Dantalian no Shoka

[Cosmic Eagle]

Ummm....why's this topic reported?

[Kadi]

Report reason "RAWs", explanation "finally, just what I was looking for". But in the reported post, there was no link for RAWs or anything problematic, so I closed the report for now.

[kuroi_shinigami]

Mh... personally, I still enjoy reading it and I think it still has a nice 雰囲気, but there are two problems I have with the series:

1. It has gotten a little "lukewarm" toward the later volumes, IMO. I have the feeling the dark elements have decreased slightly, though that's just what I felt while reading. If I look at the pictures now, I don't get that impression so much anymore.
2. A main storyline is next to non-existent. This may change now that Dantalian isn't serialized in the Sneaker anymore, but I would have wished for a bit more of a greater plot. E.g. you don't hear anything of that mysterious girl in the Bibliotheca until volume 7.

Well, but other than that it's a nice, atmospheric read. And after all, I've always ordered the latest volume right away until now.

Btw. I'm going to start working on the last chapter of volume 3 soon, because I love Hal & Flamberge. Maybe even today.

2nd point is my minor concern too, but since I'm pretty patient waiting for plot development(usually, unless it gets to repetitive), it's not a problem yet for me with just 8 volume out so far. Anyway, considering your test(which is more....specific than me IMO ), I'm sure it's still good from reading your post. I'll start reading from vol 2 then. Thanks for the answer, and hopefully one day you'll feel like translating this series again

[Cosmic Eagle]

Just got vol 8......when was it's official release date though?

[kuroi_shinigami]

31 June 2011 supposedly. I just placed my order on my local kinokuniya on vol 7 and 8. Now to wait around 1 month for it to arrive while trying to catch up

[larethian]

this means that this title has also become a regular for Kino Singapore. it probably came by sea. either that, or in line with the anime perhaps.

[EusthEnoptEron]

And they come with that horrible anime artwork wrapped around them.
Luckily the 8th volume wasn't infected.

[kuroi_shinigami]

Eh? Is the anime's artwork that bad? I personally don't think it's that bad, might be because my standard is too low though .Or are you talking about a particular illustration that's used for wrapping the novel?

[Doraneko]

I am with Kuroi. Gainax has surely taken a very liberal approach towards the character designs, but I don't find them inferior to the novel art in any way. IMO the anime design shows a greater degree of liveliness and detail.

If anything, the manga art pwns them all. 異論は認めない。

[Cosmic Eagle]

My favorite is still the novel art....carries G-Yuusuke's signature the most.

[EusthEnoptEron]

Manga art looks nice, but I'm afraid it stands no chance against GYuusuke's art, which happens to be kagirinaku close to absolute perfection. (Yes, I'm a fanboy. Did you notice? )

The anime art fits the anime just well, I'll admit that, but that's no excuse for uglifying all novels.

[Cosmic Eagle]

(Yes, I'm a fanboy. Did you notice? )

Glad to know I'm not the only one....Have always been a fan since I played Light's games

[kuroi_shinigami]

Hmmm... After almost completing 3 volumes, there's one small thing I didn't like from the novel. The author use copy paste too much in his description of certain scene(such as the opening gourd world's gate scene, or Huey's and Dantalian's description scene). I mean, I know that the scene doesn't change that much, but this is a novel that lives by flow of the world. Be creative and change the wording to make the scene more fresh, even though it's the same scene. Every time I read those parts of the novel, I always get the urge to just skip some line because it's almost the same line. It's like watching an anime using a reused footage for some repeatable scene(like the Freedom Gundam all out attack footage in Gundam Seed )

But, even with all that, I love this novel, and it's very easy to pick up in the middle due to the short story format, and this novel sometimes do give surprises when none of the supporting cast die

[Kadi]

Actually, Eusth once thought about collecting those repeated phrases and keep them similar in the translations as well... I don't know whether he actually did, though.

Apart from that, I think those repeating descriptions are intentional. They make Dantalian no Shoka what it is. The chapters are stand-alone, and the descriptions create a connection between them. It shows that it's the same 2 characters (or sets of characters). You say that varying descriptions show the progress of the setting, but is there actually such progress? From my chats with Eusth, I got the impression that there is not, or not much, at least until Vol 6. And the repeating descriptions support that.

Hmm... you tire of the descriptions because you read them too often, don't you? Why don't you take a break break of about a month after each chapter? Or take a longer break after finishing all of them before you return to re-read one or two chapters? If you do, you might actually feel nostalgic or something when you stumble upon those Dantalian-style cookie-cutter lines ^^.

[kuroi_shinigami]

Hmm, not tired of it, more like a nagging feeling whenever I read that part of "I think I've seen this exact sentence before" . Like I said, it's just a minor thing, but somehow it manage to make an impression on me. It's not the fact that the author describe some thing in the same way that bother me, it's the author's choice of using the exact same word. I mean, even when describing the same thing, we usually never use the exact same word unless it's some rehearsed words for an official event right? It's not like the author's vocabulary is lacking or something since he does able to use different vocabulary in some description. The fact that the author chose to use the exact same word makes it looks a little unnatural when you read through the whole volume, although not big enough to reduce my impression on the series as a whole.

I agree though, considering that the novel is basically a collection of short stories from monthly magazine, I guess it won't bother people who read each story on a span of a month as much as it is on me who read 3 volumes on a span of 3 weeks