Forum - View topicTokyopop's printing of Sgt. Frog,,,
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lemonfreshviper
Posts: 3 |
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I have a few questions about the different printings TP does for the manga... I know that the first editions tend to have the metallic covers and later on they're cycled out for more normalized versions. Initially these metallic printings kept bonus pin ups and such as color pages but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. However with volume 6, the prologue to the first story is colorized (the one that involves the arrival of Kogoro and his sister). It seems in the second edition this prologue's been cut out completely.
Why is that? In the 'normal' versions of other volumes (and it seems, all printings of the new volumes) the color pages are just printed in b+w. This worries me as metallic versions of volumes 6 and 4 (in fact copies of those volumes in general) are extremely scarce. I originally got the non metal covers (whose look I just like better) until I discovered this missing vol 6 prologue in a copy I got from a clearance website. Normally, this would just cause me to go to the ends of the earth in order to find the metal versions of those volumes.This is where, however, where my second issue comes in: my best friend just started getting the series and pointed out something interesting to me in the vol 3 he bought. He insisted there was panel change in the version I'd lent him, my metal copy. In the story where Kururu's age-changing gun allows the gang to go the beach with Natsumi as their chaperone there is in fact a change. Those who've read the story know that Kerero get Natsumi involved in a bikini contest and at the very end, the effects of the gun wear off at a critical moment causing Natsumi's top to fly off. My copy scales up the bottom panel; the non-metallic version my friend bought does not scale up and you can the see the very top of some rather anatomically correct details in the crucial moment of the gag. So the issue I have here is, why the changes? Neither version of a complete set can now be considered to be 'uncut' because of that, unless there are versions of both with their respective aspects restored to the different variations. Is my volume 3 w/metal an early printing error that was potentially corrected in versions with the metal? Or are there copies of 6 nonmetal with the prologue in black and white? I want both the unedited gag (simply because I hate censorship; though I have no issue with making the edit now because they fixed it later) and the prologue. But I'd also like all metal covers. Is there anyway to manage that without buying an extra copy of three without the metal and slicing out the critical page? Also is there a color prologue to vol. 4? It's the only one I've never located with the metal cover. Finally, I'm curious if there are other known edits in SGT. Frog. I searched through every page of this forum looking for topics related to this so if there's ones that I missed I'm sorry... But Sgt. Frog doesn't seem to be a widely discussed series in this respect. Anyone's input on this is BEYOND welcome. Sorry about the super-long and elaborate post but I want to make absolutely sure everything I was wondering about was covered in here. On a sidenote, is Viz ever going to publish Fullmetal Alchemist without the damn metal on the first three volumes? I'd love to have the series actually match and the metal's pretty glaring |
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Kharis Venn
Posts: 5 |
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Tokyopop seems to be cutting a lot of costs lately. I've noticed where a lot of titles used to use specialized fonts, that's pretty much been done away with. Color inserts are almost never done anymore, and the quality of the production work done on these has just declined in general.
It seems Tokyopop's focus has changed from obtaining decent licenses to just grabbing whatever they can get for cheap, and then funneling money intoi their struggling original manga line. I really think they believe that original properties are their future. |
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Not a Jellyfish
 Posts: 539 Location: Boston, MA |
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I definitely noticed these things in a few series. Loveless, for example, no longer has the color pages at the front of each volume. Also, Beck no longer has color inserts, special tranlation notes, or even as high quality translation as the series was initially receiving. I used to read a lot of TokyoPop, but now it seems they mostly just license generic, mediocre series with no impact, and poor translations. They churn out so much crap manga, they forget what their original purpose was. |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Face it.
How often do manga titles land in the bestseller list? 1 or 2 titles, yeah, but if they can manage a tie-in to something domestic, they just might sell more copies than the average manga title. Like Star Trek. Granted, it seems a pretty dead franchise, but the base fans are pretty loyal. Why pay licenses to others when they might manage to get in on the ground floor of something big. For every Fruits Basket, there are a dozen other titles that no one ever seems to talk about.. Planet Ladder, Chronicles of the Cursed Sword, Rebirth, Hands Off, Eerie Queerie, Sorcerer Hunters, Eternity, Threads of Time are some of the titles I've enjoyed I never seem to find people talking about. |
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Not a Jellyfish
Posts: 539 Location: Boston, MA |
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Don't even get me started on how under-rated Planet Ladder is. And how much they f*cked up the translation. |
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