Not Quite Another Advent Calendar: Anime and Manga Gift Ideas 2025

The lower part of a large Christmas tree decorated predominantly inn red and gold, with a pile of presents wrapped in red and gold paper and ribbons on a parquet floor at the base of the tree. To the left, a bright red felt sack is appliqued with a simple, jolly image of Santa Claus

On my old website, I used to feature a different small business, charity, blog, website of book every day from 1 December to Christmas Eve – a kind of Advent calendar to highlight a few of the fabulous creators, providers …

Studio Ghibli Question Time: are anime feature films considered superior to anime TV series in Japan?

An image from Satoshi Kon's unfinished 5th feature film 'Dreaming Machine'. A young Japanese woman in a beige formal jacket and black open-necked shirt walks under an archway made of gold tubular metal and flanked by two brightly coloured 50s-style characters. A retro-style white house with red roofs is in the background, under a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. The image is slightly unsettling despite the blue sky and bright colours.

Although asked in the context of Miyazaki’s and Ghibli’s views on the primacy of the feature film, this question covers an issue that’s been debated in the anime business  and anime scholarship for decades. It’s a really interesting question, because …

The Manga Bible: US cover reveal

The cover of The Manga Bible by Helen McCarthy. The background is a 70s-tastic shade of deep mauve with a page of dynamic art by Baron Yoshimoto printed over it in black. The title is printed in. large bright yellow capitals, cementing the 70s vibe, with the author's name below in smaller white capitals. The back cover has black text with more info about the book under a bright yellow headline.

Prestel said yes, go ahead and share, so here’s the North American edition cover for The Manga Bible,  available for pre-order now in the USA and Canada.   It’ll be out in March 2026. The North American ISBN is 978-3-7913-9395-7.

Notice …