Hoshin Engi
Feb. 21st, 2003 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
incandescensI was reading volume 7 of Hoshin Engi yesterday, and rereading volumes 1-6 today. (Unfortunately, that's as far as the French translation has got.) Every time before I get it, I forget quite how much I enjoy it. Then I get a new book of the series, and am reminded. "Je ne suis pas un hippo!"
I should really watch the anime, Soul Hunter, some day -- though I've been told that it foreshortens the story dramatically, and cuts the ending short or alters it entirely in order to give the story closure. Then again, this was a 23-book manga series, so what do I expect?
It's quite definitely shonen rather than shoujo, but it's such fun. It mingles post-modern jokes with sudden atrocities. Daiji's lakes of sake and forests of corpses, her pits of snakes, her sudden cruelty. Her half-sisters, a transformed lute and a transformed chicken. Marshal Huang. (I understand he's going to die. Damn. I like him.) Bunchuu with half-mask and rigid morality, trapped by a long-ago promise to protect the dynasty, despite the fact that he can see it falling apart around him. The various comrades whom the hero collects. Nazha (aka Nataku), the paopei boy, whose incisive response to every situation usually involves blasting it with his magical equivalent of heavy weaponry. Whips of lightning, pearls that emit great fields of water, lutes of discord, chaos umbrellas, peaches that turn water to sake, swords that bear a strange resemblance to lightsabers, the Red Ribbon that controls all liquids, silks woven from the nests of the wasps that feed on poisonous flowers . . .
Oh, and let's not forget the giant mechanical/magical whales.
The most annoying thing is wanting to share this with my friends, to be able to shove the manga in front of them and say, "Look at this bit!" or to ask, "What did you think about the bit where..." and not being able to.
Oh well. I can hope that it'll be brought out in English at some point. Perhaps even unflipped. Miracles can happen.
Incidentally, I noticed this last night; the English manga translation of Fushigi Yugi is flipped. Chichiri's scar is across his right eye. The French translation is unflipped. Chichiri's scar is across his left eye, as it is in the original Japanese. Oops.
I should really watch the anime, Soul Hunter, some day -- though I've been told that it foreshortens the story dramatically, and cuts the ending short or alters it entirely in order to give the story closure. Then again, this was a 23-book manga series, so what do I expect?
It's quite definitely shonen rather than shoujo, but it's such fun. It mingles post-modern jokes with sudden atrocities. Daiji's lakes of sake and forests of corpses, her pits of snakes, her sudden cruelty. Her half-sisters, a transformed lute and a transformed chicken. Marshal Huang. (I understand he's going to die. Damn. I like him.) Bunchuu with half-mask and rigid morality, trapped by a long-ago promise to protect the dynasty, despite the fact that he can see it falling apart around him. The various comrades whom the hero collects. Nazha (aka Nataku), the paopei boy, whose incisive response to every situation usually involves blasting it with his magical equivalent of heavy weaponry. Whips of lightning, pearls that emit great fields of water, lutes of discord, chaos umbrellas, peaches that turn water to sake, swords that bear a strange resemblance to lightsabers, the Red Ribbon that controls all liquids, silks woven from the nests of the wasps that feed on poisonous flowers . . .
Oh, and let's not forget the giant mechanical/magical whales.
The most annoying thing is wanting to share this with my friends, to be able to shove the manga in front of them and say, "Look at this bit!" or to ask, "What did you think about the bit where..." and not being able to.
Oh well. I can hope that it'll be brought out in English at some point. Perhaps even unflipped. Miracles can happen.
Incidentally, I noticed this last night; the English manga translation of Fushigi Yugi is flipped. Chichiri's scar is across his right eye. The French translation is unflipped. Chichiri's scar is across his left eye, as it is in the original Japanese. Oops.
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-20 05:52 pm (UTC)Would I be right in guessing from your Nazha = Nataku mention that Dakki has also become Daiji?
And would that I could lay my hands on your manga -- I'd get through 'em somehow. ^_^
And I'd say there's hope indeed if American publishes are reaching to nab series like Basara that the shonen series I want to see, like Flame of Recca and Houshin Engi will get published. After all, Yu Yu Hakusho's in Shonen Jump here.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-21 03:16 am (UTC)Yes, Daiji = Dakki. The French version has chosen to translate the names in a Chinese transliteration, heaven only knows why.
I have my fingers crossed that some of the other classics do get published. One can hope.
And if you do ever want to visit England, tell me . . .
Re:
Date: 2003-02-21 04:06 am (UTC)Actually, I just remembered that one of the first DVDs has an entire extra on the differences between the Chinese and Japanese transliteration of the names. They opted for the Japanese, obviously.
OVERKILL!
Date: 2003-02-21 04:42 pm (UTC)