Where e-books won’t cut the mustard
By Paul Biba
There are some times that e-books are just not the right tool for the job.
I’m a big Japanese anime fan and I just came across a 26 episode series called R.O.D – Read or Die (thank you Netflix). It’s about these 3 bookworm sisters who are private detectives and have a special talent – the are Papermasters. They can take paper, mostly from books, and make airplanes, guns, robots, anything they want. It’s all rather tongue in cheek and very well done.
In an e-book world it would be a disaster. What would they throw, electrons? Can you imagine how expensive it would be to create an airplane out of Kindles? Could you create a tracking robot out of a Sony Reader and a Palm TX? Would they be compatible? How could they kill the evil hack writer if they forgot the code to their DRMed ebook?
Oh, it would be a terrible world if it ran on ebooks. Thank goodness that paper books still exist.
August 16th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Just FYI, R.O.D. the TV series is the sequel to the three-episode Read or Die OAV series released by AD Vision. A lot of the stuff in the TV series makes more sense for having seen the OAVs first.
And yes, good point about the paper mastery. Though it’s worth noting that the much-vaunted “paperless office” never happened, so it’s still doubtful that an e-bookized world would have any shortage of paper for them to use.
August 17th, 2008 at 1:19 am
I had a physics teacher in high school who would throw a dictionary at students who fell asleep in his class (which was rare because of how great a teacher he was). I don’t think throwing a portable e-book reading device would be worth sacrificing for the sake of a student’s attention. Thus ebooks are cheapening the education system!
August 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
This series will be banned in a few years for being EI^2 = Ecologically Incorrect and Electronically Incorrect.
Just worry about the day when kids can’t do paper mache! Ha!
August 17th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
On the other hand, these sisters could use the Kindle’s linux OS and wireless capabilities to hack into ATM’s, control robots (which I’ve heard are everywhere in Japan), control the computers onboard all modern cars, control nav systems of airplanes, etc, etc…
Admittedly, this is not so visually cool as folding/cutting paper sheets!
August 18th, 2008 at 5:50 am
Love that series, not in a small part for the wonderful music of Taku Iwasaki. And yes, do watch the OVA series, it’s a great Bond-esque action.
There is actually another book-related series, which just finished airing in Japan, called Library Wars. Its world is sort of a cross between Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, where books have been banned and undercover librarians who fight against information control are called “book soldiers”. It is made by Production I.G. which brought us Ghost in the Shell.