Posts Tagged “germany”

From top to bottom: Japanese, German, English

When I was in Germany last August, I bought the first volume of Honey and Clover and wrote about how Tokyopop GmbH was releasing titles noticably ahead of US licensors. Now that Viz’s English version has hit shelves, I bought one of those and looked for differences and similarities between the German and American adaptations. What follows is a comparison of many features between the two in attempt to determine which is the better visual adaptation.
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I didn’t make a post yesterday because I had a long day and fell asleep a lot earlier than normal so I’ll make for it up today as well as doing the regular-scheduled “8th day” post later today. What I had intended to talk about yesterday was an interview I did with German manga-ka Nina Brandner in August inside a Mayersche in Cologne.
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While in Germany, I have looked for cheap anime DVDs that I also had at home so I could compare technical details such as compression rates as well as more thing like dub voices. So far I have grabbed volume 3 of hack//SIGN and School Rumble Vol. 1 (should get the R1 version by the time I get home) as well as one disc each of Inuyasha, Shaman King, Tenchi Muyo, and King of the Hill. I can’t wait to hear the German version of Boomhauer.

Also on the manga front, I bought the first volumes of Honey and Clover and Love Hina to accompany the Japanese copies I have. This brings me to the new poll question: Do you own multiple physical versions of any anime or manga? This is meant to exclude fansubs or scanlations. After the jump: final results from the month-long “classic in 10 years” poll that I should have ended a while ago.
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Last Saturday, I went to a Bleach fan meeting in Nordpark in Düsseldorf where many people cosplayed and had fun talking, eating, and posing or taking pictures. I asked a couple people some general questions and I learned that dubbed German anime on TV sucks (the example given was Naruto), some Bleach fans read the English scanlations, and confirmation that there is very little, if any, German fansub action. I managed to make some friends and actually ate dinner at someone’s house. After the jump: a lot of pictures from the event, including some of the general Cosplay/Visu Treffen that was convening in a different part of the park (there was friendly interaction between the groups) as well as shots of the beautiful park itself.
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When I picked up an issue of Daisuki a week ago, I came to like one series in particular. That was “Idol”, created by Dortmund resident Stella Brandner, which began serialization in May. Since then, I’ve bought the other three chapters through issues of the manga magazine and enjoyed what I’ve read thus far. The main plot is that 19-year-old Elle is a photographer and painter who is a fan of the rock band Sub Four, whose tour through Germany happens to make a stop in her home city of Dortmund. She goes to the concert with her best friend Sascha but is mistakenly pushed out by security and loses her sketchbook in the process. The lead singer of the band, 27-year-old Damien, picks up and goes over to her apartment to return it to her while offering her a job as the band’s tour photographer.
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Yesterday I was walking down Immermannstrasse, the main street of Düsseldorf’s Japanese district, and went into a comic book store. Inside there were manga and American comics translated into German as one would expect. I ended up buying an issue each of Daisuki (think Shoujo Beat), Animania (comes with pack-in DVD), and Manga sZene as well as some sticker sheets and a couple Chibi mangas (small sized 56 pages long from German authors). Gonna try to translate some of it during my downtime…

Anyway, I found out through a free Tokyopop pamphlet I picked up that they have already put out the first six volumes of Honey and Clover in Germany (webpage for vol. 1) and volume 7 is coming out in September. Each volume costs 6.50 Euro, which right now converts to just under nine US dollars so not much difference from US manga prices. Speaking of America, Viz Media announced last weekend at Comic-Con that the manga will replace Nana in Shojo Beat next March and that the first volume will also debut that month. Concidentally, just as the series starts its release in the US, the tenth and final volume will likely come out in Germany that same March.

Later this morning, I’ll be heading to the airport to embark on a 26-hour journey to Düsseldorf, Germany, with layovers in Minneapolis and Detroit. Probably going to see a lot of interesting things during my month’s stay in Deutschland and take many pictures of architecture and scenery. This might also be the self-realization journey (like Takemoto’s bicycle trip except less physically demanding) I didn’t ask for as I travel outside the United States for the first time ever. Yep, haven’t even been to Canada yet.

I’m not going to be packing my laptop so I’ll have to use the computer labs at the university (free) or an Internet cafe (not free but gonna try it once!) to check my e-mail, upload pictures, and submit an occasional post. I still have to read a good amount of class material which I could probably make a dent in while I’m flying thousands of miles in the air.

I’m going to try to post at least once a day (except for the last week when I’ll be on a bus) to a specially dedicated blog I set up for this trip. The address is studyabroad.crumplednapkin.net (link is also in the sidebar under “My Other Sites”) and I hope I don’t forget to do it after the first couple days. I have to keep a hard-copy research journal that I have to turn in near the end so the entries I write in that notebook may overlap with what I write online and keep me on a schedule of sorts.