Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

Hey! Does anybody knows how can i buy usagi books in original version?. I've looked at a few import webs but haven't found nothing.
Thanks anyway...

Welcome to the dojo 何で&,

The original were created in english. Usagi, to my knowledge, has never been printed in Japanese.

Peace, maka

In deed, a warm Welcome to the Dojo, 何で&

As stated by Maka, there is no Japanese version of Usagi; and it would be reeeeaaaallllly complicated to print it for Japanese readership (left to right and back to front); talking about panel layout and word baloon space...

The fact that (if my understanding is correct) almost nobody in Japan reads American comics (aside from manga featuring Marvel/DC characters) probably doesn't help either. Still, it does seem a little ironic that UY has been published in so many different countries but not in Japan.

Jet_Jaguar wrote:The fact that (if my understanding is correct) almost nobody in Japan reads American comics (aside from manga featuring Marvel/DC characters) probably doesn't help either.

I am not sure if this is literally true. Stan Sakai has mentioned that Usagi Yojimbo is known in Japan, and the fact that someone set up a Japanese Usagi Yojimbo Dojo web-site also demonstrates that some Japanese readers are familiar with the English language editions. More recently, one of the English language newspapers in Japan even ran an interview with Stan about a year ago.

I think that the real problem is scale - When a manga publisher sells copies of their publications to a readership in the hundreds of thousand or millions, why would they bother publishing something that only five or ten or twenty thousand readers might be interested in.

As far as translating it, it shouldn't be much more trouble than translating a manga to English. Cut and paste the pages to correct the reading order and modify the word balloons to fit the new text. Or they could just reverse the images and make all the characters left handed zombies like Dark Horse did with the Lone Wolf and Cub books.

Steve Hubbell wrote: I am not sure if this is literally true. Stan Sakai has mentioned that Usagi Yojimbo is known in Japan, and the fact that someone set up a Japanese Usagi Yojimbo Dojo web-site also demonstrates that some Japanese readers are familiar with the English language editions. More recently, one of the English language newspapers in Japan even ran an interview with Stan about a year ago.

I've never heard that before. I had a feeling that I should qualify my statement that nobody in Japan reads American comics with a "if my understanding is correct."

Steve Hubbell wrote:...the fact that someone set up a Japanese Usagi Yojimbo Dojo web-site also demonstrates that some Japanese readers are familiar with the English language editions.

If you are talking about this page...
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown/5723/
...this was actually set up by my brother -- an American who studied Japanese language in high school and college.

Oops! I didn't know that. I thought it was set up by someone in Japan since the link from the main page of the Usagi Yojimbo Dojo here lists it as the UYD Japan.

Dear Readers,
I think Frederik L. Schodt will be perfect to translate Usagi Yojimbo.
I also think Dark Horse working with Kodansha Bilingual Comics will be perfect publishers.
I think the Japanese people will love to read Usagi Yojimbo.
Best wishes to all!
go

Jet_Jaguar wrote:

Steve Hubbell wrote: I am not sure if this is literally true. Stan Sakai has mentioned that Usagi Yojimbo is known in Japan, and the fact that someone set up a Japanese Usagi Yojimbo Dojo web-site also demonstrates that some Japanese readers are familiar with the English language editions. More recently, one of the English language newspapers in Japan even ran an interview with Stan about a year ago.

I've never heard that before. I had a feeling that I should qualify my statement that nobody in Japan reads American comics with a "if my understanding is correct."

when i was there (a long time from now) i saw very few foreign comics translated, one of them was Blacksad.

But it looks like Gordon make us a battle plan in order to get Usagi in Japan. Kodansha : agree !

Go Go !