Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2013
Vol. 4, No. 1, 185–188


BOOK REVIEWS


Beautiful fighting girl, by Saito Tamaki, translated by J. Keith Vincent and Dawn Lawson,
University of Minnesota Press, 2011, 248 pp., £45.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-8166-5450-
5, £13.50 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-8166-5451-2


Have you ever wanted to psychoanalyze an otaku? If so, you are not alone, for psychiatrist
Saito Tamaki has done just that inBeautiful Fighting Girl, drawing upon the psychoanalytic
tradition of Jacques Lacan to explore the otaku fascination with the beautiful fighting girl.
This book, first published in Japan in 2000, is the latest entry onto University of Minnesota
Press’ growing list of ‘otaku studies’ literature, joining the 2009 translation of Hiroki
Azuma’s Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals and the peer-reviewed journal Mechademia.
......

References
Azuma, H. and Abel, J. 2009. Otaku:  Japan’s  database  animals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Casey Brienza
University of Cambridge
cb607@cam.ac.uk
© 2013, Casey Brienza


Keeping the world strange: a Planetary guide, edited by Cody Walker, Edwardsville, IL, Sequart Research and Literacy Organization, 2011, 180 pp., US$19.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-5780-7701-7

This critical analysis of Warren Ellis’s graphic narrative series Planetary marks the first full volume consideration of the work, but also launches a triad of critical collections regarding Ellis’s canon published by Sequart Research and Literacy Organization, including Shot in the Face: a Savage Journey to the Heart of Transmetropolitan (Nevett 2012), and...