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Forum - View topicJason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Immortal Rain
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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Is the title on the page supposed to be Immortal Raim or is that a typo? I admit to being out of the loop on enough things that I might be missing a pun.
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2677 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Damn, Jason, yet another obscure title that I actually really like? Admittedly, though, Immortal Rain is one of those titles that's always in the back of my head, but when it gets brought up I have to promote it. Hell, I even got my friend to read it, who was kind of iffy on checking it out, and he ended up really liking it too.
This was a manga that made me go "It looks interesting, let me check it out." Never could I imagine just how good this title really was when I started reading it. It's definitely, like you said, a title that's able to appeal to everyone. The action is really nicely done, the characters are developed well, the love story is actually done excellently, and, yeah, Yuca is one messed-up but awesome villian. I remember back a couple of years ago someone asked about Immortal Rain's future on TokyoPop's message boards, which is now useless for asking them questions, and the reply was that Immortal Rain was actually a bit of a surprise hit for them; not a best-seller, mind you, but a title that was able to maintain fairly strong sales, even when volumes were being released with long breaks between them. I'm sure that if they can get around any licensing issues, TP would love to continue releasing it. I'll certainly buy them if they keep coming out, at least. |
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Jadress
 Posts: 807 Location: Seattle. It purdy and nerdy! |
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Wow, I am REALLY glad you wrote about this, because I have a bizarre history with this manga. When I was still in early high school, my brother (who had recently moved to NYC) would send me old manga magazines from the Japanese used bookstores there. I couldn't read any of them of course, but I poured over the illustrations. One featured manga in a magazine(it was either Wings or it was called South?) had some of the most delicate, beautiful art I'd ever seen, with visuals that packed quite an emotional punch. I wanted SO BADLY to read it, but I didn't even know the name of it or the author.
Fast forward about 10 years later (to this year!), I randomly decide to look at that book again, still curious about that manga. I was finally able to ascertain the mangaka was Kaoru Ozaki, and the particular thing I'd seen was a short one-off story that was unavailable in English. Hungry for something related, I picked up the first volume of Immortal Rain for cheap, and was actually.. not really enthralled by the story. Maybe I was thrown by how poetically written the first volume it is, but I never ended up seeking out more. But with Jason recommending it, maybe it deserves another shot. I really do love the art, but I wasn't sure if the story-telling would ever solidify. |
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bahamut623
 Posts: 1463 |
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I remember wanting to read this at one point...and I guess I just forgot? The art looks really good, but it's unfortunate that it's in a Tokypop state of limbo. I might look around for it one day, but I'd be more inclined to do so if Tokyopop continued publishing it.
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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Sadly, I'm pretty sure that Tokyopop will not be continuing it past volume 8. But the Tokyopop editions are nice and definitely worth getting. For the recent chapters, of course, if you read Japanese, you can read 'em online at Shinshokan's website.
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poonk
 Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
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I too liked Immortal Rain and bought v01-07 back when it was coming out regularly. Then it seemed to take so long for v08 to be released that I frankly forgot about it altogether.* Too bad that it seems like it'll never be completed in English.
*It doesn't help that I no longer work in a bookstore-- where I used to see & pick up IR-- and don't really shop for manga anywhere but online now. So unless I'm actively seeking something at Amazon, say, I often don't realize it exists or, in the case of IR, that a new volume is out. |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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Yet another manga I'll be checking out, the premise reminds me a little of the light novel/two volume manga adaptation series called Kiele (similar premise, immortal guy who was a bio-weapon and a teenaged girl who forms a close relationship as they travel around with a possessed radio). Need to pick up more of that actually, and I'm tempted to look at the chapters online but I have a feeling I wouldn't be able to read any of it.
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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It was frustrating because it seemed a lot of American fans would lose interest so then TP started backing away from longer titles.
At least we made it to the end of Planet Ladder & Dragon Knights. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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Dragon Knights is an epically oddball title. It has it's own pace and art style that matches the strangeness.
I'm going to keep an eye out for volumes of this- it interested me before, but I hadn't gotten around to picking it up. Jason's recommendations are always handy. Poonk- I check Diamond Previews every month, and do publisher searches on Amazon to keep up to date on what I'm collecting. Sometimes stuff randomly gets put back on schedule, though it seems everyone's scaled back a lot. |
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CCSYueh
Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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When 7 left us hanging forever, I was hopeful 8 would wrap things up, but nooooooooooooooooo.
It's different when the thing is running sporatically in a magazine, but really another for the American delivery system of graphic novel only. I have some of the CCS & Bastard 32 page things as well as my daughter has a couple Sailor Moon as well as most of the SM graphic novels (she loaned them to friends at the time & I believe a volume was lost). I remember fans used to ask about a faster release, but the problem with that is again the whole "Story Fan A is desperate dor isn't the same as Fan B" & faced with lots of books coming out monthly, some titles fell by the wayside. (There was a summer where TP & Viz put some titles out on a monthly schedule. It stopped pretty quick) |
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silver_deeds
 Posts: 61 |
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Machika has always been a back-up (when I want to be comfortable) cosplay of mine at cons for the past six years. But even at AX or Otacon, I'll only get stopped maybe once or twice, which is always sad to me. Though I did find a Rain cosplayer once!
I'm so glad Jason has featured this series. While it's not my favorite, it's one that makes me proud to be a manga fan. In fact now that I think about it, it was one of my gateway drugs to manga. I don't think it's doing so bad for averaging a volume a year for 11 years in Japan, and not having an anime or VG... It's a series that you can get back to reading, after years apart, and still love it just as much as when you started. You can't say that about a lot of manga. Though TokyoPop's delay and the author's slow releases aren't helping things... Maybe the online releases will help pick things up and actually give us a worth-while ending we've been patiently waiting for. |
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