Otakuism

As most know Tokyopop released their version of the Welcome to the NHK manga last month, making this a belated review. So how does it stack up with the original?

First off I think this is the best ‘made’ manga I’ve ever bought from tokyopop. One of the main issues I’ve always had with tokyopop (aside from their many crappy titles and OEL foolishness) is their inconsistent quality, from altered covers (I hate how they put a red spine on most of their covers), grainy printing, or dubious translation. Clearly TP doesn’t have the best track record. However NHK vol. 1 is their best effort to date. the cover is kept the same, random words and all, and the spine actually complements the colors instead of going against it. The printing is very clear, nothing looks grainy or splotchy. They even put in three full color spreads! That’s very good by TP standards. Only thing I didn’t like is that the parental advisory warning is on the cover, instead of being on the wrapping or something. Kind of ruins the flow of the cover. I wish more manga was wrapped, as it really preserves it’s freshness, and the manga doesn’t get messed up in stores.

So how about the translation part? For this I’m measuring TP’s translation to the scanlations I’ve used. Going by the scanlations the translation seems very faithful to the original. I like how they didn’t replace words like hikikimori, moe, or lolita, and just used footnotes to explain them. I wonder if most american fans know what moe is by now? Anyways there’s no editing I can see, including the ecchi Misaki fantasies. I guess there’s a reason it’s rated mature. Storywise, Vol. 1 covers the intoduction up to Satou’s Mom coming to visit. It’s nice to have a simple way to look back on things without digging through scanlations. There’s also the extra’s, like Satou’s visual novel proposal which turns into a rant on why he hates himself, and 4-koma comics after each chapter.

Overall it’s a very nice presentation for an excellent series. Hopefully TP will maintain this degree of quality for later volumes, and maybe even other series. I really wish TP offers extra’s in later volumes, like the Misaki figurine or the visual novel from vol.6. No way that will happen, but it’s nice to dream about. Please someone translate True World…