Atagoul
To be a truly irritating manga nerd, it’s important to obsess over at least one untranslated manga, boring people with long descriptions of its veiled glories and bitching about the myopia of the U.S. manga market and/or the unappreciative gaijin audience for allowing it to remain unlicensed. The more obscure (at least in the West), the better; anyone can wax regretful about the unavailability of The Rose of Versailles, but the epicure mourns for Train Journey or Wall Man or Honey Honey’s Wonderful Adventures. It keeps the lightweights in their place.
Her choice: Hiroshi Masumura’s Atagoul.
Tokyopop announced yesterday that it is releasing the first volume of Hetalia: Axis Powers through the comiXology app on the same day the print volume goes on sale in stores. Although they touted this as the first day-and-date digital manga release, that’s not strictly true: Hetalia has been available digitally for over a month via Zinio, and as Johanna points out, the real news is that Tokyopop is releasing their manga through comiXology—this seems to be the first manga in that app, which signals that some kind of a deal must have been made.
Watch Hideki Ohwada, the creator of The Legend of Koizumi, sketch former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi in the latest Masters of Manga video.
The sharp-eyed folk at ANN have spotted three new BL titles from Digital Manga on Amazon: No One Loves Me (Darenimo Ai Sarenai), A Place in the Sun, and Honey Chocolate Pancakes (Mitsuiro Pancake).
David Welsh reaches the letter J in his seinen alphabet at The Manga Curmudgeon.
The word “hikikomori” has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary (UPDATE: An alert commenter says it’s the Oxford Dictionary of English, not the OED), which prompts translators Alethea and Athena Nibley to contemplate the practice of leaving words in Japanese rather than translating them.
Manga Therapy delves into the psychology of Pedobear.
Job board: Digital Manga is looking for an intern. Here’s the 411, sent to me by Lanny Liu:
Digital Manga is looking for a graphic design intern in the production department. The intern should be a student who would like to earn school credit and experience in the publishing world. They should also have a basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, along with some graphic design skills. Please send your resume and inquiries to career@emanga.com, with the subject line “Intern”.
Seraphim
News from Japan: The November issue of Monthly Comic Ryū magazine will include a “Satoshi Kon Memorial Book” containing several chapters of Seraphim: 2-Oku 6661-Man 3336 no Tsubasa (Seraphim: 266,613,336 Wings) a manga by the anime producer, who died last month. ANN also has the latst Japanese comics rankings.
Reviews: Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith look at four new titles from DMP at Manga Bookshelf.
Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Angelic Runes (Sequential Ink)
Tangognat on vol. 1 of The Antique Gift Shop (Tangognat)
Adam Stephanides on vols. 3 and 4 of Billy Bat (Completely Futile)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Bunny Drop (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kristin on vol. 1 of Grand Guignol Orchestra (Comic Attack)
Julie Opipari on Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (Blog@Newsarama)
Connie on vol. 2 of Library Wars (Slightly Biased Manga)
Briana Lawrence on Love Lesson (Mania.com)
Shannon Fay on Tale of a White Knight (Kuriousity)
Lori Henderson on the September issue of Yen Plus (Manga Xanadu)
Erica Friedman on vol. 21 of Yuri Hime (part 1) (Okazu)
I wanted to post a comment on the Shaenon Garrity article about the obscure Manga Atagoul, but since I don’t have a WordPress account, I might as well post it here.
The fact that Atagoul started years ago, and had gone through four seperate series reminded me of another Manga that had gone through four publishers, yet was always produced by the same creative mind, Locke the Superman:
http://www.ex.org/3.6/04-feature_locke1.html
I was particularly taken with her closing statement, “There’s always the danger, “reading” untranslated manga with no comprehension of Japanese, that the translation will never live up to the version in your head. For instance, Hagio’s early story “Girl on Porch with Puppy” was hypnotically fascinating when I only had the untranslated version and had no idea what the hell was going on in the final pages. When the story was translated in A Drunken Dream, finding out what the characters were saying almost kind of ruined it for me.”
This rang rather true for me, since it was very reminiscent of an earlier post I wrote about, where I was intimidated after reading a comic in pictures, and later finding out what it REALLY said:
http://sundaycomicsdebt.blogspot.com/2010/04/you-dont-say.html
Your link to the Library Wars review is incorrect (wrong date in your URL, it seems). The correct one is: http://slightlybiasedmanga.com/2010/09/22/library-wars-2/ , rather than the one that you have (http://slightlybiasedmanga.com/2010/09/23/library-wars-2/). Only off by one character. ^_^;
Thank for doing all of the work to track the various review sites (by visits, rss, or whatever) and giving us the links. How long does it usually take for you to pull all of the URLs together, write the more descriptive/informative stuff above the review links, and post it (almost) every day?
While the Nibley’s discussion is interesting, the reference to the OED bothers me, because it’s an error.
Hikikomori wasn’t added to the Oxford English Dictionary. It was added to the Oxford Dictionary of English (formerly the New Oxford Dictionary of English).
Although they may sound alike, they’re different. ODoE is more “lax” … or rather, it adds things based on contemporary use (I’m pretty sure Onsen, which they also mention, isn’t in the OED either. Again though, it is in the ODoE).
Yes, but what does the Dictionary of Oxford English say?
Where would I be without my commenters? Thanks, everyone. I updated the OED reference and fixed the bad URL.
Ingraman, it takes me about an hour a day to pull it all together. It used to be a lot longer, but I have organized my RSS feeds and Google alerts so it comes together pretty quickly. If I have a lot of other writing, the post will be pretty sparse, but if I have time, I add illustrations and a bit more commentary. I also post to Robot 6 every morning, and sometimes to Good Comics for Kids or Paperless Comics, depending on the schedule.