Mixxzine & Smile

I don't know about you, but when I found out that there was going to be an English translation being published, I was really excited. Yes, I had the 'Net to browse, looking for posted translations. I had several of the mangas, but it was kind of annoying, flipping from the book to my printout, and back again, trying to figure out where the dialogue for one square ended and the next began. I had tried penciling in the words, but that wasn't too effective... and to compound this, you have to remember that in Japan, books are printed backwards... you read the right page first, and then the left page, and their front cover is located where our back cover usually is.

So I went ahead and got myself a subscription. I was perfectly happy with it until one day, I was comparing my Japanese scripts to my English magazine, and I realized, "Wow! They *really* changed the dialogue!" Using the NA names, I can understand. I can deal with it. Using words like "morph" and "pen" as opposed to "henshin stick", OK. I won't pick too many nits. But rewriting the dialogue itself...? It's almost as bad as watching what you know is a badly dubbed episode. (I was in my dorm's tv lounge not too long ago, watching Toonami on Cartoon Network for the first time in ages... it came as quite a shock to heard Mercury say, "Whoa! Cool move, Sailor Jupiter! I was in major trouble there!" Wouldn't someone with a 400 IQ phrase the thought a little differently?) But I digress...

Click here for a comparison of the two...

Anyhow, at the current rate of one episode every other month, so I heard, it would take Mixxzine about 7 years to publish the entire series. Then they decided to pull Sailormoon from Mixxzine, and put out a new magazine called "Smile". It's basically your run-of-the-mill teen publication, plus Sailor Moon, plus the Adventures of Sushi Girl. H'mmm...

Not only did they skip the rest of the Sailormoon arc (perhaps they didn't want to address the issue of Usagi-- ahem, Bunny, sorry-- killing people with the sword and then committing suicide?) but they also skipped SailormoonR and SailormoonS. I can understand that perhaps they didn't feel like treading on toes over the whole Haruka/Michiru relationship of SailormoonS, but I don't really see what's in R that would warrant its being skipped.

If you want it as close as possible to the original, I'd suggest going to The Place or some other vendor which sells mangas. You can take a crash course in Japanese (it's written on the 4th-grade level), find a friend who already KNOWS Japanese and get them to translate it for you, or find some place off the 'Net where you can find them already posted for you. (Although Mixx has been trying to get those sites off the 'Net, some still do exist.) Another problem with this last part is, it's kind of difficult to find translations anywhere past Vol. 6. I've found two sources which said "E-mail me!", one of which was successful and the other of which never answered my e-mail.

If you're quite happy with a version you can read with no problem, and don't mind that the dialogue is somewhat "modified" (names; word choice, in some cases; and whole speech bubbles in others), go ahead and subscribe to Smile. Or you might want to try and get an Americanized taste of various other mangas you might not be familiar with. It has Magic Knight Rayearth (by CLAMP); Parasyte (can be gory); Hoops (a basketball story); and Sorceror Hunters (Bakuretsu Hunters). Or they sell SM translations in Pocket Mangas... they will bind several episodes together into a pocket manga, which you can buy separately. That way, you get your Sailor Moon without getting Sushi Girl or articles ridden with words like "kewl" or whatever you don't really care for.

All in all, as a publication, and ignoring the whole manga issue (no pun intended), neither Mixx nor Smile is really that good of a magazine. The backgrounds are too busy, to the point that often times, there isn't enough contrast for the text to be readable. It's making a bad attempt (a nicer way to phrase it than "pathetic") to be "cool"-- or whatever the word for "cool" is nowadays. (It's 'kewl' right now, but come back later, and that information will seem hopelessly outdated.) But Mixx is much too slang-y, and I get the impression that it talks down to me. Please. "Kewl?" "Girlz?" "Gamez?" "Urls for gurls?" Ish... I'm neither trying to endorse Mixx or discourage you from buying it... I'm merely relating my own opinions and experiences to anyone who has managed to read this far. ^_^

Update as of 6/2/99-- Mixx has announced that it plans to change its name to Tokyo Pop. I think it's a better title, insofaras it's more descriptive, more accurate-- but by the same token, I think it's sad because it shows that Mixx is moving even more away from manga, and more towards "pop" culture, like video games, etc...

Smile is $19.90 in the US.

Click here for interviews with Ron Scovil and Stuart Levy, which were very interesting, IMHO.

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