Rating: 
Summary: this is rediculous
Review: This is silly. You can hardly trust an american to teach you the skills needed to draw anime/manga. What a waste of money, even the cover art is sloppy and basic. You could get a lot more out of just surfing the net for untranslated manga and using that as a guide, it'd make a considerable improvement. Just go and compaire whats in this book to the artwork of Kaori Yuki-sama! *.* ...Well, I guess there is a bit of a bright side to buying a book like this, it can teach you the basics of body construction and proportions. That's prettymuch all I've gotten from mine. XP Contrary to the popular belief of american anime people, theres so much more to anime than the stereotypical big eyes, mechas, and big-breasted-bishoujo.(though those ARE constant factors in many :P) But I guess it IS your choice after all...I'm just a simple reviewer sharing my input. ;P
Rating: 
Summary: Worth it! Hate to contradict.
Review: I'm not an Otaku. I'm not some obssesed drooling anime fangirl. But I AM an anime fan AND an artist who takes their work seriously. I don't know what all those other people are talking about with this book. It's very well done. No it doesn't take you through complete anime stylings. In fact Christopher Hart seems very biased in this book. Especially towards the end in the section where he compares anime and western stle comicking. He PURPOSELY draws western style anime like [stuff]. It's kinda funny. But in all seriousness. No this is not a book for those who want to be complete anime artist. BUT he does make some good points in this book. He gives a good explaination of the genres that exist (although not good drawing samples)and will help you with your ideas if you plan on starting you own little comic. That's why this book is worth it. IF YOUR STARTING YOUR ANIME BASED COMIC! It'll get you on the right track I think. It helped me. Then again my style IS American and Japanese art combined. I love both styles equally. Don't knock this book. If your just starting out in anime it's the book that's REALLY help shape you into a manga artist. From there STOP with his little mania series. After that they aren't worth SPIT. Go into the "How to draw Manga" series after this title. It makes an awesome primer!
Rating:
Summary: Manga Mania
Review: When I borrowed this book from my library and looked through it with a friend, I found the pencil sketches for the hair and eyes pretty skilled. The comic panels were shown pretty well, too. Also, it was rather enjoyable to read the part at the end with the interview (Those images from VIZ were a real treat!). Many of the pencil images, such as the samurai, martial artists, and elves were done quite impressively.
However, we both agreed that the color pictures were, for the most part, just not manga. The book gave a whole section on a bunch of "dynamic poses" for characters to have the most depth, but they weren't very well explained and the color images were a bit coarse. Also, I didn't like the way the girls' waistline was too exaggerated at several areas.
This book is better for people who are used to drawing Western comics and want to blend in some Japanese characteristics. (I believe that the author also has guides for Western comic drawing.) It offers some basic guidelines for faces and bodies, but doesn't go into creating characters. Instead, there are a bunch of characters done in color that the reader can imitate.
In general, this is probably a book that you'll like to flip through every now and then for the pretty pictures and very basic reference, but not much else, once you've read through it. Still, it's worth reading for a taste of what art can look like if you mix Eastern and a little but of Western comic styles. However, if you're after a guide to really show you how to apply various techniques in manga, you're probably better off reading the "How to Draw Manga" series, which is much more specialized and is more similar to actual Japanese manga.
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