Dive into the life of manga and anime creators Moyoco and Hideaki Anno with Moyoco’s 2005 book “Insufficient Director.”

Readers relive the newlywed days of Rompers (Moyoco) and Director-kun (Hideaki) as they get more accustomed to living together. Rompers worries if she will be an adequate spouse for the well-known otaku she married, but little does she realize how geeky the two really are. While understanding T.V. show schedules and finding room for their collectables are easy to solve, Director-kun’s many eccentricities are on a different level. It seems that it is going to be hard to maintain some normalcy as the couple work in an industry of fantasy.

“Insufficient Direction” is an adorable tongue-in-cheek” autobiography.Shoujo manga and anime fans will recognize Moyoco from her hit series “Sugar Sugar Rune” and some more mature series like “Happy Mania” and “Sakuran.” Hideaki worked on Studio Ghibli’s “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” before making his trademark sci-fi series “Neon Genesis Evangelion” (Eva). Moyoco uses a simplified and cartoonish drawing style compared to her more serious and detailed works while packing a lot of references to Japanese daily life and otaku culture. For readers that might get a bit lost in translation, publisher Vertical provides a helpful glossary that provides definitions. The aloof and light-hearted side of Hideaki in the manga might shock Eva fans due to the franchise’s dark content, but he mentions in his afterword how he helped Moyoco make the manga entertaining to readers. He also gives more insight into their marriage and the impact of his wife made in his life.

To find more information on “Insufficient Direction” and some of Moyoco’s other translated books, visit Penguin Random House’s page. VIZ Media has the complete manga series of “Neon Genesis Evangelion” while Funimation has its movie series.