Student dedicates website to anime

By Jimi Wilson
Staff Writer

Sonia Jackson loves Japanese animation and wanted to share her enthusiasm for the art form, so she created a website dedicated to her favorite characters and shows.

The quiet UNCP student began her love affair with Japanese cartoons—anime —while living with her father, a career Marine, on the Japanese island of Okinawa. There, television options were limited.

“There was only one TV station in English, so there wasn’t much to watch,” she said.

Inspired by her brother and a good friend, however, Jackson began to watch a popular cartoon, Dragonball Z, which was aired on a Japanese-language station.

“You couldn’t understand the Japanese, but it was a cartoon and you could follow it well enough,” she said.

Upon her return to the United States, she was pleasantly surprised to find that her peers were watching the same shows but with English dubbing.

Her interest grew. She now counts among her favorites such cartoon fare as Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon and Vampire Miyu, as well as Dragonball Z. The characters, she explains, are well-developed and likable—part superhero, part soap opera.

Now, not only does she watch the shows, but she also collects videos and comic books dedicated to the characters, though she shies away from what many anime fans consider the ultimate expression of the art, manga—novel-length Japanese comics published in book form.

“Too expensive,” she said.

More recently, she decided to combine her interest in anime with another of her loves, the internet and web design and launched a web page dedicated to her favorite shows and characters. There, viewers can find pictures of characters from shows, along with descriptions of each. The site currently features Cowboy Bebop and Sailor Moon.

Jackson says she plans to expand the site as time allows.

Readers can view the page at: http://www.geocities.com/silver_n_crimson/