Since it’s one of the most popular pages on my site, I’m guessing people are excited at the chance to read Docchi mo Docchi (Same Difference). It’s out! There’s some good and unfortunately some bad about this incarnation of Hiiragi Nozomu’s work.
Good? First, Hiiragi Nozomu in English! It doesn’t get much better than that. Ignoring the hideous ~~Yaoi Manga~~ side bar on all June’s BL releases (and that mocked up Starry Sky pic lol), the cover and logo look good. I didn’t notice any glaring translation issues and came away with the same impression of the story. The guys had the same stilted, awkward language in the beginning which relaxes as the story progresses. There was a minor scene in round two where Ozaki was stubbornly trying to make his proposal to Tsuburaya sound like he was doing Tsuburaya a favor by becoming his lover. Their choice of words didn’t emphasize Ozaki’s stubbornness at making it seem like a favor, thus not giving up any more ground. A minor point that was still telling of a character. Nit-picky, really. My biggest issue with the release is decidedly not nit-picky.
I have a very modest English translated manga collection, so maybe I’m ill-informed at acceptable levels of quality. I only own three June manga, including Castle Mango which says Ogura Muku was the writer on the cover. Right. I saw a number of printing errors in Same Difference that were glaring. Also, my copy’s cover was BOA (bent on arrival), but I don’t know who/what did it and can’t point angry fingers.
Tsuburaya, you got something on your face…
Ozaki is angry at the offending dark bar across the page
BAR. BAR!! You’re in the WAY.
None of those three errors were in the original–here’s the last for comparison.
His suit is dirty and it got all over the wall behind them
All clean!
Now that’s some quality. You might be luckier than me–not all copies have the ugly bars. Don’t get me wrong–I’d buy it again and think it’s worth the money. I’d like to see others buy it, but people should know what they are getting. I’m excited to see Hiiragi Nozomu in English and want her to get a lot more fans, but her work deserves more respect in terms of quality control. Or is that too much to expect from people who made that mock-up cover with Starry Sky as yaoi manga?
the manga habit 
Although I have the same glop of ink on Tsuburaya’s face, my book doesn’t have those dark bars that you documented. What awful printing. I would’ve cried if my book came looking like that. How discouraging!
Interesting–I guess I should be happy that not everyone is getting screwed. Must be nice :O I’ll put a little note that not everyone is going to get the rude bar.
As briefly upset that my group wasn’t able to even contemplate working on this before it was licensed (which is awesome obviously) I want to buy this! Any linkage? Or recc? Love your site as usual ^___^
Ari
Thanks 🙂 It sounds like Abscondite got a better copy, so hope for the best. Even though mine was molested by the printer, it’s still a good buy.
I got mine from http://www.amazon.com/Same-Difference-Manga-Nozomu-Hiiragi/dp/1569702667/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1340906419&sr=8-5&keywords=same+difference Only $7 if you have enough other stuff to get free shipping. Or http://www.bookdepository.com/Same-Difference-Yaoi-Manga-Nozomu-Hiiragi/9781569702666 A little over $9 and free shipping.
I have a lot of their books, and I haven’t noticed those type of printing errors. I have noticed spelling mistakes(and nonsense words like sjdjsajjj) in some of my books. I thought that apart from the lack of color pages(and that cover error of CM), they had managed to struck a balance with the their books.
“sjdjsajjj” I’ve only read two of their books (Castle Mango was a rebuy and I haven’t reread it to discover any errors) and this one is awful. Not content, but the printing quality is atrocious. I’ll be carefully considering any future purchases from them and if they’re worth the risk of such a poor product.
I don’t have mine yet, but it’s always something with them. Poor translation, cut off edges, annoying cover design (as you mention), bad paper quality, some works get additional censorship, series don’t get finished, no color pages. I could go on. Sadly I don’t know any japanese and they’re almost the only way to get legal english BL, so they get a lot of my $$. *sigh sob rage*
They feel the need to censor it even more? Ugh, not encouraging. There were a few more spots I didn’t bother posting from my Same Difference copy. I’ve been considering getting more BL in English that didn’t make my raw purchase cuts, but I’m really discouraged at this point. At least from buying their stuff. Only if I get it super cheap since that’s the quality level.
To be fair they aren’t that bad. With all the negative comments I’ve read about DMI, I was expecting a lot worse. But I do have to admit, they are pretty careless and disorganized for a company that’s been in business for so long.
The current paper quality is about average(some of their past releases had godly paper quality) and their print division on average has better quality on everything else. I’m pretty sure they don’t censor their stuff anymore(Although, I’ve heard they censored the script in one of their DMG releases). People keep forgetting that Japan is censoring everything nowadays, and that English publishers are licensing the censored versions.
Well, I have a very below average print division example here, so I’m not really reassured.
Which is rotten, and I really hope my copy is not like that. I honestly thought that they were doing better in their print division(apart from their shitty licenses and no color pages), and it’s kinda sad to be proven wrong.
Well I received my copy of Same Difference yesterday and just glancing through it I don’t see any glaring printing errors. I did feel a little bit bad dumping all over DMI like that, at least they changed their covers from that hideous pink, and some of their products are better than others. The Finder series gets a color page, for example. (I buy the jp version of Finder as well, and they’re just sooo much nicer, print- and paper-wise, I wish we could get that level of quality.)
DMI does *say* they’re not censoring anymore but they have a poor track record in being upfront about what they have censored, so I’m always wary. I have been following the unfortunate censorship developments in Japan, so I do understand they are working with more highly censored source material.
I buy a good chunk of their releases every month (which is not so much these days, unfortunately), and have never noticed such poor printing quality. I don’t think such problems are unique to June, as I’ve seen printer errors from Viz, Tokyopop, CMX, Dark Horse, and pretty much everybody. It usually only affect a small number of copies in a print run. Unfortunately, there’s not much a publisher can do about a printer error like that. If they noticed it before the books shipped, they might be able to get the printer to re-run them. But that would delay release, and I suspect a company that uses Kickstarter to fund its projects probably can’t afford that.
I’m trying to say nice things, but I feel obligated to divulge the fact that my copy of Ambiguous Relationship (released a few months ago) had a big chunk of missing/repeated pages that basically obliterated two stories. As upset as I was, the error was overshadowed by the fact I was horribly disappointed by the stories themselves in that one. ^_^; But that’s the only major issue I think I’ve had with June.
June could find a better printer, but I’ve heard tell that BL tends to be a hard thing to find a willing printer for.
Ugh that’s terrible about your Ambiguous Relationship, I would hope wherever you bought it from would replace it! Or maybe you’re like me, I bought mine months ago but I haven’t looked at it yet…I should go do that.
Well, I do own some other translated manga and have poked through some others and I’ve never seen this poor level of quality. I don’t see how this stuff is acceptable, especially what happened to your copy of Ambiguous Relationship. That is beyond ridiculous! They aren’t the only ones printing BL in the US.. they need to figure out who Sublime is using then. I’ve not seen any reports of huge errors from their prints yet. It bothers me that we’ve paid for defective products. I’m half tempted to return it to amazon, but I shouldn’t have to go through the effort or cost of doing so for a book.
Doesn’t Amazon pay for shipping? I’ve returned a few stuff and they have always paid for returned shipping, but then again it’s been awhile.
Oh maaan late comment is way late, mine just arrived today! Was a little worried since I saw this entry but I went through it and I think I’m one of the lucky ones that ended up with none of the errors at all ;A;
Is there a way to leave them feedback though? I wasn’t too happy with how Samejima-kun & Sasahara-kun’s binding was too close to the panels.
where did you buy it ?? >u<
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