Every week, I get at least one e-mail from someone who is writing a paper or essay on some aspect of manga and wants me to answer some questions. For ten years, I have tried to answer every question as well as I can, and each year the number of e-mails increases. This is great, because it means the number of people seriously interested in manga has increased. Unfortunately, I now find that I simply do not have enough time and energy to answer every message adequately. I have decided, therefore, to only take questions from graduate students (in M.A. or Ph.D. programs) or from fellow scholars (who already have an M.A.or a Ph.D.), at least until I find some more free time. (Note that this does not apply to journalists. Journalists should read this before they write to me.)
Undergraduate students, high school students, junior high school (middle school) students--I am very sorry. Most of the questions I get are from people like you (from all around the world!), but I just don't have the time to respond to you all, and it doesn't seem fair to take some questions while ignoring others.
However! The answers to most of the questions I get can be found elsewhere without too much difficulty. First, look at everything I've written and uploaded to this site. If you can't find what you are looking for here, the next place you should explore is www.animeresearch.com. Other places to search include The Anime/Manga Web Essays Archive and Anipike.com. Beware of articles on Wikipedia about manga and anime. Most are inaccurate and misleading. Also beware of any site that provides information about manga or anime without telling where the information came from, because it is probably plagiarized and may be inaccurate. Then there's Google. If you choose your search terms carefully (for example, "gender manga"), you might find something useful.
No matter where you find your information, be certain to cite it properly when you use it, or you may find yourself being accused of plagiarism! It's extremely easy to discover plagiarism these days, and some teachers and professors (like me) actually go to the trouble to uncover it if there is something fishy about a student's paper.
Hopefully, before too long, I can take down this page and go back to answering everyone's questions. Until then, good luck!
Graduate students and scholars: When you write, I would appreciate it if you could tell me what institution you are affiliated with and what the purpose of the paper is.
Journalists: Journalists who know very little about manga should do their basic homework on the subject before writing to me. I cannot give you a Manga 101 course, and I shouldn't have to, since such information is readily available from easily accessible sources. I am very happy to cooperate with journalists whose projects I find worthwhile, but I reserve the right to ignore inquiries that are poorly thought out, prejudiced, or just plain stupid.