Get your own Free Home PageI set up my homepage primarily to archive my fanfics so I don't have space for many anime graphics. On the other hand there's no shortage of image archives already running and this page loads a lot quicker with only a few. This page is a brief overview of my introduction to anime fandom and our local fangroup, a bit about anime trading followed by the short version of how I got into writing fanfiction. If you're not interested in the background and you'd prefer to skip directly to the fanfic archive click here
Around 1992 I became seriously interested in Japanese animation better known as anime. I had actually been watching it for years without knowing what I was enjoying. I was a big fan of shows like "Battle of the Planets", and "Starblazers" back in the late 1970's then in the Eighties I loved (though it's close to heresy to say this these days) "Robotech" without really knowing what made them different. From our local SF conventions (all of which are now long defunct, alas) here in Halifax, Nova Scotia I learned that the shows I thought so innovative were in fact hacked up versions of the originals. Yet despite the butchery and terrible dubbing their quality had shone through.
This drove me to look for the original anime which in those days was hard to find locally without contacts. You needed to find someone who had managed to score sometenth generation dub of original language material or a blurry fansub from the friend of a friend. Which in those dark days you were grateful to see.
Luckily for me I had entered anime fandom at about the same time that commercial licensing began pouring quality translated tapes into the North American market. This combined with the explosive growth of the internet made the once elusive fansubbers and fansub traders a lot easier to find and I set about building an anime collection. Back then (the early nineties) VHS tape was still the primary medium for fansubs and downloading shows off the internet with 56K the fastest speed was still a dream. At about the same time a local anime fangroup was forming; NSAMO - The Nova Scotia Anime & Manga Organization. I joined as a newbie, my anime resources consisting two tapes. A copy each of "Akira" and the newly released CPM subtitle of "Project A-ko". A-ko had been the first original language anime I had seen at a con a few years earlier and was what really got me hooked. NSAMO has now been running for over ten years and for the past seven I've been its fourth president. I've come a long way since those early days ... or no one else was crazy enough to want to try organizing all those loons, I'm still not sure which. Getting serious we currently meet on the last saturday evening of the month in the community room of the Joseph Howe Drive Superstore (3901 Joseph Howe Drive) in Halifax, NS. If you're in the neighbourhood at the right time then drop in and see us. If you're curious here's a bit more about NSAMO's history and here's a link to the NSAMO homepage
Being president of the group means I have to keep them supplied with new anime lest they turn on me. So I'm always open for offers to trade fansubs. If you'd like to trade then here's my tape and CD list
My current top ten animes (not arranged in any particular order)
are:
All Hayao Miyazaki's movies
I know it's a bit of a cheat counting this as one but I can't pick between them
Rurouni Kenshin
Okay the TV series got a bit Dragonball Z in places and the movie was dull but overall the TV series and the OAVs made for a wonderful dramatic and humourous story
Neon Genesis Evangelion
It blew my mind back in the day. What else is there to say?
Vision of Escaflowne
Ahead of it's time when originally broadcast and it still stands up. A wonderful epic fantasy down for television. Shame the american version tanked so badly
Cityhunter
Yes, I know it's lowbrow but dammit I still can't get enough of Ryo Saber's antics! The only guy who can simultaneously be both the coolest and most annoying man in Tokyo
Jungle wa itsumo hare nochi Guu
Before I saw this this I didn't think anything could top the lunacy of Excel Saga. I was wrong
RahXephon
Gorgeous visuals and a compelling and mysterious storyline. Some stylistic similarities to Evangelion but very much its own show.
Bubblegum Crisis
I'm referring to the OAV version. Not that I didn't like like the TV series but original has the edge because of nostalgia valuse as the first anime series I really got into
Inu Yasha
Can't have a list like this without some Rumiko. Just hope like Maison Ikkoku this one actually has an ending instead of continuing on forever like Ranma with no character growth
Sailor Moon
I love this series, nuff said.
If you'd like more info on any of them or to see the graphics I
don't have room for then the best site to search is the invaluable Anime Turnpike
In addition to running an anime club I also write anime fanfics. Back in April of '95 the writing bug bit after I read some awful Ranma 1/2 story (the title of which is lost to the mists of history) and said the classic words, "I could write a better story than this!" I would have been hard pressed to write a worst story but that didn't discourage me and I started typing away. I started off doing Ranma 1/2 stories then started writing Bubblegum Crisis and Sailor Moon stories. In each case I was working with a favourite series and giving my own twist of it.
My Ranma fics were my first works and deviate wildly from the source though with my later fics I tried to work within the world established in the original rather than rewriting the background to suit my own tastes. I freely admit I prefer stories written in this style rather than the, "let's keep the names and change everything else" school of fanfiction writing. This is however a matter of individual taste rather than a declaration of the one true way to write fanfics. To each his or her own.
Below this you'll find the link to the fanfiction section. There's a summary of the original series they're based on followed by the stories. Each story has a little synopsis and/or a little background about it. Feel free to skip them and just read the stories
Jump to Mark's fanfics
A little boring biographical detail. I'm British by birth, born in Cardiff, Wales but my parents migrated to Canada in 1976 moving the family to Windsor, Nova Scotia. After four years as landed immigrants we became citizens in 1980. Having lived most of my life in NS I think of myself as a Canadian. I currently
reside in Halifax, Nova Scotia and work in the library at Mount St. Vincent University. I'm active in our union since I foolishly volunteered to run for vice president of the local about ten years back (I figured I couldn't complain about the way things were if I wasn't willing to try and do something about them) and I've been getting re-elected by acclimation with nobody else offering to run ever since. People figure if it ain't broke don't fix it so like the president I keep getting returned to office. So we must be doing something right.
Mark Latus
Page created Sept. 29 1997
Updated January 23 2004
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