The Twelve Kingdoms Forum

Well, even if I got it four days ago, I haven't had much time to really read much of it yet. But after going through about 2.5 chapters, I had some observations on my blog.

What are your thoughts on the novel?

I agree on that the book gives quite a different feeling of the story compared to the anime. In a book everything can be described in detail, while one would be forced to use slow motion all the time to achieve the same effect.
About the degree of violence in the book, The Demon Child is much much worse than sea of shadow.

Is "Demon Child" out in English?


12 kingdoms is good, but i liked what ive readen of "Demon Child" better

Truthfully, I'm not sure "Demon Child" will ever officially come out in English. I'm of the understanding that Ono wrote that one for a different publisher than the rest of the Twelve Kingdom novels, and I don't think TOKYOPOP licensed that one.

When the books were translated into Chinese the Demon Child got published, so there is still a small chance that it will come out in English as well, but I guess it all depends on how well the first books will sell.

I wish I could contribute to first impressions.. Barnes and Nobles said apparently they still don't have it.. Some delay with supplier or something.. So I am still waiting. Hopefully I should get it next week.

Other then the name changes you havn't spottet any strange changes right?


THinking about this corse of Bleach, where the English version got several errors(like changing 197 cm to be 192 cm, an old friend not even knowing the sex of an old friend which he clearly know originally etc)

It's not major mistakes but, its stupid mistakes

Of course, those could be typos when the manga is translated into English with Bleach.

Of the Twelve Kingdoms, I do notice several typos in the English version, which may escape the notice during the proof. I just hope they are able to put out new editions with those fixed in the future, but it's not a huge problem that I can see.

Other things I would think are changes is that Yoko expressed distances in terms of "miles", while I would think she would originally expressed them in "kilometers" (One point, she mentioned something was about "one-half mile". In the original novel, I could see her call it "one kilometer"). Not really strange, though, it makes sense for a localization for an American audience.

There are some continuity errors I'm finding (I.E., Yoko remembering Keiki saying to "Stay put if they get separated" when she was in Kou for the first time, but I searched through the earlier parts of the book and I didn't at all find where he actually said that), but I wouldn't know if that's an issue with the translation or with the original novel.

i'm kinda more concerned how the Japanese - American translating will work in terms of titles and words that have multiple meanings. The whole cross culture thing might be really off and that might might throw off my opinion of the novel, course i can careless for the minor differences. (gotta say seeing Yoko instead of Youko kinda bugs though)

zitch wrote: There are some continuity errors I'm finding (I.E., Yoko remembering Keiki saying to "Stay put if they get separated" when she was in Kou for the first time, but I searched through the earlier parts of the book and I didn't at all find where he actually said that), but I wouldn't know if that's an issue with the translation or with the original novel.

Where exactly does this sentence appear? I can only find something like "Stay put if lost", but then there was no reference to Keiki, only an advice Yoko gave to herself...

Btw, did they use the same spelling for the name of a kingdom and the name of its king/queen?

My copy arrived today from amazon. It's interesting seeing how the translation differs from Eugene's, but I haven't finished it yet. She's just left with Rakushun.

My Juuni Kokki Novel came today!! I have just finished the first chapter. So far the book is AMAZING! There are several differences I noticed comparing the novel to the anime series.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

(Last Chance)

Differences:

- In the novel when Keiki came it was in a classroom. In the novel he came in the Teachers break room.
- Yoko attends an all girls school in the novel. In the anime series she doesn't.
- The novel explained the dreams Yoko was having at night in a series of events and gave some information about them. The anime didn't.
- The battle on the rooftop was different, however it was very similar seqence as the anime series.
- When the Hinman attached himself to Yoko it didn't say that he literally attached himself and bound her before getting inside her (like the anime). But rather he simply invaded through the back of her head (which is shown in the anime a bit later in the seqence). However in the anime Keiki is not holder in hands firm to allow the hinman to attach which he was doing so in the novel.
-The battle between her and the Kcohou was much more violent and the detail was much greater then the anime. In the anime you see the bird coming and yoko cuts its head off from the get go. However in the novel she slowly cuts and tears the bird to pieces followed by vomiting at the end (Which yoko does not vomit in the anime series)
- There was more resist on Yoko's part in the novel so far then there was in the anime series. She did resist in the anime series but not as greatly in the novel.

There where several other but i can't remember from the top of my head. So far I would say I can't say which version I like so far. But I am leaning towards the book mainly due to the vivid detail (however I do understand in a motion picture you simply can't do it). I am really looking forward to reading more..

I'm not too far along in the novel but I'm enjoying it so far. Was anyone else slightly disappointed with the design of cover?

Did anyone else notice there are 2 covers? Why is that? Is one like a collectors edition? Also so far I am enjoying the book. I'm on the 400th pg after 2 days.

eh? 2 covers?

The cover on Amazon is different then the one I have.

whiterrice14 wrote:Did anyone else notice there are 2 covers? Why is that? Is one like a collectors edition?

I'm assuming they had an initial design and changed it before releasing it. I've seen that happen with manga covers. I guess they were too lazy to have stores change the image. The one I have has Youko in her school uniform.

I don't know why people are so disappointed with the cover art. I'm still trying to figure it out. I wonder if it's because they wanted the original art from the Japanese release, but I've also heard people say it's just plain ugly. Too much green, maybe? I don't think it's ugly at all...

so i haven't read all of eugene woodbury's traslation but comparing a few randomly selected spots, i.e. the begining of each chapter, it seems that the book released by tokypop is a bit dumbed down, lower brow...ugh...suckier.

i know word for word transation doesn't exactly work cuz of grammar structure and meanings of phrases are lost in translation. did eugene take a bit of poetic license to beef up the story so it sounded better or did tokypop just lower the reading level for younger readers? or did ono write the book at a younger reading level? or was the japanese ono used that archaically structured that this is the best they could do? if so, then why are the differences between the eugene's translation so vast? Lazy translator for tpop...hrmmm..... or is it just me?

oh yeah and a bit disappointed with the slip-cover. wanted one more like the original. the original design probably isn't around to be reproduced exactly but photoshop copy of it, the first page of anything in the book, is not a very good copy.

me, i finished reading the book and still liked the story. with or with out sugimoto and asana. quite suprised with how much the book covers compared to the anime. covers what like 26 some odd episodes... i have no clue just picking a number. just think if the anime continued covering the other books. and i don't think the anime writer's fears will be realized that without yo(u)ko as the main character the anime will fall flat and less people will be interested. if anyone watched what they have already put out i think they will watch the remaining eps regardless because it's done well.

so come on original 12k makers bring us some new stuff from the other books, please.

I thought the green in te cover was a bit much. But more so I has hoping for something a little more elegant-or perhaps decorative looking. The design on the actual hardcover for example-they could have tried to encorporate that somehow. I don't expect them to transfer the original cover-because they never do that but... I don't know I suppose I was just expecting a cover design closer to the DVD covers...

I can forgive the grammer and spelling errors because there aren't too many and lets face it, editors don't always catch these things. Look at the last two books of Harry Potter. -_-

I'm nearly finished the first book and I must say, I've enjoyed it quite a bit. I'll definately be buying the rest of the volumes as they come out (maybe even a second set for lending purposes) but I think I prefer woodbury's translations.

Was anyone else annoyed at some of the english names for stuff? ie demons as opposed to youma, or the bit about the "childfruit" as opposed to yaboku or reboku- I mean it makes sense and it's literal but again I'm used to the DVDs so I was hoping that 12k universe words would have remained, because it gave a little more authenticity to world. They kept the most integral and make referance to others in explanation but once the terms have been explained like Hanjyu, or what not they could have continued on with using them. I'm sure they could have put a glossary for the names and words at the front or back of the book. But now I'm nitpicking.

I like the word demons more than youma cause it makes things easier to understand. Youma doesn't really give you the feeling of beast-like evil being but more like the blue monkey in the novel or something like the youkai in Inuyasha (if anyone read it).

I personally think some of the adaptations are quite good; they left the vital parts of the novel intact so it was quite enjoyable to read - definitely worth rereading.

I just got my copy this past weekend, and read it inside of 2 days....I coudln't put it down! It helps that I'm a very fast reader, it probably only took me about 6-7 hours to read the entire thing...not too terribly much longer than watching the 13 or so episode story arc of the anime series, which I did right after reading.

*SPOILERS!*

The thing that struck me the most other than the absense of Sugimoto and Asano, was the lack of the Shusei, or traveling performers. The mother and daughter were still there, but they were sugar peddlers in the novel.

Another thing that was missing was the youma attacking on the ship to En....it was a rather unremarkable trip really. In fact, the whole part of the book after Youko meets Rakushun seems much shorter than it's anime series counterpart.

One more thing that was missing was the death of Kourin and the whole confrontation with King Kou. Not sure if this takes place in a later novel or if it was just added for the anime series.

I LOVED the novel though, and I sincerely hope that it sells enough copies for the other novels to be released.

As for the whole youma/demon, childfruit/ranka thing, it really doesn't bother me at all. It took me awhile when watching the anime series for all those terms to sink in, so if the translator of the novels wants to cut me some slack, more power to them. I watch dubs by default usually too, so I'm not one to be picky about translation errors, as I know nothing of Japanese.

Kou/Kourin confrontation was added for the series, AFAIK. They're mentioned as being dead in her next novel, presumably of Shitshudo.

Shusei 2 wrote: Was anyone else annoyed at some of the english names for stuff? ie demons as opposed to youma, or the bit about the "childfruit" as opposed to yaboku or reboku-

I kind of was, especially demons for youma (which would probably be yoma in this transliteration.) OTOH, I kind of liked getting Diamond Mountains for Konlon, and the clarity that yes, zankyaku come through there, around the Kyokai -- I'd started to get confused before, wondering if they came there or through some mountains in the western kingdoms, like Han or Hou.

But yeah, a glossary shouldn't kill anyone.

And for all the Western knockoffs of Tolkien, and the occasional labelling of JK as the Chinese-inspired equivalent of Middle-Earth, I have yet to see a novel which imitates the indices of LotR!

Elysium wrote:

zitch wrote: There are some continuity errors I'm finding (I.E., Yoko remembering Keiki saying to "Stay put if they get separated" when she was in Kou for the first time, but I searched through the earlier parts of the book and I didn't at all find where he actually said that), but I wouldn't know if that's an issue with the translation or with the original novel.

Where exactly does this sentence appear? I can only find something like "Stay put if lost", but then there was no reference to Keiki, only an advice Yoko gave to herself...

Btw, did they use the same spelling for the name of a kingdom and the name of its king/queen?

Page 59 has her thinking Keiki told her to stay put if separated, which, yes, does not actually happen in the earlier pages. And it feels like there's no time for him to have said other things to her, that we were shown everything that happened between them.