Forum - View topicWhat are you reading right now? Why?
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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Read the first 6 volumes of Kiss Him Not Me. I really enjoy the comedy and the art. Mutsumi and Igarashi are my favorites guys, but I don't even like the other two guys. I just don't find them likeable. Shima is great as well. I'm looking forward to the anime.
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Cam0
 Posts: 4888 |
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I have been reading Blade of the Immortal, slowly. It's good. I seem to be always too busy playing video games or watching anime so I haven't been reading all that much lately. It feels slow paced sometimes but it has some strong characterization. The art is... sloppy. it's kind of rough looking, but it works. The action scenes are pretty confusing though. Often times I have no idea what's going on, but it's no biggie. The content can be pretty shocking so this is definitely not for the faint of heart. The main character may be immortal, but he certainly doesn't have it easy.
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9839 Location: Virginia |
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@Cam0
I think it is safe to say that none of the major characters in Blade of the Immortal has an easy life. How far along are you in the series? For that matter, what version are you reading? It was running here when I first found manga and it hasn't been much over a year and a half here since it concluded. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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I'm reading Ai Yori Aoshi. It's so very different from Tenchi Muyo! GXP!
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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@Alan45
I'm a scanlation jerk. I think the first like 19 volumes or something are Dark Horse versions that have been flipped, in some clever way apparently. It was a bit odd at first, but I've gotten used to it. Sometimes the text bubbles are weirdly placed, but nothing serious. There's a lot of Japanese words being thrown around. Like, a lot. So it's pretty difficult sometimes to follow the conversations. The words are explained at the end of each volume, but it would have been better to explain them right away. I'm at around volume 18. |
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RAmmsoldat
 Posts: 1261 Location: North wales coast |
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i prefer the translator notes to be at the back, makes the pages look less messy.
Its funny but I've been collecting blade of the immortal and when my latest orders arrive i'll have the entire run but I've yet to read any of it simply due to the fact i had so many other series on the go but its a dark horse release so i don't have the option of waiting for another time. Latley I've been reading Barakamon and Yowamushi pedal. I love Barakamon its such a pleasant and relaxing series and watching Handa deal with country life is always fun. Im really keen to find out what happened to narus parents and there have been a few scenes where handa nearly asks but holds back. Yen press do a really nice job with the books too. Yowamushi pedal is pretty typical of a sports manga but im enjoying it a lot despite my hatred of cycling but then I've always maintained that these sports stories are more about the characters than the actual sport which is why you need not be into sports to like a sports manga. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9839 Location: Virginia |
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@Cam0
Blade of the Immortal started here in mid 1996 when all US manga was flipped. Samura was fussy about his art work and insisted that instead of simply flipping the artwork that the individual panels should be rearranged to be read left to right. Obviously a few of the pages couldn't be done that way so Manji's missing eye occasionally changes sides. Apparently this process was required by contract as it is the only series that continued to be flipped through its whole run. Dark Horse is supposed to be reissuing the series in three volume omnibus version so it will be interesting to see if it is flipped or unflipped. Again, when this series was first licensed almost all manga was initially issued in comic book form (floppy phamplets) and only came out in graphic novel form if it sold well. That is why the encyclopedia here shows the initial issue to be in March 1997. Dark Horse continued to issue it in comic book form through November 2007 longer than any other series in the US as far as I know. The runner up was Ranma 1/2 from Viz that continued in comic book form until February 2003. Dark Horse is a firm believer in end of the book translator notes. The notes from Carl Horn in Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service run for pages. That series is highly recommended also. @RAmmsoldat I had previously read about two thirds of the series, but when I got the final volume I sat down and read the whole thing in successive periods. It is a great series and well worth your time. Years ago I picked up some suburb posters from the series. At one point a figure of Manji was offered but it was very limited and very expensive, several hundred dollars if memory serves. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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Was the idea behind flipping manga to make it more appealing to American comic fans? Is there any evidence of that actually working, like only flipped manga being successful or something? I only read a bit about how they rearranged the panels in Blade of the Immortal and it just seemed like a lot of worthless effort to me.
I haven't noticed. I suck at noticing small stuff like that so it's not surprising. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7357 |
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@Cam0
I'm thinking that they used to flip manga on the assumption that unflipped would never sell. I don't think they had any research going for it, but if they were trying to sell to comic fans (as opposed to American otaku, which were probably in low number at the time), they just assumed it should read like American comics. It would probably also explain printing single issues, since it's what American fans were used to. My understanding is that in the past, someone has tried to do a "magazine" like collection like the Japanese do, but for American comics, and it did not work well. Odds are it was really expensive and people would rather pick only what they wanted instead of paying extra for things they didn't. Of course since manga magazines are so much cheaper, not liking a series or two probably wasn't as big a deal anyway. A major difference is that manga magazines are meant to be devoured and tossed/recycled, but comic issues are typically meant to be stored and preserved after being delicately read. As a manga fan, I personally find it strange that the issues are considered the collector's meat and the much cheaper with more content collected paperbacks later are viewed as the lesser format (but not by me! I almost never buy individual issues, but with those Valiant cosplay cat covers coming out in December, I am going to get that Archer & Armstrong one). Seriously, do click this link, the amount of adorable is ridiculous. I remember the flipping of manga caused a translation error in vol 4 of Phoenix. Again, it was a hand switch, he referred to his wrong hand as being the bad one (while actively using the good hand, so it was really obvious). Also, Club 9 left a random page unflipped (it was a single page of the main character dancing, but it was obvious when trying to go left to right it didn't work since it was clearly right to left). I didn't realize that Blade of the Immortal had rearranged panels more than just straight flipping the pages, but I do hope the omnibuses just go unflipped, it'd make it so much easier for everyone. I've been waiting for the omnibuses myself, I've never read Blade, but I plan to. I think it's kind of a shame that manga were flipped back then, because some of the best manga ever released in America are only available flipped (Phoenix, 2001 Nights, Sanctuary, among others). And Vertical still flipped some of their Tezuka releases to try and reach a bigger audience (I think DMP is going unflipped as often as possible, Unico is actually unflipped even though it's L-to-R, because of how it originally ran in Japan). I think when Tokyopop tried going unflipped and it worked really well, it then took off to become the norm, thankfully. Even then, Tokyopop's initial releases of really popular things (Cardcaptor Sakura, Sailor Moon) were still flipped. They flipped for a while, Parasyte, Saint Tail, they had a number of flipped manga. I think CCS was the only one they went back and re-released unflipped later on (though other companies did Parasyte and Sailor Moon unflipped eventually). I would be curious to know if the unflipping of manga drove away American comic fans as it went more otaku fans, or if American comic fans don't mind, or they only just go for major things like Attack on Titan these days or something. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9839 Location: Virginia |
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Back through the late 90s all manga that I know of was flipped and published in comic book form. I think the idea was to make it indistinguishable from regular US comics. I'm not sure they initially ever considered not flipping the stuff. They also did not make a big deal of the fact that the titles were Japanese in origin.
The first unflipped series I bought was Evangelion. When Viz started publishing it they brought it out in both flipped and unflipped comic books and later the graphic novels were put out the same way. I think this was a demand from the Japanese publisher. I actually bought both versions but I got rid of the flipped graphic novels. I did a comparison read and while the effect is subtle, the story flows much better in the original right to left format. Viz also did this for one of their SJ series, possibly Dragon Ball but I'm not sure as I didn't buy it. Some time later, Tokyo Pop started issuing series in both comic book and graphic novel formats only in unflipped editions. They made a big deal about it being more authentic, which it was, but I suspect they did it because it made localization cheaper. I think Dark Horse was the last US publisher to give up flipped manga. This sort of makes sense as they are primarily a comic book company and secondarily a manga company. They also don't have the footprint in bookstores that the other manga companies do even now. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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Yeah, I had a feeling that it was something along those lines. Very informative post btw. I wish someone would create a website for manga similar to what CR has going on. E-books are a thing so why not manga. Don't know if it's financially possible, but I'd be all over it. Although I'm mostly just a cheapskate and a dirtbag, I also don't want to deal with physical copies. Buy each volume individually, find a way to store (and hide) them and all that headache. Ugh. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9839 Location: Virginia |
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I got into anime and manga in 1997 and at that time the only place I could find manga was in comic shops. I'm pretty sure that they did the flipped individual issues because that is how the comic books they were competing against were done. The shift to only graphic novel format was done about the same time that manga transitioned to book stores.
While I do think unflipped reads much better, I never found that flipped manga presented a problem. I won't say that manga publishers in the US tried to hide the fact that the books were originally Japanese but they certainly didn't make it obvious. Of course the comic shops ruined that by putting them all in a special location. They also mostly didn't tell you how many volumes you were in for or if the series was ongoing. There were several attempts at manga anthologies. Viz started with Manga Vizion which later transitioned to Animerica Extra. They also brought out Pulp for mature readers (which carried some really weird series) Later they went to Shojo Beat Magazine and their own physical Shonan Jump. Tokyo Pop was originally Mixx which brought out Mixxine. This changed its title to Tokyo Pop when the business did. Dark Horse brought out Super Manga Blast for a few years. Even Yen Publishing tried their hand with a hybrid manga/Manhwa magazine (you had to read from both ends). I think it was called Yen On which is now their novel imprint. All of these have gone away now. Oh and before I forget there was also Rajin Magazine that was published by a group of Japanese manga authors. I used to have full runs of all of these but gave them to the local library a couple of years back. Mixxine/Tokyo Pop magazine had tonal problems they included in one magazine, Sailor Moon, Parasyte, Gundam, and a hard core murder mystery. I'm still trying to figure out the intended audience. Tokyo Pop did a lot of experimentation. Their initial graphic novels were the size of the smaller Japanese volumes and a lot smaller than other companies. They later moved to the standard size. They would start series in their magazine and later move to individual issues and then to graphic novels. When I started most of the manga published in the US came from Viz, Dark Horse or CPM. There were a few other publishers that put out a few issues and disappeared. Slowly several additional publishers like Tokyo Pop or Iron Cat showed up. For the first several years it was perfectly possible to buy all the manga issued every month. I know for awhile I did just that. (except for the "adult" stuff separately solicited) @Camo I'm not sure why you would want to hide your manga. I'd love to be able to display it all (4000 plus volumes) there is just no room. For electronic manga try emanga.com they act as a conduit for licensed English language manga. Most of their catalog is unfortunately BL stuff but they do have some regular manga including all of Kimagure Orange Road and some of Kampfer and Aria the Scarlett Ammo. Prices seem to be reasonable. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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I thought hiding manga is the standard practice. Just like how you're supposed to hide your skin mags.
 I'd prefer to not to have to explain to someone what manga is, but I think I'm getting ahead of myself. I've only recently gotten into manga, and I still largely prefer anime as I've never really been a reader myself. Books and novels are a definite no-no for me. Manga isn't just text so that's why I can enjoy it. When I started reading Blade of the Immortal, I originally dropped it after a few chapters because I felt like there was way too much dialogue. I think I'll stick to being a very casual fan for now. CR has Inuyashiki which is from the same author as Gantz so I might be interested in that, but it's still on going so I'll have to wait until it finishes (might take years) so that I can read it at my own pace. Emanga didn't seem to have stuff that I'd be all that interested in. But I might keep an eye on it in case they manage to acquire something I might be interested in.
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zawa113
Posts: 7357 |
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@Alan
Yen Plus (Yen +) was their print mag that eventually went digital. Some of their older series (like Soul Eater) have a + next to their Yen logo since it's where it initially ran. Yen On is still their light novels though. @Cam0 Well Netcomics sort of does online stuff, they rent by chapter or volume (it's like, 15-25 cents a chapter to rent for 3 days). I'm guessing it works well enough since they now publish physical volumes for some of their more popular series. And like Alan, I'd love to be able to display every inch of my anime and manga too, lol, though I don't have quite as much as he does (but still a lot, mind you, probably over 1,500 by now) I like to wait until anime ends before watching it (I'm waiting on Digimon right now, most anime only take half a year tops, but Digimon is taking its time), but for manga, I mean, if it's already done, then cool, but I tend to only binge 4-5 volumes at a time anyway. But since Kamisama Kiss is so close to done (I only need 3 more volumes!), I'm just going to wait on it. Got half of Assassination Classroom too. But since I have plenty of backlog anyway, waiting isn't the worst thing in the world. And Magi will probably end sometime around next spring, so maybe around 35 vols? And I've got 20 now and have read like, 7? 7 seems to be magic stopping point, it's where I'm at with Kamisama Kiss for example (my friend reads every volume as I get it in though, lol). |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9839 Location: Virginia |
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@classicalzawa
Yen + that's right, I had forgotten that. I gave away my copies so I couldn't check. @Cam0 I expect hiding or not hiding manga depends on your circumstances. If you have family and friends that would give you a hard time it might be wise. Given all the anime, manga, figures and posters I have here hiding stuff wouldn't be possible even if I wanted to. Fortunately my wife collects fashion dolls so she doesn't have any room to complain. If you go to page 31 of the thread Show a picture of your manga collection you can see my display/storage. What constitutes "current" titles has changed some but the space remains the same. |
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