Welcome to the first issue of our new look. Hopefully this one will last a little longer than the three issues of the original "look", which was superseded by technology. Wonderful things, computers. Does anyone know which SF author first "invented" them? No doubt whatever that person dreamed up bears as little resemblence to a modern computer as Frankenstein's monster does to a modern robot. Even the scientists (eg. Arthur C Clarke with HAL 9000 and Isaac Asimov with Multivac) have scored pretty badly in terms of predicting what has come to pass - although maybe I should reserve my judgment until the year 2001. (Incidentally, my knowledge of computer history leads me to presume that Asimov created "Multivac" as the successor to "Univac", an actual computer of the time. If so, he got it wrong, because "uni" stood for "universal", not "one". And you all know about his blunder with the slide rule...)
The focus of this issue is an extended interview with Tom Edge, a local Japanese animation enthusiast. My perception is that Japanese animation (or Japanimation, or Anime) is an area which most SF fans have heard about, but which many are hesitant to immerse themselves in (after all, they've got more than enough to occupy them in Western SF). Let me encourage you to take the plunge anyway. The Japanese are blessed with strange and wonderful minds (no doubt twisted by a lifetime of eating seaweed and working late) which they use to create the most bizarre apocalyptic cyberpunk this side of Night City (amongst numerous other genres). If your only experience of Anime is a vague recollection of a tin kid with rockets for feet and a laser in his rear end, it's time for you to catch up with his grown-up friends.
A lot of SF SIG members have mentioned to me that they enjoy classic SF. This issue begins a serial somewhat in the mold of those found in classic pulp magazines. In common with most such serials, mine is badly written. I hope you will like it anyway. If not, then I can always claim that my bad writing was intentional, to produce a suitably "pulpy" feel! Other People's Flesh is currently scheduled to run for the next two years, although as you know, writing is a chaotic system and hence inherently unpredictable.
The next issue of Ibn Qirtaiba will be a special issue featuring reviews. The thing about reviews, though, is that they are peculiarly uninteresting when there is only one viewpoint expressed. Accordingly I would like your assistance to ensure that this is not the case. Please send your book, magazine, movie, television and other reviews - or anything else you would like published - to the editorial address below.
Worlds of
Fandom: Japanese animation
At the mention of Japanese animation, most SF fans tend to think of big eyes, even bigger robots, and Astro Boy. But Anime, as it is known in Japanese, covers a much more diverse range of styles and genres than the children's series most of us are familiar with. As well as science fiction, Anime encompasses traditional D&D-type fantasy (Record of Lodoss War), oriental fantasy (3 x 3 Eyes), comedy (Ranma 1/2), horror (Vampire Princess Miyu), and even teenage soap opera (Orange Road).
The patriarch of Japanese animation is the late Osamu Tezuka, who produced, amongst others, the immortal Astroboy and Kimba the White Lion. He was almost singly responsible for creating the Japanese fascination with "manga" (comic books) during the 1940s, which spawned animated equivalents as soon as the technology became available. The first major Anime series, Astroboy, was broadcast in 1963, and the original black and white episodes were sold to the United States soon after. Since then, Anime has steadily garnered a cult following all around the world. After the release of the movie of Katsuhiro Otomo's epic manga series, Akira, it has also enjoyed a renaissance in Australia.
One of the trademarks of Anime is its liberal use of sex and violence. Although this is unnerving to many Westerners, part of the reason for this may be their preconception of animation as a purely juvenile medium; a preconception which is shared by Western television companies (witness the inevitable screening of Robotech, an Anime series aimed at teenagers and young adults, together with He-Man and The Smurfs). However Anime also features the kind of off-beat, and sometimes off-colour humour that appeals most to the young at heart.
Tom Edge is one of the founding members of JAFWA, the Japanese Animation Fans of Western Australia. JAFWA meets three times a month at the University of Western Australia, and sometimes draws over 200 attendees. Ibn Qirtaiba spoke to Tom earlier this year about JAFWA and the latest trends in Japanese animation.
IQ: Give us an introduction to Japanese animation for those who don't know much about it beyond things like Astro Boy and Star Blazers.
TE: Well, Japanese Animation, more commonly known locally as Anime, is a form of animation produced by the Japanese - mainly commercial material, but there is some more arty material around. The thing that makes it interesting is the fact that with Japanese Animation they cover a much wider range of ideas than English language counterparts generally, where it is seen as primarily for children (or has in the past; that is beginning to change, thank God). Whereas it's seen as a thing for kids in English speaking countries, Anime is seen much more as general entertainment.
It seems, certainly on the science fiction side, which is how
a lot of people locally get involved, there being a lot of audio
visual SF produced in Anime form, it seems that a lot of it is
produced in animated form because it is cheaper to produce that
way than the equivalent live action film would be. 
Take Akira
as an example. That cost, by Anime standards, a hell of a lot of
money. Something in the order, in its day, of 12 or 13 million
dollars US, or the equivalent thereof. Some of the reason for
that was because they lip-synched; something they'd never done
before in a feature film. But if you compare that with what a
live action film with the same impact and the same level of
"special effects" (in inverted commas, because it's
animated) you can see why the effect is so much better in
animated form. It's a cost-effective way of producing really,
really neat stuff.
IQ: So why do they have animated series of what are effectively just sitcoms and soap operas, like Orange Road?
TE: A lot of that material is - a lot of the best Anime, the most popular Anime, is actually adapted from comics. The Anime and the manga (that's Japanese comic) markets are very, very closely interwoven. While you don't generally have the people who do the comics producing the Anime in any direct hands-on way, just saying "Yes, I like it - No I don't, go away and don't adapt any of my work again", you do get the input and the inspiration from the comics side of things. There's also some things that have been adapted from novels. Dirty Pair is an example which was actually adapted from a series of novels. The only comics adaptation of Dirty Pair is actually the English language one. But things like Orange Road, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1/2 - the list goes on and on really - a lot of that material was adapted from comics. And in fact the stories are actually taken directly from the comics. You have whole series of episodes which are identical to their equivalent comic versions, and then occasionally they'll throw in an extra one, or fiddle one around to make it work better on television, or what is more common these days, the video release.
IQ: How did JAFWA come to be?
TE: JAFWA started in what became its current form back in 1988, and it started with a group of people that had been meeting each other for some time and occasionally been having marathons from 3 o'clock in the afternoon to 3 o'clock in the afternoon the next day, sort of thing. It evolved out of that in that there were two or three of us who got together on a semi-regular basis and we had one friend telling another friend telling another friend, and so on. Around the end of that year we started advertising. I thought at that stage that we'd obviously tapped a demand, and we'd either start advertising and carry it through, or just paddle along and it would gradually fade out and die. About that time - which was about the time that Akira was relased at the Lumiere [Cinema, in Perth], we shifted to a church hall, just up the road here, and that was our big turning point. That was the point where we went from being a free organisation, which was basically a group of friends, through to something a little more organised. That went on for about ten months and then we got access to Curtin University through one of the people who came along. That was probably the biggest turning point for us, in that that was the point where the facilities kicked in. Up to that point we'd had a VCR and three TVs linked up on a table. Curtin went on really well for about twelve months, but about the beginning of last year, 1993, we got chucked out. We don't know exactly the story, but there seems to have been some politics involved. At that point we had a six week break, and we sussed out UWA, which was our only other viable option. Now, I can't say enough good things about the people who run Unitheatres. Basically they hire out the theatres the way you'd hire out venues anywhere, and that gets it right away from Admin, right away from the Guild, and basically kicks any idea of politics out the door.
IQ: Where did the first armoured suit appear?
TE: I'm not really good on the history of stuff before the early 80s, because that's what a lot of us have got access to. Before the 80s there wasn't a lot produced for video, because video of course wasn't a major thing, and we haven't seen a lot of the earlier material. But I would say - and I am more than happy to be shot down in flames by people who know better than me on this one - that a thing called Ironman 28, also known as Gigantor over here, was one of the early ones. It wasn't exactly a mobile suit series in its truest sense, but it did have the aspect of the mech not being a character so much as a piece of hardware, even though it had a human-style form, albeit 10-20 times larger than normal size.
Gundam is generally considered of note not by reason of
it being an early one or a particularly original one, but because
it was one with a particularly good hard-SF story to it. And they
kept their continuity very good. Up to that point continuity
hadn't been very good. 
If you've ever seen some Star Blazers
over here, or Space Cruiser Yamato in Japan, you'll find
if you see enough of it that the continuity on this thing is
horrific. The crew gets killed off two times under totally
different sets of circumstances, just because the guy that wrote
it felt like it. Gundam on the other hand was one of the
very first ones where the continuity was very good indeed. And
every piece of Gundam that has been done since, be it the
novels (the novels are a little strange actually, they do have a
couple of lapses in continuity; namely one of the major
characters gets killed off, whereas in the Anime he goes on to
appear again and again to save the day) but every piece of Anime
that's been produced since dovetails perfectly in with what's
gone before. There's no major holes that you can drive through.
IQ: Speaking of continuity, is it true that Robotech was two, or three completely unrelated series...
TE: Three totally unrelated series. The first 36 episodes are generally considered to be, in its original form, the best. That was a thing called Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Macross is fairly well known about the place; it's a really, really wonderful series which spawned a really neat movie version as well which was totally rejigged with far better animation than the TV series. That was the only one of the three which was in fact a success in Japan. The other two were actually failures, but they happened to be things that Harmony Gold had in their licensing bin, so they put them in.
The second one is a particularly average piece of work called Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross. That actually didn't complete its run in Japan, that's how unpopular it was. It was cancelled before it was finished. That's one of the reasons why what we see in Robotech - (the original Macross, hasn't been cut a lot, incidentally. The names have all been changed; anglicised, for instance Lisa Hayes is in fact Misa Haiashi in the original version. The one that's really noticeable is Rick Hunter. He's actually Akiro Uchicho in the original. A lot of the other names have stayed as was. One of the big things in both Gundam and Macross was thing that it was a multinational crew. The people that you see in both those series are not necessarily just Japanese. The two or three lead characters in Macross are definately Japanese. The lead characters in Gundam are best described as neutral. They haven't really got a nationality as such; indeed, in the premise of the series, they're actually space colonists, so what their background is in that sense is anybody's guess.)
But getting back to Robotech, Macross was the first 36 episodes, Southern Cross was the next 36. That was cut around a hell of a lot. What they did was force-feed the three things together to make them work as one. It didn't, but until you understand the background you don't really know why it doesn't work properly. At the end of Macross they spliced in a little bit of Southern Cross to keep the continuity together, but Macross was virtually intact. There's a few things that they changed. The most notable thing is protoculture, which is this mysterious, you-beaut, answer-to-everybody's-needs energy solving thingy. In the original series it didn't mean anything of the sort. Protoculture actually was a Zentroti term to cover the description of cultures unlike their own; Zentroti being a war-like race, and that's all they know. As a rule, they were strictly warriors; they weren't maintenance people, they weren't governors, they weren't ambassadors, they were warriors. And that puts a different connotation on protoculture, because what the term really meant was cultures other than their own. That was the major change they did, and they changed that terminology purely to spread it out so that the other part dove-tailed in a little better. Southern Cross not only was not popular in Japan, but they actually butcherated it anyway, because it's not actually set on Earth. It's set on a colony world, where in fact there are two moons. It's an interesting thing, because apparently they actually blacked out some of the shots; they didn't just edit them out, they did electronically treat some of the footage, because you got these really neat romantic scenes with two moons, and that won't do if it's Earth!
The third series is generally considered to be better than Southern Cross; I actually think it's the best of the adaptations. It's a thing called Genesis Climber Mospeada. That didn't quite finish its run; it came very close, and they did in fact make a video of it afterwards. They haven't cut it a hell of a lot compared to the other two, indeed, it's basically been left as is, with some changes again in names and terminology and the like.
IQ: Is Anime exploitative?
TE: I think some of it is, yes. To answer that
question I think you've got to think in terms of what Anime
really is. Anime isn't like a film genre like, say, SF or horror,
in the way you can say, "is horror exploitative?", or
"is SF violent?", or something like that. Anime is more
like a medium than a genre. That means you're producing lots of
different genres inside the medium, as you probably know if
you've seen some of what's around. SF is what we are most
acquainted with because there's more people who've got a hold of
that material because that's what they're interested in, but you
get historical pieces, you get epic, epic, epic SF stories - Macross
and Gundam are tiny compared to one or two of the other
things that are out there; we're talking serious long-term battle
fleets, space opera on a grand scale - but you've also got your
contemporary comedies; take Maison Ikkoku as an example,
it's essentially something you could do live action. Indeed,
there's been a live action film of it, it's just a group of
people. A couple of them are a little strange, but no stranger
than any other vaguely lunatic-type people. You get things like Orange
Road which are basically teenage comedies where they've
dovetailed in the psychic powers as a bit of a twist on the
storyline. A fair description of that is a teenage version of Bewitched.
Not quite accurate, but a fair equivalent.
There's a lot of material out there, and I think some of it is a bit gratuitous. If you've ever been acquainted with a thing called Orotsuki Dooji, which is also known over here as Wandering Kid, you'll probably know that the worst end of the market is eccentric to say the least. It depends on what you define as exploitative. Certainly some of it is dreadfully sexist; some of it is pretty exploitative, but there again there's a lot of other material where you could say that the strongest characters in it are the female characters. In some series it's your men who are falling to pieces in it, they're the ones sitting on the sidelines going "Oh dear oh dear what do I do", and its some of the female characters who are saying "Sod that, get on your feet soldier and get going". In a similar way I suppose to what the original Terminator did, which is considered to be an exploitative film by some people and certainly is very violent, but you have got a lead character who is very very strong and just happens to be female.
IQ: What's the most interesting Anime series you've seen recently?
TE: Probably Tenchi Muyo is the most interesting thing around at the moment, and it has got an interesting background too. Pioneer got out of Anime for a while, and in recent times they decided to get back in. What they did was to put together a group of people who were essentially the cream of the people they could get a hold of, and whereas a lot of other studios say "This is what you produce, these are the parameters you work within", Pioneer said "That's cool guys, here's the money, here's roughly what we want, now go make it. We don't care so long as it makes money and doesn't upset too many people". And Tenchi Muyo is one of the results of that, and as a result I think it's one of the more creative, imaginative things that's been done recently.
It's an SF series, but in a very eccentric sort of way. I don't think I could really describe it and do it justice, but it starts out with a guy who's a third generation member of a Shinto clan breaking the family rules and entering a family shrine. There's this family shrine near where he lives which the family must never enter, and what happens if they do is that there's supposed to be a demon which his great-great nth to the great-ancestor put away in there many hundreds of years before. Well, he lets curiosity get the better of him and springs the seal. Now Tenchi Muyo's unusual in another way in that the first episode doesn't match in any way to what comes after it. You see the first one and think, "Fine, this is a psychic comedy; this is really neat." Then you see the next ones and you realize "Oh shit, this is SF." Because it turns out that the demoness is a long-time space pirate that one of his ancestors put away for her misdeeds. What they've done is combined some aspects of Japanese mythology and some aspects of horror generally with some of the stranger bio-mechanical SF aspects. You don't have any Giger-like aliens or Giger-like ships, but it's a similar concept in that the ships are living rather than being purely metallic and mechanical. For instance, Ryoko - she's the pirate that's been sealed away - her ship in fact when it's broken down (and all the ships do this but in different personas) takes the form of a cross between a rabbit and a cat, which is a sort of cute mascot for the series as well. But it's actually the ship, and when the need arises or the time is right, it develops very rapidly back into the ship. Sort of something yea big which sits on your lap and you pet it and it's really cute, and it's actually the ship! There's a sequence in the series where another character who happens to be a space patrol woman and a bimbo to boot, gets a detection for Ryoki, which is the name of the pirate ship, and realizes that it's really close, and that people ought to watch it, because this is a really dangerous ship, and it turns out that it's only eight centimetres away, and it's Ryoki in his animal form. It's a really bizarre little series.
IQ: Is Anime becoming Americanised?
TE: No, I don't think so. Certainly I think it's becoming a lot more politically correct than it used to, and that's one of the reasons why things like Tenchi are a breath of fresh air, being a little adventurous. But I would say that Anime is no more Americanised now in its original Japanese form than it was back in the days of Macross or Gundam. The crews have often been multicultural; there's been very rarely any direct physical necessity to resemble the Japanese in character form; that's been a long tradition going back many, many years. Even if you look back to things such as Astroboy and Speed Racer, the characters aren't necessarily Japanese in their physical appearance.
IQ: Speaking of Astroboy and Speed Racer, how did the western world first come upon Japanese animation as a cult thing, rather than just a source of cheap kids' cartoons?
TE: I think it started taking off again very slowly in the late 70s, early 80s, with people getting hold of material, but I think that the single biggest thing in the States where it first started to pick up again was, while I am loathe to say it, probably Robotech. There had been interest before that, but there were a series of events around that stage which had an effect. One was Robotech; you had things like Star Blazers coming out and Thunderbirds 2086 at around the same time, but you also had the advent of a lot of material being released direct onto video in Japan at around that stage, which made it a lot easier to get your hands on it in the States. With a TV series it's not very easy to get a hold of it. Things like the original Gundam have never been released on video. The original Gundam series which ran to 98 episodes or thereabouts, was made into three films which were edited and condensed versions of the story which was told. They've been released on video. But the original 98 or 99 episode series never has. And that's fairly typical. There's things out there that we know existed, like stories you hear about the Alexandria library, although probably not of the same import, where we know this play existed, but we don't know anything about it; and Anime, particularly of the late 70s, is like that. There's material we know existed, we know vaguely what it was about, and that it was reasonably neat, but that's all we know and all we're ever likely to know because it's just never been released, so the chances of getting hold of a copy are just very slim. As far as material in the States goes, it was trickling through the 70s as well, because you had things, remember, like Battle of the Planets, Ulysses 31, Mysterious Cities of Gold in the early 80s; there was a very slow trickle. But the thing that started it again was that there was better accessibility to the material and things like Robotech increasing the awareness of people of what was out there.
IQ: What's the latest thing in Anime? At last Saturday's JAFWA meeting I noticed there were a few videos with a furry fandom element...
TE: Yeah, furry fandom's something that's been around in Anime a while. People probably don't realise it, but it's something that the Japanese have played around with in various forms over the years. Not so much directly furry fandom as we know it; more a thing called super-deformed. If you were along last week you would have seen 10 Li'l Gallforce; that's what super-deformed is, it's short and cute. And very mischievous! It's parody versions of things that have been successful. Never let it be said that the Japanese don't like knocking down tall poppies. But I wouldn't say there's been a new trend as such.
There has definitely been a trend recently (and this has a lot
to do with the political correctness thing I was saying before,
which hasn't fortunately taken heavy hold, but it's trickling in
in the background) for more and more light comedy rather than
some of the more serious material we've seen in the past. 
Part
of that is also that that's what people are currently interested
in in the States, bearing in mind that we get a lot of our stuff
from the States, not from Japan direct, and a lot of the fan sub
[-titled] stuff is done in the States. It's a reflection, I
think, of what English speaking fandom is interested in seeing,
so that's what people are getting a hold of. At this point in
time, I think really Anime in Japan is, not so much in the
doldrums, but it's hit a point where it doesn't really seem to
know where it's going to go next, and that's reflected by things
like new versions of Macross and Orguss and a
couple of others that were out about a decade ago. You've also
got a new version of Yamato turning up after six or so
years since it was last done...
IQ: There's also a new version of Speed Racer isn't there?
TE: There is a new version of Speed Racer. I don't know a lot about that one. I've heard that the Americans have seen some of it, but I don't know whether that's been an American driven or partly-financed thing or whether it's a wholly Japanese thing. But yeah, that's another example. There's been a lot of looking back on what's been done before as if people are starting to run out of ideas of what to do next, which is a bit of a shame, but I think that happens with everything. But what will happen is you'll get some absolute lunatics like Pioneer have done with Tenchi and it will get people kicking off on a different tangent altogether.
IQ would like to thank Tom Edge for his time. If you would like to find out more about JAFWA, or Anime generally, you can contact Tom on (09) 341 1269.
Back to Contents 
Back to Index
Transmat terminals looked precisely the same all around the world. Each cell contained a glass cubicle, a control desk, an operator, a clock. Perhaps, as with McDonalds restaurants, this was designed to project a proprietary image (the technology was new, and Instransit held a patent monopoly). More likely it was to soothe the nerves of jittery passengers, who would have no clue from their surroundings of the moment their journey began and ended (there were no flashing lights, no noise). The only change most passengers noticed at that moment was in the operator - and on longer journeys, the clock.
Mark Heydon was watching the operator of cell 25, expecting her to turn into a Singaporean at any moment. Instead, she continued to stab determinedly at the keys of her console. Judging from her expression, the satellite link to Singapore was down - or there was an electrical storm, or a strike, or some other equally familiar calamity. He was waiting for the first transmat fatality, and then he swore he would revert to plane travel. At least planes had in-flight entertainment to relieve the boredom.
Heydon noticed that he had been staring at the operator too hard - she was staring back at him, with an odd expression on her face. He averted his eyes quickly. Then, puzzled, he looked back up. She wasn't simply staring at him - she was terrified.
"What's wrong?", he asked, somewhat startled. "You look like you've seen a ghost." The operator made no reply - perhaps she hadn't heard him through the glass. She fumbled in her desk drawer with trembling hands, her eyes glazed with fear. "Look," he continued a little louder, "if there's a problem with the transmat, I'm not in such a hurry; I'll come back..."
Then the cubicle shattered. As glass hailed down around him, Heydon saw a gun. He saw the operator's quivering finger close on the trigger again. The wall behind him exploded. Heydon dove to the floor.
"What the hell are you doing!" Heydon scrambled behind the desk as she fired again. For a moment, the desk separating them, Heydon's wild panting was the only sound. He scanned the room for a weapon. There was nothing: transmat terminals were all the same.
The silence was broken; not by a shot, but a voice. "Stand up", the operator pleaded desperately, "I won't hurt you if you give yourself up quietly."
"Give myself up!", Heydon squealed, "I'm a bloody computer technician! What am I supposed to have done?"
"Stand up!" He stood. The operator stared at him through streaming eyes, her back pressed against the wall. She clasped the gun in front of her with both hands. Then she began to pull the trigger.
In a panic, Heydon dropped behind the desk again. The operator instinctively followed his movement with the gun as she fired, and the bullet shattered the surface of the control desk, sending a shower of sparks and acrid smoke into her face. Heydon vaulted over the desk and kicked the gun from her hands, tripping himself over as he did so. Hysterical, the operator threw herself upon him, grasping his neck with an iron grip. Heydon began to choke. His arms flailing, he latched his hands onto her neck and squeezed back with all the strength he retained.
For an agonising minute the pair convulsed on the floor, all the more brutal to the other the more pain they endured. The operator kicked away from the side of the desk, propelling them both towards the gun. Heydon rolled over her body to bring himself closer to it, but neither dared to release their grip. Heydon felt the room grow dim with a grey mist, and was strangely glad as he began to slide into unconsciousness.
Then the hands fell from his neck. Heydon drew a long, shuddering breath before releasing his own - wet with blood. The operator's body collapsed limp onto the floor. She did not move. He had strangled her. She was dead. Heydon backed away from the body in horror.
The door to the cell slid open and an American tourist couple strode in. For a long second, Heydon confronted them with wild eyes and blood on his hands. Then, whimpering, he stumbled towards the door, and they scurried out of his way. He fled down the long corridors of the terminal, pursued by the image of the operator's lifeless face. Without thinking, he climbed stairs and barged through doors in his path in a bid to outrun the terror behind him. He soon found himself at one end of the terminal complex faced with nowhere to turn but back.