Seven Seas' Gunslinger Girl Re-Release now available!

Surely an exciting transition point for all of us GSG fans - after keeping the candle of enthusiasm burning in the darkness of obscurity for years now, a new dawn of greater recognition is finally approaching.

While it's yet to make its way across the pond, I understand that the first omnibus edition of Seven Seas Entertainment's edition of Gunslinger Girl should now be available in America. There's a preview version of chapter one on the internet for people who want to have a taste of the new translation.

So, for those closer to a Barnes & Noble than me - what's the new edition like? A triumphant return like we've hoped?

I know a few people have picked it up and they say the translation is better than ADV's original. Mine is on order with The Right Stuff, but the release date shows the end of the month.

SWEET!!!

-heads to Right Stuf as I pull out my Otaku discount card-

So I snagged a(nother) copy at Barnes & Noble and finished the first five chapters (Volume 1 of the tankoban).

The translation is quite different than what ADV did. Rather than do a literal translation, Seven Seas took what the Japanese version said and re-wrote it in "natural English". So it flows much better.

Seven Seas also based their translation on the entire comic to date, as opposed to the chapter itself. So Hilshire tells Triela in Chapter 2 that he met Mario Bossi in Amsterdam and Triela knows (well, assumes) that she was rescued from a snuff film, to cite two examples.

So if you are a first-time reader of Gunslinger Girl, there will be no surprises for you as the script already takes into account things that happen in future chapters and adjusts earlier chapter dialogue to reflect that.

Kiskaloo wrote:Seven Seas also based their translation on the entire comic to date, as opposed to the chapter itself. So Hilshire tells Triela in Chapter 2 that he met Mario Bossi in Amsterdam and Triela knows (well, assumes) that she was rescued from a snuff film, to cite two examples.

So if you are a first-time reader of Gunslinger Girl, there will be no surprises for you as the script already takes into account things that happen in future chapters and adjusts earlier chapter dialogue to reflect that.

Very unusual touch.

I got it a week ago. It's great! ^_^

I got it on Saturday at Forbidden Planet. It is a much better rewrite and the graphics have been lightened up, showing more details than the original.

I picked up my copy today at Chapters and, at the risk of great personal humiliation, I'll admit that I giggled with glee all of the way home.
The print quality is great, the new translations, as has been said, flows and feels much more "natural" than previously. I don't, however, like the way the new translations give away future information, such as with the examples Kisk gave. But that's a nitpicky point and having already read the series, a moot point for me. All in all, I am extremely pleased with it and fully intend to buy all future installments.

I was going to pick up a copy from Borders, but the company seems to be facing a bit of trouble lately (i.e. bankruptcy). Now my local Borders is dead. Damn Kindles, etc.

Ugh..my sympathies there, Godot. Call me old fashioned, but I've never been a fan of the whole, "Star Trek data pad" e-reader revolution. I understand the appeal of the things, but I'm a tactile reader. Half the enjoyment I derive from reading a book is actually holding a book in my hand. There's just something about the smell of the paper and the feel of flipping through each individual page that resonates within me.

ChaosKin640 wrote:Ugh..my sympathies there, Godot. Call me old fashioned, but I've never been a fan of the whole, "Star Trek data pad" e-reader revolution. I understand the appeal of the things, but I'm a tactile reader. Half the enjoyment I derive from reading a book is actually holding a book in my hand. There's just something about the smell of the paper and the feel of flipping through each individual page that resonates within me.

That said, there's a certain advantage to being able to carry a large reference library in your briefcase...i.e. stored on a laptop. I work at sea and there's no way I could take all the things I store on this machine (dictionary, world atlas, GsG chapters up to 69) that I use to write fiction along with me if I had to carry paperbound copies.

I've always been a late-adopter when it comes to new technology. I've never owned an iPod, and my mobile is a Sony-Ericsson model that's so old that when I went to buy a replacement charger for it I was told that they don't make them any more. However, when returning from my skiing trip and spending about half an hour rearranging my rucksack trying to wedge in Neil Gaiman's American Gods (661 pages), Matthew Farrer's Enforcer (758 pages), Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast (960 pages) and James Clavell's Shogun (1,126 pages), I experienced an epiphany.

CHRIST on a BIKE, I need a Kindle.

Robert Frazer wrote:CHRIST on a BIKE, I need a Kindle.

I've got a partner at work who has one of those...he likes it.

Advantages: Big memory, incredible battery life.

Disadvantage: It's only a book viewer, that's all it can do.

you can get the kindle app and use whatever you like to display the books

I did a quick side-by-side comparison of the two, and it's obvious the re-release is better. The artwork is mastered much better, and the translations certainly aren't as awkward. The only problem I have with it really is the baffling re-translation of the chapter names, specifically Chapter 1 and Chapter 6. They do a good job romanticizing the general script for the most part, but they use more literal translations for the chapter names, the first one going from "Observing the Heavens", a nice title that got the original point across, to "Astronomical Observations", a more accurate but less cool translation. Chapter 6 is especially strange, as the original title was "Vegetable Gardens" and was never in Japanese to my knowledge, but yet they changed it to "A Kitchen Garden", a vague and wholly unnecessary re-translation. Maybe I'm just being too nitpicky.