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*fangirly squees!!*
I've been meaning to babble about Skip for some time, and I do believe today is the perfect day. Why?? Because my first issue of Hana to Yume arrived!! Ohhhh yeah. XD And Skip is on the cover, no less!! XD XD XD Kyoko and Ren, in formal wear. Eeeeee!!! So lovely!!!!
This issue's chapter is Act 105, which is very interesting, since I'm lettering Act 58, in vol 10. Whoa! I knew Skip was out to vol 15 in Japan, but...either Skip has some very short chapters/acts in vols 11-15 (which is the latest volume to my knowledge) or the series has already reached the 20 volumes's worth of pages, and the tankoubon are far behind, even in Japan. O_o
Since I must know what is happening, I'm translating it myself. Heh. ^^V Of course this takes me forever and a day, since I have to look up 80% of all the words, but at least I have the grammar down. Aside from the odd spot check, I don't have to look up anything in regards to that. Yay, me! This next bit will likely give all of you a rather large sweatdrop, but I love love, LOOOOVE translating. It makes me giddy with joy to find the perfect word and render the Japanese into English. Yes, I realize this makes me a complete geek, but I don't care. I love it and I only wish I could do it more often! *blows raspberries at all who might mock her obsessive fangirl nature* And it will be interesting to compare my amateur version to the professional one. You know, in 1 or 2 years, when we make it this far. O_o
And no, I'm not going to scanlate the chapter, or post raw scans, or even only the translation. I believe that would be rather foolish in my position, ne????? I don't have a scanner anyway, and I keep procrastinating when it comes to buying a new one. I will, however, loan out the magazine and my translation to friends who want to read. Those of you I don't know IRL...gomen. You're stuck. m(_)m
Now, for this chapter's content! Anything spoilery for the current English release (which is now up to vol 6) will be in white type. Highlight if you want to know! But this is so far ahead in the story that aside from a couple of things, spoilers are rather inapplicable. O_o
A flip-through reveals that Kyoko and Ren are still acting in their drama, Dark Moon. Interesting. The chapter actually begins with Kyoko talking with a new character we haven't met in volumes 1-6, or even to 13. Apparently he has Hollywood ties, according to the character summary in the margins on the first page of the chapter. This is Skip, so of course he is a bishounen. :3 If you want to picture him, imagine Ren, make his hair pale instead of black, and give him about 15 pounds more muscle. There's the new guy. ^^
As of the third page, he's informing Kyoko that she shouldn't be so shocked at the idea of playing a male role in her acting (which is apparently where the previous chapter ended. He must have suggested the idea to her as the cliffhanger.) He's really giving her a lecture about it, too...lots of big words for me to look up. X_x I'm still in the middle of said lecture, so that's all I have to share for now. Fear not, I'll give a nice, detailed summary in here once I finish. And maybe continuous updates every few days as I complete more pages. I hope I can finish before the next issue arrives, which should be in about two weeks. I translate only while I eat and during the odd 15 min break, so it really will take me a while.
And because I find it very fascinating, a quick description of the Hana to Yume magazine itself. It's rather sad that in 11 years of my anime and manga fandom, this is the first issue of a Japanese manga magazine that I have ever bought or even looked at. X_x I'm a bad fan. X| Anyway, the thing is HUGE. About 1.5 inches thick, 450 pages or so. X_x The paper is surprisingly coarse, much rougher than what you find in Shojo Beat. The pages are printed in a variety of colors: purple ink on white, purple again on cream, turquoise on white, black on pink, and black on light green. (I can imagine the reaction of Shojo Beat subscribers if that mag was printed on colored paper. They would freak out, in a not-so-ecstatic way. I think the color changes are neat. So :P on them!) It contains chapters from 13 different manga series. Wow! I had hoped that there would be one or two other titles in addition to Skip that I would know (like Vampire Knight, or FuruBa, or any others, actually) but alas. It's probably for the best, since I'll be doing good to keep up with Skip alone. X_x HtY has much more manga in proportion to ads than Shojo Beat. A LOT more. I also only saw about 5 pages or so of articles/interviews/notes/ and whatnot, but I could be missing several. I guess Shojo Beat really is tailored to NA tastes by the lower manga/non-manga ratio, rather than mimicking the Japanese original manga magazines. Hmmmm.
My subscription is through CD Japan, if anyone is curious. I bought the shortest subscription length they offered, three months, as a personal trial run. Hana to Yume is published twice a month, so I'll have 6 issues in a row! Wheeee!! I find it interesting that the price on the cover of HtY is 300 yen, or about $3. The cover price of one issue of Shojo beat is $6. Twice as much manga in HtY, for half the price. Hmmmmmm...very curious. I'm sure there are many factors that bring about this huge difference of which I cannot even begin to imagine--the least of which being HtY having to compete against a hundred other manga magazines--but still. Hmmmmm.
Okay, I've babbled enough for this post!! I'll talk about non-HtY Skip next time. XD I think I'll post a slightly edited version of this in the Shojo Beat comm. Why not? They already know I'm obsessed with Skip, and I think they might find the comparisons between HtY and Shojo Beat interesting. Hmmmm.