Volume 1 of Railgun is as fun as ever in Seven Seas' English-language edition. I've already reviewed this volume and don't have any commentary to add about the story. I'll just cover the English adaptation here. The translation is on par with Seven Seas' usual work- very good, smooth and natural-sounding, retaining the honorifics. (Including "Oneesama", thankfully. I would cringe at Kuroko calling Mikoto "Big Sister", even if it technically would be an accurate translation.)
Even though Railgun doesn't drop any Japanese cultural/pop cultural references (unlike something like, say, Hayate x Blade), a translation page would have been welcome, to explain the honorifics. And even though though "Sparky" makes sense as a translation for "Biri biri"...I guess because of what I'm used to, I would prefer "Biri biri" to be left alone and explained with a translation note. (It wouldn't deter readers. The average English-speaking manga fan loves to learn random bits of series-related, pragmatically useless Japanese vocabulary that they can use to develop inside jokes with other fans.) The character profiles, the one bonus 4-koma, and the end notes by Kogino Chuuya (the illustrator for the Index manga; don't really know why he's commenting in this volume instead of Fuyukawa Motoi) and Kamachi Kazuma are still present, and there's a preview of the Toradora manga in the back.
Same grades as when I first reviewed this volume.
Art: B
Story: B
Overall: B
This is my first review of a manga that I originally reviewed in Japanese. (Hopefully I'll be able to do a lot more! ^__^)
I'm not going to review volume 6 of Railgun on its own. Because of how sparse Kuroko's role is in it, I'll wait to review it together with volume 7.
O.O i just saw that anime!!!! what a coinsidence ;)
ReplyDelete@frida- Indeed. :-)
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