Dark Horse Releases

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
Kaji-Ryohji said:
I bought the Japanese versions even though i can't read them, sure i can't really take them on the go (well only to look at the amazing drawings), but at least this way i feel like I'm supporting Miura a little and not stealing such a epic tale.
Thats how I roll... then again I make my wife tell me a Berserk bed time story before I go to bed. :carcus:

:sad:-"Please sweety, read me the story again about how the troll ripped his way out of that poor girls stomach!"

:schierke:- "Ok, just this one time!"

:ganishka:
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Ramen4ever said:
Yeah, well it's my money.  :griff:
Yep, and this is my forum, with rules clearly posted stating that if you partake of our translations and scans, you are expected to purchase the manga in some official form as a way to support it. What kind of fan are you, exactly?

[quote author=SKnet Rules, under Serious Infractions][Do not] Partake in the unauthorized use or distribution of SK.net translations. The translations our members work on are meant for the SK.net community only, to read along with the Japanese volumes of Berserk they purchase. [/quote]
and
[quote author=Rules for Current Episodes]
1. By downloading Berserk episodes from this website, you swear to this community on your honor that you will purchase the Japanese volume(s) they will be published in, whenever they will be available for sale.
[/quote]

Obviously, we can't check the receipts of every member, and under normal circumstances, this is an understood fact that is supposed to happen behind the scenes. However, you've made your non-support status of Berserk public knowledge now, and so I must deliver you an ultimatum.

Provide proof that you a paying fan of the series within 1 week's time, or your account will be removed.
 
I'm wondering what others thought of the Story of the Kite and the Hawk at the end of Volume 28? I thought the language was a bit weak to the original scans that I read before I found SK.NET, as per usual I suspect that it's me, and I'll get used to it soon enough.

In anycase it's amazing the level of detail that you can miss when you read berserk online vs live and in person. I had never noticed that Isidro gets a bottle smashed on his head, presumably for stealing the pumpkin, when he's trying to find Shierke.

Lastly,

I really hope we don't pay the price later if/and when the meaning behind king hanafabuku's name is revealed.

Namaste
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Jaze1618 said:
I really hope we don't pay the price later if/and when the meaning behind king hanafabuku's name is revealed.

But we already know what it means... A storm of falling flowers, which is most likely referring to Japanese cherry blossoms. For reference, the panel in which his name is mentioned:

Hanafubuku-Oh.jpg

Try typing "花吹雪" in Google Image Search and look what the results are.
 
It seems like DH sold very many copies of their volume 28 because my amazon order was pushed back saying they had sold out!! I couldn't believe it now I have to wait at least two weeksbefore they ship another one ... ... ... I guess it means DH is succesful at least?
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Kalie Ma said:
I guess it means DH is succesful at least?

Berserk is quite popular in the USA, there's absolutely no doubt about it. Maybe this means DH will release a deluxe edition one of these days. :serpico:
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Aazealh said:
Berserk is quite popular in the USA, there's absolutely no doubt about it. Maybe this means DH will release a deluxe edition one of these days. :serpico:

One can only hope. If they do I hope they include the colored pages with actual color like Viz does with Vagabond.
 
X

Xem

Guest
I bought the new volume a few days ago but haven't been able to read it (only flip through it briefly to look for printing errors) because my girl keeps taking it with her everywhere. :judo: I suppose I should be happy though, at least shes really into it. At the moment she's in the process of trying to convince a couple of her friends to read it at which point I found out that one of them had only seen the anime, and what's worse she only saw the Eclipse! Man, that would suck, what a spoiler.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
Rhombaad said:
One can only hope. If they do I hope they include the colored pages with actual color like Viz does with Vagabond.

Is that how the Japanese editions are?

To Deci - That's cool your girl is into berserk. Like I was telling Bob, there's nothing better than being able to discuss your most loved manga with your love one. You should be happy!
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Oburi said:
Is that how the Japanese editions are?

I'm not sure. Griffith or one of the other Vagabond fanatics on this site would probably be able to answer that question. I only recently got into the series after I saw so many people here reading it.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Honestly I'm a little unsure of what Rhombaad is referring to. But ... the earlier episodes (such as those in vols 1-4), had some really lightly-colored pages when they were first published in Animal House and Young Animal, but they're just black and white in the Japanese tankoubons so ... it's not like DH is skipping a step or anything.

These pages can be see in the Illustrations File.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Walter said:
Honestly I'm a little unsure of what Rhombaad is referring to. But ... the earlier episodes (such as those in vols 1-4), had some really lightly-colored pages when they were first published in Animal House and Young Animal, but they're just black and white in the Japanese tankoubons so ... it's not like DH is skipping a step or anything.

These pages can be see in the Illustrations File.

Yep, those are the ones I'm talking about. I know they're black and white in the original Japanese tankoubons, but if DH were able to somehow get the colored versions into the American releases, they'd sort of be the definitive volumes. Griffith and I discussed this at one point in the chat room; it's really just wishful thinking though.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
Walter said:
Honestly I'm a little unsure of what Rhombaad is referring to. But ... the earlier episodes (such as those in vols 1-4), had some really lightly-colored pages when they were first published in Animal House and Young Animal, but they're just black and white in the Japanese tankoubons so ... it's not like DH is skipping a step or anything.

These pages can be see in the Illustrations File.

Yea that's what I was wondering, thanks!

And yea I don't think you'll ever see those colored pages in any type of deluxe reissue darkhorse does for Berserk. And as Walter pointed out, it's good that darkhorse isn't skipping a step now, but I would doubt it for them to take an extra step and go above and beyond the quality of work of the Japanese editions. first they got to change that berserk logo!
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Oburi said:
And yea I don't think you'll ever see those colored pages in any type of deluxe reissue darkhorse does for Berserk. And as Walter pointed out, it's good that darkhorse isn't skipping a step now, but I would doubt it for them to take an extra step and go above and beyond the quality of work of the Japanese editions.

Don't be so negative, if they did a deluxe edition, they could be ambitious about it. :serpico:
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Aazealh said:
Don't be so negative, if they did a deluxe edition, they could be ambitious about it. :serpico:
Being an owner of most of the DH volumes, I can understand his pessimism. Many of the pages, particularly throughout the 13-18 run, aren't even centered on the page properly, with white boxes and printing instructions visible outside the pages' borders. There's several instances where the speech bubbles are outside the bound area (too far into the crease to read) and other printing errors. These are all things I've never even seen happen in other manga I've bought. Certainly not in the japanese editions ...

This all adds up to me believing that DH doesn't really have a very strict publishing standards, or even care about the quality of the product  :sad:
 
A

avidwriter

Guest
Walter said:
This all adds up to me believing that DH doesn't really have a very strict publishing standards, or even care about the quality of the product :sad:

It would seem. My guess would be printing on a large scale you get some errors in bulk now and then. I have some volumes where the problems you've mentioned occur often and others where I don't notice it at all. It's unfortunate but its the only source we have if we don't have to have to read a translation or read Japanese. :judo:
 
Something about the marketing for the US releases on the Darkhorse website really bothers me.

All of the pages for individual volumes 13 and up have the following blurb on them 3 paragraphs down from the main description:

"* Beginning with volume 13, the Dark Horse editions of Berserk contain material never-before-adapted to anime!"
http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/15-721/Berserk-Volume-29-TPB

I don't know how long they have been using this bit of mis-information, and I kind of see what they are going for, but in truth
Volumes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, and 12 all contain material never-before-adapted to anime.

Albeit volumes 4 and 12 only have 25 or so pages of said un-adapted material and volume 9 has what i'd guess is 35-50 pages...

Am I just being nit picky here, or is this something they would want to be informed of? I would be happy to write them about it. Does anyone know the correct place to send something like this?

Thanks for you feedback
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
I don't really think thats a big deal to be perfectly honest. It's just a marketing phrase to make anyone who has seen the anime to buy the manga. I wouldn't write them a letter telling them all the reasons why that is untrue...I'm sure they know. Seriously, there are so many other more important things to write them a letter about other than this.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Jaze1618 said:
volume 9 has what i'd guess is 35-50 pages...

More than that.

Jaze1618 said:
Am I just being nit picky here, or is this something they would want to be informed of? I would be happy to write them about it. Does anyone know the correct place to send something like this?

Honestly I think you're just being picky. And I doubt they'd care about it enough to change the way they're advertising the series.
 
Well just as long as they are not misleading the fans of the anime who would want to see the entire berserk series and would happily buy earlier volumes if it meant more things in the story after the eclipse would be explained.

Do people who only pick up volume 13 and beyond really think Skull knight had no other introduction, or that
Guts and Puck met during a two year gap featured in vol 14 but never had a true introduction?

Or maybe they seek out a forum ask questions on these specific instances.

Ok I've said my peace on the issue if there are no further takers. Thanks everyone for your feedback. I have a past history of arguing with others in on different forums who think the berserk anime is a fine replacement for volumes 1-12, and would try to direct other first timers down that road.. which is probably why this struck a chord with me in the first time.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Jaze1618 said:
I have a past history of arguing with others in on different forums who think the berserk anime is a fine replacement for volumes 1-12, and would try to direct other first timers down that road.. which is probably why this struck a chord with me in the first time.

Well, I think you know what my take on that issue would be, right? :miura:
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
Jaze1618 said:
Well just as long as they are not misleading the fans of the anime who would want to see the entire berserk series and would happily buy earlier volumes if it meant more things in the story after the eclipse would be explained.

Do people who only pick up volume 13 and beyond really think Skull knight had no other introduction, or that
Guts and Puck met during a two year gap featured in vol 14 but never had a true introduction?

Or maybe they seek out a forum ask questions on these specific instances.

Ok I've said my peace on the issue if there are no further takers. Thanks everyone for your feedback. I have a past history of arguing with others in on different forums who think the berserk anime is a fine replacement for volumes 1-12, and would try to direct other first timers down that road.. which is probably why this struck a chord with me in the first time.

Any true fan, or anyone with a hint of intelligence, would never substitute the anime for the actual books. And if they do, I wouldn't even bother trying to help them. It's their loss.
 
Think of the anime show as a gateway drug to the manga addiction and everyone will get past it :badbone:

I can see both sides of the argument that's happened over the past few pages. DH farms out the translation to a company that basically does JUST that, to reduce their own costs and bring what people want (which is Berserk in english) in a reasonable timeframe. They have a guy who we all know and love who does the editing and has to make some judgement calls. Some are good, some are not so good, some are ugly. Keep in mind that the outcomes would have to do with a lot of factors, such as: is this guy a big fan? Does he have a basic grasp of the language? Is it OK per Hakusensha to say it this way? In what context is this spoken? I haven't done translation in years, but I know that context is certainly the hardest part to grasp at least for me.

So while there are some gripes you have to admit, it is certainly nice to have a copy that is fairly easy to pick up and read, and let others read it. Part of my enjoyment of a book or story is sharing it with others. The anime used to be the way to do it, but DH has made it to where even my GF can read it because she wants to see why I like it so much. Admittedly it's not her cup of tea, but at least she kind of gets it. Before, sharing Berserk meant a shitload of researching on your own or listening to some supernerd prattle on which probably isn't the best idea particularly since I have been guilty of it :serpico:

I sent the DH guys a couple of emails with a few small grievances and the best I can hope for is that they might change it sometime in a new edition or going forward. In the end, having Berserk in English on my doorstep every couple of months kicks ass and I'll still buy it.

At least until we catch up.

And then the pain begins again.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
Excellent post, Cronus. I agree, there is nothing better than having the manga in English and being able to share it with friends, and for that, I am grateful to Darkhorse. However I will continue being critical of their performance seeing as how Berserk means so much to me.
 
Cronus said:
So while there are some gripes you have to admit, it is certainly nice to have a copy that is fairly easy to pick up and read, and let others read it. Part of my enjoyment of a book or story is sharing it with others. The anime used to be the way to do it, but DH has made it to where even my GF can read it because she wants to see why I like it so much. Admittedly it's not her cup of tea, but at least she kind of gets it. Before, sharing Berserk meant a shitload of researching on your own or listening to some supernerd prattle on which probably isn't the best idea particularly since I have been guilty of it :serpico:

I sent the DH guys a couple of emails with a few small grievances and the best I can hope for is that they might change it sometime in a new edition or going forward. In the end, having Berserk in English on my doorstep every couple of months kicks ass and I'll still buy it.

My thoughts exactly. The translations might not be up to everyone's expectations, but I'm still grateful for having Berserk in English. Endless discussion about what if's is a bit pointless.
 
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