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Running glue on some Viz titles


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Asano Rain



Joined: 02 Apr 2003
Posts: 56
Location: SoCal
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 6:04 pm Reply with quote
Has anyone else been seeing this? On certain Viz titles, the glue from the spine will leak onto the cover, creating a dark trail on the edge of the manga cover, facing the spine.

It basically looks like this (sorry for the shite camera image):


I first noticed it when I was at Borders looking at Basara manga, contemplating buying the first few volumes. I saw the leaking glue though and decided against it. I thought it was an isolated event until I ordered manga from TSRI during the big Viz sale (all of X) and noticed that just about every single volume of X had that annoying glue stain on the front. The stain isn't as noticeable on manga with colorful or very dark covers (like X), but it's easily noticeable on manga with lighter covers like Alice 19th.

It isn't afflicting all of Viz's manga, but I've gotten enough "bad batches" from TSRI that I'm wondering what's up (and if I should even bother returning the really bad ones for an exchange... what's the point if I'm just gonna be sent another one with running glue?). I've checked the printing dates for the afflicted manga and they all seem to have been printed around 2005 or so. Maybe the heat has melted the glue or something? I'm not sure, but I've noticed this on none of the manga from other publishers like Tokyopop, CMX, etc, even if they were printed several years ago and just sitting around on shelves until they were delivered to my home.
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kirbyboy102



Joined: 04 Jul 2007
Posts: 157
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:02 pm Reply with quote
vix has crappy print quality anyway; it is probably cheap glue that ran during the production. Confused
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slickwataris



Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 1334
Location: Carol Stream, Illinois
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:18 pm Reply with quote
Not quite sure what you mean by this, but I saw this one volume of Bleach today at Borders whose spine was kind of "ripply." Like they didn't glue it on right so that the paper sticks up all curvy like.
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Asano Rain



Joined: 02 Apr 2003
Posts: 56
Location: SoCal
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:43 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, I'm guessing it was just super cheap glue they used on certain batches or something.

I know the picture I posted looks pretty damn bad, but you can still see this dark trail on the edge of it, running down the length of the manga. That's the glue that's seeped through the cover page.
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Brand



Joined: 30 Jan 2006
Posts: 1028
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 9:12 pm Reply with quote
I have a couple manga from Viz where the printing is so bad you can't read a lot of the text. I haven't seen the glue problem though.

Though where I work we did get a CMX manga that was horribly put together and looked all mushed.
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Ensof



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 70
Location: Meifumadō
PostPosted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 8:21 am Reply with quote
I have in my hands a copy of Viz's first printing of Battle Angel Alita vol. 1. The cover became detachable about a quarter of the way into reading the book for the first time ... the very day I bought the thing back in 1994. Running my thumb along the inside of the spine, and finding it perfectly smooth, I suspect a swipe of a glue-stick was all that was used for the binding.

The cover is fine, though. Laughing

It seems Viz have gone from no glue to too much cheap glue. Thirteen years ...
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Hon'ya-chan



Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 973
PostPosted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:21 pm Reply with quote
You think thats bad?




Found it on the shelf, and bought it as an amusing trinket. And no, it's not photoshopped. It's really missing the text and barcode.
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Murasakisuishou



Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 1469
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:52 pm Reply with quote
I've had horrible experience with the quality of Viz printings. My copy of the 6th volume of Shaman King has several huge splotches of ink, some of which obscure the text, and one which I could actually scrape off because there was so much ink dried on there. Also, in one of my NANA volumes (can't remember which, although I think it's the third) there is a mark over one of the text bubbles that looks like someone stuck a piece of tape over it, leaving a white rectangle where there should be text.
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LilacShadow



Joined: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 165
Location: Kentucky
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:08 am Reply with quote
I've never had a problem with the glue on any of my manga volumes. On my copy of Death Note vol. 5 there is what appears to be a blob of dried ink on Light's leg though. I'm not sure how I didn't see that in the bookstore. Confused If I'd seen it, I definitely would've picked up another copy.

I can't say I'm surprised to hear about any problems from Viz's manga. I remember a few of the Fullmetal Alchemist volumes had many errors in them. I also remember a part in one of the Monster volumes where there was text missing in a speech bubble. I didn't consider that really a big deal, but the FMA errors made me kinda mad because there were so many of them.
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Asano Rain



Joined: 02 Apr 2003
Posts: 56
Location: SoCal
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:40 am Reply with quote
That's a rather peculiar printing error, Hon'ya. xD I wonder what the cashier said when s/he had to get a proper copy to scan. I'm glad this weird glue problem seems to be an isolated thing, but it sort of worries me about leaving my manga in heat, lest the glue melt on the spot and run all over the manga or something. >__>;

Yeah, I'm always a bit wary when buying translated manga cos every once in a while, I'll get a copy that got effed up during the printing process/publication. -__-; I've yet to have any issues whatsoever with Japanese manga that I buy from Kinokuniya or wherever else.

I still remember that random, ugly Initial D page stuck between volume 2 of Paradise Kiss instead of the proper ParaKiss page. That one made me squirm... In fact, I still have that defective copy somewhere.
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DemonEyesLeo



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 844
Location: Japan
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:07 am Reply with quote
I do not have the ones you mentioned, but none of my other Viz titles have had that problem.

And you know, printing errors are nothing new. The worst one I got was in vol 13 of Berserk where a chunk of pages were not only printed upside down but in reverse order. To illustrate, it went something like: page 61, 62, 63, 64, 63, 62, 61 with the latter half upside down.

Edit: Grammatical Error


Last edited by DemonEyesLeo on Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:19 am; edited 1 time in total
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Hon'ya-chan



Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 973
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:29 am Reply with quote
DemonEyesLeo wrote:
And you know, printing errors are nothing new.


Even so, the fact that alot of us have found such errors is nothing to sneeze at. It then puts Viz in a very interesting quandary: Has their Quality Control gone down in the past year or so, or are these just isolated incidents?
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marie-antoinette



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 4136
Location: Ottawa, Canada
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 6:48 am Reply with quote
I've said this before, but would like to reiterate that Viz doesn't personally print their manga, they're sent off to a printer, so it's said printer's quality control which should be questioned, not Viz's. The only thing to question there is the choice of printer, so hopefully everyone whose had something misprinted has let Viz know about it, so they are aware that their manga has more printing errors than other manga publishers seem to (at least going off all the cases I've heard of).
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Hon'ya-chan



Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 973
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:26 am Reply with quote
marie-antoinette wrote:
I've said this before, but would like to reiterate that Viz doesn't personally print their manga, they're sent off to a printer, so it's said printer's quality control which should be questioned, not Viz's. The only thing to question there is the choice of printer, so hopefully everyone whose had something misprinted has let Viz know about it, so they are aware that their manga has more printing errors than other manga publishers seem to (at least going off all the cases I've heard of).


It doesn't matter if they subcontracted out the printing, Viz is ultimately response able for the final product.
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CloverKuroba



Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Posts: 506
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:58 am Reply with quote
Asano Rain wrote:

I still remember that random, ugly Initial D page stuck between volume 2 of Paradise Kiss instead of the proper ParaKiss page. That one made me squirm... In fact, I still have that defective copy somewhere.


Oh god, that happened to me too! I was pretty p'oed. Even though it didn't make you miss too much, I was still angry that they placed the wrong page in there, still with the proper text.

About the glue problem...I have seen a trace of glue on the spine on one of my Case Closed volumes and the first volume of Alice 19th interestingly enough. While it doesn't bother me all that much, Viz's manga quality is indeed questionable.
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