Miura Painted Cover of New Guin Saga Book

Walter

Walter

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miura-guinsaga.jpg

(click to enlarge)
Amazon Link: http://tinyurl.com/q9hhr88
Official Publisher Link w/info: http://www.hayakawa-online.co.jp/product/books/21114.html

Miura did the cover illustration for a June publication of a Guin Saga tribute book. As fans will know, Guin Saga was a long-running fantasy novel series by Kaoru Kurimoto that was a big inspiration for Miura in creating Berserk. Kurimoto passed away in 2009 at age 56 of pancreatic cancer, having completed 130 volumes in her series.

From what I can gather of its description, this tribute book, the eighth in a series, gathers short stories from different writers to continue her story.
 
The art looks great as usual! It makes me happy to know Miura was able to "give back" to one of his biggest influences.

I wonder if he wrote one of the short stories for this volume or only provided the cover?
 
Hanma_Baki said:
Fascinating! Has anyone here read any Guin Saga?
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I've read the Guin Saga novels also, the first three Vertical Inc. hardbacks. Really loved the first book, "The Leopard Mask", but the story seemed to peter out by the end of the second one. However, what also got my attention about the English adaptation of Kaoru Kurimoto's Guin novels was the crisp and impressively deft translation work done by none other than Alexander O. Smith himself. The man is truly capable of taking on any and all the archaisms, ambiguities and almost-poetic peculiarities of the Japanese language, and rendering them into perfectly coherent and easily digestible English with a remarkable degree. This is particularly noticeable when reading most of Rinda's, Lady Amnelis' or even some of Guin's own dialogues. Just one exaple off the top of my head - when Remus, the twin brother of Rinda, gets too talkative with somebody, his twin sister snaps at him "Give your tongue such freedoms and you will be bound to lose it!"
Would have really loved to see Mr. Smith handling the English translation of Berserk manga.
 
Rhombaad said:
Kinda brings a tear to my eye. :judo:
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The readers of the Kaoru Kurimoto's Guin series will immediately recognize that Miura-drawn cover shot of the titular hero Guin. It's taken from a scene from the first novel, "The Leopard Mask", where Guin, after his capture and imprisonment in a castle, is forced to fight a giant man-eating silver gorilla for the entertainment of the castle's demonic lord.



Hanma_Baki said:
Cool, thanks for the info, man! :guts: I really appreciate that sort of quality.
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No problem :serpico:

Here's some more examples of of Mr. Smith's translation gems for you, from a dialogue in the first book, where Guin describes to his fellow protagonist Remus, one of the royal twins of Parros, his personal encounter with count Vanon, the castle's lord;

"You do not understand.; you were not there. I had the count at sword-point. I was standing this close to him, when my body began to shake like I had come down with a fever. I tried to stop the trembling, but it was no use. My legs, my arms, every part of me shook like a young bird in a nest of vipers. It was as if I was hanging above the mouth of hell by a thin thread, and I looked down into the abyss and saw... nothing."

Again, why couldn't they hire this man to translate the Berserk manga into English? :judo:
Oh right, the translators of this caliber cost a hefty penny.
 
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