Teenreads.com -- JAPAN AI: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan by Aimee Major Steinberger

JAPAN AI: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan
Aimee Major Steinberger
Go!Comi
Manga
ISBN: 9781933617831
180 pages

While Japanese manga, anime and games (from Wii to MMPORGS) seem to be taking over our pop culture horizon, more and more fans want to visit Japan. Some things will be familiar, or at least recognizable, like crowded subway cars, vending machines and celebrating New Year's. When you travel somewhere new, however, it's the differences that you remember, such as the fact that during rush hour the subway has a women-only car to defeat potential gropers, that the vending machines offer five kinds of tea but rarely soda, and that the New Year's Festival features a week off, lucky beans and cleaning house instead of sparklers and a midnight countdown.

This book is part travelogue, part comic and all about the celebration of being a geek in Japan. Aimee, a six-foot-tall gaijin (or Westerner) and her traveling companions don't miss the chance to see the ancient temples of Kyoto or to be dressed and photographed as an apprentice geisha (or maiko), but the real reason behind their trip is pure, unadulterated fandom. Aimee herself writes a column on ball-jointed dolls, a hobby steadily growing in the U.S., and is exhilarated that she's invited to meet the head of VOLKS, the ball-jointed doll company of choice, at their largest store.

With her unabashed love for manga and anime, Tokyo is fan heaven. Aimee and her friends take off to Ikekuboro, the female otaku (or obsessed fan) destination in Tokyo with entire stores devoted to anime, manga, merchandise, cell phone stickers and detailed toy figures. They swoon at the glam, melodramatic performaces of the Takarazuka Revue, the legendary all-female theater troupe complete with teen idols and fan clubs. They even rent a private karaoke room and sing their cheeseball hearts out.

The entire trip is told through moments, like discovering that the snack clearly marked “cheese” in the train station is not just cheese (you don't want to know what else was in there). Then there's the dilemma of trying to figure out how to urinate gracefully when the stall barely reaches up to your neck and the toilet is of Asian design. Steinberger's art is note-perfect: adorable without being saccharine and deftly conveying everything from serene Buddhas to gobsmacked expressions.

Any traveler ready to set foot in Japan (or anyone who's dreaming of temples and hot baths while piling up their pennies for a future trip) owes it to herself to check out this affectionate, wry and entertaining picture of one girl's trip of a lifetime.

--- Reviewed by Robin Brenner

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