(L) Narutaru (Shadowstar) Manga

[Selo]

Originally Posted by tutui

but at the time I must have been around 14 so I don't think I'd been able to understand the series anyway

Really? I started reading it when I was 8 (no joke) and understood it just fine. Granted, that was only the first volume, but I started with all the following volumes at 11. I finished the whole series when I was 12, maybe 13, and still got all of it. A young reader of Narutaru I was, and still am, at almost 14 now! I'm most likely one of the youngest fans there is. EDIT: I've alway been under the impression that most American fans started by reading the Dark Horse versions in their teens.

Originally Posted by tutui

One question that... really isn't of importance but I'm curious about it anyway;

Spoiler for narutaru volume... 6???:

Before Aki Honda is killed by Hiroko, she's seen talking to her "lover". Now I can see pretty clearly that in the japanese tankouban Aki refers to the guy as "Oni-chan" aka (big) brother.

I don't know about you guys but that kind of shocked me (a little bit!).

Now, Aki Honda being about 12 is pretty much in-line with the recurring theme of pre-pubescent sexuality in Mohiro Kitoh's work.

But if someone is willing to clear up to me wether this guy is really Honda's bro or it's just a way of refering to her sweetums, I'd be pretty grateful, even though it's of next to no importance.

I always thought that was just a little change between the anime and the manga. Because I think in the anime she calls him "oni-chan", I think, and in both versions of the manga she just calls him "lover". Maybe he was changed from a much older boyfriend into a sibling for the TV show to remove the sexual connotations that might have been too hot for a more general audience.

[Dark Wing]

Originally Posted by Selo

Really? I started reading it when I was 8 (no joke) and understood it just fine. Granted, that was only the first volume, but I started with all the following volumes at 11. I finished the whole series when I was 12, maybe 13, and still got all of it. A young reader of Narutaru I was, and still am, at almost 14 now! I'm most likely one of the youngest fans there is.

You'll have to take into account that different people do mature at different rates. I'm 21 and get tessed a lot because I often act like I'm 30...

I always thought that was just a little change between the anime and the manga. Because I think in the anime she calls him "oni-chan", I think, and in both versions of the manga she just calls him "lover". Maybe he was changed from a much older boyfriend into a sibling for the TV show to remove the sexual connotations that might have been too hot for a more general audience.

I wouldn't be surpirsed if that were the case. They also tried covering her up a little in the anime...not by that much though.

Anyway I finally got to the end of the manga (as limited as my Japanese is) and wow it was so heart breaking to watch. Just when you think things would work out too. It has now made my most depressing series list. Also the whole NGE style end was a nice touch too. However I still can't get over that...

Spoiler:

They killed off everyone on the planet. I would've never thought she would go that fare. Well I kind of think it was justafied to wash the sin form the world etc.

[Selo]

Originally Posted by Dark Wing

However I still can't get over that...

Spoiler:

They killed off everyone on the planet. I would've never thought she would go that fare. Well I kind of was justafied to wash the sin form the world etc.

Yeah, in a way that was needed, but I think it's still more just a matter of

Spoiler for Narutaru:

Mamiko's attitude. She gets pleasure from killing, and from power, so she probably didn't think twice before wiping out the whole world. It was so heartbreaking to see Shiina messed up by all of it, without Mamiko even caring, and just proves yet again how messed-up the kids are in this series.

[Dark Wing]

Originally Posted by Selo

Yeah, in a way that was needed, but I think it's still more just a matter of

Spoiler for Narutaru:

Mamiko's attitude. She gets pleasure from killing, and from power, so she probably didn't think twice before wiping out the whole world. It was so heartbreaking to see Shiina messed up by all of it, without Mamiko even caring, and just proves yet again how messed-up the kids are in this series.

Their is one thing I couldn't get.

Spoiler:

Why exactly did Mamiko spare Shiina?

[Selo]

Originally Posted by Dark Wing

Spoiler:

Why exactly did Mamiko spare Shiina?

Because

Spoiler for Narutaru:

Shiina is her other half. Shiina is the "light to [Mamiko's] shadow". They complete each other, and you can't have one without the other. Together they make up the two halves of the world, and with Shiina and her baby dead, Mamiko's son would have no one to continue the human race with either. Mamiko understood that, and also considered Shiina a friend, so she had to keep her alive. She also wanted to try and teach Shiina how to harness her dragons' power, and that can't exactly be done without Shiina...

[Dark Wing]

Originally Posted by Selo

Because

Spoiler for Narutaru:

Shiina is her other half. Shiina is the "light to [Mamiko's] shadow". They complete each other, and you can't have one without the other. Together they make up the two halves of the world, and with Shiina and her baby dead, Mamiko's son would have no one to continue the human race with either. Mamiko understood that, and also considered Shiina a friend, so she had to keep her alive. She also wanted to try and teach Shiina how to harness her dragons' power, and that can't exactly be done without Shiina...

Oh I see they took the Twilight route. I always liked those kind of stories.

[Selo]

This is kind of redundant, but for those who don't feel like going through the whole thread for info again, and we've waited long enough, so here it is: a preposition for a big movement to save the English manga.

Dark Horse Comics has been emailed by several people from the Narutaru LiveJournal community and (I'm almost certain) members of this forum concerning future continuation of the series. Some people from the LJ comm, including myself, have gotten replies from the Dark Horse staff. The responses all had the same general gist, so I'm going to repost it here...

Originally Posted by Dark Horse online staff

Thanks for your interest in Dark Horse! Unfortunately we do not currently have plans to continue with the Shadow Star series (my reply added that they would "pass your letter onto our editorial department for review").

Keep an eye out on the Dark Horse website, in the manga zone, however, for all the latest and greatest information. You never know when something might change.

So that's it. Later questions revealed that the main reason for the series' cancellation was a lack of sales.

But there is hope! They still have the rights to the whole series, so the manga's fate still rests in their hands. We have to start up an email campaign - send mail to Dark Horse convincing them how great Narutaru is, how much the fans want it continued, and the rich opportunities they would have if they continued translating and printing it. Be sure to also compliment them on a job-well-done with volumes 1 through 7 and thank them for picking the project up in the first place With luck and hard work we might be able to turn their opinions around.

The actual email address to contact DH is unknown, so you can just use this form, which I'm pretty sure everyone who contacted them has done.

And, of course, if you haven't already, go out and support the series financially by buying all of the Dark Horse volumes that you don't have already. They're expensive, so buy them one by one if need be, but make sure to pick them up to show your love for Narutaru. They're great for those who can't get the raws; and DH won't want to consider reviving something that doesn't sell.

So let's hop to it! Who's with me?

[tsurumaru]

Hi all.

Since the English language licence holders have discontinued the release of Narutaru and the series may never see a full release I thought I would highlight the efforts of a couple ofpeople who have posted on 4chan's \a\ board. My apologies if I shouldn't be linking to this however it appears these guys wanted to see the translated series so much they took it into their own hands. I believe they are translating the official (continuing) German release into English.

Here are the links for Volumes 9 & 10 of Narutaru scanslated into English all credits go to the Scanslators:

http://rapidshare.com/files/64145671...vol.9.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/69298649...ol.10.rar.html

I realise some of you may not want to visit the chans so here is the direct rapidsearch link for any future releases that we might see.

http://rapidsearch.yi.org/?s=narutaru

Oh yeah and heads up, volume 10 is pretty strong stuff....

[Narutaru4ever]

Originally Posted by tsurumaru

Hi all.

Since the English language licence holders have discontinued the release of Narutaru and the series may never see a full release I thought I would highlight the efforts of a couple ofpeople who have posted on 4chan's \a\ board. My apologies if I shouldn't be linking to this however it appears these guys wanted to see the translated series so much they took it into their own hands. I believe they are translating the official (continuing) German release into English.

Here are the links for Volumes 9 & 10 of Narutaru scanslated into English all credits go to the Scanslators:

http://rapidshare.com/files/64145671...vol.9.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/69298649...ol.10.rar.html

I realise some of you may not want to visit the chans so here is the direct rapidsearch link for any future releases that we might see.

http://rapidsearch.yi.org/?s=narutaru

Oh yeah and heads up, volume 10 is pretty strong stuff....

WOW thanks alot, I've been waiting for someone to scanlate the rest of the volumes. Now I can finish reading the rest of the manga after all

[Selo]

OMG. Thank you so much, Tsurumaru! Now the LJ group won't get to do their scanslations, but at least we have an accurate English version and raws of all of the volumes - I can't thank you enough for this. And the possibility of 11 and 12 being scanslated makes me happy beyond belief. *bookmarks* Seriously, thank you! I can't wait to read these, plus I get the raws of chapter 29

Originally Posted by tsurumaru

Oh yeah and heads up, volume 10 is pretty strong stuff....

Ah yes, the infamous volume 10. Now that it's in English it shall probably now be more widely known as the one that can match book 6 in brutality and terror. It actually didn't freak me out much content-wise, though of course the events themselves were miserable.

Spoiler:

My favorites always die...

[BonBon]

Wonderful! Just as I started revisiting the series, too. Thanks so much!

[Iriliane]

It may be of interest to some of you that the series seems to have gotten a reprint recently as Amazon JP has all of the volumes in stock again. Even more interesting is that volume 12 is somehow managing to outsell the latest volumes of Bokurano.

[Selo]

^ Oh my God, that's fantastic! I have to tell the LJ community now! This is awesome, now the raws are available and people can get the series in Japan again. Hopefully this will convince Dark Horse to reconsider translating the rest of it in English too.

[burnout02urza]

Does anyone have an alternative upload of the volumes? I can't quite seem to download anything from rapidshare- Would someone be kind enough re-upload it to megaupload? ^_^

[Narutaru4ever]

Originally Posted by Selo

^ Oh my God, that's fantastic! I have to tell the LJ community now! This is awesome, now the raws are available and people can get the series in Japan again. Hopefully this will convince Dark Horse to reconsider translating the rest of it in English too.

Yeah and who knows, there may be hope that a second season might come out
(cross fingers)

[tarochan]

yay, a narutaru thread! its so hard to find a fanbase for narutaru D:

thanks for those links to vol 9 and 10. just a heads up, vol 11 is in english now too XD

[Bijoux]

I myself am finding this to be wondeful news!! But could someone clarify this for me? I was just on the Manga-Sketchbook sight, saw this news post, and then came over here to see if anyone else had seen it. Does this mean that they plan on reviving their Narutaru scanlation project? They don't seem to have any files up in thir downloads section, thouth I'v seen torrents of them.

Spoiler for Copy of the News Post:

Shadow Star - Narutaru
posted by Jinchi at 01:12am 21 Dec, 2007
Continuing Shadow Star as a scanslation since Dark Horse abandoned the series. Thanks to this goes to katydid's miraculous comeback!

Anyways, since the US/JAP edition volume issues, I'll just copy/paste my SS readme here:

Shadow Star, known in Japan in full as Mukuro Naru Hoshi Tama Taru Ko (The Star That Died And the Jewel Of A Girl) and abbreviated as Narutaru is a manga by Mohiro Kitoh.

Since Dark Horse, Shadow Star's US publisher, decided to split first 4 volumes of Narutaru to 5 Shadow Star TPB volumes, there has been some confusion. Especially since Dark Horse stopped publishing Shadow Star TPB's after 7th one, but continued printing it in Super Manga Blast anthology magazine for over 2 volumes worth of material.

To clear all this mess up, here is a "comparision chart" of the volumes:

1: Starflight // Chapters 1-4 (Japanese 1-5)
2: Darkness Visible // Chapters 5-10 (Japanese 6-13)
3: Shadows Of The Past // Chapters 11-15 (Japanese 14-20)
4: Nothing But The Truth // Chapters 16-20 (Japanese 21-23)
5: A Flower's Fragrance // Chapters 21-23 (Japanese 24-28)
6: What Can I Do For You Now? // Chapters 24-28 (Japanese 29)
7: Victim's Eyes, Assailant's Hands // Chapter 29 (Japanese 30-38)
8: Japanese 39-44
9: Japanese 45-48
10: Japanese 49 & 50
11: Japanese 51-61
12: Japanese 62-68

Above came from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Star

So besides the 7(6) volumes of TPB edition, SMB collected chapters 30-45 (and almost half of 46...) from Japanese edition. Which were volumes 7&8 and first 72 pages of volume 9 of Japanese edition.

So here we come to the difficult part: How to name the archives to make it most comprehensible.

1st: I decided to repack our original "chapter" releases to volumes and add a "(Dark Horse TPB)" to names.

2nd: I downloaded the anonymous SMB scans (kudos to whomever scanned those), re-edited them and packed as volumes 8&9 (Dark Horse SMB) following the original Japanese edition volumes 7&8.

3rd: When we get things running, I'll compile the first 72 pages of SMB releases + rest of volume 9 of original edition scanslations as volume 9 (SMB & JED) and continue scanslations from there with original Japanese edition volume and chapter numbering.

Thus the filenames will be following:

Shadow Star v01 - Starflight (Dark Horse TPB)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v02 - Darkness Visible (Dark Horse TPB)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v03 - Shadows of the Past (Dark Horse TPB)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v04 - Nothing But the Truth (Dark Horse TPB)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v05 - A Flower's Fragrance (Dark Horse TPB)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v06 - What Can I Do For You Now (Dark Horse TPB)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v07 - Victim's Eyes, Assailant's Hands (Dark Horse TPB)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v08 (Dark Horse SMB)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v09 (Dark Horse SMB)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v09 (SMB & JED)[m-s].zip
Shadow Star v10c49 (JED)[m-s].zip
.
.
.
Shadow Star v12c68END (JED)[m-s].zip

That's it, most likely. Assuming that we get it finished, one day.

-Jinchi



So, there is 3 vols of new stuff, of which 2 1/3 vols are cleaned SMB scans, 2/3 vol is a scanslation by katydid and me. These are irc/bt/brothel only release, but the future releases from v10 onwards will be available at website.
As one might notice, the pub scans we have aren't quite a top notch... actually they look like 100dpi scans enlarged to a set size. So if someone doesn't like the quality, feel free to scan it for us (v10&11 that is, v12 is quite all right).

Edit: 2 Questions...
1. Does anybody know where to get Chapters 30-44?
2. If Mangasketchbook where to re-release their scanlations, would they be for a direct download, or in another form, such as bittorrent? <-- Which I have no problem with.

[Selo]

Originally Posted by Bijoux

1. Does anybody know where to get Chapters 30-44?

I'm pretty sure those are the ones from Japanese volumes 7 - 9 that weren't serialized in their own graphic novels by Dark Horse, yet translated in Super Manga Blast!. I'll give them to you:

Links to direct downloads of chapters 30 - 44:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=72ZXY8TD
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XHTGD1I0
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X8FZ0SN8

There. That should be all of the missing ones.

[Bijoux]

Originally Posted by Selo

I'm pretty sure those are the ones from Japanese volumes 7 - 9 that weren't serialized in their own graphic novels by Dark Horse, yet translated in Super Manga Blast!. I'll give them to you:

Links to direct downloads of chapters 30 - 44:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=72ZXY8TD
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XHTGD1I0
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X8FZ0SN8

There. That should be all of the missing ones.

Thank you so much!

[ellifeedn]

After some time I finally got to read the series (up to vol. 10 now) and, while it was graphic and very disturbing in some parts, it was interesting. Can't wait to finish.

Spoiler:

After re-reading the spoiler summaries for volume 12, I was wondering why there were people trying to kill Shiina. My guess was that those people were killing anyone who had a dragon child and may have killed Akira, but that's anyone's guess at this point.