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NEWS: Ninja Slayer Sci-Fi Novels by U.S. Writers Get Anime


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samuelp
Industry Insider


Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 2228
Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 9:31 am Reply with quote
Just FYI, this is not actually by US authors.

That's a fake backstory by the publisher, it's all supposed to be a tongue in cheek send-up.
Quote:

The American creators, "Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez," gave permission to a team to translate and post the story piecemeal on Twitter. After the story grew in popularity, Enterbrain published the first Japanese-translated volume in print, Ninja Slayer: Neo Saitama in Flames, in September 2012. The story then inspired three comic adaptations from Enterbrain and Kodansha, as well as a audio drama with Toshiyuki Morikawa as the title character.

There is no actual original english work (just try and find it!) and those original author's official bios are all fake.

This is the official "english" site for the original work:
http://ninjaslayer.onlinewebshop.net/

As you can see the links are broken and don't lead anywhere.
Actual proof however is written in the official wiki in the last of the FAQ:
http://wikiwiki.jp/njslyr/?よくある質問#l719042b
where the answer vehemently denies it while providing lots of evidence to the contrary...


Last edited by samuelp on Wed Apr 02, 2014 10:35 am; edited 1 time in total
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Spotlesseden



Joined: 09 Sep 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: earth
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 10:14 am Reply with quote
samuelp wrote:
Just FYI, this is not actually by US authors.

That's a fake backstory by the publisher, it's all supposed to be a tongue in cheek send-up.
Quote:

The American creators, "Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez," gave permission to a team to translate and post the story piecemeal on Twitter. After the story grew in popularity, Enterbrain published the first Japanese-translated volume in print, Ninja Slayer: Neo Saitama in Flames, in September 2012. The story then inspired three comic adaptations from Enterbrain and Kodansha, as well as a audio drama with Toshiyuki Morikawa as the title character.

There is no actual original english work (just try and find it!) and those original author's official bios are all fake.


They release in Japan. They could be from US. Just like No Game No Life, it was written by a Brazilian.
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samuelp
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 2228
Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 10:22 am Reply with quote
Spotlesseden wrote:
samuelp wrote:
Just FYI, this is not actually by US authors.

That's a fake backstory by the publisher, it's all supposed to be a tongue in cheek send-up.
Quote:

The American creators, "Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez," gave permission to a team to translate and post the story piecemeal on Twitter. After the story grew in popularity, Enterbrain published the first Japanese-translated volume in print, Ninja Slayer: Neo Saitama in Flames, in September 2012. The story then inspired three comic adaptations from Enterbrain and Kodansha, as well as a audio drama with Toshiyuki Morikawa as the title character.

There is no actual original english work (just try and find it!) and those original author's official bios are all fake.


They release in Japan. They could be from US. Just like No Game No Life, it was written by a Brazilian.

That's not the story...

The "official" story is that there is an original set of self-published novels in English released only as a serialized novel in some college indie sci-fi magazine, written by "Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez". Then Enterbrain found this book and decided to translate it in into Japanese and release it in twitter-sized chunks.
The Japanese books are just compilations of these tweets.

However the truth is that the Japanese tweets ARE the original work, there is no english book this was translated from at all. "Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez" do not exist and the original authors are actually the Japanese "translators".
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Utsuro no Hako



Joined: 18 May 2012
Posts: 1032
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 10:51 am Reply with quote
Too bad it's not true. I have a friend who's a sci-fi author, and he would kill to have an anime series. He was so psyched when one of his books got translated into Japanese and the publisher gave it an anime-style cover.
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L'Imperatore



Joined: 24 Mar 2014
Posts: 821
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 11:24 am Reply with quote
Covers look badass!
Story looks pretty dark and serious!
The protagonist is actually a grown-up, family man!
Seriously man, if only more light novels like this were ma...

Ack, it's a novel... Embarassed

Btw, that's one fun backstory! Wink
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1239
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 11:49 am Reply with quote
Okay, if this backstory thing is true, I was fooled but good.

From what I've seen of it, I'd describe "Ninja Slayer" as sort of a novel version of realultimatepower.com, in that:

RealUltimatePower is written by someone who purports to be a hyperactive eleven year old who's going to tell you all about ninjas, even though everything he knows about them he either made up himself or got from watching bad American-made ninja movies.

In a similar way, "Ninja Slayer" on the surface looks like the work of a couple of morons who think they know something about Japan, but are in fact merely busting out every stereotype and cliche that Americans have about Japan and cranking them up to 11, all filtered through a thick haze of American comics.

There is a high level of specificity to its katakana-and-exclamation-point-overloaded lunacy, however, which did make me suspect that the authors are in fact very knowledgeable about Japan, and actually making fun of ninja/yakuza/samurai cliches and American-style takes on them.

If they do turn out to be Japanese authors, I guess they were knowledgeable after all, though not quite for the reasons I thought.
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samuelp
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 11:53 am Reply with quote
vanfanel wrote:
Okay, if this backstory thing is true, I was fooled but good.

From what I've seen of it, I'd describe "Ninja Slayer" as sort of a novel version of realultimatepower.com, in that:

RealUltimatePower is written by someone who purports to be a hyperactive eleven year old who's going to tell you all about ninjas, even though everything he knows about them he either made up himself or got from watching bad American-made ninja movies.

In a similar way, "Ninja Slayer" on the surface looks like the work of a couple of morons who think they know something about Japan, but are in fact merely busting out every stereotype and cliche that Americans have about Japan and cranking them up to 11, all filtered through a thick haze of American comics.

However, there is a high level of specificity to its katakana-and-exclamation-point-overloaded lunacy that does make one suspect the authors are in fact very knowledgeable about Japan, and actually making fun of ninja/yakuza/samurai cliches and American-style takes on them.

If they do turn out to be Japanese authors, I guess they were knowledgeable after all, though not quite for the reasons I thought.

I personally find it somewhat racist... Well, not racist exactly, but making fun of american ignorance and racism about Japan... all the while posing as being ACTUALLY written by americans. and I'm not sure how many of the fans of the series are in on the joke...
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1239
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:00 pm Reply with quote
samuelp wrote:
I personally find it somewhat racist... Well, not racist exactly, but making fun of american ignorance and racism about Japan... all the while posing as being ACTUALLY written by americans. and I'm not sure how many of the fans of the series are in on the joke...


Yeah, that does kind of cast it in a different light. I'm not going to get too upset, though; they may have pulled the trigger, but Hollywood movies and American comics have certainly provided the ammunition.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:02 pm Reply with quote
It's pretty apt satire considering Hollywood is still putting out things like 47 Ronin.
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1239
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:19 pm Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:
It's pretty apt satire considering Hollywood is still putting out things like 47 Ronin.


And The Wolverine...
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BGMaxie



Joined: 28 Nov 2009
Posts: 63
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:06 pm Reply with quote
So with the whole fake background stuff, can we say the whole animation thing is also false?
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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Posts: 11762
Location: Earth
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 2:35 pm Reply with quote
Interesting, I might watch this.
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JC_Denton



Joined: 02 Apr 2014
Posts: 36
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 4:53 pm Reply with quote
BGMaxie wrote:
So with the whole fake background stuff, can we say the whole animation thing is also false?

Since the novel is real(or other than fake authors backstory,everything is real),i think the animation news is real too
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6199
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:22 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Update: Sam Pinansky reports that the "American creators Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez" is a fake backstory by the publisher.


A million dreams were just crushed.
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L'Imperatore



Joined: 24 Mar 2014
Posts: 821
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:27 pm Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
Quote:
Update: Sam Pinansky reports that the "American creators Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez" is a fake backstory by the publisher.


A million dreams were just crushed.

That foreigners actually *can* have their idea made into anime? Wink
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