Now, since the page appearance is what you see the first thing when you enter this page, I guess some of you are wondering why it looks different from other pages right? The fact is there isn't any significance for designing it differently. I was just experimenting with the new layout and came across this one which I think looks kind of cool. By the way from now on if there are any new manga that I'm going to add I might also do a special layout design for them, or just stick to my typical layout uniform. Either way it depends on what I think it suits with the manga content at that moment. Well now then, I guess we can move on to the main subject :)
Under Heaven by Kigawa Rin, is the first manga I bought in Japanese version. Let me tell you I ordered it from Tokyo Dou Books because I saw its cover from the Kobunsha homepage and at that time the clues I got about it were only its ISBN and its cover scan! I didn’t even know the name of the mangaka or what the story was about or how much would it cost back then! I only knew I had to get this manga because I fell in love with its authentic & wonderfully drawn cover at first sight!! (note that the cover scan I saw at Kobunsha homepage was as small as only 150x220 pixel) It wasn’t a waste ordering it at all, because although Under Heaven’s tankoubon’s size is bigger than typical Japanese manga (the regular size of Japanese manga tankoubon is B6, but Under Heaven is printed in A5 size which is the same size as manga magazine) and it cost almost 3 times more than the typical ones, I found everything in it pleasing and definitely worthy.(not to mention the addition of pretty color pix!!^0^) Kigawa-sensei’s art is really beautiful, elaborate in details, and she likes to dress her characters in visually glam style that makes it just a totally cool read even if you don't understand Japanese. Oh, note that Under Heaven is one of those manga not given furigana (hiragana telling how to read the kanji words) to you. But it’s still not that difficult to read it if you will be enthusiastic enough to look up in the kanji dictionary for all the characters that you aren’t familiar with. I also went nuts flipping through my dictionary, but hey! It was actually lots of fun!(Oh yeah because I’m still on the summer break so I can slack off and do whatever I want to kill the time.^^;;).
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