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The Twelve Kingdoms: Light Novels questions




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Howlett Fang



Joined: 02 Jul 2016
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Sat Jul 02, 2016 3:23 pm Reply with quote
So a while back I found 2 of The Twelve Kingdoms books 10th Edition Volume 1 and 2(I assume these are 10th Edition because on the information page about the book it has the edition located in the bottom left with it numbered up to 10 however, none of the numbers have a marking), I plan on buying 10th Edition of Volume 3 and 4 as soon as I can. I have been looking for information on these books and trying to find out if the author of these books has any plans to release the other 3 books any time soon or where a good website to track such releases may be. Thank You for your Assistance in this matter. Have a Great day =).


Edit: To Elaborate a little bit, These Novels are Japanese based translations into English and not the original Japanese works.
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Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9812
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Sat Jul 02, 2016 7:40 pm Reply with quote
@Howlett Fang

You haven't said, but I'm going to assume that you are referring to the edition translated and printed in the US by Tokyo Pop. If your question refers to some other country you should say so.

First the bad news. Tokyo Pop published one volume each year between 2007 and 2010 and quit. A few years later the company went out of the manga and novel business altogether. This year they have started to print some manga but so far their offerings are limited to licensed Disney franchises. Bottom line is that unless some one else licenses the series the four volumes they printed are all that is or will be available in print in English. If someone does rescue the license it will be announce in the news feed here.

The slightly better news is that the fourth volume stops at the end of a story arc in a satisfying conclusion. At 600+ pages the fourth volume is reported to include two of the original Japanese volumes but I can't confirm that. The ending point of the books in English matches the ending of the anime version. For what it is worth, I have seen complaints that the Japanese version of the series is not a conclusion and that additional volumes were planned and never written.

You do not have the tenth edition of these books. Technically in order to be a new "edition" there must be a change of some sort. It can be a change to the text to the graphics the addition of an introduction or post script or a re pagination. As far as I know the only editions from Tokyo Pop of the Twelve Kingdoms novels were the hard back and trade paper back version and they both were the same size and same contents.

Most US publishers use that line of numbers to show which "printing" you have. That is, they didn't change the text, they simply ran out of copies to sell and went back to the printer for a new issue. My copies have the numbers 10 down to 1 and directly above that is the line "First Tokyo Pop printing March (year)". With each reprint they drop off the lowest number. If your copy has both all the numbers down to 1 and the line above you have the first (and likely only) printing. If the lowest number is 4 than you have the fourth reprinting. Tokyo Pop was rather optimistic in listing numbers through 10. I doubt there was more than one reprint and possibly not even that. (which probably explains why they quit the series).

I should warn you concerning volume 4 from Tokyo Pop. The hard back edition was found to be missing several pages of text from one of the middle chapters. They corrected that when they issued the paperback version but, as far as I know did not issue a corrected hard back version.

Both Tokyo Pop and Seven Seas were early entrants into the publishing of novels associated with manga and anime. At the time neither had the success they hoped for and had to quit. Currently most of the light novels translated into English are coming from Yen Press and Vertical. They keep adding titles so they seem to be doing well. I'm not sure if they are doing something different or if the times have changed.
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Howlett Fang



Joined: 02 Jul 2016
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2016 3:32 pm Reply with quote
@Alan45

Thank you for your very informative post, I don't particularly understand how the printings work because up until I had come across these 2 books free in a library I had no idea they even existed, I will attempt to get some pictures of the books so that I can share them to this thread but it will take time..
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Alan45
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Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9812
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2016 3:58 pm Reply with quote
The paper back version of volume 4 of the Twelve Kingdoms is still available new from Right Stuf you should probably pick that up while you can. As I noted above, the paperback version is the one that is complete.

It looks as though volume three is going to be the hard one to find. The books are stand alone so you don't have to have three to read four.
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