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Jan. 5th, 2010 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2When I first got into anime I watched a short OVA called Five Star Stories. It was interesting and had some very exotic-looking mecha. Soon I was buying Japanese manga at Uwajamaya, and the Five Star Stories manga was one of those. This was a much bigger series than anime had even been able to hint at.
I scoured online for information on the series, and learned that it was a very complex storyline (almost too complex, the author apparently sometimes forgets his own subplots and details). Translation was very difficult, and nobody ever picked up the rights to bring it out in English.
This may have been by design, as several years later the author himself formed a company to provide English translations. These were published in large volumes about 9x12 that were sold (so far as I know) exclusively through Uwajamaya bookstores. As soon as they came out I started collecting them.
Eventually I had the first 12 volumes of the English version of the manga. After this I stopped collecting them, partly because they came out slowly and I would forget which volumes I had, and later because the entire series slipped from my mind. For years I forgot to even check on the series.
This past November I decided to go back and read some of the series and pick up what I was missing. By this point, they were up to volume 26, but there was very little information on most of the volumes. Only a few were for sale via Amazon and these were for a lot of money. I ordered a copy of #14 because the price was not too bad, but my manga never came. Apparently the order was cancelled because Amazon no longer has any record of me placing the order. I'd received a confirmation when I first ordered it, and other stuff I ordered with it arrived fine. I never received notice of it being cancelled. But the company in question no longer shows it for sale.
In the meantime I had also checked Uwajamaya, on the theory that since they had the exclusive rights to the series they might be the only place to get these manga for a decent price. However, they did not have any volumes above #12. They had scattered lower-numbered volumes, and some related books that I wasn't sure exactly how they fit in to the manga picture, and that was it.
Per Wikipedia, there is no information on the future of the English volumes. It appears that they're no longer being published. Furthermore, it seems as if the later issues are out of print. On Amazon those issues which are for sale are generally listed for $60 or more, some well over $100.
*Sigh* I wanted to read the rest of the series, but I wasn't going to spend $60.00 per volume on it. I don't know why anyone would.
Anyway, after searching online for any other information on the series, I stumbled across scanned images of the out-of-print English volumes that I was missing. So I guess I can at least read the rest of the series now... or at least, up to the point where they stopped translating it. Issue 26 is not the end of the story. The manga is ongoing in Japanese, so far as I know. I haven't been collecting the Japanese manga for years either.
I scoured online for information on the series, and learned that it was a very complex storyline (almost too complex, the author apparently sometimes forgets his own subplots and details). Translation was very difficult, and nobody ever picked up the rights to bring it out in English.
This may have been by design, as several years later the author himself formed a company to provide English translations. These were published in large volumes about 9x12 that were sold (so far as I know) exclusively through Uwajamaya bookstores. As soon as they came out I started collecting them.
Eventually I had the first 12 volumes of the English version of the manga. After this I stopped collecting them, partly because they came out slowly and I would forget which volumes I had, and later because the entire series slipped from my mind. For years I forgot to even check on the series.
This past November I decided to go back and read some of the series and pick up what I was missing. By this point, they were up to volume 26, but there was very little information on most of the volumes. Only a few were for sale via Amazon and these were for a lot of money. I ordered a copy of #14 because the price was not too bad, but my manga never came. Apparently the order was cancelled because Amazon no longer has any record of me placing the order. I'd received a confirmation when I first ordered it, and other stuff I ordered with it arrived fine. I never received notice of it being cancelled. But the company in question no longer shows it for sale.
In the meantime I had also checked Uwajamaya, on the theory that since they had the exclusive rights to the series they might be the only place to get these manga for a decent price. However, they did not have any volumes above #12. They had scattered lower-numbered volumes, and some related books that I wasn't sure exactly how they fit in to the manga picture, and that was it.
Per Wikipedia, there is no information on the future of the English volumes. It appears that they're no longer being published. Furthermore, it seems as if the later issues are out of print. On Amazon those issues which are for sale are generally listed for $60 or more, some well over $100.
*Sigh* I wanted to read the rest of the series, but I wasn't going to spend $60.00 per volume on it. I don't know why anyone would.
Anyway, after searching online for any other information on the series, I stumbled across scanned images of the out-of-print English volumes that I was missing. So I guess I can at least read the rest of the series now... or at least, up to the point where they stopped translating it. Issue 26 is not the end of the story. The manga is ongoing in Japanese, so far as I know. I haven't been collecting the Japanese manga for years either.
