing storylines, faux-opera melodrama, heaving breasts and plenty of gore.

"A lot of anime is meant for a grown-up audience," says David Gellman, an UMSL
alumni and school administrator who founded Anime Stack with some friends
several years ago. While the range of anime goes from G-rated to X-rated,
nearly all of it is televised, at least in Japan.

"Sex and violence on television are more acceptable in Japan because they have
a less violent society," Gellman explains.

Fifteen years ago, the only anime for sale in St. Louis was from specialty
shops that charged $30 for a 22-minute program. Today, while many video stores
and delivery services such as Netflix feature healthy anime selections, Gellman
maintains that "most real fans are getting their fix off their Internet. People
can download it directly from Japan the day it comes out. And the Japanese
companies don't care because it helps them get more publicity."

There's plenty to choose from. In Japan, there are roughly 40 anime series on
television, so much that reruns are rare. To keep up with the pace, writers
often take their story lines straight from Japanese comic books and graphic
novels called manga. During a trip to Japan, Gellman recalls seeing
such books everywhere.

"I saw manga that was as thick as the Yellow Pages," he said. "It really fried
my head."

Local student

teaches the art

At Horton Watkins Ladue High School, the Anime Club has taken the subculture a
step further. Every other week, the 15 or so members create their own anime,
drawing favorite characters by hand, scanning them into computer programs such
as Photoshop and ultimately posting them online. Some students have
even won competitions. The prize? Free anime videos.

Sarah Verrett, a senior who helped found the group, has been drawing anime
since the sixth grade when she saw the "Robotech" TV series. In addition to
providing instruction for newcomers to the club, she also teaches an art class
for fourth- and fifth-graders at Conway Middle School as part of Ladue's Cadet
Teaching Program.

"People have a preconceived idea of what anime is," Verrett says. "Big eyes,
schoolgirls, demons everywhere. The challenge is to make it original."

Verrett is sketching a project she calls "The Melting Pot," in which three
college friends start their own nightclub in between classes and hectic social
lives. Verrett hopes one day to turn her drawings into an animated feature.

Fully confident that anime will be around in 50 years, Verrett already is
planning a career in the field.

Japan may have seen the future of anime 50 years ago but, in America, that
future is just beginning.

Brian Jarvis is a freelance writer living in St. Louis.