Libraries are Fun! – This Week in Anime

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Coop and Steve discover the wonderful world of libraries and all of the anime and manga goodness they give you access to.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

Orb: On the Movements of the Earth is currently streaming on Netflix and Girls Band Cry is available on Hoopla & Crunchyroll.

Coop

Hey there, Steve! Seeing as this is our first edition of This Week in Anime together, I’ve got to make sure you’re not Chris or Lucas in disguise! Post an image of that cool bespectacled girl who smokes… You know, the one from that manga about demon hunters. Only then will I know it’s you.

Steve

You’re not exactly giving me a shortage of options there, so I can’t guarantee how secure a verification method this is, but I gotta say—this sure beats doing yet another “pick the crosswalk” captcha.

And way more fun than trying to match up the rotating image too!

But your verification via Tao reminds me that we can find oodles of manga such as Yuto Sano‘s Gokurakugai at a mythical place known as… the library! However, you can find way more than just that at your local library… So Steve, let’s talk about those wonders and the large role played by these beloved institutions in the anime and manga community-at-large.

And, just so there’s no confusion for our dear readers, we’re talking about real libraries here. The ones with the cards and the Dewey decimals and the plastic covers over dust jackets. Not the crazy British secret agent one from Read or Die. Mostly because that sadly isn’t streaming anywhere at the moment.

Ain’t that a bummer. However, that does remind me of something libraries have been doing as of late: streaming. Can’t justify another streaming subscription just to watch one show? Well, services like Hoopla are around to give you a hand. If your library participates in Hoopla, you can sign up with your library card and start streaming away! And if it’s not available in your area, you can always nudge your library into giving it a look. The service has been around for a good long while, but I just recently caught wind of it thanks to the clamor around Girls Band Cry.

And looking through Hoopla‘s ANN Encyclopedia page, there’s a solid mix of titles available to watch. From the aforementioned GBC to Pokémon, Death Note, and even some JoJo‘s. That’s not to forget all the e-books they have as well…

Yeah, I also had never even heard of Hoopla before GBC found its way there. Even then, I thought it was one of those cloyingly named streaming services vying for the biggest slice of whatever pie has been left by the big players. But no, it’s a legitimately cool service. Kanopy is another movie-oriented one that operates similarly through your local library.

This is all wild to me as an old head. When I first got mine, I used my library card for books and maybe the occasional VHS. All of these online options now are rad.

Same here! When I got my first library card, I mostly used to hop on one of their computers or check out a few volumes of manga. I still remember how they kept the manga and American comics back by all the Young Adult books. Crazy to think that was about twenty years ago. Some libraries still keep them there, but now there’s just as likely to be some in the Adult and Middle-Grade collections.

Prepping for this column had me thinking back, and man, the library used to be one of my favorite places to go. I’d tear through books just so I could convince my mom to take me back a little sooner to get more. I don’t think I was even really into anime/manga at that point, but I definitely don’t get there (and by extension, I don’t get here either) without the foundation I got from the public library.

Just don’t ask me about my current reading habits. I’m working on it.

Again, I’d say the same here. I vividly remember sitting around a table with fifth-grade friends as one of us gingerly turned the pages of Ranma 1/2‘s first volume, hoping that an adult wouldn’t pass and think we were reading something dirty.

And don’t get me started on how much of my reading these days is just manga…

Around that time, I was fortunate enough to get a volume or two of my own every so often. I still am today. However, that’s not the case for everyone. Manga volumes and anime Blu-rays are expensive, and making sure you’ve got a roof over your head and food on the table is way more important. Libraries open up the option to indulge in those passions without spending a dime.

I think I was in college when I finally realized what a life hack (we were still calling it that back then) borrowing manga/comics from the library was. I read all of Sandman that way, and it sure beat spending hundreds of my nonexistent income trying to buy up all of those big collections myself.

Even nowadays, when I have disposable income, I’ve been thinking about utilizing the library more. I only have so much bookshelf space, after all.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot myself. My shelf is pretty much packed thanks to a combination of Slam Dunk and most everything Fujimoto.

It wasn’t long ago that I walked into my current library for the first time and discovered that they had next to no manga at all. Outside of a Death Note volume or two from twenty years ago, apparently, someone had requested they stock the first volume of Plus-Sized Elf.

But this brings me to a good point! In speaking with a few librarian friends of mine, I’ve learned that most libraries are more than happy to take requests for what you’d like to see in their stock. Or perhaps they’ll be part of an Interlibrary Loan network have a copy brought in specifically for you. That’s how a friend of mine read most of Vinland Saga.
However, I’ve also been told that a library’s willingness to add more manga or anime to their collections varies from city to city. Some librarians don’t exactly consider manga to be “real literature,” so you may run into that depending on where you are.

I think the larger point, though, is that a library isn’t just a building full of books you walk into. It’s a public institution that you (yes, you) can interact with and exert some influence on. Moreover, in a rapidly worsening political climate for public commodities that enable free thinking, it’s arguably more important than ever to get involved with your local library.

Absolutely! Asking your library for more manga and anime is just a microcosm of the services they offer to the public. Additionally, it provides a space to organize in your community; be it a manga club meeting, an anime screening, or simply coming together to make your neck of the woods a better place. As Steve alluded to, building that community is key. Especially now.

I think about it this way. The people who don’t want kids reading certain things aren’t shy about speaking out. We did another column a few months ago about just that. Maybe what the world needs most right now is nerds like us making sure libraries are keeping Sasaki and Miyano in stock.

I wholeheartedly agree. Heck, let’s throw titles like Boys Run the Riot and I Think Our Son Is Gay in that “to stock” list as well. Younger readers need to be able to see themselves within what they’re reading. They might just be able to discover something about themselves in the process.

Plus, a more robust library is a better library, and that makes for a better and more egalitarian society. This is actually something Orb (a fictionalized account of the controversy/censorship of heliocentrism in medieval Europe) got me thinking about as I’ve been watching and reviewing it. We presently take libraries for granted, but a big facet of Orb‘s narrative is that the knowledge and research of that time were not freely available, whether that’s because it was deemed heretical or because it was sequestered to the elite academic class.

That’s a really good point. The library’s existence as a public institution is a fairly new idea in the grand scheme of things. And when it’s just been there your entire life, you don’t put much thought into it until it’s seriously threatened.

It sounds like Orb provides many relevant things to ponder.

Kinda wish a story about the dominant conservative political power of the time torturing and murdering people for their pursuit of scientific truth didn’t feel quite so timely, but here we are!

Indeed we are. But at the very least, we know that we have something wonderful to keep fighting for. Damnit, I want to hear more stories of kids huddled around volumes of Ranma 1/2, hoping an adult doesn’t come up behind them. It’s not just because of the funny story, but what they might discover about themselves in the process.

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