Astro Boy Manga

[KKCH]

I am currently interesting in buying astro boy manga and i am just wondering if the Dark Horse ones are good. Also, I check that there are 18 in the series, plus 3 on his past and 2 on Side stories in the japanese version. Does the dark horse ones include those?
Oh, is the chinese one good? (I saw 2 of them, one from CITICOMICS and from "Ten Thousand Miles")
Oh, one more question, the ones from Dark Horse, did they rearranged the order of the stories?


Thx in Advance

Edit: Can you people give me site where i can buy them online cheap (possibly in Canada?)?

[Breakman]

I am selling those five "3 on this past and 2 on Side stories" for $29.99 on Ebay. Astro Boy manga cost $9.99 each so you will be saving $19.99. Barely any wear and no tears. (Please, someone buy. I want to get money for some new videogames. ^_^)

Astro Boy Manga Dark Horse (5 Books)

The Dark Horse translation is suppose to be very accurate except that they changed Atom's name to Astro. I also noticed that sometimes, if people say "ouch" or a very short sentance, Dark Horse do not translate it. I only seen it done about 3 times in my 15 volumes.

Dark Horse did change the order of stories but if it is a continuation story, it would be in consecutive volumes.

[jeffbert]

I have 1-22 of 23. The stories are not in chronological order, but what do I care? The side-stories are in the last of those volumes, and are also quite good.

[KKCH]

So the stories are not in order of the story's timeline nor the published order?
If so, does the book flow well when you read it?

[jeffbert]

Each story runs its full sequence, but stories published in 1951 might appear in book 6, while those published in 1955 might appear in book 4. The stories themselves are quite satisfying. There did not seem to be much of an overall polt running through the series as a whole, though, so the order is ok.

[tinlunlau]

i had one volume of the hong kong citicomics edition of astroboy. i remember it was out of chronological order but that didn't matter. they were still very enjoyable.

[Haruka-chan]

I have the Dark Horse manga 1-15. I also have two volumes of the Japanese release in the little white books.

Dark Horse have done a great job. Only things i don't like:

- Printing quality. It is very good in general but never matches the Japanese releases quaility. There are a few volumes where the colour segments of the manga turned into greyscale look really bad as compared with how they turned out in the Japanese volumes AFAIK.

- Flipped manga. Ok minor issue is that they flip the manga so it reads the Western way. Personally i don't like looking at mirror images of what someone drew. It's ok but it mucks up any directions that were important and as an artist i know that mirroring your work can bring up slight imperfections.

The manga order is fine and the stories flow nicely. It's kind of interesting for the stories to jump around a bit and even a few of teh Japanese releases of teh manga were not in chronological order. In many manga stories Tezuka draws a little introduction to explain the story and where it fits in overall in the series of things

[DrFrag]

If I can throw in my own 2 cents...

The Dark Horse manga is about as definitave as you can get. There are noted on this in the afterword of the final volume. All original Astroboy stories are included, plus a couple of others where Astro made significant guest appearances. It's basically a translation of the most authorative Japanese compilation, plus a bunch of added extras.

The stories are not in order but it makes more sense for them not to be. For example, the story "The Birth of Astroboy" was written in 1975, 24 years after the original manga started. Tezuka simply didn't write the stories in order, and he made many adjustments to the storyline over the years. Overall, the Dark Horse compilation is as accurate and entertaining as you can get (regarding chronology), all things considered.

I only spotted two printing errors. One was a page that had an offset shadow of itself, and the other was someone indicating "left" when it should have been "right" since the pages are mirrored.

It took me two or three issues to get into it, as I am not big on comics or B&W media. But I have discovered the appeal of the medium now and really enjoy the stories.

[ozfiz]

my parents brought me i think books 3 and 4 for my b'day from kings comics. i love them. i cant say if they are better then others or not, cause ive never seen any of the others to reallycompare. but i read them in less then a week,
i just wish i had more.

the funny thing was i told my parents the shop was near the opera house. but appartently its up the other end of george st. they said they looked for the store about an hour and almost gave up.

if anyone can help me and give me the isbn's i might be able to order more in at my local comic book store in newcastle..???

[Haruka-chan]

kings comics??? ouchie :S they are expensive....like $20-24 i think. Next time tell then to go to Kinokuniya (Town Hall intersection). They sell Atom manga from $13.90-$17.90 depending on when they got them and how good the exchange rate was.... there are mainly $13.90 ones and a few $15.90 (with the rare $17.90 ones) on the shelf and they have multiple copies of each manga so its a matter of checking each one of that volume to make sure you have the best price tag. And if you spend $40 you get a discount card for 10%. Besides there aren't any anime shops near the opera house ^^;;; trust me.

You can order from them too and i don't think postage is too much... IIRC didn't another Aussie on the board order from Kinokuniya?