Forum - View topicUntranslated novels discussion (formerly, "The Third" novels reissued with Shirow Art...)
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hyojodoji
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It's a pleasure, and thank you very much for the response. > Noda Masahiro As you may know, Noda Masahiro was famous also as a translator, collector of science fiction books, and writer on science fiction. I would like to recommend Noda Masahiro's Lemon Tsukiyo no Uchūsen 『レモン月夜の宇宙船』 (A Spaceship on a Lemon-like-moon-light Night. A collection of short stories and science fiction-related essays) to you. https://www.tsogen.co.jp/np/isbn/9784488731014 The cover art for A Spaceship on a Lemon-like-moon-light Night was painted by Katō Naoyuki, and Takachiho Haruka contributed an article to A Spaceship on a Lemon-like-moon-light Night. In the Hayakawa edition (1976) of A Spaceship on a Lemon-like-moon-light Night, the name of the person who had written the article in question was written as Takekawa Kimiyoshi 竹川公訓, which is Takachiho's real name. The Sōgen edition is a revised edition, and the contents of the Sōgen edition are the Hayakawa edition plus one short story and some essays. > Kawamata Chiaki Kawamata Chiaki was a member of Ichi no Hi no Kai 一の日の会 (A legendary society of fans of science fiction) already in his university days. Yokota 'YokoJun' Jun'ya and Kagami Akira, too, were members of the society. Yasuhiko Yoshikazu's Arion anime film gave the 'Composition' credit to Kawamata. > Yano Tetsu Yano Tetsu was famous also as a translator and trailblazer of science fiction fan activities including reading many American science fiction books. Already in the 1950s, Yano corresponded with science fiction fans and science fiction editors in the States. When an American science fiction magazine carried a Yano's letter of which gist was that he wanted to read more American science fiction but sadly it was rather difficult to obtain American science fiction books in Japan, in response to Yano's letter, many American science fiction fans kindly sent science fiction books and magazines to Yano. In 1953, Forrest J Ackerman invited Yano to the States, and, thanks to Ackerman, Yano could attend Westercon 6 (Los Angeles) and Philcon II (The 11th World Science Fiction Convention). > Kurimoto Kaoru In recent years, non-Japanese fans of anime, manga, light novels and the like see Japanese companies release many fantasy works (including so-called narō-kei) which have quasi-European (so-called Nārope, narō + Europe) and neomedievalistic diegeses. Maybe what forms the basis of them is stuff such as Dragon Quest video games and Record of Lodoss War, but what constitutes a deeper stratum of the basis is 'ancient' Japanese fans' (some of them would later become translators, writers, editors and the like) having read Western fantasy fiction such as the Conan the Barbarian series in olden days. So, Nakajima Azusa/Kurimoto Kaoru, who had read Western fantasy fiction (and science fiction) as a fan and later became a writer of/on fantasy and science fiction and wrote the Guin Saga, would be one of the key persons when we examine Japanese fantasy works, which are published in large numbers in recent years, from a historical perspective. As to the Guin Saga's being a behemoth, actually, in a sense, you need not read 140-or-so volumes. Certainly, apparently Kurimoto Kaoru seems to have embedded 'big' supernatural or science-fictional mysteries, whose answers maybe will be given only to readers who will patiently read later volumes of the Saga, in the story of the Guin Saga, but you can read and enjoy just a few earliest arcs in the Guin Saga as some good action-adventure-fantasy/sword-and-sorcery (plus some court intrigues) novels. So, after you have read, say, the 1st arc, the 2nd arc, and the 3rd arc of the Guin Saga, you can employ the 'OK, I have enjoyed these sword-and-sorcery novels as light reading. Ms Kurimoto has said, "Hey, folks, some big mysteries and their answers are waiting for you in later volumes," but I can ignore those mysteries and answers, and I can ignore what will happen plot-wise in later volumes of the Saga. So I'm going to stop reading the Guin Saga here' tactics. ^_^ This way of reading the Guin Saga might make shinja 信者 (fanatics) gekioko 激おこ (angry), though. Also as to The Seven Sorcerers 『七人の魔道師』 (Shichinin no Madōshi, the 1st Guin Saga side story), while a little very basic knowledge about the hero and the setting of the novel series might help, you can read and enjoy The Seven Sorcerers as an 'independent' good light-reading sword-and-sorcery novel. https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4150301301 > Takachiho Haruka Bijū 『美獣』 (The Beautiful Beast) by Takachiho Haruka is one of the earliest heroic-fantasy novels that were written by Japanese authors. Takachiho Haruka recently watches the anime adaptation of A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics 『変人のサラダボウル』 , just because the protagonist is a sleuth in the Gifu City. (Hirasaka Yomi, who is the author of the A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics light novels, on which the anime is based, is from the Gifu City.) Since Takachiho is from the Nagoya City and Nagoya is very near to Gifu, he is interested in how things in the Nōbi area 濃尾地方 (an area which consists of a part of the Gifu Prefecture and a part of the Aichi Prefecture) are depicted in the anime. > Kagami Akira Kagami Akira was one of the translators when the Hayakawa Shobō publishing company released Japanese translations of (the Gnome Press edition of) the Conan the Barbarian series in the early 70s. Kagami Akira was a close friend of Yokota Jun'ya's, and since the stature of Kagami is 190 cm (approx. 6 feet 3 inches) and that of YokoJun was 150 cm (approx. 4 feet 11 inches), they were regarded as a duo that consisted of the Tall one and the Short one, like Laurel and Hardy were the Fat One and the Skinny One in some countries outside of the States. The translators of the Conan the Barbarian series for Hayakawa also included Aramata Hiroshi, who would later write Teito Monogatari 『帝都物語』 (The Tale of the Imperial Capital. The Doomed Megalopolis anime is based upon Teito Monogatari), under the name of Dan Seiji 団精二, which is wordplay on (Lord) Dunsany. ('Dan Seiji 団精二' in kanji can be read also as Dan Seini.) Terms such as madō 魔道 (sorcery) and madōshi 魔道士 (sorcerer), which later-generation Japanese writers of fantasy now frequently use, were coined by Aramata Hiroshi in olden days. I have recently dug up Volume 1 of the Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft, which had been translated by Aramata Hiroshi and which had been published by the Sōdo-sha publishing company in the 1970s, and I have thumbed through it. As I have said, in a deeper stratum of the basis, on which recent Japanese fantasy works have been built, there are activities that had been done by 'ancient' Japanese fans of fantasy. The cover art and illustrations for Hayakawa's Conan the Barbarian series were drawn by the Takebe Motoichirō. When a Japanese writer of science fiction (Noda Masahiro, if I remember correctly) showed some cover art and illustrations by Takebe Motoichirō for the Japanese editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series and the Conan the Barbarian series to foreign fans and writers of science fiction at a science fiction-related gathering, many of them eagerly wanted those Japanese books. https://catalina.sakura.ne.jp/blog/2012/03/post_1114.html There is an anecdote that since Takachiho Haruka succeeding in getting Takebe Motoichirō to paint the cover art for (the first edition of) Bijū novel, Kurimoto Kaoru envied Takachiho very much. > Katō Naoyuki After Takebe Motoichirō's passing, Hayakawa and Sōgen's cover art and illustrations for books written by Edgar Rice Burroughs were drawn by Katō Naoyuki. Being the successor to Takebe Motoichirō, it suggests that Katō Naoyuki is an über-big-name artist in the field of science fiction and fantasy art. Katō Naoyuki's cover art and illustrations for Hayakawa's Rim Worlds series by A. Bertram Chandler, too, were pretty good. http://atwonder.blog111.fc2.com/blog-entry-1330.html > I'd never heard of Perry Rhodan before I came to Japan, If I remember correctly, Forrest J Ackerman and Ace Books published some Perry Rhodan books in English, but I think it was in the 1960s and 1970s. J-Novel Club publishes Perry Rhodan Neo, and, like Hayakawa's Perry Rhodan Neo, the cover art is pictures drawn by Japanese artist toi8. https://j-novel.club/series/perry-rhodan-neo It is kind of funny to see Western science fiction books have cover art which was drawn in a so-called otaku-é オタク絵 style (pictures that were drawn in an otacky style), but in view of the situation that Japanese otacky things recently influence Western stuff, Western science fiction books of which cover art/illustrations are otaku-é may not be an odd thing. But still I hear the first half of the 20th century in me whisper that perhaps the Occidental science fiction cover art should be like this. ^_^; https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/f/f6/STARTLJAN1950.jpg J-Novel Club releases Perry Rhodan Neo under the 'J-Novel Pulp' imprint. Since light novels are in a sense pulp fiction for otaku, perhaps J-Novel Club should release all of their light novels under the 'J-Novel Pulp' imprint. :p > Hagio Moto I read some stories written by Hagio Moto, when the Kisōtengai science fiction magazine carried them in the 1970s. 'The Murder of Hermarod' was one of them. Approximately in the same period, Kisōtengai also carried Tsutsui Yasutaka's 'Midareuchi Tokusho Notebook' 「みだれ撃ち瀆書ノート」 book reviews. Later Shūeisha compiled those book reviews and published it as a book. When SF Fantasia carried Hagio Moto's 'Left-handed Izan' manga in 1978, I bought it and read 'Left-handed Izan'. spoiler[Both Izan and Hermarod appeared in 'Left-handed Izan'.] SF Fantasia also had a fantasy bibliography compiled by Aramata Hiroshi, and in the bibliography, regarding fantasy, we can see what trailblazers and connoisseurs had already read in the original and what more casual fans read in translation in the 1970s The Bubbles Zine has recently released an English translation of Fukui Eiichi's jūdō manga Igaguri-kun as Igaguri: Young Judo Master. (In Karasawa Nawoki's parody of Fujiko Fujio A's Manga Michi 『まんが道』 (The Way of Manga), Fukui Eiichi appeared as Fukui Etchi.) It seems that classics and ancient gems including works by Hagio Moto recently gradually come to be published in the Anglosphere. > Ishihara Fujio Dr Ishihara Fujio is an engineering scientist and writer of hard science fiction. He is also famous for his having compiled science fiction-related bibliographies and astronomical material for fans of hard SF. > Hosono Fujihiko At that time, Hosono Fujihiko was a college student who worked for Studio Nué. In recent years, he writes and illustrates the Gallery Fake manga. >> A mail-order catalogue in A.D.20XX > > Theoretically, the order form should still be valid! :-) In the 1960s, I thought that Tokyo in the 21th century would become like this... https://twitter.com/darbyz80/status/154406174010261505 The picture was painted by legendary artist Komatsuzaki Shigeru. The Project Blue Earth SOS anime is based on a work by Komatsuzaki. Komatsuzaki Shigeru was also famous for writing and illustrating é-monogatari (a cousin of manga) and painting box art for plastic model kits. https://100hyakunen.thebase.in/items/75016559 http://blog.livedoor.jp/godzitoraman/archives/1911059.html > Whenever I'm in Tokyo, there are two shops in Jimbocho I always visit > that specialize in old SF and mystery works. Those places are treasure > troves sometimes. Perhaps bookshops such as At Wonder ＠ワンダー, Yōtō Shobō 羊頭書房, and Kosho Irodori 古書いろどり? The place name 'Jinbōchō' is derived from the Jinbō Alleys of the Edo Period, and the name of those alleys was derived from Hatamoto (a high-ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa Shogunate) Jinbō Nagaharu, who had his house in that area. I have consulted a map of Edo that was published in the Edo period, and indeed in that area there was a house in which a high-ranking samurai whose name and title were Jinbō Hōkinokami lived. Probably, he, too, was a member of the Jinbō clan. The cultural and historical aspects of Jinbōchō and areas near to it such as having many bookshops and publishing firms and having many schools and colleges are interesting. Regarding Jinbōchō and its vicinity, Professor Tanizaki Seiji (a younger brother of Tanizaki Jun'ichirō) sullenly wrote, 'How learning is needed in order to climb the social ladder, and also how that learning need be sold off in pieces, Jinbōchō and its vicinity keenly prove them,' however. Like Dwight Macdonald disliked middlebrows, as an intellectual, maybe Professor Tanizaki did not like middlebrow swarms' buying scraps of learning at schools and bookshops in Kanda so as to move up the ranks. Hayakawa Shobō, too, is in Kanda (technically, Kanda Tachō 神田多町). According to Aramata Hiroshi's autobiography, when he was a high school student (in the early 1960s), he bought science fiction and fantasy books published in the States in Kanda and read them in the original. This is an example of a-trailblazer-in-action. Sadly, after Mainichi Shimbun Publishing released a horror novel in 2016 under the μNovel imprint, they does not release new μNovel books. > Fumiko Endo The official web site for Endō Fumiko's Star of Serafahn has a map of the continent which the story is set in. That map reminded me of maps which some Tolkien books such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings had had. The first Japanese translation of The Hobbit was published in 1965 (the translator was Seta Teiji. He also translated The Chronicles of Narnia). The first edition of the Japanese translation of The Lord of the Rings was published in the early 1970s (again, the translator was Seta Teiji). So it suggests that olden-day casual fans of fantasy who constitute a deeper stratum of the basis of recent Japanese quasi-European neomedievalistic fantasy works read them in translation in the 1960s and 1970s. Since you are a well-read person and fan of science fiction and fantasy (and maybe mysteries), you may like the Bernard Jō Iwaku 『バーナード嬢曰く。』 (Miss Bernard Says) manga. It is a manga about reading books, and one of the principal characters is a fan of science fiction. An anime based on this manga was broadcast in 2016, and the tone of the anime version was rather crazy 狂騒的, but the tone of the manga version is far calmer and better. An issue of Hayakawa's S-F Magazine carried a special chapter of the Miss Bernard Says manga in 2016, and the issue had the Miss Bernard Says-themed cover art. https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4758063710 https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4758084661 https://natalie.mu/comic/news/206795 Anyway, again I hope that you can find more good science fiction and fantasy books as light reading and you will enjoy them. ^_^ |
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vanfanel
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Another long gap between replies; my apologies. I appreciate all the information you shared; I'm interested in the history and development of Japanese SF, so all this is very interesting.
A few updates since last time. I did finish reading Endo Fumiko's "Star of Seraphan" series and thoroughly enjoyed it. If the beginning is "Little Women" meets "Lord of the Rings", the finale reminded me of the Book of Revelation in the Bible. I was impressed by what a bold ending Ms. Endo wrote, and how she finished the stories of the many characters. Apparently, though, the events of the story happen 2,000 years before another novel that she wrote in the 80s. I haven't read that one yet, but a revised version of that book can be read for free on her web site. I also read Takekawa Sei's "Kaze no Tairiku (Weathering Continent) vol. 2" (it reminded me very much of old pulp fantasy, which I enjoyed) and Tanaka Yoshiki's "Arslan Senki vol. 3" (a bit of a side-quest, but enjoyable. The old anime of the Arslan series is beautiful, but they burn through the story way too quickly). I caught up with Kajio Shinji's "Emanon" series, but now I'm behind again. Ever since he retired from his family business, he's writing too fast for me to keep up. Aside from lighter stuff, I've also been making an effort to read more of the Nihon SF Taishou winners. Over the last couple of years I've read: * Suga Hiroe's "Hakubutsukan Wakusei III: Kanki no Uta" ("Museum World III: Ode to Joy"). I had already read the first two books of that series, so reading that one was a no-brainer. This is an ongoing series of short stories set on an asteroid towed into Earth orbit where all of humanity's artistic treasures are stored and curated. The stories involve various forms of art, artist shenannagins, forgery rings, and so on. * Tani Koshuu's "Columbia Zero." A series of stories that restarts his old series about interplanetary war in the solar system. This was good stuff that reminded me somewhat of Johji Hayashi's "Ouroboros Wave" with its emphasis on hard science, but it would probably mean more to me if I'd read the old series. * Oda Masakuni's "Zangetsuki" ("Zangetsu's Tale") I was a little confused by this one because I had expected its three parts to connect to one another; however, they seem to be three independent stories sharing only a common theme of strange events caused by the moon. I like this author's writing style quite a bit. Based on the cover, I thought it was a period novel, but it's mostly set in the present day and near future. Overall, this book was a bit grim for my tastes (especially in the second and third stories), but I can't deny there's a lot of talent and imagination on display. Things came together nicely in the end for the final, titular story, which ended up being my favorite of the three. Do you read newer SF, or mainly older stuff? When it comes to Japanese SF, I read a lot of older books and some newer ones. But in English, I tend to read my own generation and earlier. I'm reading Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" right now. Last edited by vanfanel on Tue Aug 05, 2025 1:48 am; edited 1 time in total |
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vanfanel
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Figured I'd rename this thread, since it's wandered far afield of The Third's new covers, and a single thread for this kind of discussion seems useful.
I've been reading mainly short stories since finishing "Zangetsuki," and haven't been having great luck with those. I do want to read more Yusuke Miyauchi at some point, though. His "Banjo no Yoru" ("Night on the Shogi Board"), was an astounding debut that only very tangentially qualifies as SF. It tells the story of a young woman who learned to play shogi during an absolute nightmare of being abducted in China. After she returns to Japan, she wins her way to the top of the seamy world of professional shogi. I know nothing of that world beyond what I read here, but the descriptions of it felt very convincing. The story keeps the woman at a distance. We learn about her mainly through a sports reporter and his interactions with her manager, on whom (for story reasons) she has to rely for just about everything. It feels kind of like a retrospective article about a famous player. Hoping to get into Yukito Ayatsuji's "Another 2001" soon. Summer is the season for horror here, and I loved both the original and its spinoff novel. |
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vanfanel
Posts: 1303 |
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Well, I read "Another: 2001" by Yukito Ayatsuji. That was definitely a page-turner; not as good as the first two IMO, but I'm glad I finally got around to it. The afterword says Ayatsuji has an idea for another one set several years later, and I can see him already setting that up in a couple of scenes of this one. He also says that the next one will probably be the end of the series. I get that. There's only so much you can do with this concept.
That said, if he were to write books about grown-up Mei and Koichi traveling the country and solving other supernatural mysteries, I'd totally be there for it. One of my gripes with this book was that Mei wasn't in it very much, and Koichi only "appeared" for a couple of phone calls. |
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RupanSansei
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Shunro Oshikawa's 1900 novel Kaitei Gunkan (Undersea Battleship) has got to be the oldest example (in the sci-fi genre at least) to be untanslated as it inspired the 1963 tokusatsu film Atragon which in turn had an OVA series 1995 called Super Atragon. Can't say much about it personally as i've read chapter 1 (not sure how many chapters it is) 15 years ago on a sci-fi site that is no longer around.
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RupanSansei
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Update: I am partially wrong as Toho Kingdom has mentioned there is one but it seems the author of the translation appeared to have used AI to translate it https://www.tohokingdom.com/books/fantastic_tale_of_island_adventure_the_undersea_warship_jpop22.html so that would still leave room for a proper translation to be made & sold (hopefully in a physical edition as well) |
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vanfanel
Posts: 1303 |
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If AI was involved at all I'm not reading. Have to lock arms on this.
Recent reading is all short stories by various authors. Fuyumi Ono's "Hisho no Tori" / "Hisho's Birds" is built around a passing detail in the first 12 Kingdoms novel, where objects shaped like birds were launched into the air and shot by archers during a coronation celebration. This is the story of the artisans who made those birds. How much the queen and all the ministers understood of what the artisans were trying to express through that display is unclear, but it sure meant a lot to the people who designed it. An excellent little side story in the 12 Kingdoms world. Yusuke Miyauchi's "Banjo no Yoru" / "The Dark Beyond the Weiqi" is one I'd read before, but it was worth the reread. Deals with the seamy world of professional go, and tells the tale of a woman who had risen to great heights in it after losing all her limbs under particularly horrifying circumstances. It only barely qualifies as science fiction, but I'm eager to see more of Miyauchi's work; he's been quite prolific in the years since he debuted with this story. "Agari" / "The Finish Line" by Yuri Matsuzaka is the second story I've read by her. Both take place in university lab settings that feel "lived in" enough that I suspect she has some lab experience in her background. This story concerns a grad student trying to disprove a crackpot theory that all the different types of DNA strands are competing to try to become the most numerous, and life on earth is simply a byproduct of this competition. His plan is to monopolize some lab equipment for about a week and multiply strands of a certain DNA type chemically (i.e., without cellular reproduction), giving that one DNA type such a "lead in the race" that no other type could possibly catch up by propagating itself through living cells. He will "end the race" by creating a "winner," and then nothing will happen, which will prove the theory to have been nothing but bunk. What could possibly go wrong...? "Yoseikai kara no Tabibito" / "Traveler from the Fairie World" by Ryo Mizuno This is a side story of "Record of Lodoss War," set after the War of Heroes but before Ashram starts hunting ancient dragons. Parn, Deedlit, Slayn, and Cecil are holed up in Parn's hometown, which has become a hotbed of resistance to the two corrupt nobles feuding over the land. Estas, a high elf we haven't met before, shows up looking for his former student Deedlit, having decided that her silly flirtation with living in the human world has gone on long enough; time to go back to the forest where she belongs. He's too powerful to resist, uninterested in the present conflict, and the only way to change his mind is to convince him that humans are worthwhile. This kind of plot has been done to death, and this story isn't exactly a great addition to the Lodoss story. To its credit, though, I disliked Estas but couldn't quite hate him. It was fine. "Nameraka-na Sekai to Sono Teki" / "The Slippery World and Its Enemies" by Ren Hanna is a light-novel style story about regular students who can shift to parallel dimensional versions of themselves at will. It's told from the POV of one of these girls, who appears to live in a constantly changing kaleidoscope of worlds. The story concerns a new transfer student - a girl who has lost the ability to shift and is stuck in one world only. She is viewed as severely disabled by her class, but the teacher wants the main character to reach out and be a friend to her. A highly imaginative and surprisingly touching story. |
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Fluwm
Moderator
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Is this really just a short story? Seven Seas has reordered Twelve Kingdoms again (I believe this is the fourth order since original publication) and they've inserted Birds of Hisho into the middle of the series, as book 7. (EDIT: like, versus being a novella or a short story collection.) |
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vanfanel
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It's the title of the first story in a collection of four novellas, as well as the title of the book itself. Those stories were the first new 12 Kingdoms to come out after a break of quite a few years. The only thing to come out since is a big novel that was published in four volumes.
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