Hello,

   The research you put into your fics certainly give them a very tasty
flavor. :)  While it is try that a lot of that research may fall on deaf 
ears so to
speak, it give stories more character. We are after all, watching, and 
writing stories
about JAPANESE animations, or manga as the case may be. So for those
of us that enjoy the extra details that you, Don Granberry, and others 
which
my memory will not allow me to name, a hearty thank you is in order.

True, we are writing stories based on Japanese fiction, but we're writing 
(mostly) for a western audience.  There's no excuse for gross error (having 
characters visit the capital and ending up in Nagoya or something), but I 
think it's important to know when to toss that research cheerfully aside.  
The party I described in my story had very little to do with any 'authentic' 
Japanese-style high school party, but I'd like to think that, westernized as 
it was, the setting remains something to which readers can more easily 
relate.  Am I justifying my own lack of research?  Yes, yes I am; but I'd 
still like to think it works.

Which doesn't mean that those extra details aren't a good idea.  But more 
often than not they should take a back seat to the story itself.  There's 
very little reason to halt a story for a couple of pages of exposition 
demonstrating the author's keen understanding of sushi-making or whatever.

And just a short note on another comment:

I have vague memories of someone's (possibly the same fan as previously
mentioned) investigations showing that there are no open canals/ditches
of the kind shown in the manga in Nerima.

Try falling into one.  They're reall.  And sneaky.  Especially after a few 
beers.  Japanese backstreets are very poorly lit and filled with eager 
holes.

-Mike Noakes

e-mail: noakes_m@hotmail.com
homepage: http://www.geocities.com/noakes_m
blog!: http://noakes.blogspot.com



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