| Hourou Musuko anime and manga briefly compared [message #99631] |
Fri, 26 July 2013 16:13  |
sellers
Messages: 1143
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Spoiler alert: I have tried to avoid anything that
would ruin the story for the reader of this group but
I am sure that anyone feeling spoiled will let me know
about it. I wanted the format to look right and spent
a lot of time shortening these lines to get a consistent
appearance. Well I messed up the newsgroup address line
again so if you replay add the rec.arts.anime.misc to
it please.
Well the anime is 12 episodes long though the
10th and 11th episodes are run together. The manga is
123 chapters long so we can tell right away that there
is considerable time compression and with compression
and localization for the English speaking market comes
some distortion not only of time but of events.
For example:
The first play in the manga is not an adaptation
of "Romeo and Juliet" (as in the anime)but of "Rose of
Versailles" as done by the Takarazuka troop with Tatasuki
playing Fersen and Nitori playing Rosalie though Tatasuki
says Marie Antoinette would be a better choice for Nitori.
It is not happening at the school festival but at the
Farewell Party for the 6th graders.
Other than that a lot of detail is included in the manga
that is left out of the anime but the most important stuff
is referred to in flashbacks.
Now despite these inevitable compressive distortions
of the manga the anime works very well and the final
scene of the anime is of the beginning of the second
play now entitled "I am a girl" and works very well.
Well enough to make me cry. Very close in final tone
to the manga ending.
The art of the anime and manga are very close to
the artist/author's original and I have to say the
idealized children shown look much more like children
than many other manga or anime. I say idealized
because there are no really fat or terribly ugly
children depicted.
I think anyone who likes serious manga will enjoy
the manga and anyone who reads the manga should watch
the anime. The unfortunate thing is that there are
no licensed versions of the anime available and the
manga is in an over-sized and hard cover edition
which is not very cheap. The North American title
is "Wandering Son" which should have been perhaps
"Transient Son". The unlicensed versions
of the anime available from various retailers are
apparently not only extremely digitally compressed
but incomplete, lacking the 12th episode and those
11 are on one dvd.
The manga release will be finished in it North
American release in a couple of years it looks like
as I am waiting for the 5th volume to be delivered
and the 6th volume should be out by the end of the
year. I subscribed to this release, an option that
should be available for the anime as well.
The manga in fan-scanned and translated form is
online and seeing it online is the only reason I
am buying the hard cover expensive version from
Fantagraphics. This is in line with my idea that
fan-scanned and translated manga is the equivalent
to the fans of the weekly or monthly releases in
regular Japanese magazines and promotes the series
that are translated rather than impedes their sales.
I have to say that this is a star-crossed anime
as it was being shown as the tsunami hit Japan and
the fan-subbed episodes are taken from the TV show
at the time and have the story running in Japanese
at the bottom of the screen. This is why the 12th
episode was either not shown or was much delayed in
Japan. The subject matter seems to have scared off
the business groups that might have subtitled
the show and brought it to the USA. After all
hey are in business to make money not to make
educational and artistic statements. They don't
believe many people would be buying an anime
about transgender characters living & evolving
happier lives for themselves.
If you want to watch the fan-subbed anime it
comes up to about 2.5 GiB including two or three
soundtrack albums which I haven't had time to
listen to yet. It is from a fansub group called
[umee] if you want to be sure of the contents.
You may need to install VLC a cross platform
media player to enjoy this.
bliss
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| Re: Hourou Musuko anime and manga briefly compared [message #102522 is a reply to message #99631] |
Tue, 06 August 2013 12:16  |
sellers
Messages: 1143
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
On 07/26/2013 01:13 PM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
> Spoiler alert: I have tried to avoid anything that
> would ruin the story for the reader of this group but
> I am sure that anyone feeling spoiled will let me know
> about it. I wanted the format to look right and spent
> a lot of time shortening these lines to get a consistent
> appearance. Well I messed up the newsgroup address line
> again so if you replay add the rec.arts.anime.misc to
> it please.
I have reread the whole story over the weekend and
finished it last night. One problem is that the story is
taken out of the author's hands so that Shuichi is writing
his/her own story at the end. Or at least that is the trope
and he is projecting present trends in his life into the
future with reporting events that have not happened yet in
his life or the lives of the people he knows who are covered
in the story (s)he is composing.
Of course this may be a way to conclude a series that
may not have had mass market appeal but it is well done.
I would rather have read this story and watched this anime
than not. Below is the data and a further comment.
HOUROU MUSUKO Manga
放浪息子; 放浪男孩; Hōrō Musuko; The Transient Son; Wandering Son; El
Hijo Transitorio
Released: Author & Artist
2002 Shimura Takako
Genre(s):Drama, Gender Bender,Romance, School Life, Seinen, Slice Of Life
From Fantagraphics Books:
Fifth grade. The threshold of puberty, and the beginning of the end of
childhood innocence. Nitori Shuichi and his new friend Takatsuki Yoshino
enjoy happy homes and loving families, and are well-liked by their
classmates. But they share a secret that further complicates a time of
life that is awkward for anyone: Shuichi is a boy who wants to be a
girl, and Yoshino is a girl who wants to be a boy...
Written and illustrated by Shimura Takako, acclaimed for her sensitive
take on LGBT topics, Wandering Son portrays Shuichi and Yoshino's very
private journey with affection, sensitivity and gentle humor.
So the author/artist is, according to what I have read, a lesbian and
it is a little surprising to find that she can deal so
well with this topic. Many of that community in the USA tend to
look down on transgendered people especially those that start out
male.
As i mentioned before I have bought the hardcover Fantagraphic
edition to give as a present to a transgendered friend.
>
> Well the anime is 12 episodes long though the
> 10th and 11th episodes are run together. The manga is
> 123 chapters long so we can tell right away that there
> is considerable time compression and with compression
> and localization for the English speaking market comes
> some distortion not only of time but of events.
> For example:
> The first play in the manga is not an adaptation
> of "Romeo and Juliet" (as in the anime)but of "Rose of
> Versailles" as done by the Takarazuka troop with Tatasuki
> playing Fersen and Nitori playing Rosalie though Tatasuki
> says Marie Antoinette would be a better choice for Nitori.
> It is not happening at the school festival but at the
> Farewell Party for the 6th graders.
>
> Other than that a lot of detail is included in the manga
> that is left out of the anime but the most important stuff
> is referred to in flashbacks.
>
> Now despite these inevitable compressive distortions
> of the manga the anime works very well and the final
> scene of the anime is of the beginning of the second
> play now entitled "I am a girl" and works very well.
> Well enough to make me cry. Very close in final tone
> to the manga ending.
> The art of the anime and manga are very close to
> the artist/author's original and I have to say the
> idealized children shown look much more like children
> than many other manga or anime. I say idealized
> because there are no really fat or terribly ugly
> children depicted.
>
> I think anyone who likes serious manga will enjoy
> the manga and anyone who reads the manga should watch
> the anime. The unfortunate thing is that there are
> no licensed versions of the anime available and the
> manga is in an over-sized and hard cover edition
> which is not very cheap. The North American title
> is "Wandering Son" which should have been perhaps
> "Transient Son". The unlicensed versions
> of the anime available from various retailers are
> apparently not only extremely digitally compressed
> but incomplete, lacking the 12th episode and those
> 11 are on one dvd.
> The manga release will be finished in it North
> American release in a couple of years it looks like
> as I am waiting for the 5th volume to be delivered
> and the 6th volume should be out by the end of the
> year. I subscribed to this release, an option that
> should be available for the anime as well.
> The manga in fan-scanned and translated form is
> online and seeing it online is the only reason I
> am buying the hard cover expensive version from
> Fantagraphics. This is in line with my idea that
> fan-scanned and translated manga is the equivalent
> to the fans of the weekly or monthly releases in
> regular Japanese magazines and promotes the series
> that are translated rather than impedes their sales.
>
> I have to say that this is a star-crossed anime
> as it was being shown as the tsunami hit Japan and
> the fan-subbed episodes are taken from the TV show
> at the time and have the story running in Japanese
> at the bottom of the screen. This is why the 12th
> episode was either not shown or was much delayed in
> Japan. The subject matter seems to have scared off
> the business groups that might have subtitled
> the show and brought it to the USA. After all
> hey are in business to make money not to make
> educational and artistic statements. They don't
> believe many people would be buying an anime
> about transgender characters living & evolving
> happier lives for themselves.
>
> If you want to watch the fan-subbed anime it
> comes up to about 2.5 GiB including two or three
> soundtrack albums which I haven't had time to
> listen to yet. It is from a fansub group called
> [umee] if you want to be sure of the contents.
And the sound track and various cover albums
are available on line as well.
>
> You may need to install VLC a cross platform
> media player to enjoy this.
>
bliss
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