Japanese-flavored library-ness

This morning I was marveling over the upcoming debut of the Library War anime series, the action comedy drama adapted from Hiro Arikawa's novel about the struggle to preserve libraries when a new law threatens to stifle freedom of expression in the not-to-distant future. {via} Even in Japanese, the two-minute, 43-second promotional video and the 15-second commercial make sense. When I asked Emily for translation help she told me about Read or Die, a series of novels, manga, and TV anime episodes that portray an alternative British Empire whose continued existence is guaranteed by the British Library. This means the Library, besides having traditional library functions, is a political force with branches all over the world. It has agents with special powers who fight book-related crime and terrorism, and seek out rare works for the Library. Sweet.

I think both of these books-turned-anime efforts beat the heck out of the strange phenomenon that is the Japanese game show Silent Library.