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The Manga Thread: Unlimited

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I recently read a scanlation of the first three chapters of Living Together in Scandinavia, a manga about a Japanese couple who moves to Sweden, and has to learn about Swedish customs, Swedish food and the Swedish language. As someone who is fascinated by foreign depictions of my home country, I am of course eating it up.

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It's especially interesting to read the translation, since the original manga have occasional speech balloons with Swedish words, with the Japanese translation underneath, and I can imagine that it must be an extra difficulty for a translator to keep track of three languages at once.

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I'm a little curious: Is this a unique premise for a manga, or are there other similar "learning about a another country" mangas like it?
 
There are, but I don't know of any myself. You might try browsing the tags that users have applied to it at MangaUpdates, though some of those might be too specific and focused on plot details. For instance, the "Living Abroad" tag is a thing, but that doesn't cover cases where there's a cultural focus that uses a different framing device than Japanese expats.

I'd be remiss if I didn't praise A Bride's Story, which I love. It is not quite what you asked about, because it's set in the mid-19th century rather than modern day. But it's got a high-fidelity ethnographic depiction of its setting (various central Asian countries) and is consistently gorgeous and dramatic.
 
Yeah Bride’s Story is great. It’s by the same author as Victorian Romance Emma, which is a similarly meticulously researched dive into (obviously) a Victorian England setting (and also has a good anime adaptation).
 
Anybody here have a bead on what might be going on at the Crunchyroll store, manga-wise? Maybe their search database is botched, or they're having bad supply problems, or maybe they've decided to divest themselves of book stock? Usually I make a pretty substantial order with them each month, of series I'm following, but I'm not finding much to put in the cart this time around.

Edit: did a cursory search and found that they are basically starving out lower-selling stock. Well, so be it.

Is there any other comparable storefront that isn't Amazon? The discount at B&N isn't as good, but I never have to pay shipping. So maybe I'll get to know the staff there instead.
 
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If there's a particular title you've got in mind, go to the publisher's site and buy directly or through one of the retailers they recommend.

If you're just wanting to browse, I think that facilitating that is one thing that pirate sites end up doing better than a lot of legitimate storefronts.
 
As a result of my searching, I found out that Robert's Anime Corner Store is still around, carries quite a nice amount of stock, and has a website that might have been redesigned since 1995, but doesn't much look it. Of course, it'd be subject to the possibility of its owner retiring after a good long run, life Rightstuf's did, but it's still hanging in there for now.
 
Felicia said:
iea9viH.png


I recently read a scanlation of the first three chapters of Living Together in Scandinavia, a manga about a Japanese couple who moves to Sweden, and has to learn about Swedish customs, Swedish food and the Swedish language. As someone who is fascinated by foreign depictions of my home country, I am of course eating it up.

r2SjxPh.png

It's especially interesting to read the translation, since the original manga have occasional speech balloons with Swedish words, with the Japanese translation underneath, and I can imagine that it must be an extra difficulty for a translator to keep track of three languages at once.

Cy43Iye.png

I'm a little curious: Is this a unique premise for a manga, or are there other similar "learning about a another country" mangas like it?
Click to expand...
Chapter 4 of Living Together In Scandinavia has been translated!

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It's available through my library's e-reader thing, so I've been reading Tower Dungeon. It's pretty solid.
 
Some exciting licensing news I want to share: first off, longtime comic favourite and recent animation favourite Ikoku Nikki is finally getting an official release, courtesy of Inklore.

Secondly, Manga Mavericks are bringing over 1986's The Sword of Paros, something I've dearly wished for but never expected. For me, this is one of the most stunning collaborations this medium has ever produced, as it combines the talents of Guin Saga author Kaoru Kurimoto and Candy Candy artist Yumiko Igarashi, in a sweeping queer-heroic epic. Just an utterly gorgeous work that should not be lost to history.

For things long out of print, just a little thing like Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix is getting a deluxe hardcover treatment. Whew!
 
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