I have the 35 anniversary set and one underrated aspect I love about the box is that it's actually shut by magnets and not velcro like other box sets these days. It's undoubtedly the best Box Set I've ever seen and definitely worth the price.
The magnets were definitely a nice touch! Completely forgot to mention that in the video, so thank you for doing so. The box set and the editions that come in it are such high-quality, so I couldn't agree more! Best box set I've ever purchased too!
@@sergioarroyo1923 Because that's what the original release was like, the point of this box set is to help you experience what it must have been like to buy the original as it was released, issue by issue. They could have made it full-colour gloss paper if they wanted but that wouldn't be authentic to the manga experience.
It's probably the greatest work of manga ever put into a box set is why. There are so many box sets of fad manga licenses but Akira is timeless. Although I have the complete DH/Ko set, it's just a reader copy. I might just go for the hardcover box (and I normally hate box sets) AND go for the full epic 1-38 issues as well.
Something I really want to see is a collaboration between Katsuhiro Otomo and Naoki Urasawa. I feel like these two together would be something really special in terms of story and with the art to support it with Otomo's landscpaes and Urasawa's characters
I’ve been saying for the last 2 years that Koji Mori should hire Urasawa to help with the dialogue in Berserk. His attention to detail in dialogue is on par with Miura
re: Epic Comics edition with coloring by Steve Oliff -- You fail to mention (or did not know) that Otomo himself approved every single page that was done. In fact it was Otomo himself who chose Oliff to digitally color them (which AFAIK was the first major comic every digitally colored). Steve Oliff speaks about this in a few interviews and on his blog -- which I'm not sure is still up.
The translated sound effects were the reason I chose the paperbacks, they make it so much more cinematic. The chunky and flexible books are also just super satisfying to hold lol
I'll never forget the first time I saw the Akira movie at my friends house when I was 15/16 and I instantly fell in love. Found a old VHS at a secondhand store for 5 dollars and got it right away, later the DVD, it wasn't till after that I got the got the manga, then the 25th anniversary Blu-ray lol and my favorite of all of them, the 35th anniversary box set! I used to want to collect the Epic comics because I thought it would be cool to have them in color and for the cover art, but never got around to committing to collecting them. Anyways great video! :D I also want to add, that when the boxset released, Amazon had a special promotion for a while for prime members, selling it cheaper than anywhere else for only $130 usd! I signed up for prime just for that lol
i already own the boxset but theres something always really satisfying about watching ur comparisons videos! i say any of the in print versions are best, just depends on what reading direction you want!
I just read it for the first time. Box set. No idea how I took this long to do it. It just hit my top 5 spot. Can’t believe I only watched the movie till now
I personally own the Kodansha paperbacks because they were the ones I saw most in stores and therefore the easiest to collect. You may think of this as a snobby thing too, but I don’t particularly like reading pages from right to left, so as long as the left to right translation was approved by Otomo himself (which I’m fairly sure of, due to the redraws and sound effects translations), it’s what I want to read. I only wish that the Epic Comics hardcovers had finished printing with Volume 6, I would collect those to see the colored pages and the different translation out of curiosity alone. Maybe someday. Either that or just hardcovers that read left to right in general would be nice, it’s my preferred form of a book.
sorry to burst your bubble, but the mirror flip and redraws were not almost certainly not approved by otomo. The sound effect changes were digitally added by the team translating it, not him. Redrawing panels was also most likely not done by otomo, because he hasn’t drawn akira in decades, and because it’s something that can be done a good clean upper, they’re job is to redraw parts of images to hide sound effects, that kind of thing, and in very rare instances editing larger parts of images. it’s just par for the course for translating manga. otomo probably didn’t do anything for the english translation, it’s just standard that that’s the publishers deal. source: i work in the japanese-english translation industry.
happy to see you made this! i’m a personal fan of the hardcovers but i’m never able to get my hands on a set ever 😢 i always push the kodansha paperbacks tho 🙌🏻 looking forward to the next video 🤙🏻
Great video, as always, you're so good at making these very detail-packed quick comparisons! I definitely want to get both the hardcover box set in English and the original Japanese releases (they have cool colored book edges).
Man, thank you so so much as always! I always try my best to be as condensed but still as helpful, so that I don't ever waste any of your guys' time, so I really appreciate it! The Japanese releases look great. I saw that they have those colored edges (love the purple edges of the Vampire Hunter D manga volumes that I have, so those would be cool to own!). Hope you are able to get both one day!
thanks for this breakdown. I was looking for the colored books, but this video helped explain to me why I couldn't find them. I think I will get the boxset
What could they even possibly do for a 40th edition? In English the box set is the definitive edition imo. The only other thing they could do is a full color hardcover version.
The Hardcover translations and sfx are what turned me off from the box set by Kodansha. It is great having the original japanese sfx in the panels, but it is unrealistic to expect to flip to the back for the glossary. It is an aspect of the hardcover edition that really takes me out of the flow of the story.
Love Akira. Was the first Anime - then Manga, I ever consumed. Prefer the Manga by far. --- Suggestion: if you would like to increase your viewership and comments - a good, easy way to do this would be to visually include yourself in the reviews/discussions. Not only do people understand an process audio content more accurately and thoroughly if they can SEE the speaker (or A speaker). Also, you seem like a good looking young woman. This alone would attract a larger following AND help your audience digest the content.
Just picked up this beautiful boxset for $112 44% off. Spectacular score, one of my favorite boxsets I've collected so far. Wish all boxsets were done with such care and enthusiasm.
Just got the box set from Waterstones yesterday, so I must be now into Manga anime more than ever, because 18 years ago I saw manga for the first time, at later years in primary school , but my brother. Used to watch loads of anime so, this is my bond with manga and anime, but I did watch lupin the 3rd series , now starting to watch cowboy bebop series
my current plan is to get the box set, as well as to gradually over time accumulate the Epic color TPB's, supplemented by the comics for the missing volumes, because I still quite appreciate the color versions as well.....)
Just BIN'ed the box set. Manga box sets go against everything manga is about, but your vid convinced me because unflipped art is very important and Akira is important...so importance squared.
I just picked up the box set for $100. I’m so stoked. I have loved the movie my whole life but reading the books was always prohibitively expensive. I finally picked it up on discount.
I’m definitely buying the box set, it’s the best looking box set I’ve ever seen, it’s always in stock online so I haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet.
Here in Mexico a editorial called Panini release a wonderful edition, super close to the Japanese one and the Kodansha dlx. And the best of all... The price, it's around the $20 bucks or less.
If you want to straight up collect this series, the Marvel comic via Epic imprint is a serious collecting challenge. The translation is worse but keep in mind it came out in the 80s and was deluxe edition in the late 80s, early 90s. However, that first run never finished the series! Late 90s, like 1995, years after the first run ended in 1991, the last issues 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38 came out way later after 95+% of the interest died (and this is still mostly pre-internet for most people), came out with not much fanfare and had a huge cover price of 6.95. At that time you could buy McFarlane Spiderman, Lee X-Men, Liefield New Mutants, Keown Hulk, and Portacio X-Factor for $1.25 from Marvel. So to buy one copy of Akira, you may have to sacrifice 5 regular comics back when many super hero comics were can't miss. So these last 5 issues were very rare, especially the last couple of issues as by the time the comic stores saw how 34 sold (or didn't sell), they cut orders for 36-on in their Diamond catalogs. Therefore they are not only historic but also collectible. The Akira #1 and early issues came out around the massive hype time of when Akira the dubbed movie came out in the US so the hype was huge and it sold very well, unlike the obscure last five issues. Akira #1 was actually reprinted so is actually a collectibilty distinction between #1 1st print vs later printings. It was actually worth $15 to $25 back in the day.
Nice video, would have gotten the box set based on this video but had already started on the paperbacks so I'll stick with them (while a lesser translation, it is still recent so it is at least passable)
Great video and through explanation. There is also a hardcover edition of 5 of the 6 large format paperbacks done by Graffiti Designs, which I think had a print run of 1500 copies per volume. These are extremely rare and I've only been able to secure a copy of the 4th volume in almost 25 years of looking. Needless to say but that edition is the worst way to collect AKIRA. 😇
I was in college when this came out. I have the original comic books. Including the impossible to find #38(Which had incredibley low print numbers). But I recently bought the 35th box set because the comics are too valuable at this point to actually read. The box set is great. And I really hope younger generations collect and read Akira.
I've got the kodansha anniversary box and it's so beautiful, there's also in italian but without the box, meh.... The most Amazing thing is that the story in the manga Is different from the anime, i didn't know that
I would get the Box Set, but I don't really have the Money + it would be in english (I'm german) Even if my english is "good" I think I would enjoy it more in german since I don't have to translate everything into my language. I did buy myself the german AKIRA Volume 1 for 20€ and 360 Pages. It will be there on the 8th December. My fav. Manga RU-vidr made a review about it, and in my opinion it looks pretty good. Im happy :)
So this isn’t EVERY edition of Akira, I have 4 of 5 hard covers, in colour, in English, done by Graffiti Designs back in the 90’s they are super rare though and limited to 1500 (yes, 15 hundred only) I’m still looking for vol. 3 after years of looking. But these are the hands down best version of Akira every produced, sadly most of you will never read this edition (licences have never been granted to reprint these). These beat the Kad versions hands down.
One things that stops me getting the box set is that I don't particularly like hardcover. It's so unwieldy to hold but I'll probably get it regardless. It would cool to have a reprint of the coloured version. By god I'm so torn.
*there's another full color manga set of akira by technicolor, I'm surprised you didn't talk about that one.* Also pls make one of these videos on the Tokyo ghoul and fullmetal alchemist mangas
Sigh... Came here to find out which versions have translated sound effects. Found out that all the versions with sound effects I can read have a shitty translation of the dialogue. Maybe for the 50th anniversary?...
