Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano

Roadie Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 58

yeah after i finished editing it stephen and i had a long session talking about the stuff we figured out and the things we still didn't understand. The last time I paid so much attention to and discussed the details of something like this was after i saw mulholland drive for the first time.

I'm not trying to draw content parallels there, but they are similar in that there are just tons and tons of really small details that clarify the story and put things in context that you only really catch the second or third time through. It really does require a pretty high level of concentration and/or repeated readings to get the full impact of this manga.

This clearly won't be mangascreener's most popular project ever, probably even among the core group of fans that come here to get the unusual-and-good type of stuff stephen and summer (and nanashi when he was active) have been translating the last few years. I would be satisfied and consider my effort rewarded if there were just a couple dozen fans out there that took the time to give this project the attention it deserves.

I don't know if Inio will ever be able to produce something that I enjoy this much again, but if he lost both his hands in a freak accident today, he should be satisfied that he was able to create this. I'm also really glad stephen was the one to lay hands on this particular manga, it would have been so incredibly easy to lose details and story points in the translation of the text.

okay that's all the shilling out of me for this project.

Roadie Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 58

Quote:

I'm also really glad stephen was the one to lay hands on this particular manga

I should point out that summer and nanashi's skills would have been fine alternatives too, at the risk of insulting either one of them.

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:55 pm

I'm insulted. Let's take this outside buddy.

I'm thinking I should probably reread this manga, after seeing all the praise being lavished at it. I have to admit, I found it a bit disorienting, and I remember consciously thinking "okay, I'll probably have to read this again to really understand it."

But then again, reading this on the train on my way to a show that I was highly anticipating probably isn't the best circumstance to appreciate something like this.

myanimelist profile · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:29 pm

bukuwawa wrote:

I would be satisfied and consider my effort rewarded if there were just a couple dozen fans out there that took the time to give this project the attention it deserves.

This is one of those rare few manga where I honestly feel I have to make as many people as possible read this, and feel downright bad for the ones that won't.
It's simply incontestable in my book.

Street Musician Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 530

bukuwawa wrote:

Quote:

I'm also really glad stephen was the one to lay hands on this particular manga

I should point out that summer and nanashi's skills would have been fine alternatives too, at the risk of insulting either one of them.

My skiru-ed hands are busy. Not to mention sort of running behind on a deadline right now and should probably be working instead of surfing interwebs.

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:51 am

Arggh, all you Nijigahara-reader people are driving me nuts with this talk about how great it is. I'm enjoying Solanin quite a bit and all the stories of What a Wonderful World have been great, but this thing sounds like its on another level. Now I really can't wait to read it.

Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 10:25 pm

i actually picked up a copy of this at book off n.y. a few weeks ago. once you guys release it i'll probably print the text translation as a crutch for my own crippled reading of it. i went through the whole thing and it looks great. really liked what i could follow too.

Roadie Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 58

Huffy wrote:

Arggh, all you Nijigahara-reader people are driving me nuts with this talk about how great it is. I'm enjoying Solanin quite a bit and all the stories of What a Wonderful World have been great, but this thing sounds like its on another level. Now I really can't wait to read it.

It's a big book and had a bunch of fixes to be done after the QC pass, but it should be out any day now!

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:41 pm

It's out!

http://64.62.145.165:6969/torrents/Nijigahara_Holograph%5BMS%5D.zip.torrent

Spam that bitch far and wide!

Fan Boy Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 26

The hype surrounding this is roughly on par with the second coming of Jesus... Reading now with fingers crossed.

Fan Boy Joined: 21 Nov 2006 Posts: 18

I just finished reading it.

I'm probably sounding like I'm jumping on the bandwagon here, but...

I don't think any of the hype did the story justice.

Apart from that, I'm still too flabbergasted to form many coherent sentences, so I think I'll try to sum up the entirety of my impressions as succinctly as I can manage:

...

Wow.

Fan Boy Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 26

Yeah, I'm done too. I must admit that, while I do think it's quite brilliant as well, it's a lot to take in, so yeah, I agree, it's one of those manga that'll make for very some rewarding rereads. It's interesting that while the other stuff from Asano I've read (see: What a Wonderful World and some of Solanin) had more of a bittersweet sort of feeling, this one was pretty much just a downer. I really should revisit it before forming a real opinion on it, but I will say that the author really does seem to have brought his A game here as far as attention to detail goes.

There is still much that I only half understood, though. Luckily, I believe I have a damn good chance at seeing it licensed in French someday so I probably will be able to own it, but I guess there's not really any guarantee it'll happen and even then it would take damn near forever anyway, so I guess I'll give it another read next week and maybe I'll report back here with what I think then.

Street Musician Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 530

The hype around this title is so great that I feel obligated to not wait for Japanese raw scans to eventually float by and actually read the scanlations.

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:34 am

thats the measure of quality.

Fan Boy Joined: 21 Nov 2006 Posts: 18

Quote:

It's interesting that while the other stuff from Asano I've read (see: What a Wonderful World and some of Solanin) had more of a bittersweet sort of feeling, this one was pretty much just a downer.

I hear a lot of people say this for some reason, but I dunno... I didn't really feel that, I suppose. Plenty of downright awful things happen but in the end I just came away with this kind of.... wave of positivity or something.

I didn't think it really had any of that depressive kind of feel to it at all. I guess it would have been different if it ended in any other way, but it really was an uplifting finish.

...

Man, I've read a lot of comics, but this was kind of.... A totally new experience. I dunno why and maybe I'll be much less impressed when I look back on the title in a few months from now, but... Dayum.

Question for stephen: Will you be putting the scripts on your site in the future? And with that said, fantastic translation. I'm really happy Mangascreener got this title.
...

No offense to other groups, of course.