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the paramour rocketh
cause while i was asleep, zie went to our postal drop BY BIKE to pick up my latest book order from chapters, all 6 kg of it.
everybody uses a different system of romanization, which bites. i can understand why they reverse the normal japanese name order (familyname first, given/personal name last) to adjust to the west, but apparently they don't always reverse it ("homerun ken" is written the same way as it would be in japan (ホームラン・拳), and no, it has nothing to do with baseball; it's pronounced hoe-MEH-roon. though maybe it has to do with baseball, since the author writes it in katakana, and BL mangaka often use pseudonyms, some of which are weird. ok, this might be a special case). but they also drop out lengthening indicators, as in "shoko", which should really be spelled "shohko" to get around the wrong pronunciation english speakers would give to a romanized "shooko" (日高ショーコ). ah well. nobody but me cares. except maybe other people who catalogue their books on computers.
these are the first english manga i've bought in 3 or 4 years, and quality-wise they are quite nice. the dramaqueen editions have lovely separate colour covers, colour inserts, and good quality paper -- they really look like japanese editions, so pretty! the juné editions are slightly larger, which i appreciate (larger graphics are a good thing). they also have separate colour covers, but no colour inserts, and the paper isn't quite as good. del rey doesn't have separate covers (though mushishi fakes it by using really thick paper and flaps), and no colour inserts. dramaqueen uses japanese honorifics (and seems to presume readers know what those are), the first juné book i opened uses "mr." -- *blech*. i have come to hate that because it loses so much nuance, and it now actively sounds wrong to my ears. del rey also uses japanese honorifics, plus a page to explain them -- that's ideal IMO; it teaches english readers just a little bit about a foreign culture, and it preserves the detail that comes with the honorifics.
hey, i can legally buy manga in a bookstore that could get me permanently suspended from livejournal were i to post the smex from it (cause some of the boys are not yet 18). isn't that special.
| taeko KAMIDA | the handbook of japanese adjectives and adverbs (lang) |
| sue a. KAWASHIMA | a dictionary of japanese particles (lang) |
| hinako TAKANAGA | challengers v2 (manga, BL) |
| hinako TAKANAGA | challengers v3 (manga, BL) |
| hinako TAKANAGA | challengers v4 (manga, BL) |
| fumi YOSHINAGA | ichigenme... the first class is cicil law v2 (manga, yaoi) |
| HOMERUN ken | clan of the nakagamis (manga, BL) |
| shoko HIDAKA | not enough time (manga, BL) |
| chigusa KAWAI | la esperança v6 (manga, BL) |
| chigusa KAWAI | la esperança v7 (manga, BL) |
| i bought these a couple of weeks ago locally: | |
| yuki URUSHIBARA | mushishi v1 (manga, seinen) |
| hitoshi IWAAKI | parasyte v1 (manga, seinen) |
| fuyumi SOURYO | ES - eternal sabbath v1 (manga, seinen) |
| fuyumi SOURYO | ES - eternal sabbath v2 (manga, seinen) |
everybody uses a different system of romanization, which bites. i can understand why they reverse the normal japanese name order (familyname first, given/personal name last) to adjust to the west, but apparently they don't always reverse it ("homerun ken" is written the same way as it would be in japan (ホームラン・拳), and no, it has nothing to do with baseball; it's pronounced hoe-MEH-roon. though maybe it has to do with baseball, since the author writes it in katakana, and BL mangaka often use pseudonyms, some of which are weird. ok, this might be a special case). but they also drop out lengthening indicators, as in "shoko", which should really be spelled "shohko" to get around the wrong pronunciation english speakers would give to a romanized "shooko" (日高ショーコ). ah well. nobody but me cares. except maybe other people who catalogue their books on computers.
these are the first english manga i've bought in 3 or 4 years, and quality-wise they are quite nice. the dramaqueen editions have lovely separate colour covers, colour inserts, and good quality paper -- they really look like japanese editions, so pretty! the juné editions are slightly larger, which i appreciate (larger graphics are a good thing). they also have separate colour covers, but no colour inserts, and the paper isn't quite as good. del rey doesn't have separate covers (though mushishi fakes it by using really thick paper and flaps), and no colour inserts. dramaqueen uses japanese honorifics (and seems to presume readers know what those are), the first juné book i opened uses "mr." -- *blech*. i have come to hate that because it loses so much nuance, and it now actively sounds wrong to my ears. del rey also uses japanese honorifics, plus a page to explain them -- that's ideal IMO; it teaches english readers just a little bit about a foreign culture, and it preserves the detail that comes with the honorifics.
hey, i can legally buy manga in a bookstore that could get me permanently suspended from livejournal were i to post the smex from it (cause some of the boys are not yet 18). isn't that special.