Kyomu Senki (The Void Chronicles), created/penned by Ken Ishikawa, is a manga that can be considered the sister series to Getter Robo Saga. Like Getter Robo saga, Kyomu Senki is a compilation of a number of Ken Ishikawa manga series that fit into the same continuity. Kyomu Senki includes such series as Kyomu Senshi Miroku, Skull Killer Jakioh along with its direct sequel Jakioh Bakuretsu, Tiger of 5,000 Light Years and a few other manga series. The edition of Kyomu Senki that we'll be scanlating is the 2002 Futabasha 5 volume compilation (the most recent printing of this series so far and the last before Ken Ishikawa's unfortunate death).
Translating and typesetting this series for us is someone new - he goes by the name Takeru Kyori and he's been doing a bang-up job at localizing Kyomu Senki! Thanks to him, we can start this project without waiting to complete Shin Mazinger Zero. A true hero for Dynamic Pro fans! And of course, I have to thank HappyScans! for their help on this project and for miraculously getting their hands on this manga series in the first place! I had been trying to get Kyomu Senki shipped out of Japan for years to no avail (it would run hundreds of dollars) and HappyScans! stepped up and did the impossible. Thanks so much, guys!
Scanning this series has been a challenge in one major way. The books, which are long out of print, are old and used. Consequently, there's some sort of... gunk... on the pages. It's a multitude of faint yellowish stains all over each page. I really have no idea what it is and I'm cursing the original owner. Anyway, I tried to clean the gunk as best as I could without compromising the art in any way but you're still going to see it on the pages, with some being worse than others. Hopefully it shouldn't detract from your enjoyment too much.
And one last note - this chapter features a lot of Buddhist mantras which we have left in their original form. The few of them that had a Japanese translation we have also translated into English. Anyway, that's about it! Enjoy the first chapter of Kyomu Senki!!
Kyomu Senki is made up mainly of four series: “The Tiger of 5000 Light Years” serialized in 1980-82. “Kyomu Senshi Miroku” and “Jaki-oh Bakuretsu”, both of which started serialization in 1987, just a few months apart. Lastly, “Skull Killer Jaki-oh”, a mech series set in the 20th century that originally started in 1990.
Along with the four main series, it also includes four short stories: “New Rashoumon”, “Ninja Arts at Honnou Temple: The Black Magic of Koji Kashin”, “The Strange Living Dimension, Dogura”, and “The Dogura War Chronicles”.
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Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds interesting. Do I need to know anything before reading?
ReplyDeleteNope, you can dive right in! I'll try and get Takeru to write up a summary for this series. I didn't feel confident enough in my own knowledge of this series to write up a proper summary.
ReplyDeleteUnknown Ishikawa work for me. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks!! Will you or HappyScans releasing the japanese raw version of getter series or the upcoming kyomu senki seires?
ReplyDeleteNope, never.
DeleteI'm confused about the chronology. Skull Killer Jakioh is the last manga, but Jakioh Bakuretsu is its direct sequel? Does that mean Bakuretsu is the last chronologically and SKJ came out later to explain the background of its story, similar to Shin Getter Robo being published after Go? Because the Jakioh I've read has a much much smaller scale than Kyomu Senki and the ending implies there's so much more to come.
ReplyDeleteThat was a mistake on my part. Despite having similar names, Jakioh Bakuretsu is unrelated to Skull Killer Jakioh.
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