This long-awaited "companion" volume boasts over 500 all-new glossary-style entries to help you decipher anime's distinctive content, images and cultural motifs. Ranging from Aikido to Zero fighters (with Japanese Mountain Vegetables in between), Gilles Poitras covers the minutiae of anime in fascinating detail, including illustrations, anime images, film citations and numerous references to the related art of manga. More than a guide, The Anime Companion 2 is a pop survey of Japanese art, kitsch, history, food and daily life. Now with entries in kanji and English, the Anime Companion remains the best friend an otaku ever had. Volume 1 was chosen for New York Public Library's Books for the Teen Age List.

Gilles Poitras is a librarian in the San Francisco Bay Area.