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I took a trip to Borders at lunch* and got Tactics #3, Tsubasa 12-14**, and a book from the YA section titled Dragon Sword and Wind Child, in the Tales of Magatama series. This is a translation of a fantasy by Noriko Ogiwara originally published in Japan. It intrigued me, and when I read the author bio on the back I noticed that it mentioned that the author had also written The Good Witch of the West, which is a manga series being published here right now. The bio didn't mention that Witch was a manga - I went over and checked the manga shelves to confirm - which leads me to wonder why the publisher is stepping away from the OMG MANGA thing. Especially after I noticed that the publisher is Viz. Hmm. I can't believe there's a huge market for fantasy readers who won't read anything contaminated by manga cooties, because after all it's fantasy, but maybe there is.

At any rate, I bought it, figuring maybe it'll have that essential something-or-other that I've been getting in manga and not getting in American fantasy lately. And if not, at least I'm encouraging the market for bringing Japanese fantasy over to the States so that I may eventually find something that's got that whatever-it-is.

* I had a coupon, ok?

** Which I will totally never admit I'm reading. I tried it once before and the incoherency of vol 1 put me off, but after reading years of squeeing on my f-list about it, I picked up the 3-volume version and by the end of book 3 actually had a clue what the story was. But I'm totally not reading it.

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~~Totally not saying the series you are not reading is just hitting the excellent parts and I cannot wait until 16 comes out eeee!~~

~~I think it may be out as I think I saw 5 volumes I hadn't NOT read yet and decided to get 3 of them, so I got 12-14.~~

!!!!!!

Am awaiting your reaction to certain plot points.

~~I shall await reading them with bated breath!~~

HAH! You've not only admitting reading Tsubasa to me, but have ENCOURAGED ME TO READ MORE!

But yeah, I had the same experience with Tsubasa years ago(but I was still in my "SHOJO! ROMANCE! ALL THINGS OTP-ISH!" Phase that I think I've largely-hopefully/thankfully-grown out of)

I read Dragon Sword and Wind Child a couple months ago...it's like the first Twelve Kingdoms novel where the story is good enough to get you past the translation(though this translator wasn't as big headed as the 12k one was.)

I think Good Witch of the West was a novel series that was adapted into a manga. I plan to check it out once I catch up with xXxHolic, the-book-neither-of-us-is-reading, and all the other manga I'm behind on.

I used to be totally allergic to CLAMP but apparently I'm ~~gaining immunity~~ mellowing. I blame xxxHolic. But what can I say: Kurogane is totally a

telophase type. :D

Haven't read Twelve Kingdoms yet as I was completely turned off by the first couple of episodes of the anime, in which there were no likable characters whatsoever, and as I'm a highly character-oriented person, they bored me to death. Is the novel version different?

That explanation for Witch occurred to me, but it's still telling, I think, that they didn't mention the manga connection.

That's pretty much me and Clamp, too. I swore to never ever touch Clamp again a few years ago but got sucked into the pretty and the emo melodrama of the X TV series, and then all my new manga friends kept babbling about xXxHolic and Tsubasa...and Kurogane is totally 85% of the resaon I'll read more.

Twelve Kingdoms is all about character growth...the characters are so bad so you can appreciate them more once they get better. It's well worth wanting to strangle the main character the first half to get to the awesome. Plus, Gyosei, Shoryu and Rokuta all rock. And Yoko does too, once she gets over the whining.

It is odd they didn't mention the Witch manga connection...maybe she didn't write the manga too?

She's credited as the author on the Witch manga. It's possible that in Japan, if someone adapts a novel into a manga script they're not credited as the author, but I don't know for sure.

I may have to ILL 12K instead of spending money on it. I have a damn hard time sustaining interest if no character intrigues me.

The first 6 or so episodes of 12K were really hard to take, but after that, it becomes wonderful. You might want to see if you can rent the first couple of discs so that you can get to the good stuff.

That's the problem! People keep telling me that, but I keep looking at it as 3 hours of my life that I have to invest before I can figure out if I like it or not, with the possibility that I still might not.

I really liked Twelve Kingdoms anime. At first all the characters bitch a lot, but in my opinion it gets better as it goes along until I was really sad when it ended. Apparently the novels are a lot broader in scope than the anime though, which pretty much concentrates on that one kingdom (was it Kei? I forget now) and it's new ruler to the exclusion of practically everything else.

I've been meaning to pick up the first novel of it, but I'm always a little wary of translated novels and how accurate they really are.

I actually did an overly detailed comparison of the anime with the first novel and what worked/didn't work for me in each if that's something you'd be interested in.

Adding the link whether you want it or not. (http://mscongeniality.livejournal.com/2007/04/21/) ;-)

Heh, well that makes asking a lot easier. ;) *pootles off to read*

Dragon Sword & Wind Child is a reprint of a translation done a couple of decades before the anime & manga boom, so I suspect it is better than the generally rushed translations we get a lot now.

Sounds good. :D

(Speaking of translations, I was really turned off by the overuse of the word "gorgeous" to refer to D in the first Vampire Hunter D novel. To me it didn't fit the mood or the world of the book, and you'd think that the translator or the adapter would grab a thesaurus at least once, or find another way to word the sentence to show how beautiful a man D is.)

entirely possible. i had some problems with it, but it didn't induce twitchiness like some other translations have.

On top of the "pre-manga boom" thing, pushing the anime/manga connection often means that your YA novel gets shelved with the manga, rather than with the other YA novels, which isn't a good thing, if it's really supposed to be a YA novel rather than a tie-in.

Ithink anything from Tokyopop of Viz is automatically going to get shoved in with manga, no matter what. I remember that when they launched their young adult novel line(or whatever it is) they said that the novels would be in the young adult section of the bookstores, not the manga section, but I've never seen them anywhere but the manga section. I even asked about it at Waldenbooks and they looked in the system and said the bookswe listed for the graphic novels/manga section.

I doubt, though, that Viz or Tokyopop cares as long as the books sell(sadly.)

You'd think they'd create an imprint other than "Viz" for their YA, then. They've carefully disguised all mention of manga in the author bio, but printed VIZ FICTION on the back and used the Viz Media logo on the spine.

Yeah, that's kinda what i was thinking at the time. I did, though, notice that one local bookstore had dragon sword and wind child in the "new releases" general section, as opposed to the manga section. i'm sure it ended up in the manga section, but at least that was a start.

Dragon Sword and Wind Child, in the Tales of Magatama series.

Whoa, that book! I read it back when I was in middle school, but since it was a library loan that I had to return, I eventually forgot the author and the title, and had to rediscover them through

whatwasthatbook. They told me that only the first book in the series was translated, and also, when I went looking for copies all I could find was used ones reselling for over a hundred dollars. (!!!)

And you found this at Borders?

Published by Viz?

Yes! (http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Sword-Child-Noriko-Ogiwara/dp/1421515016/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197580354&sr=8-1) It was in the YA SF/F section.

That's a totally different cover than the version I read! I guess Viz has picked it up. ^___^

I don't remember too much about it, but I remember being fascinated by it. This was before the Japanese culture fad really took off, so I guess it wasn't profitable for the company who released the first translation.

So excited! Gonna buy it!

Looks like it! :D Yes! Go buy it! (and the cover picture is reproduced in full on the inside - it's gorgeous.)

It's not a problem with Borders: just make sure to use any coupons you get before Christmas. If the current Christmas season is as much of a suck as initial estimates suggest, Borders won't be around in its current form by Valentine's Day.

Their coupons are usually only good for 3 or so days anyway, so that won't be a problem. :D

I believe Good Witch was the series that was made into an anime cause I watched it awhile back. Was so so, kinda squirly but I kept through with it though it was a short series. Kinda reminded me too much of Scrapped Princess with the premise and such. (though SP is alot better)

Tactics, awesome! I adored the anime, as it appeared to be specifically written to my personal kinks. I've been patiently waiting for the TokyoPop translations to come out over here...

I am reading your LJ post this moment and have just gotten to the bit about Ligotti being unable to experience pleasure. *snrrrrrk* XD

It just demands that vocalisation, doesn't it? *grin*

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