What do you want out of Mangascreener?

Street Musician Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 530

Those are two very nice titles that I quite enjoyed (especially Tsurumoku) but I really don't see anyone picking it up here at this moment.

Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 6:05 pm

"Black Jack Ni Yoroshiku" would be hell to translate.

Having said that, I agree with kern that this thread should probably be locked.

Street Musician Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 530

tenraikaen wrote:

Yeah, JJ and TW were hoping to do a joint project but AKofTroy kind of got lost in the story. He said someone in the manga altered their face to look like Michael Jackson :shock:

More specifically it was a professional sumo wreslter who would lose intentionally for cash so that he could finance his high-flying lobster-eating ways. And he's barely more than a background character; he shows up for all of a half-dozen pages in the entire story. As for the story itself it's pretty nonsensical, especially towards the end when they start talking about giant bears and apocaplyptic death-cults. Although it was cool.
Personally I think the real attraction of TWIM wasn't its blatant violence but the dialogue, especially some of the things Toshi and Yuri-Kan say.

Black Jack ni Yoroshiku (Say Hello to Black Jack) is a neat manga, but the protagonist is way too idealistic and naive for my liking. Christ, people die all the time, and doctors at a hospital are like any other group or organisation: a few brilliant people, some incredible dumbasses and the vast majority are merely mediocre (at best). The dumbass quotient rises as you go up the heirarchy, there are politics abound, etc etc. Tell me something I don't know. There are other medical-drama titles I'd rather see scanlated first, such as "Iryu: Team Medical Dragon" which, despite its unintentionally hysterical title, is actually highly entertaining.

More titles I'd personally love to see scanlated would be
Zombiya Reiko (oh-so-unapologetically campy and funny, with blood, guts, zombies and large-breasted psychotic girls)

Moonlight Mile (Sort of like Planetes in that it focuses mostly on a blue-collar worker in space, but more politically inclined and plot-driven, and less introspective philosophy than Planetes)

Moe-yo Pen (Burn, Pen) or its continuation, "Hoero Pen" (Roar, Pen), an inside look at the trials and tribulations mangaka face every day.

Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004 5:05 pm

So much for the idea of locking this thread...

Emperor Ketchup wrote:

Black Jack ni Yoroshiku (Say Hello to Black Jack) is a neat manga, but the protagonist is way too idealistic and naive for my liking.

I agree 100 percent. I find the "moral message" contained in this manga to be a little on the excessive side, and I always feel the temptation to commit some hideously immoral act after I read it. I think the author tries too hard to create a politically correct, PTA-approved manga, and is forgetting that parents and teachers aren't SUPPOSED to approve of manga. I'll take the sickening humor of Shintaro Kago over Say Hello To Black Jack any day.

I like Moonlight Mile, but I'd probably rather see Dokyouboshi scanlated first. The English-speaking audience needs to get a whiff of Yoshihiro Yamada's unique art (I love his extreme facial expressions).

Street Musician Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 530

Summer Soldier wrote:

I like Moonlight Mile, but I'd probably rather see Dokyouboshi scanlated first. The English-speaking audience needs to get a whiff of Yoshihiro Yamada's unique art (I love his extreme facial expressions).

Dokyouboshi has such a horrible, trunkated ending that I would prefer people not read it rather than get their hopes up and then have to see the way it ends (or doesn't end, rather).

Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 6:48 am

Emperor Ketchup wrote:

Dokyouboshi has such a horrible, trunkated ending that I would prefer people not read it rather than get their hopes up and then have to see the way it ends (or doesn't end, rather).

It'll help spread the notion (commonly held by manga fans in Japan) internationally that the editors of Young Sunday are clueless idiots and deserve to die a horrible death. It would be worth doing it just for that.

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 3:34 am

silver wrote:

How about Ron? The description from the Ultimate Manga Guide sounds interesting. It is a bit long though, having 30+ volumes.

I've finally read some of this. While it's a rather interesting manga, I can pretty much guarantee it will never be scanlated by anyone. As I said in the response above, the series is in the mid-30's right now and still running. In addition, the language in the manga is quite difficult and there is a lot of text. It's been a long time since I've read a manga where there were so many kanji that I could not read (and did not have furigana). In addition the speech is dialectical ("yamere! andara, mou yamede kere!").

It's a shame, though, this would be a good project for some group to do. The manga scanlation world needs more "serious" adult manga (Big Comic family manga).

Groupie Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 118

kern wrote:

It's a shame, though, this would be a good project for some group to do. The manga scanlation world needs more "serious" adult manga (Big Comic family manga).

Though I haven't read the title in question, I agree with that statement. Heck, the actual English-language manga market needs more serious adult manga tiltes. I'm so frickin sick of yet another "i want a boyfriend!" shoujo title release. Just 'cause we're girls, don't mean we're stupid. Gah. Or the Shonen Jump one-track mind. Most are good, but how about something a little different?

I've always wanted to see more Osamu Tezuka titles, like Under the Air, Song for Apollo, Dororo, MW, and Ayako. I'm settling for French imports at the moment. Very Happy

I'm curious about really good old titles, as well the latest hot titles from Japan. Hmmm yeah, so I say "anything good". Yeah specific.

Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:43 pm

i'd like to see older stuff like 'kamui den' or work by yoshiharu tsuge. with stuff that i really want. heck, i'd even be interested in picking up a japanese collection of tsuge if someone could point me to somewhere i could get it for a reasonable price.

other than that, there are tons of mangaka who i've only read small samples by but want more: masakazu toma, muddy wehara, hironori kikuchi, shintaro kago, and plenty of others. i'm not even sure how readilly available this stuff is in a japanese format.

Fan Boy Joined: 20 Aug 2003 Posts: 43 Location: MA

Quote:

heck, i'd even be interested in picking up a japanese collection of tsuge if someone could point me to somewhere i could get it for a reasonable price.

Sasuga Books (http://www.sasugabooks.com) lists "Nejishiki" for $8.10. It's one of two bunko collections of Tsuge released by Shogakukan, the other being "Akai Hana". Both focus on his late 60s work but include comics from the early 60s and late 70s. I recommend it, despite my reservations about bunko format.

Quote:

masakazu toma, muddy wehara, hironori kikuchi, shintaro kago, and plenty of others

While I don't know of any other Toma stories in English, you might be pleased to know that after a decade-plus absence as recounted in Comics Underground Japan, Toma has done two comics in the past year in Ax. I read one of them. It's weird like "Steel Pipe Melancholia" but with a different art style. Characters look similar. His complete work was collected in a book published by Seirin Kogeisha a couple of years ago and is still in print. Let me know if you want a link.
As for Muddy Wehara, a very teeny-tiny sample page was included in Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces, I think as an example of the influence of punk around the world.
I don't know what happened to Kikuchi, who was in the early issues of Ax and then just seemed to disappear. Some of his work was published in a French comics magazine.

Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:14 pm

I once considered doing "Paranoia Street" (probably the tamest Shintaro Kago I've read to date, although it's still pretty sick) but some of the chapters in there would be a total pain to translate.

Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 8:42 pm

I would like to try to translate yoshiharu tsuge's works one day.

Fan Boy Joined: 06 Jul 2004 Posts: 16

ion_ford wrote:

i'd like to see older stuff like 'kamui den' or work by yoshiharu tsuge. with stuff that i really want. heck, i'd even be interested in picking up a japanese collection of tsuge if someone could point me to somewhere i could get it for a reasonable price.

other than that, there are tons of mangaka who i've only read small samples by but want more: masakazu toma, muddy wehara, hironori kikuchi, shintaro kago, and plenty of others. i'm not even sure how readilly available this stuff is in a japanese format.

Tsuge would be neat to read. I've read a lot about him, but have never seen any of his work translated into english.

Roadie Joined: 15 Jan 2004 Posts: 66

Yeah, only one of Tsuge's works have been translated, its in a back issue of "The Comics Journal" from about a year ago. I believe it was the 2003 winter special. I highly recommend it... which is why I in turn would like to see MS do work on some of his other works...

Fan Boy Joined: 20 Aug 2003 Posts: 43 Location: MA

Quote:

Yeah, only one of Tsuge's works have been translated, its in a back issue of "The Comics Journal" from about a year ago.

Three stories actually. "Oba's Electroplate Factory" (from 73 or 74) was translated in RAW Vol.2, no.2. Easy to find cheap. The classic "Akai Hana" (67), his breakthrough, appeared in one of the last issue of RAW vol. 1 in the 80s, as a booklet attached to the magazine. Expensive (usually upwards of 50 dollars) and you'll probably have to fight off hordes of other buyers if you stumble across it online.