Not that long ago, English translations of Japanese manga were mere curiosities -- particularly those that were "unflopped," that is, printed from back to front, with the panel flow running from right to left (requiring a bit of mental retraining to read) as in the Japanese original. Such translations probably sold, at most, a couple thousand.
Flash-forward to today, and the Los Angeles Times' So Cal bestsellers list for fiction paperbacks. Ensconced at Number 6 is the latest English-translated volume of Naruto, the fantasy ninja manga currently being printed in the American version of SHONEN JUMP magazine, and the animated version of which is playing Saturday nights on Cartoon Network. I can't recall many, if any, American graphic novels (apart from collections of newspaper comic strips) that have acheived the same rank.
No comments:
Post a Comment