Forum - View topicREVIEW: The Manga Bible
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DragonsRevenge
 Posts: 1150 |
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It took me about half the review to realize that it was literally a manga version of the Holy Bible, and not some giant encyclopedia. It sounds really cool, to be honest. I'll have to thumb through it. Is it a japanese product? It always seems odd when a Christian product arises from Japan, a strong Buhddist country.
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Ktimene's Lover
 Posts: 2242 Location: Glendale, AZ (Proudly living in the desert) |
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As a Christian, I find this to be an important item in the manga realm.
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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I have to wonder why Christians need a 'manga' Bible or why manga needs a Bible adaptation. If you're Christian, what' wrong with going to your Church and hearing it or reading the Bible in your house?
Christian product rises from Japan? If this is the same one I looked up online a while back after seeing it in Diamond Distributor's catalog, I believe it's commissioned by some American company using Korean artists. I could be remembering wrong. Maybe it was Japanese artists or they were just very vauge. Maybe they had offices in Japan. Still I believe its genesis is from America, no pun intended. Meanwhile, I'll stick to going to my own Church, its teachings and its translations. I'm Eastern Orthodox and, not to sound snotty, but we simply believe we've kept traditions and beliefs alive that others simply have forgotten. We're not some church that started up a hundred or few hundred years ago like many in America. We believe even the Catholics and Rome have changed things. Though personally I applaud the Anglicans / Episcopals for their treatment of women and even having female Priests. Not sure when my own Church will ever be that progressive. So, my point in saying that is, I have to question who puts this out. The New International Version isn't one I'm familiar with. I know for kids and younger readers, not for liturgy and study, I've heard the Good News translation suggested. Of course my church uses both English and the original Greek. (Well, Greek for the Gostpel / New Testament, and of course the Old Testament is in Hebrew.) Well, it's a more modern Greek than the original, but it's still closer than English. Even first hand I notice differences in the Greek and English and I only know very little Greek. For example, the very important word 'love' is a lot more complex than in the English translations. We rather have a bastard language. I've heard multiple words used in Greek for it, with slightly different meanings. You may think I'm making too much of a deal about this. Yet think about when people get upset about translating some light comedy manga or anime. If you think people are serious about translating manga, you should hear debates about the Bible. Also, as a side note, the Gospel is the real Evangelion. That is, in Greek, Evangelion is the word for the Holy Gospel. I've heard it growing up in a church that uses Greek in its liturgy. We stand when it's held up and that name is announced. As much as I love Neon Genesis Evangelion, I have to kinda chuckle that many fans don't know what the word means and how it has such importance in Christianity. |
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Eos
 Posts: 168 Location: Jersey |
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Sorry to say, but you wouldn't if you read it. It's terrible. I'd consider the first decent adaptation important. |
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Krzych Ayanami
Posts: 14 Location: Warsaw, Poland |
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If they find buyers for something like that - why not.
Comics are for people. |
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Unholy_Nny
 Posts: 622 |
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It's a shame this didn't turn out very well, I was kinda looking forward to it.
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MokonaModoki
 Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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By no measure is it the first manga (or manga-style) adaptation of the Bible, decent or otherwise. That honor may (for US publication anyway) go to Manga Bible Story by Noboru Yamaguchi and illustrated by Masakazu Higuchi. 879 pages. It has a US publisher, but it is in kanji with furigana (for students of the Japanese language). I have the sneaking suspicion that only Galilee Trade had the brilliant notion of providing a review copy to ANN, so since I found these others I thought I'd throw them out for anyone interested in the genre. For English language there is Manga Bible (no "The") from Tyndale House. 1104 pages with "96 special Manga presentation pages" from "top Japanese illustrators". Cheating a bit to call it manga, since it is really just a complete NLT version with pictures. For translated manga adaptation from the Bible, there's also Manga Messiah by by Hidenori Kumai (Author), Kozumi Shinozawa (Illustrator), Atsuko Ogawa (Illustrator), a 288 page rendition of the Gospels (combined). It actually looks like manga (and I love the cover tag: "HAS HE COME to SAVE the WORLD...or DESTROY IT?"). And then if you wanted The Bible in the 5x7 224-page format that we all know and love, Zonderkinz appears to be doing it as separate volumes using Korean illustrators and American editors/authors-- Manga Bible 1: Names, Games, and the Long Road Trip: Genesis-Exodus Manga Bible 2: Walls, Brawls, and the Great Rebellion: Numbers-Joshua-Judges-Ruth Manga Bible 3: Fights, Flights and the Chosen Ones: First-second Samuel (February release) Manga Bible 4: Traitors, Kings, and the Big Break: First Kings- Second Kings (May release) Notice that each of those volumes has the same number of pages that The Manga Bible uses for the whole volume. So they should be avoiding issues of the "Bible's Greatest Hits" effect with text crammed in. I don't actually have any of these, so I can't speak to their relative merits. I wasn't even aware of their existence until I read this review and searched Amazon for "manga bible". I didn't look with the intent of buying anything, but now that I'm aware of them I think I like the Zonderkinz approach best, and Manga Messiah looks pretty nice too. |
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mistress_reebi
Posts: 735 Location: Canada |
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Same, I was looking forward to it but after reading the review I'll pass this up. |
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The Xenos
Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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It's funny. It'd rather read and would enjoy a manga that gets Christianity totally wrong, like say Chrono Crusade, instead of reading a maybe slightly inaccurately or badly done Bible manga like this.
Stuff like Chrono Crusade, Cross, or even Neon Genesis Evangelion get Bible facts and characters totally mixed up. Yet it's so off the wall, I can enjoy it. Plus it doesn't act like some authority on the subject, it's just a fun manga. I'll take Chrono Crusade's nonsense Mary Magadaline over, say, the DaVinci Code's any day. |
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KyuuA4
 Posts: 1361 Location: America, where anime and manga can be made |
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If I burn this book - would I go to hell?
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MokonaModoki
Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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Don't all book burners? I thought this was a given. 
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Treetastic
 Posts: 164 Location: Canada |
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Quite simply, there is no money in that. Why would a) the Christian church and b) Big Buisness pass down a marketing opportunity?
I tend to be skeptical of one-word, Japanese-sounding artist names. They are almost always American or Korean pen-names, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were true.
I never liked the NIV- not even as a kid. I read parts of the Bible in the Good News Translation, and that didn't feel so forcibly "updated".
As an etymology enthusiast, that makes me cringe. Actually, so do debates about the Bible... albeit for a different reason. Another side note- "evangelist" refers to a person who brings good news. Fancy that. |
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MarzGurl
 Posts: 142 Location: San Antonio, Texas |
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I looked into this a while back. The artist/writer is not Japanese. He is British. You can read about it at the official web site.
http://www.themangabible.com "Are you Japanese Siku?: NO! Some dude actually thought I was some Japanese chick... can you believe that? No! I am a bloke. A black bloke, a big (ish) black bloke and I did martial arts too, so 'am a bit' hard too!" There's more interesting one-liners from his biography on the page... but I'm not pushing it. :/ |
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Shii
 Posts: 110 |
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...which would explain why 'it forgets to "show" the Bible's most dramatic moments—unless, of course, that dramatic moment involves an angry face or a superhero pose.' He most likely used the shoddy pacing and storytelling of those most deservedly dead and bankrupt American superhero comics. Yeah, I'll pass. |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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Ummm, those American superhero comics are not only not dead and certainly not bankrupt; in fact they are actually seeing a significant increase in popularity over the past 10 years or so. Please don't go slinging mud through baseless attacks and do not use a thread for something unrelated as a soapbox to do so. Thanks.
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