On the Tokyopop blogs, ChunHyang72 has some cogent comments on the Fullmetal Alchemist censoring kerfuffle. I thought it was interesting that people were really mixed on this one, with a number of folks, even on ANN, saying it didn’t bother them at all. And I agree with ChunHyang on this:
What bothers me more, however, is the notion that English-language readers deserve an “authentic,” “uncompromised” version of the original Japanese manga. Hot news flash, folks: the very act of translation has already compromised the “authenticity” of the work; editors routinely look for idiomatic ways to express concepts that translate poorly across cultural lines (i.e. puns, slang, folk sayings) and make minor changes to characters’ names.
She also points to this post by TP blogger Tokyojupiter that looks at several Viz titles and speculates about why crosses are kept in some titles but not in others.
Queenie Chan follows up on her previous article on anthologies, e-manga, and the iTunes business model.
Seeing the future: MangaCast has cover scans for the latest batch of Tokyopop and Viz title announcements. Start looking for these in December. On the Viz front, Active Anime has descriptions of new series starting in the fourth quarter.
For those who like riddles, the Broccoli Books blog drops some enigmatic hints about future titles.
At Postmodern Barney, the title of Dorian’s review of Akira Amano’s Reborn says it all: Toddler Assassins Make Me Smile. Meanwhile, at Blogfonte, Mitch was disappointed by Ravenskull. I feel guilty about this as he bought it in part because of my review. I love that he actually read Ivanhoe, which Ravenskull is sort of based on, because that really informs his opinion of the manga. Unfortunately, he probably liked Ravenskull less as a result.
Well, de gustibus non disputadum est and all that. It got me off my butt & reading Sir Walter Scott, which is a blessing. Gonna go see if I can find a copy of Waverly next time I hit the library… especially since none of those fourth-quarter new-manga descriptions sound particularly interesting. Although I know somebody who was bouncing off the walls about Welcome to the NHK, or at least the anime based off of it.
I’m glad some good came out of it! I think we approached Ravenskull differently—I went into kid mode and was reading it as if it were Treasure Island or something. Also, it made me laugh.
I have a review copy of Welcome to the NHK so maybe I’ll write that up soon, not that I’ve given you any reason to trust my reviews. I’ll send it to you afterward if you like—I don’t want to keep it around as it’s rated M and for good reason. At the moment it’s in the trunk of my car so the kids don’t grab it when I’m out of the house!
No, no. Don’t worry about it – one manga here or there in my pull list isn’t going to break the bank. They were talking about a manga swap thing at MangaNEXT if you’re coming – save it for that, if you can make it.
It’s what I’m doing with my dropped series.
Anyways, it isn’t as if I didn’t look at it beforehand. I passed on Destiny’s Hand based on the art & style at the same time – it’s just that I didn’t skim deeply enough to twig to what I’d not like about Ravenskull.
Oh, manga swap—sounds great. I’m going to be there.
My copy of Ravenskull arrived the same day as a dusty copy of the Waverly Novels, my legacy from a recently deceased aunt. It is to my great discredit that I haven’t cracked them open yet. (My excuse: My husband starts sneezing just looking at them.)
The Broccoli Books descriptions were so obscure that I couldn’t even figure them out, and I knew the actual titles beforehand!
That’s good to hear. I thought maybe it was me.
i think it’s funny to see reviewers who diss OEL manga solely for the cultural disparity between the format and the plot that it represents. it’s really counterproductive and it stifles creativity. when reviewers put up lame parameters on details just because it does not conform to their definition as to what manga is, then it just reflects on their inflexibility to appreciate new material. just because Ravenskull stray from the original Ivanhoe (with all the romantic tension the other reviewer purport), doesn’t mean it is a bad story. Well, SSE may have done themselves in when they advertized the manga as a “sequel” to ivanhoe, but still, it’s unfair for the writer and the artist to be forced to follow the novel’s “romantic tension” whatever that is.
Anyway, that review of his was one-dimensional to say the least.
and for his information, the artist Damaso deserves more than his prattle. He is one of the better mangakas in the OEL field.
I think you’ll see that I had nothing particularly harsh to say about the *artist*, aside from a mild complaint about the equally mild SD touches. Rather, I thought that the artwork was quite acceptable, and superior to the general run of OEL work. As for objections to OEL on doctrinal grounds – well, heck. It’s a doujin about a British novel. That’s the cool thing about the comic. I just wish it was a particularly well-written one.
I’ll cop to not understanding why it was artificially flopped and ordered Japanese-style when it was originally scripted in English. The rationale for maintaining the original orientation in material translated from the Japanese is to avoid aesthetic damage due to the inversion of panel-flow and image content “handedness”. See here for my complains about Vertical’s Buddha in that regard.
As for it being unfair to hold a writer to my storytelling standards, well, of course. Who am I? Just some random backholler hillbilly schmuck. But life isn’t fair, and neither is art.
“It’s a doujin about a British novel.”
Nicely put, Mitch! I never thought of it that way before. Works better than calling it a sequel.