DMC: to collect or not?, work update, and some review links
I don’t often waffle on whether or not to check out a new manga title, but I’m seriously unsure about whether or not to try Detroit Metal City. Since the review copies that get sent my way are almost exclusively shoujo, this one isn’t likely to fall into my hands if I don’t seek it out. I hear really good things, and I certainly read and work on a fairly wide variety of titles/genres, but I can’t decide if DMC sounds like something I’d enjoy. (It doesn’t help that I avoid reviews of things I haven’t read, since most other reviewers tend to talk about more plot details than I usually want to know in advance.)
I already collect a fair number of series, so I’m trying to avoid adding too many new titles to my list for the next little while. But several titles I collect are ending in just a volume or two, which makes it hard to keep from just trying everything that catches my eye. And the DMC waffling continues.
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On the work front, TOKYOPOP now has a preview of ZONE-00 vol. 1 up on their site. That may just be the single most challenging volume I’ve ever worked on, and I say that in full awareness of having done three full-length fanbooks and multiple volumes of Sgt. Frog. ^_^ (Volume 2 was much, much easier than volume 1, for a few reasons.) I’ll be very interested to see what people think of vol. 1 when review copies start going out.
Meanwhile, I’m currently at work on the final volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Phantom Dream, and I’ll be very sorry to see it go. It’s interesting as an early work, as I’ve said to many people, and it also improves noticeably from volume to volume. The artwork in vol. 5 is much, much different from vol. 1 (it looks fairly similar to her style in early volumes of Fruits Basket), and while her plotting isn’t as masterful as it is in Fruits Basket (which I think is structurally brilliant), I really like the characters and the story comes together quite well. I have a long history of really enjoying various series right up until the end and then being disappointed by the way they wrap up, and that didn’t happen here.
And while I’m mentioning Dream: Lillian (Diaz-Przybyl, the current series editor) has given me the go-ahead to tell readers that vol. 3+ will include a glossary and character guide, which should come as a relief to the people who find the plethora of Japanese mystical terms a little, er, overwhelming.
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And as always, a small batch of MangaLife reviews (including some CMX books):
Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea (B-) [CMX]
Sand Chronicles vol. 5 (A+)
Venus Capriccio vol. 1 (B-) [CMX]
Attempting some regular blogging, and joining the Twitter crowd
I only have one review in this week’s MangaLife update, but since I’m trying to get in the habit of updating more regularly*, I’ll be revolutionary and post it:
We Were There vol. 4 (A)
Also in this week’s update, Alethea and Athena talk about individual translation styles in their column. The Twins and I talk to each other fairly regularly, and our conversations often have to do with work and our respective working styles. I enjoy those discussions very much, and it makes me happy when they sometimes use elements of those conversations as springboards for part of their column. ^_^
*A bit of a challenge, since I usually don’t feel comfortable discussing work in detail and my reviewing for MangaLife tends to take up most of that corner of brain real estate.
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This week I finally gave in and signed up for Twitter; Melinda kept making it sound like fun, and then at AN Sean Gaffney finished the job of talking me into it. So far, I think of it as sharing the one [1] feature of Facebook I actually enjoy, with none of Facebook’s attendant hideousness, so that’s a plus.
I’m primarily planning on using the account to interact with other manga industry folks/bloggers, so it’s had a fairly tight focus in its short life. Given that, it probably won’t be of much interest to non-manga fans, but there it is.
A Radical Interpretation of the Text 