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NEWS: Dark Horse to Release Omnibus Edition of Blade of the Immortal Manga




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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7358
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:17 am Reply with quote
Excellent! I was interested in checking this series out, but tracking down some of the volumes now is difficult, and they've been publishing it so long that some of them don't have numbers on the spine (how am I to find anything?!) so yeah, even if the trim size is a bit smaller, a bloger I follow really enjoyed this series so I am eager to check it ouT!
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Angel'sArcanum



Joined: 02 Sep 2010
Posts: 303
Location: Toronto, Ontario
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:21 am Reply with quote
I've already bought about 4 volumes, but this is perfect. I was hoping Dark Horse would do omnibuses for Blade of the Immortal. Love what I've read so far, I'll definitely make sure to pick all these up.
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DontmesswithKarma



Joined: 07 May 2015
Posts: 491
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:31 am Reply with quote
Amazing news! Now i can finally get into the series
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j Talbain



Joined: 27 Oct 2010
Posts: 279
Location: Toronto, Ontario
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 11:05 am Reply with quote
This will be a must buy Very Happy

Last edited by j Talbain on Sat Jul 11, 2015 11:07 am; edited 2 times in total
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Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9851
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 11:05 am Reply with quote
Since I already have the whole series the omnibus version would have to have serious extras to warrant a double dip. Did the news release provide any information as to trim size or flipped vs. unflipped??
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bahamut623



Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 1463
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:17 pm Reply with quote
I never got around to checking this series out, so this is awesome news. Here's hoping they unflip it (their release was flipped, right?)
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levonr



Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 811
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:33 pm Reply with quote
My bet is it all be unflipped, would be really cheap otherwise. Plus it gives reason for fans to buy it again so I'm sure Dark Horse will do the right thing.

I love Omnibus but I prefer hard cover. I'd kill for hardcover Berserk Omnibus on high quality paper(like Gundam the Origin).

Speaking of Dark Horse Omnibus, Oh My Goddess! Omnibus Volume 1 will be released in excatly one month(August 11). I have always held off because collecting the big manga was expensive but the omnibus release will be much cheaper.
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Ashen Phoenix



Joined: 21 Jun 2006
Posts: 2912
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:40 pm Reply with quote
If this omnibus release is unflipped/uncut then I will friggin' jump at the chance to own this. I've only glimpsed little bits of the series over the years before finally picking up vol. 1 in a secondhand book store, and while I love the story the mirrored/edited format is a strain to get through and comprehend, so I've always hesitated to get more with that in mind.
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lem



Joined: 29 Sep 2007
Posts: 734
Location: Land of trying to figure sht out
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:59 pm Reply with quote
Only ever picked up Volume 1, and that was 2008 or about a hundred years ago. Now I have a chance to spring for all of it in brand spanky Omnibus format?

uh, wut da hell took you so long Dark Horse?!? Laughing better late than never though. Thank You, much appreciated. What a great summer it's been for announcements and re-releases! Very Happy
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ZenAmako



Joined: 10 Jan 2011
Posts: 92
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 2:04 pm Reply with quote
Most of the art in the previous edition was not flipped; instead, the panels were cut and pasted so the pages read from left to right. This was done to avoid "mirroring" the art wherever possible. It worked fairly well for this title due to Samura's page layouts (you couldn't do this with every manga).

I would be very surprised if Dark Horse decides to release an "unflipped," right to left reading version. For one, it would require a lot of extra work (they would probably have to either cut and paste all of the panels again, or redo all of the lettering and sound effects). Second, $19.99 is pretty cheap for such a thick book, making me think the reason the price can be so low is that most of the work has already been done. Third, BotI is a title that appeals to many readers of Western comics who don't read a lot of manga, and those readers might actually prefer books that read from left to right (see also Akira, which Dark Horse rereleased and has not been released "unflipped" in America).
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15321
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 3:00 pm Reply with quote
lem:
Quote:
uh, wut da hell took you so long Dark Horse?!?


They were waiting for it to finish?
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14773
PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 5:42 pm Reply with quote
One of the earliest manga series to catch on in N. America.
It was also in bookstores back when most manga were just in comic shops.


bahamut623 wrote:

I never got around to checking this series out, so this is awesome news. Here's hoping they unflip it (their release was flipped, right?)


http://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/1337/blade-immortal-manga-month

  • Hiroaki Samura has always been very involved in the English-language version of Blade of the Immortal, oftentimes even redrawing panels so that they’ll look nice when the book is flopped for publication in English. It’s no surprise, too, that we often hear praise from both him and his publisher, Kodansha, about how skillfully the book is handled in English.

    It was a rare treat, a few years back, to get an order from the creator for more copies of our beautiful The Art of Blade of the Immortal art book. Without fail, every creator and publisher are entitled to comps (free copies of the book), and generally get between ten and twenty of any book. The stipulated copies were sent along, and a few weeks later, we heard from Samura-sensei, saying that this was the most beautiful Blade-related item ever put to paper, and could he please order some more copies, because he liked them so much (and we even sent some copies along to get signed—a rarity from most creators, and especially in Blade of the Immortal’s case).

    Kodansha, Dark Horse’s longest partner in Japan, also constantly issues praise about the work we do on the book; the series is a mainstay of not only manga culture but comics culture in general. Many of the people who read manga back in the ’90s were introduced to it—at their local comics shops—through Blade of the Immortal.

    All good things do come to an end, and Blade—currently the second-longest-running series in English—is wrapping up with volume 30 (the volume will be Dark Horse’s volume 31). Last month, there was a party in Tokyo, to which I was invited, to celebrate the series. The party featured Samura-sensei himself speaking about the book (and he rarely makes public appearances). A large portion of the program discussed not only how well the book has performed in English, but also the exquisite handling of the series in English, and how the creator couldn’t be happier.


To preserve the integrity of his art, Samura requested that the publisher of the licensed English translation, Dark Horse Comics, not "flip" the manga (that is, reverse the pages as if in a mirror). At the time the English translation began its publication in individual monthly issues (1996), flipping was an almost universal practice for translated manga. Instead, Blade of the Immortal was modified for Western readers by the unusual method of cutting up the panels and rearranging them on the page in order to have the action flow from left to right.

Another reason for not "flipping" in the English version is Manji's clothing, which features a manji symbol, is that if the pages were "flipped" it would resemble the Nazi swastika instead of the Japanese character Manji. (Some publishers issued an explanation of this in several issues, particularly in Norway.) Manji is Japanese for "the character for eternality" 萬字, and represents Dharma, universal harmony, and the balance of opposites.
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