Awesome News: Sailor Moon is Back!

March 18, 2011

Alas, I spent most of February battling bronchitis and other medical issues, but now I'm back.  And with so much sad and tragic news coming out about Japan lately due to the horrifying earthquake and tsunami, I had to share some good news for a change.

Per Anime News Network, Kodansha USA is going to be re-releasing the Sailor Moon manga series!! Even more awesome, they are also going to do the prequel series,  Codename: Sailor V, which was never included in the original Tokyopop releases!  Sailor Moon is one of my all time favorite manga series, and I'm really happy to hear it will be available in new volumes as my old ones are falling apart at the seams.  According to the announcement, they will feature new covers, "extensive bonus material" and both the art and dialogue have be retouched by the series manga-ka Naoka Takeuchi. These volumes will be based on the newer 2003 re-release of the series in Japan, which spanned 12 volumes instead of the original 18 and added some more side/short stories. The first volume is slated to be released in September.

I normally don't "double dip" but with the age of my volumes, the inclusion of Codename: Sailor V, and the chance to finally get Sailor Moon Stars, I will definitely be acquiring all of these new volumes! Some Anime News Networkers are speculating that this will lead to a re-release of the anime, which would be awesome for everyone who couldn't get it the first time, and for all of us if such a re-release finally included the never translated Stars.

And I haven't forget my reviews, I have a few new manga series I'm working on reviews for now, including I Am Here!, a release from Del Rey manga that seems to be part of a growing trend to release lesser known series straight to omnibus form, and an older but still popular series, Wish.

Spice & Wolf, Volume 1

January 26, 2011

As I mentioned in my review of the Spice & Wolf anime series, the basis for the story is a series of light novels written by Isuna Hasekura, with illustrations by Jyuu Ayakura. Since I wrote that review, Yen Press has released the third light novel volume, so I picked up all three over the holiday season.  First, I must note that if you are interested in the light novel series, be advised that Yen Press first released the series with a photo-realistic cover, rather than the original covers. After the backlash from fans, they began releasing the volumes with a slip cover that had the photo-realistic thing, and then the original as the main book's cover. Alas, some places still have the first form of the first volume, so if you order online you might get stuck with that cover. I was happy I was able to get the 2 & 3 volume with the slipcovers as I tossed them immediately.  Of course, if you like the photo-realistic thing, then you're good to go either way.  I've put both covers for the first volume to the right for comparison.

So on to the light novels. Thus far I've read just the first volume, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Twenty-five year old Kraft Lawrence is a traveling merchant who dreams of owning his own shop in a town on day, but is content with eking out his lonely existence until then, making deals and building his reputation and wealth. After a seemingly normal stop in the town of Pasloe, he finds himself with an unexpected hitchhiker, a beautiful, naked girl who calls herself Holo and claims to be the wolf God who was once responsible for managing the harvests in the area. The people have grown tired of what they consider her capriciousness, though, and now rely more and more on technology, so she wants to return to her home on Yoitz, to the north. After some initial reluctance and disbelief, Lawrence agrees to take her along with him and see her to her home. In exchange she promises to help increase his profits along the way. 

As they travel together, however, they find themselves drawn to one another, but it isn't until Holo risks herself to save Lawrence when he falls into a dangerous situation do they start to admit, at least to themselves, how much they care for one another. There are hints at a larger story forming, particularly around Holo's desire to return to Yoitz as Lawrence heard the town was destroyed long ago, but has yet to reveal this to her, and of course there is always the question lurking in the back of one's mind of whether a wolf-god being can have any sort of future with a human.

I found the volume to be well written, with perhaps a higher language level than I usually see in light novels. The translation is quite well done so the text flows smoothly, a blessing considering some of the hideous translations we've seen in the past (yes, I'm looking at you Digital Manga and the hideousness that was Ai no Kusabi.  Yen Press' release is also nice, going with a good blend of a more standard American novel size (presumably lowering costs) while retaining the initial color pages found at the front of the novel.  And as they corrected what I see as an error with the covers, I can really find no complaint about the release. Even the cover price of $10.99 is pretty reasonable, considering most manga volumes are now the same price and have far less content.  While I liked the anime, I found the light novel more satisifying with its richer, deeper amounts of detail, particularly when it comes to what the characters are thinking and feeling at various crucial points. The events in this volume are depicted in the first six episodes of the anime, which is where the initial relationship between Lawrence and Holo is formed.  I was surprised to discover how many changes the anime made to these chapters, though, with one of the most major being the changing of Pasloe village's Yarei from male to female.  In the anime, she was a a potential love interest for Lawrence, while in the novels he was nothing more than someone Lawrence thought of as a compatriot.

So whether you have seen and enjoyed the anime, or just find the story premise interesting, I recommend picking up this novel series. Get all the volumes available you can because you will want to keep reading after you finish the first. As of the time of this post, the first three are in stores, with volume 4 due in June.  So far, Yen Press has solicitied the first six volumes of the sixteen that form the series, so hoping they will not pull a Tokyopop and drop the series before it is done. So far, though, they seem to still be keeping up their usual release schedules and I haven't seen any signs of delays or the like. As it is owned by Hachette Group, though, I think it may be more poised to finish it out than the traditional manga publishers seem to be, so its worth taking the chance on.

Rating: A+

The Japanese Have a Word for It

December 4, 2010

The Japanese Have a Word for It: The Complete Guide to Japanese Thought and Culture, written by Boye Lafayette De Mente, provides an interesting, if slightly dated, view of Japanese culture. The author is clearly well versed in the nuances of Japanese social constructs and the insane nuances of Japanese language. It is mostly aimed at those interested in possibly doing business in Japan or with native Japanese rather than the lay person, but De Mente writes in an easy to read and follow manner. Many of his insights are quite interesting and, for anime/manga fans like myself, can add a new level of understanding to events in your favorite series. Be warned, though, that the book was written in 1997, and some of the things noted is no longer true or are likely less common than it was when the book was written.

The biggest drawback I found with the book was its format. It is arranged as 230 "phrase-focused" chapters of 1-2 pages each, with each prodiving a bit of info on what De Mente considers to be "key words and expressions". With such an arrangement, the last 1/3 of the book or so became increasingly difficult to read because it became more and more repetitive. There are a small number of major points that seem to repeated in almost every chapter, and the latter chapters are more like mild variations of the previous ones. I think this book would have worked far better if it he done a different arrangement that focused on those different major aspects of Japanese culture. With the book supposedly targeted towards those who are new to doing business in Japan, I think such a method would have been far better than having it focused on these phrases that the reader would presumably not be familiar enough with to just to straight to one to study.

On the whole, I'd recommend this one for anyone interested in reading more on Japanese culture, but I'd suggest reading only the first half of it, then putting the rest aside for awhile before tackling part second half to avoid the tedium.

Rating: C+

Spice and Wolf & Tears to Tiara: Quick Views

November 30, 2010

Took a break from NaNoing to take a peek at some of the anime offers available through Hulu and to check out some new to me series earlier this week. In both cases I watched the subtitled versions only.

Spice and Wolf - Released in the US by Funimation, this series is set in a time frame similar to Europe in the Middle Ages when the Church was starting to frown on "pagan" religions. A peddler named Craft Lawrence travels from town to town in his horse drawn carriage, and seems like a generally friendly fellow. While visiting one town, Pasroe, he encounters Holo, the wolf "God" who long ago made a deal with the village to give them good harvests of wheat. The humans, however, no longer respect nor rely on her, feeling she is to "capricious" because she sometimes lets them have bad crops to keep the land fertile. As they no longer want her, she sneaks into Lawrence's wagon where he first meets her. She has a human-like form, with tails and ears, but shows him her true form to convince him that she is really THE Holo. She asks him to take her back to her homeland and he reluctantly agrees, so long as she helps earn her keep.

I ended up watching all of the available episodes (all of the first season, first four of season two as of the time of this post). The build up in the relationship between Holo and Lawrence is nicely paced. As time passes a growing sense that their journey north will not be nearly as easy as it might first appear. Both seasons underscore the light-hearted comedy and frequent back-and-forth barbs between our duo, with the more serious overall storyline including their having to deal with betrayals that nearly cost Lawrence everything, and is own clumsy actions that leave Holo heartsick. Definitely recommend this one. Funimation's original Season 1 DVD set is available now, or you can grab the lower cost Viridian Collection on December 7th. The anime is based on a sixteen volume light novel series, which in turn has a short manga adaptation. Both are being concurrently published by Yen Press, with the first two of six solicitied light novel volumes and all three manga volumes available now. I plan to get both so will let you know how well Yen Press did with each.

Rating: A

Tears to Tiara - a psycho "priest" named Drwc kidnaps a girl named Riannon of the Gael who is said to be the ancestor of an Elf and can see the future. This guy is like demented! To make her obey, the threatens to rip the fingers off two children one by one. His goal is to awaken Arawn, the Demon King who is supposed to bring destruction to the world, with Riannon as the living sacrifice. Things don't quite go as planned though, as Arawn frees Riannon from Drwc's spell and kills Drwc instead. Great opening sequence, and a very interesting story that moves at a good pace and seems to have the makings for a dark, exciting drama as the entire Gael clan revolts against the Empire to protect Riannon and Arawn, an Empire that has its own internal issues to deal with. It also seems like it will have plenty of humor here as Arawn has a fun attitude and Riannon's brother does not like the early romantic connection between Riannon and Awarn. Watched the first two eps and will be watching more. The subtitles are good, though the whole things appears a bit too dark and impossible to see in some parts on the stream (I suspect it may just be the system I watching on though). Will still keep watching though :-)

The series itself is based on a Japanese tactical RPG game that I've personally never played. In the first few eps I've watched so far, though, I didn't get that "OMG this is a video game" feel like you do with some other adaptations. The English release was done by Section 23, which has released the entire series as a 4-disc DVD set and a 2-disc Blu-Ray set.

Rating: B

Coming Dry Spell

October 18, 2010

Its getting towards November, so of course I'm gearing up for National Novel Writing Month. With my writing energies focused on my novel, I won't be doing many posts until its done. I do have three partials in the queue, though, that I plan to try to get done before November starts so something will get posted :-D  Otherwise, see y'all in December!