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Manga Bio of Galactic Railroad's Miyazawa Translated

Earlier this year, Japan and Stuff Press translated and published a biography told in manga form of Kenji Miyazawa, author of Night on the Galactic Railroad and other classics in children's literature. The biography is titled The Manga Biography of Kenji Miyazawa, Author of Night of the Milky Way Railway.

Night on the Galactic Railroad was made into an anime film by Gisaburō Sugii in 1985. (Milky Way Railway is an alternative English translation of the original Japanese name for Night on the Galactic Railroad, Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru). Shōji Kawamori (Macross, Escaflowne) adapted Miyazawa's own life into the anime television special Ihatov Gensou: Kenji no Haru (Vision of Ihatov: Kenji's Spring).

The original version of the biography, titled Manga Miyazawa Kenji, was published in Japan in 1993 by Kashiwa Shobo. The book features art by Ko Yano, an UNESCO award-winning illustrator and mangaka best known for creating textbooks for manga art classes. Japan and Stuff Press posted the first 16 pages of the book online.

In addition to Night on the Galactic Railroad and other novels, Kenji Miyazawa was also a poet and a high school teacher of agricultural science. Miyazawa was famous for his devotion to Buddhism and social activism.

Central Park Media released the Night on the Galactic Railroad anime film on DVD in North America, and Tokyopop released Kenji's Spring under the name Spring and Chaos on DVD.

Sources: Japan and Stuff Press via MangaBlog, Bunka Plaza