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Forum - View topicREVIEW: Wandering Son GN 3
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rizuchan
 Posts: 980 Location: Kansas |
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I watched the Wandering Son anime on Crunchyroll and the biggest issue I had was that aside from his sister, everyone seemed unrealistically accepting of Shu's crossdressing. I felt like it had a really interesting angle to explore but took an easy cop-out. But it sounds like the manga version here is really different. I'm gonna have to check it out.
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Kimiko_0
 Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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The anime covered only the first two books or so. I'm not sure how many there are in total, but FantaGraphics has up to #6 on their website for preorder.
I'm a little confused as to the status of that volume though. Volumes 4 and 5 can be preordered separately, but 6 is only listed as part of a set (of 4, 5 and 6). Anyway, in volume 3 I really didn't like Makoto. It feels like he's just messing with Shu for fun. I hope things will get better for Yoshino and Shu in the next book. |
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halochief_90
 Posts: 466 Location: Canada |
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Anyway, I think what the show was trying to say was that your real friends will be accepting of who you are, while the general public likely won't. |
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PingSoni
 Posts: 195 Location: Lansing MI |
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I own 13 volumes of the Japanese manga. It is still on-going, as is Aoi Hana.
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darkhappy1
 Posts: 495 Location: PA |
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Actually, the anime skips the first few volumes of the manga and starts at the point when they enter middle school. By that time, Shu already made a group of accepting friends, but if you watched near the end of the show, you would see that spoiler[the rest of the school was not as accepting once he came out. After all, there weren't many people that really knew about his crossdressing beforehand.] In regards to the manga itself, it's a shame that it seems as if the effort was near minimal in regards to the translation notes and sound effects. I've been incredibly slow in collecting the manga I want, but I'm worried that sales for this series are abysmal... |
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Dop.L
Posts: 725 Location: London |
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While I do love the way Fantagraphics have chosen to produce these books in a large hardback format, I can't help thinking they're shooting themselves in the foot by using the more expensive prestige format, while normal-sized (and therefore cheaper) volumes might be more accessible to the impulse buyer.
That said, I do really like the hardbacks, and I'll keep buying them as long as Fantagraphics keep publishing them. I do wish they'd publish them a bit more often though. |
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tuxedocat
 Posts: 2183 |
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Actually, I think they re-printed volume 1. I know it was only available for a while by re-sellers at ridiculous prices. Recently, amazon re-listed volume 1, which is why I have my three volumes now. I hope they keep going with it, but am disturbed by the spelling error, translator notes and lack of essay. Is Matt Thorn reducing his involvement with Fantagraphics or something? |
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Kimiko_0
Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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Oh, I hadn't noticed that it was middle school in the anime and elementary in the manga. It has been a while since I saw the anime. Ah, so that means the troubles in volume 3 are just temporary, and Makoto gets put on a bus? That's good to know 
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here-and-faraway
 Posts: 1529 Location: Sunny California |
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Here's a question for those of you who have gotten to volume 3 and beyond...
I bought volume 1 and thought the storytelling was VERY clunky. I rather like slow paced stories and the topic is interesting to me, but the actual execution (art work, panel lay-outs, pacing, dialogue, plot, etc.) felt mediocre at best. I had to wonder if the only reason the manga got so much praise was because of its unique subject matter. Does the actual storytelling get better? Or are the fans of the series fans because they really like the characters and/or subject matter? I'm not trying to start any flame wars here. I'd just love to hear what fans think. |
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SHODAN93
Posts: 37 |
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^ This is probably my most anticipated manga release currently. Before reading the manga, i checked out the anime on Crunchyroll which I fell in love with. Checking out the first volume from a library, I fell in love all over again. To me, I like reading this story more as slice of life that deals with the characters relations to each other with the LGBT issues as more of the icing on the cake. Although I can't identify with the characters and feel a bit indifferent to a person changing their sex, I think the author so far has done a great job in portraying why some of these characters are the way they are. After three volumes, i am amazed at how much I care for these characters. Matt Thorne did a fantastic job in translating this work (the scanlations are atrocious) . There is so many charming moments where I find myself laughing out loud. I think that since volume 1, things just got better and better. I urge you to not give up on the series and just check the other two volumes from a library if you are unsure. |
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SHODAN93
Posts: 37 |
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Kinda shocked about the Yuki chapter being a detractor. Her moments with Takatsuki in this volume were prob. my favorite.
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here-and-faraway
Posts: 1529 Location: Sunny California |
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Thanks for the thoughtful response. I'll give the series another try. |
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Suena
Posts: 289 |
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I really like this series; partly because I can personally relate to it a lot. Though I found the editor more annoying than not.
I thought that too. But it turns out the vast majority of what they publish is Western graphic novels. I'm actually surprised they've ventured to publish any manga. They want to present GNs as sort of "fine art" pieces, hence they are large hardcovers. I've also read Moto Hagio's Drunken Dream from them, it's a heavy volume but printed very beautifully.
I think your "better" is in the eye of the beholder. That's the style of the series. It's not going to change. I like it personally. |
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Sailor S
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That did make me a bit angry to see something like that in what is supposed to be a professional translation. If you don't want to give a cultural note on what Calpis is, that's fine. People who are curious will no doubt google it themselves. But to bring focus to that makes it feel exactly like what lazy fansubbers do. I expected better from Matt Thorn than that. All in all I'm enjoying this series, even though the subject matter is not something I generally care for or am particularly sympathetic to. Still, the author does a good job of drawing the reader in and portraying it all in a very realistic way. A person's close friends will be much more accepting of various aspects of them, much more so than society at large especially if said aspects are things that go against societal norms, so I'm glad it's not being portrayed with everyone in the school being just fine and dandy with it. And having seen the anime, I know life doesn't get easier. These early volumes and the post anime volumes are what I'm most interested in. |
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