“What Manga Would You Recommend For A Complete Newbie?”

A spread from "A Brief History of Manga" featuring One Piece, Naruto, GTO, bite-size tastes of info and a timeline bubbling along throughout the book.

That’s a question that keeps on coming up in interviews. It’s a real toughie, because the ‘right’ answer depends on the person you’re talking to, and that’s often a theoretical complete stranger – or in an online interview, an Internet of complete strangers. How do you answer? “{It’s) a huge question because it depends entirely […]

Make Me A Nerd: The Manga Bible on Mandy Kaplan’s Fab Podcast

Lobby card for the podcast has a partial portrait of Mandy Kaplan at far right, lower face hidden behind a book, and half length portrait of Helen, smiling broadly. She's wearing bronze winged serpent earrings, a miniature silver T-Rex skeleton necklace, and multicarat rings, with a spice yellow t-shirt.

The Manga Bible is out today in the US – the right time for me to give the fabulous Mandy Kaplan a crash dive into manga on her podcast Make Me A Nerd We talked One Piece, Nana and Nausicäa, amid many of my trademark diversions, and you can hear us on TruStory FM or […]

Otaku Academia – new two-part interview

The Otaku Academia blog page has a header with anime images. Below is a list of visual links to each interview recorded so far.

I did a two-part interview with Iulia Faciu for her Otaku Academia website. Here’s part 2, about The Anime Encyclopedia and #TheMangaBible There’s other good stuff on there too – a dozen interviews so far with anime and manga academics from around the world!  

Happy New Book Birthday to The Manga Bible!

From left to right, the German, English and French editions of The Manga Bible by Helen McCarthy. The book covers are identical, a purple background overlaid with manga art, with the book title in bold yellow capitals and other text in white. In the background, enlarged copies of the ENglish cover on advertising boards, one with the launch date, 5 March 2026.

Happy New Book Birthday to me! The Manga Bible is in the shops today. Of course, I’ll celebrate – but very quietly. Cake, no alcohol, no rushing from bookshop to bookshop to admire its gorgeous cover on the shelf and maybe sneakily move it into a more visible position. I can’t go into town and […]

The Manga Bible: The Movie!

A frame from the Reels video shot by and ©Octopus Books/Octopus Publishing, shows someone flipping through The Manga Bible

My lovely PR team at Octopus shot some videos of me to promote The Manga Bible and I thought it might be fun to share them. This one is all about why the book came to be. Thanks to Matilda, director and cinematographer, and Keiron and Emma for support and great company during the shoot! […]

An Outpost of Cool Japan in Hastings: Wow and Flutter

The interior of Wow and Flutter with Gareth smiling under the bright yellow neon sign showing the shop's name. Gareth is tall, with grey hair, wearing a dark blue open-necked shirt and dark trousers. The shop is crammed with art, vinyl, zines, comics and Japanese toys. Photo by Helen McCarthy

When OH and I travel for Seed Talks, we love to look for comic shops and other places that sell Japanese items. There are loads of places that sell the latest gacha toys and other current stuff, and that buy secondhand comics and toys for resale. There are not so many that buy tempting older […]

Christmas in January: Italian Edition of The Manga Bible!

Front cover of La Bibbia dei Manga, published in Italian by Gribaudo. The cover is deep pink, overprinted with a page of manga art by Baron Yoshimoto in black ink. The title is in large, bold, bright yellow block capitals, with the author's and publisher's names in smaller white capitals.

I was absolutely thrilled to receive an advance copy of La Bibbia dei Manga – Gribaudo’s Italian edition of The Manga Bible. Just when that after-Christmas, no-more-exciting-parcels feeling usually kicks in, this gem shot through my letterbox and made my day.   Many thanks to translator Paolo Silvio Poli for making my work accessible in […]

Time Travel: The Stone Bridge Podcast August 2023

A graphic of a black wooden screen with a white background, with the Stone Bridge Press logo on the right and the cover of The Anime Encyclopedia on the right.

Before I sign off for the holidays, here’s an interview I really enjoyed doing, from the excellent Stone Bridge Podcast. Stone Bridge Press publish The Anime Encyclopedia, and published the first book in English about Hayao Miyazaki in 1999. The new edition, updated to include the most recent (never say the last!) Miyazaki film, is […]

The Anime Business new episode – all about me!

Helen is pictured seated in front of a cream coloured wall. She has cropped red hair and wears a teal blue cowl neck sweater, large green malachite stud earrings, and a round pendant with a stone that looks like a beautiful alien planet.

The latest episode of The Anime Business is an interview Justin Sevakis filmed with me about a year ago: “The Anime Business – Helen McCarthy on Discovering Anime, UK Fandom and the Joy of It All.” It’s online here. It was fun to do and fascinating to watch. One of the best things about this […]

That New Book Feeling – In Triplicate!

From left to right, the German, English and French editions of The Manga Bible by Helen McCarthy. The book covers are identical, a purple background overlaid with manga art, with the book title in bold yellow capitals and other text in white. In the background, enlarged copies of the ENglish cover on advertising boards, one with the launch date, 5 March 2026.

Advance copies of The Manga Bible fell into my eager hands this morning, and after I’d finished inhaling that unique, intoxicating new book smell – equal parts fresh ink, newly cut paper and author excitement – I couldn’t wait to share. So here they are in all their shiny new massively-illustrated gorgeousness – the English, […]