Breaking into Anime

IU graduate student Brian Ruh has been busy with much more than his academic studies. Ruh is currently pursuing his doctorate in communication and culture, will become a father in January and just published "Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii."\n"It's a really rare and significant accomplishment," said Professor Gregory Waller, chairperson of the department of communication and culture, about Ruh's publishing a book while earning his Ph.D.\nRuh's book provides the reader with a general synopsis, an explanation of characters and an analysis of Oshii's films. Waller said he found Ruh's book to be a good study and an effective way to teach Japanese films.\n"It is a look at one specific director who often works in the field of Anime, or Japanese animation," Ruh said.\nOne of Ruh's objectives when publishing his book was to make his book comprehensible to people who may know little or nothing about the world of Anime while also making it intriguing for steadfast Anime fans. Ruh said he wanted to entice those who were exploring Anime for the first time to read his book and perhaps take an interest in viewing Oshii's movies, but also to help dissect the movies for previous viewers.\n"Brian Ruh's work is scholarly but readable, and affirmative but critical -- an education for academics and fans alike," said Jonathan Clements, co-author of The "Anime Encyclopedia," according to Ruh's Web site. \nAnd the idea for his book came much easier than many people would think.\n"The book actually sprung out of my master's thesis that I wrote while I was at the University of Texas," Ruh said. "What I tried to do in the book is to take a fairly comprehensive look at all (Oshii's) films."\nWith his book, Ruh covers all Oshii's films between the 1980s and "Avalon," produced in 2001. Oshii recently released another film in the United States, but Ruh said he didn't have time to write about Oshii's most recent movie.\nRuh has traveled to Japan on three occasions -- a study-abroad program at Nagoya University, a tour of a number of Japanese cities and a week-long trip during March 2003. \nDuring the most recent trip, Ruh traveled to Tokyo with the intention of interviewing Oshii, but Oshii was sick the week Ruh was there. Ruh returned home without having the chance to interview the man about whom he wrote a book. Despite the thwarted face-to-face interview, Ruh was able to correspond with Oshii via e-mail in order to have a number of his questions answered.\n"It's not the same as being able to sit down and have a face-to-face (interview), even though it would have been through a translator," Ruh said.\nAs any endeavor does, the publication of Ruh's book has had its highs as well as its lows. The book took approximately three years to publish, from the beginning of the thesis to the completion of the book, earlier this year. But Ruh still wasn't able to incorporate all the information he had hoped to incorporate. \n"I wish that I had been able to include more films in the book because I don't take a look at every single one of his films," Ruh said. "I tried to concentrate on what I thought were some of the larger ones." Although the book focuses on the life of Oshii, the featured film producer might not even get a chance to read it.\nRuh has sent Oshii a copy of the book, but since the book is written in English, Ruh isn't sure if Oshii will have the opportunity to read it. Right now, Ruh can only hope that one day his book will be translated into Japanese so Oshii can share his thoughts about Ruh's ideas.\nRuh said he wishes he had been able to write more about a number of Oshii's live-action films rather than focusing primarily on the animated films. Ruh said that perhaps the live-action films could be the focus of a second edition sometime in the future, but no proposal has been produced in regards to the publication of a second book.\nAs with any accomplishment, the end result often yields the greatest satisfaction. \n"I think my favorite aspect of (the book-making process) was it actually being done," Ruh said. As for the process itself, Ruh discovered the editing process and the formation of the bibliography were interesting aspects, but the time deadline proved the most stressful portion of the process.\nBesides publishing his book, Ruh wrote a column for the online magazine www.popmatters.com, and had an article published at the end of September that focused on his recent phone interview with Oshii. \nWith all his involvement in Anime, Ruh has inevitably come to favor one part of Anime above all others: The themes of Anime, as well as the diversity of the material, draw and maintains his interest. \nAll interests must stem from somewhere, but Ruh can't cite a specific interest or time when he knew he wanted to research Anime. He said he used to play with transformers and robots and enjoyed watching cartoons, including Anime. He eventually forgot about Anime, but rediscovered it in high school.\nAlthough Ruh hasn't begun to work on any additional books, he said he has been mulling over plans to write a book about cyborgs and the representation of women in Japanese films.\n"I'm slowly but surely working on (a second book)," Ruh said.\n-- Contact staff writer Sarah Snyder at sasnyder@indiana.edu.