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NEWS: Yen Press Licenses Planarian Humans, Takane-san and Arashi-chan, Zeta Gundam Define, More Mang

The Chef of the Adventurers' Tavern

The 11th Cat Is Nene!

I've heard mixed things about Zeta Gundam Define, but it's good to have it available. To be honest, I kept thinking if we got any more of the series retelling manga, it's be the Imagawa/Shimamoto G Gundam.

To be honest, I kept thinking if we got any more of the series retelling manga, it's be the Imagawa/Shimamoto G Gundam.

Really, I would have figured we would get either the 0080 or 0083 manga retellings first, since both of those are way more popular in English than Zeta Gundam, and both are much shorter than Zeta Define, too.

This really feels more like Bandai Namco & Kadokawa Shoten (the latter of which owns Yen Press) just want Zeta Define to be released in English, and if Kodansha isn't going to do it then they might as well have Yen Press do it.

As for the Ultra Class G Gundam manga, I really doubt we'll ever get it in English, as G Gundam seems to be treated as the red-headed stepchild of Gundam, especially by American companies, & that G only really tends to be given any real attention if pretty much everything else has been exhausted... despite G Gundam easily being the third biggest entry point for long-term Gundam fans, after Wing & Seed.

Hell, I'm amazed that no one's done a Seed manga yet in modern times, like Gundam Seed Destiny - The Edge (which retells the story from Athrun's perspective).

Also, to be fair, the G Gundam manga retelling is 26 volumes long in total (across four parts), so it's even longer than Zeta Desire currently is.

More popular according to whom? 0080's retelling isn't even complete yet, as the mangaka is battling health issues. And it's far from a talked-about entry in Gundam manga given the horrendous MTL translation attempt. 0083's would certainly seem like a better bet, but something tells me Imanishi still isn't on good terms with Bandai anymore, so anything to do with him would likely be viewed poorly. Plus, there are more sought after entries than those two.

Why would Kadokawa owning a stake in Yen Press have anything to do with it? Kodansha is a competitor to Kadokawa, and they released the (bizarre) Cucuruz Doan manga for whatever reason (likely a poor attempt to capitalize on Vertical's Origin release with the horrendous omnibus releases). If either were smart they would've picked up the Hathaway manga before the second film came out (but why would they ever consider licensing manga to tie in with current releases?).

Again, according to whom? There was plenty of merchandise on the shelves when the show was on Toonami back in the day, so I'm not sure where you think it gets the bastard child treatment. Heck, the Blu-ray release had more going for it than the Gundam Wing Ultrabox did.

They did. Gundam SEED Re: was being serialized in Gundam Ace up until Morisawa passed away. Without her there's really no point in circling back at this point. Plus, all these remake manga are pretty pointless and are page filler for Gundam Ace. The magazine has been dying for the last 15 years or so given the subpar quality of their serials. Tomino recently called them out for catering to the 30-50 military otaku crowd in their anniversary issue this past month.

I was talking about the 0080 & 0083 anime, man, not the manga. I was saying that those two anime are more popular in English than Zeta Gundam, since they both aired on Toonami & are still fondly remembered & beloved by fans. I wasn't saying that their respective manga were more popular than Zeta Define, or getting into anything regarding any of their fan translations statues. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that 0080 & 0083 are more popular in English, even today, than Zeta Gundam is.

Kadokawa owning Yen Press means that if Kadokawa wants Yen Press to release something then Yen more or less has little to no choice. This has been seen in the past already with other publishers owned by Japan, most notably Viz with both Shueisha & Shogakukan, so it's not some impossible situation.

As for why Kodansha put out the Cucuruz Doan manga, it was likely due to the movie being made & released (the very scenario you were just questioning why they don't do), as well as the simple fact that it's officially considered a spin-off of Gundam the Origin, so since Kodansha was already publishing Origin then it made sense for Kodansha USA to publish the Cucuruz Doan manga.

Right Stuf took its dear sweet time getting to G Gundam, despite constant questions being asked about when it'd come out pretty much once RS's Gundam deal with Sunrise was first announced in late 2014. Yes, the release that eventually came out was awesome, but the show itself clearly wasn't a priority to them (or Sunrise/Bandai Namco) to get out ASAP.

Literally the only vintage Gundam TV series that came out from RS after G Gundam finally came out in late 2018 was Gundam Seed in 2020 & 2021, and that was mainly because both seasons of that were literally re-dubbed in their entireties to match the HD remastered footage.

0079, Zeta, ZZ, Victory, Wing, X, Turn-A, Build Fighters, BF Try, G-Reco, AGE, & 00 all came out before RS finally got to G Gundam, & some even got re-released (due to them getting upgraded from DVD to BD) before G came out, not to mention most of the movies & OVAs came out before it, as well. The only other Gundams that came out after G (aside from Seed) were the more recent productions, like Build Divers & the final releases RS managed to put out before their death.

And I don't know why you're trying to argue about G Gundam's popularity back in the day, when I literally said that it was behind only Wing & Seed in how big of an introduction to Gundam it was back then.

However, beyond the standard model kits releases & video game inclusions, there has literally been nothing G Gundam-related released in English outside of Right Stuf's BDs. UC fans naturally get the lion's share of new stuff, while Wing fans at least got Glory of the Losers in English, & Seed fans even had a remastered re-release of a game that never even saw an English release back in the day not long ago; hell, even 00 fans got some new CG shorts a few years back in Japan.

However, G Gundam fans (who were a not-insignificant part of Gundam fandom back in the day, due to it also airing on Toonami) more or less have just the TV series itself to work with in English (aside from that new short animation made to celebrate its 30th Anniversary a couple of years ago), because we sure as hell aren't getting any of the more recent manga made in the past decade, which is pretty much the only new content for G Gundam that does exist.

Again, I was talking about official English releases, man. Stop interpreting things the way you want it to be read & actually read what I wrote. The entire post was about official English releases, not about the status of the various manga in Japan, or their respective fan translation statuses, or how Gundam Ace magazine itself is faring, or what Tomino thinks of things. I was only remaking about official English release stuff.