What I read, Part 2

Another large staple of my literary diet is manga and Japanese light novels. (I watch anime too, but reading subtitles doesn't count.) The sources range from beautifully polished translations put out by Tokyopop and other publishing companies, to very rough, raw translations of unlicensed works put out on places like Baka Tsuki. Nothing gives me a happier thrill than learning my favorite light novels have been licensed for release in the US, because it means I'll 1. get a better story out of it 2. have a nice copy to keep on my bookshelf forever and ever and 2. have an excuse to reread the story.

Two good examples are The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and The Twelve Kingdoms. (Oh heck yeah, the fourth book was just released, time to go snag that!)

Light novels have no exact equivalent in Western publishing. I supposed they could be described as YA, but there is a length restriction to them (around 40,000 words a book), and a serialized expectation, that doesn't quite fit that category. Imagine all the depth and breadth of Harry Potter, but broken down into 200 page chunks, and released in 20 volumes. Zero no Tsukaima (unlicensed in the US, unfortunately) is approaching its 20th volume in Japan.

Manga, or Japanese comic books, tend to find more distributors in the US than their novel counterparts. I couldn't possibly list all the series I read, but the three I'm collecting these days are the shoujo (girls comic) series Ouran High School Host Club, Gakuen Alice, and Skip Beat. No mere comics for children, shoujo series deal with some very adult issues that would earn a serious R rating in the US - sex, drugs, sometimes rock and roll, but more likely teen pregnancy, homosexuality, incest, rape, death - the list goes on.

Sailor Moon was the classic shoujo introduced in the US during the late eighties and nineties, but even that show had to be severely stripped, chopped, and edited (even going so far as to change a lesbian couple over to "cousins" to avoid offending the tender English speaking girl's parent's sensibilities.)

But! The Sailor Moon manga was not censored at all, and you can still pick up some copies from bookstores if you know where to look.