Vintage manga continues to awe and amaze the blogosphere. The latest entry: Shaenon Garrity posts some pages from Noburo Ohshiro’s Yukaina Tekkôsho and pulls out the most important story elements for your delectation. (Image from Shaenon’s post.)
In a very different vein, Ryan of Same Hat shows off the copy of Taiyo Matsumoto’s GoGo Monster that he picked up for a song recently.
At The Anime Almanac, Scott VonSchilling compares Yen+ to Raijin and hopes the former is more successful than the latter.
Matt Blind thinks that the popularity of Naruto is beginning to erode, but at a glacial pace; he lays out his geological/retail argument at Rocket Bomber. One of the translators of Naruto, blogging as Gottsu-Iiyan, mulls over the implications of that, and they sound pretty grim for the industry as a whole.
Matt also posts his online sales charts for new releases and preorders and an emerging trends report.
Ed Chavez is in Japan right now, and he’s posting about some of his favorite offbeat manga at MangaCast. Check out his writeups on Sailor Fuku to Juusensha (sailor suits and heavy tanks, apparently) and EkiBen Hitori Tabi (train manga!).
Fruits Basket translators Athena and Alethea Nibley discuss the challenge of translating dialects at Manga Life.
Manga Recon has a URL of its own now, so you don’t have to wade through all the superhero and gaming stuff on the PopCultureShock site to get to it.
This is too pretty not to post: Sho Murase’s drawing from the latest Nancy Drew manga.
Erica Friedman rounds up the yuri news of the week at Okazu,
John Thomas wonders if subscribers to Newtype USA and PiQ are ever going to be compensated for the remainder of their subscriptions.
Viz will be publishing two more of Akira Himekawa’s Zelda manga.
News from Germany: Jonathan posts Tokyopop’s spring and summer 2009 releases and posts his annotated August and September shopping list at Manly Manga and More.
Reviews: Let’s start at Okazu, where Erica Friedman reviews Girl x Girl x Boy, vol. 6 of Battle Club, and vol. 3 of Stray Little Devil. Elizabeth Schweizer reads vol. 3 of Mushishi at PLAYBACK:stl. EvilOmar has another round of Midweek Manga Reviews at About Heroes. New at the revamped Manga Recon site: Phil Guie on vol. 1 of Guardian Hearts, Isaac Hale on vol. 5 of Gon, and Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, plus a bouquet of Manga Minis. Oyceter has short, insightful reviews of vol. 1 of Pumpkin Scissors, vols. 1-7 of Moon Child, vol. 1 of Chronicles of the Grim Peddler, vols. 12-13 of Skip Beat (spoilers!), and vols. 1-2 of Your and My Secret at Sakura of DOOM. Note: Always read the comments to Oyceter’s posts; she has smart friends. Jonathan reviews vol. 21 of Blade of the Immortal at Manly Manga and More. Lori Henderson looks at vol. 3 of Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President at Manga Xanadu. Michelle Smith checks out vol. 1 of Akira, vols. 1 and 2 of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, vols. 1 and 2 of Short Program, vol. 24 of Bleach, and vol. 18 of Tsubasa (warning: spoilers!) at Soliloquy in Blue. At Manga Life, Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane reviews vol. 2 of Time Stranger Kyoko and Park Cooper reads vol. 14 of Kekkaishi, vol. 23 of Hunter x Hunter, and vol. 6 of Strawberry 100%. Chris Arrant takes a look at vol. 1 of Black Lagoon at Newsarama. Kat reviews Cardcaptor Sakura for the Cornell Japanese Animation Society. Up at Comics Village: John Thomas on The Art of Hideshi Hino and vol. 1 of Black Jack, Charles Tan on vol. 1 of One Piece, Sabrina on vol. 1 of Iron Wok Jan, and Katherine Farmar on Hybrid Child. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reads Pretty Poison, vol. 2 of Sand Chronicles, vol. 21 of Eyeshield 21, vol. 6 of Oyayubihime Infinity, vol. 23 of Bleach, vol. 10 of Sorcerer Hunters, vol. 24 of GetBackers, vol. 7 of Hoshin Engi, Bizzarian, and vol. 6 of Apothecarius Argentum.
Also new at Manga Recon is the latest entry in the On the Shojo Beat series.
Hey Brigid,
Welcome back! And thanks for letting people know about the Manga Recon revamp :)
Jon and Kate did an awesome job. :)
The whole notion of translating dialects is a fascinating one, and I enjoyed Athena and Alethea’s look at the issue.
It has always seemed curious to me that Kansai-dialect, or Osaka-dialect, is translated often into a Southern drawl, when that is really doesn’t fit the nuances of the dialect.
Kansai people tend to talk quicker than in other parts of Japan and the dialect lends to a way of speaking which is more intimate (in other words, less formal). Humor is injected more than conversations between Tokyo-ites, which can be sometimes self-deflating or sometimes ribbing to the listener. (This is why many of the most popular manzai, or comedy duos, are from Osaka and the Kansai area). To the uninitiated this conversation style can be intimidating, when usually it is meant as friendly, although those that can’t “keep up” with a progressive string of light-hearted insults might be considered a wet-blanket.
For this reason it seems like maybe a Boston accent might be more appropriate than the southern drawl when depicting Kansai characters.
The manga translation of Azumanga Daioh used a New York accent for Osaka, and I thought it was a fairly good match for the nuances you mention (which are important, if only because Osaka spends a lot of her time utterly failing to live up to them).
I wonder what translators would use for Kansai dialect if there were more British English translations around? Scottish?
That makes sense. The Osaka dialect can sound intimidating to those not accustomed to it, but sounds like normal talking to Osaka people, so a New York accent would make a better fit than a Southern drawl.