New Kodansha Complete Series

[strobe_z]

Does anyone have these editions? I've been thinking about (slowly) investing in the complete set, but I'm curious about the quality. The new Kodansha set is bunko-sized as far as I know. I kinda wish they'd release a complete edition in a larger size, but what's the paper like? The fact that they're squeezing 400+ volumes into 200 makes me a bit leary.

Anyone have any comments?

[strobe_z]

Ok... since no one had any comments, I guess I'll post my own. I went ahead and ordered three volumes of this set and I have to say I'm not disappointed. I got BT-012, BT-015 and BT-016 which translates to the complete W3 series and Pinocchio. They are small pocket-book sized, but the paper quality is quite nice. The nice thing about this set is really the previously unreleased material. Pinocchio has never been released - aside from that high-quality reproduction edition that came packaged with Bambi - before and was not part of the original Complete edition. Even W3 was a bit of a surprise. For one thing they didn't make an arbitrary break in the action, so volume 1 is twice the size of volume 2 - and that also includes 6 previously unreleased stories (which I've since learned were Tezuka's original take on the story - one he didn't like and rejigged into the later series).

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the set... looks like I'll be going back for more as the opportunity presents itself.

[Jeffbert]

Cool! I have the 3 volume pocket manga set I bought from Amazon.jp, and would like to know about any stories excluded from it.

[Huscheli]

Nice to see they're more "complete" than other sets. To be honest though, I don't like bunkô sized stuff. It's just too tiny for me!

[strobe_z]

I am glad about that as well, I haven't had a chance to really check and see how complete "complete" is though... I'd lay odds there's still going to be some missing stuff.

@Jeffbert - I'll take a look, basically there are 6 stories that originally appeared in "Weekly Shonen" but Tezuka scrapped the concept (Tezuka site says because it was too similar to the anime, but I find that hard to believe), he reworked it and it started publication in "Shonen Sunday" (which is what will be in your collection probably). You could send me a PM if you want to know more.

[Jeffbert]

Yes, I knew about the stories that ran concurrently with the anime, but was not aware that only the later ones were in the set I bought.

[strobe_z]

The edition you have includes the main W3 series which ran in Shonen Sunday from May 30, 1965 - May 08, 1966.
The new Kodansha complete series includes the first run of W3 series which ran in Shonen Magazine from March 21 to April 25 1965 (six chapters) before Tezuka decided to rework the concept. I haven't had a chance to look at them in fine detail yet to try and discover exactly what the differences are in terms of the overall concept.

[strobe_z]

After a quick scan through the releases to day, it looks like previously unreleased material is as follows:

Three-Eyed One
vol. 1 - 文福登場
vol. 3 - 給食
vol. 4 - 猪鹿中学
長耳族
vol. 5 - 舌をだすな！
七蛇寺の七ふしぎ
カオスの壷
vol. 6 - メダルの謎
スキャンダル

Bambi

Black Jack vol. 8 - something?
Black Jack vol. 9 - 信号
キモダメシ
Black Jack vol. 10 - 落下物

Chaos vol. 2 - あとがきにかえて

Not sure what that means though, they haven't release information on the last phase of releases, so I don't know if there's any other full volumes or unreleased material coming. Really, besides some Black Jack, Three-Eyed One, and apparently Midnight stories, the only volumes is Bambi and Pinocchio. I was really hoping that Cyrano the Hero was going to be released as well. Guess fingers crossed.

[dasch]

Hello,

I dig up this post with an easy question: does anyone know where I could find the list of the 200 bunko published by Kodansha?

I'm looking for a similar list as the one present on this site for the old complete edition (see ).

Thanks in advance.

dasch

[fzara]

hello sirs,
just a pesky question... rather than chasing old editions I'd like to get my hands on some of those original bunkos... but... the only one I have has no small reading-hiragana characters over kanji characters, making reading slower... is it the same for the enire series??
that would turn me to other edtions for some titles (shonen champion's blackjack in primis)...
thanks in advance