![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Manga Update
May. 25th, 2004 09:47 pmSo, I'm home, and the first thing that happened to me was that I went out to hang around with Mike, who -- in my absence -- has somehow become cool and intellectual. I'm unbearably proud of him. His GPA is a 3.45! He may have been abducted by aliens or something.
He's a history major and he seems to have a fascinatingly in-depth understanding of how it affects people. He's reading history textbooks for fun now. It's bizarre. I mentioned to him my Last Dreamer universe and asked for his help on a few things, and he had several brilliant suggestions to make and just, argh, so cool. The things he suggested to work with the ruling class and the history of the Dreamerverse government...! And that's not even counting the suggestions he made regarding the plot.
Then, of course, we went to a bookstore, where I spent $50 on manga and Neil Gaiman.
XXXholic volume 1 and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle volume 1 as produced by Del Rey are, as I hadn't even dared hope, brilliant. The translations are good, the quality is amazing -- God! -- they included the color inserts, I've never seen that happen before. They have detailed notes at the end of each volume to illuminate you as to the suffixes (which are retained in the original!!) and the cameo appearances (although, I pickily note, they were sketchy on the titles that aren't American: ie, Ashura-ou was mentioned but not Souma in Tsubasa, and Kazahaya and Rikuou of Gohou Drug nonfame weren't mentioned at all in spite of their XXX vol 1 appearance) and the little cultural foibles you may not have noticed. They are simply charming and I'm ecstatically happy.
I knew I would be happy with Del Rey the moment I saw the statement "Manga is not a genre, it is a medium," on their website. They seem to take publishing manga seriously, the same way they take publishing their books, and they have clearly put a lot of effort and consideration into the finished product. I wish I could contact them to be sufficiently worshipful.
Hellsing volume 2 as produced by Dark Horse Comics is also an exercise in rare accomplishment. They are not afraid to have their characters call each other nasty names; they do not hold back on the weird or on the creepy. The dialogue is quite well-translated for each character. Alucard in particular is remarkably convincing in his evil and in his playfulness; it may be a headache to have to poke through Anderson(g)'s brogue, but it's understandable and a nice, personal quirk. I especially like the note of including Kohta's wacky extra drawings on the inside covers -- that's a first. I devoured this volume and can't wait for more vampire/Nazi/KKK goodness from them. Of course, I expected nothing less from an honest-to-goodness comic publisher.
All of these enthralled me, sucked me in, and inspired me. They were truly good, even true-to-the-original-ly good. You can tell that these publications are serious, professional publications, equal in their own rights to their Japanese counterparts.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and instead of being inspired by, I was angered by Candidate for Goddess volume 2. I have long suspected Tokyopop of being unprofessional, especially considering the butchering of Planet Ladder that they've been reluctantly cutting back on, but this volume I had confirmation.
I have noticed a disturbing trend, which TJ has cleverly termed at my explanation the "Davis Syndrome", of personal bias on behalf of the people producing these volumes. ( Bias against a character, resulting in pointless bashing and downplaying of positive traits. ) I do have to note with massive amusement that they left all the color inserts in at the back of the book, but, um, they're not in color. So we have a bunch of random black and white illustrations back there. Ooookay. At least the spelling (while inaccurate in places) is consistent, which is more than can be said for Planet Ladder, and the names are all spelled correctly. Although I wish they hadn't gone with "Crow" for Dr C's first name. (Speaking of, I wonder what Yuuko's connection to Clow is? *hee*)
Anybody else got any manga commentary to share? Recommendations?
He's a history major and he seems to have a fascinatingly in-depth understanding of how it affects people. He's reading history textbooks for fun now. It's bizarre. I mentioned to him my Last Dreamer universe and asked for his help on a few things, and he had several brilliant suggestions to make and just, argh, so cool. The things he suggested to work with the ruling class and the history of the Dreamerverse government...! And that's not even counting the suggestions he made regarding the plot.
Then, of course, we went to a bookstore, where I spent $50 on manga and Neil Gaiman.
XXXholic volume 1 and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle volume 1 as produced by Del Rey are, as I hadn't even dared hope, brilliant. The translations are good, the quality is amazing -- God! -- they included the color inserts, I've never seen that happen before. They have detailed notes at the end of each volume to illuminate you as to the suffixes (which are retained in the original!!) and the cameo appearances (although, I pickily note, they were sketchy on the titles that aren't American: ie, Ashura-ou was mentioned but not Souma in Tsubasa, and Kazahaya and Rikuou of Gohou Drug nonfame weren't mentioned at all in spite of their XXX vol 1 appearance) and the little cultural foibles you may not have noticed. They are simply charming and I'm ecstatically happy.
I knew I would be happy with Del Rey the moment I saw the statement "Manga is not a genre, it is a medium," on their website. They seem to take publishing manga seriously, the same way they take publishing their books, and they have clearly put a lot of effort and consideration into the finished product. I wish I could contact them to be sufficiently worshipful.
Hellsing volume 2 as produced by Dark Horse Comics is also an exercise in rare accomplishment. They are not afraid to have their characters call each other nasty names; they do not hold back on the weird or on the creepy. The dialogue is quite well-translated for each character. Alucard in particular is remarkably convincing in his evil and in his playfulness; it may be a headache to have to poke through Anderson(g)'s brogue, but it's understandable and a nice, personal quirk. I especially like the note of including Kohta's wacky extra drawings on the inside covers -- that's a first. I devoured this volume and can't wait for more vampire/Nazi/KKK goodness from them. Of course, I expected nothing less from an honest-to-goodness comic publisher.
All of these enthralled me, sucked me in, and inspired me. They were truly good, even true-to-the-original-ly good. You can tell that these publications are serious, professional publications, equal in their own rights to their Japanese counterparts.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and instead of being inspired by, I was angered by Candidate for Goddess volume 2. I have long suspected Tokyopop of being unprofessional, especially considering the butchering of Planet Ladder that they've been reluctantly cutting back on, but this volume I had confirmation.
I have noticed a disturbing trend, which TJ has cleverly termed at my explanation the "Davis Syndrome", of personal bias on behalf of the people producing these volumes. ( Bias against a character, resulting in pointless bashing and downplaying of positive traits. ) I do have to note with massive amusement that they left all the color inserts in at the back of the book, but, um, they're not in color. So we have a bunch of random black and white illustrations back there. Ooookay. At least the spelling (while inaccurate in places) is consistent, which is more than can be said for Planet Ladder, and the names are all spelled correctly. Although I wish they hadn't gone with "Crow" for Dr C's first name. (Speaking of, I wonder what Yuuko's connection to Clow is? *hee*)
Anybody else got any manga commentary to share? Recommendations?