Sailor Moon Eternal Edition Volume 3 Comparison (Kodansha vs Kodansha!)

The last few months have brought many changes to my life. A lot of things have happened, both good and bad, but I'm ready to get back into this and catch up before the next release. I'm sorry to everyone for the long wait.

So...the Sailor Moon manga is now available digitally for the first time in English. While I'm in no hurry to give up my physical copies, this is fantastic news for those who don't have the shelf space or the money. I can also see many double dipping for the convenience of being able to read the eternal editions on the go. One thing I've noticed while casually flipping through the preview pages for the other languages is they all seem to have localised honorifics whilst the English version is the only to maintain the Japanese ones. For the languages that used the same alphabet at least. As someone who would've preferred localised honorifics in the English edition, I can help but feel a little envious.

Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 2 (Viz Media and Chuang Yi)

Happy Halloween Everybody!

Believe me when I say I've been meaning to get back into doing these posts for months and several posts about other titles are half complete. However, it was always a struggle to complete them as it was often a series I wasn't very motivated to look into. Last week I decided I'd had enough of my own laziness. I thought to myself, What series am I motivated to compare and the answer hit me immediately. And here we are.

I have kept collecting and am currently only two volumes away from my Chuang Yi Fullmetal Alchemist collection being complete. So now I really have no excuses other then I'm lazy and can't keep a consistent schedule. However, I still plan to do those other titles to mix things up.

Additional: Yes, I am aware of the Fruit's Basket Collector's Editions. I have bought the first omnibus so you can expect a do-over of that comparison in the future. I have also pre-ordered Yen Press's Twinkle Stars release for a future comparison with it's Chuang Yi counterpart.

Last Important Note: Because I don't own a copy of the Japanese volume nor have any knowledge of the language, I will not be comparing the English releases to the original Japanese. 

That's enough stalling, let us move on!

My Thoughts on Kodansha USA's Sailor Moon release

Sailor Moon has been with me for a very long time and is very dear to my heart as a result. When I first saw the DIC English dub on Fox Kids during the early 2000's, I found myself swept up in its dramatic story about a princess seeking to defeat an ancient evil from her past and reunite with her one true love. A truly powerful tale of love and devotion accompanied with cheesy music and talking cats. I should point out that the episode in which I entered the show was "Bad Hair Day" where Serena had already been revealed as the Moon Princess, way past the halfway point of the first season. Sailor Moon disappeared off Fox kids UK after R had finished airing though they did tease the S season at one point, though sadly nothing came of it. This is where my childhood nostalgia ends as I never read Tokyopop's initial release of the original manga and didn't watch the S/Super S seasons until finding them on YouTube several years later. This quickly rekindled my love of the series despite hating how Cloverway had translated it. Unfortunately, by this time Tokyopop's release was long out of print so I was long out of luck.

The announcement of Kodansha's re-release left me, like many others, giddy with excitement though I didn't find out about it until after the first volume had already been released. Flash forward over 2 years, all the books are out and what do I have to say?

Well...they were OK. Sadly that's my opinion. OK, not great. Now before you reach for your crossbow, I'm guessing you want the answer to one more question. I should point most of my problems were with Kodansha's handling of the translation. Having said that I don't think this release is all doom and gloom and would like talk about some things I do like about the series re-release.

Introduction

Greetings to all manga fans, otaku, wherever you may be!

Let me begin by thanking anyone and everyone who reads this as this is my first blog and am still unsure of the ins and outs of writing one of these. The story of my love of anime and manga goes back to when I was, but 10 years of age. It was long ago, in times of old, when saying you liked Pokemon was actually acceptable and even prompted praise. 

Anyone else remember those times?!

My life began in merry old England, among the cobblestone streets and thatched cottages...oh, who am I kidding?! I was born in the city port of Southampton. Still England though! I didn't make that up!  I spent most of my happy childhood there before my Dad's job sent us abroad for a number of years (Switzerland and Thailand). A story for another time though. Back to the anime.