Tim’s Ramblings

…especially when in Japan since the cost is not JUST when you buy it but when you decide there’s no other way than to ship it back…and even more when they are ridiculously heavy books… Ooops…

Behold my current (and hopefully no more) manga purchases for this trip…

All of these are from Mandarake. The absolute final word in ridiculously good condition used mangas of all generations. And the ones I buy go for about $3.50 per book. Can’t beat that!!

So. In the back left are all 9 volumes of “Hellsing”. Some of you may have watched the anime (and it’s an awesome anime with a kick ass soundtrack!). Lots of fun. But this goes far deeper into the story. I’m not sure why the anime is so short! For godsakes! It’s Nazis creating vampires and other creatures to declare a new world order and launching an attack on England!! …and yes…I realize how unoriginal it sounds… But it’s pretty damn good so far. None of this was ever mentioned at all in the anime!

The small books in the middle on the bottom is the complete 4 volume set of “Appleseed”. Yes. By Shirow Masamune of “Ghost in the Shell” fame. I read it in English but never had the volumes or in its original Japanese. Very exciting.

In the upper right is the original 5 volume set of “You’re Under Arrest” (or “Taiho Shichauzo” in Japanese) by Fujishima Kosuke. He also did “Ah! My Goddess” as well. A prolific manga author with a rabid following, he even has a wife who opened up a cosplay shop… A manga/anime otaku’s wet dream… Speaking of “You’re Under Arrest”, in Japan another OVA of the series was released so it’s only a matter of time that it comes stateside. This, of course, means nothing to most of you so you can ignore that…

And finally, surrounding it all, are all 15 volumes of the seminal ultra violent manga series, “Fist of the North Star” or “Hokuto No Ken”. And this is where it gets ridiculously heavy. The original release is far more than 15 volumes. But once released and it becomes a major hit, it gets rereleased as a “bunko-ban”. Basically it is released in the same size as a typical Japanese paperback with far better paper, the drawings are also printed better…basically it’s the equivalent of it being remastered if it was a CD. Also it typically comes with either essays or liner notes and such in the back. And since there are ongoing story lines, the volumes are broken up based on the story as opposed to just when it was originally released in those giant manga volumes like Shonen Jump.

So basically it’s more expensive and it’s like the “adult” version. And makes it heavy. Incredibly heavy. But I wanted it…

Yeah…

These will be shipped home. I’m working through them as we speak though. I’m on volume 5 of Hellsing. Will start Fist of the North Star soon too. I might save Appleseed for the plane since they are small but…there’s nudity in that one sooooo I’m kind of weary of reading that in a plane… And Fist of the North Star has heads exploding and bodies torn apart and so forth sooooooooooooooo yeah… Maybe I’ll just go with “You’re Under Arrest”….

But in the meantime it’s 10:30 and I’m really sleepy… Long day tomorrow too….long long day.

Good night!