CLAMP's Famous Works > Cardcaptor Sakura

Cardcaptor Sakura: TOKYOPOP Manga vs Dark Horse Omnibus

<< < (2/2)

Arcademan:
In the second part of my comparisons, this one will be the original TOKYOPOP release (which the first two books were released under TP's 'Chix Comix' brand) against the re-release of the 'authenic' manga version.

* The six books that make up the first arc are smaller in size than what we perceive as 'standard size' however in truth they are the exact same size as the Japanese manga books.

* As with many of the earlier manga books translated and released in America, the books read from left to right instead of the original Japanese left to right. Of course the result of this was that ALL of the artwork was flipped (which was delusional for me when I first got them because of the flip, I thought Sakura was a leftie like me!). Because of this, virtually all of the Japanese FX words in the action scenes had to be replaced with English because it's bad enough to have the artwork reversed, we wouldn't want to see Japanese text reversed as well, regardless whether we understood it or not. The result of that is the scenes looking like something out of the old Batman TV series with the 'DOOM' and 'DASH' and similar sound adjectives. The lettering in the book is all generic typeset and not easy on the eyes IMO.

* Hard as it may seem to believe, I found the paper quality of the older set HIGHER than the re-release as TP used white paper for the book, asimilar to Dark Horse' omnibus pages. The more I look back at TP's CCS books (all 12), the quality of paper used (most likely recycled paper material) makes it look very poor in quality overall.

* Alas, no specials in the original run like colored pages, Clow Cards and extra artwork.

Naturally, the old manga release by TP gets the lowest grade purely because of the flipped art and the lettering didn't help but plus points on art and paper quality.

Next time...I compare the CCS bi-lingual bookset to the TOKYOPOP and Dark Horse versions. You will be stunned! Well...maybe not ;)

Arcademan:
Continuing the comparisons of the different CCS books as the second Dark Horse omnibus has been released, this time I included the rarer bilingual version in this report. Pretty much what I posted in the original first post stands however I focused on some isolated pages, words and phases from each one:

OTP: Original TOKYOPOP (aka Chix Comics) 'flipped' version.
RTP: Re-released TOKYOPOP version
DHC: Dark Horse omnibus version
BIL: Bilingual version.

Note that the artbook on the cover of the second omnibus is from the 6th CCS book, which the BIL version has the most colorful one since it's a dust cover so the color is more vibrant on it.

THE BOOK OF CLOW!!!
OTP: 'If the Seal is broken, Evil will befall this world...'
RTP/DHC: 'Herein lie the Clow Cards...If their seal is broken...Disaster will befall this world...'
BIL: "When the seal is broken- Evil shall be set loose in this world!'

THE INVINCIBLE SPELL
OTP: 'Everything will be alright!'
RTP/DHC: 'I'm sure I'll be all right!'
BIL: 'Everything's going to work out fine! FOR SURE!' (referred to as 'Okay for Sure Magic Spell')
One can debate the true translation as my signature shows a slightly different wording from 'Zettai daijōbu da yo'. (Everything will surely be all right)

The background sound FX have been tweaked like before as the OTP version took out the Japanese symbols and added English sounding FX. When the RTP book came out, they put the original Japanese back in while the DHC and BIL versions use both.

SYAORAN'S RASHINBAN
The little mystic board Syaoran uses to home in on the Clow Cards is called a rashinban however the OTP version called it a 'derivator'  and the BIL a 'Mandala Board'.

Also some tiny little tidbits:

I looked at a page in the fourth book when Sakura is attempting to fly out of The Maze however it keeps growing up. As she screams:
OTP: "WHAAA!!!"
RTP: "HOEEEE!!!"
DHC: "EHHHH?!!"
BIL: "Oh, no!"

A couple of minor stuff with the names as in the OTP version, Cerberus is spelled 'Kerberos' and Yue is spelled 'Yueh'.

Finally, of course the OTP used flipped art which was standard at the time for most mangas released into the U.S. The ROP version had the bonus color cards in them, DHC, while having pages with the cards, does include addition bonus color pages of CCS artwork while the BIL version have them cool dust covers on their books, bringing out the vibrant colors though the pictures on said cover were cut shorted than the other three versions.

Despite the differences in a few things, they don't change any of the meaaning or take away from an outstanding manga series. Dark Horse will continue on with a third book which will cover books 7-9 of the original series which TOKYOPOP released as the "Master of the Clow" series 1-3. No release date has been set for the next omnibus at this time.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page