Anime mugs

 I got this amazing Shingeki no Kyojin mug as a Christmas present. You can find mugs like these in the Bulgarian shop "Na Tumno" (На Тъмно). They are pretty awesome and were made, because my friend ShiningShadow, gave the idea to the shop owner.

 I think that there only these two types and I'm not sure if there will be others. 

For more info on the cups visit the following links:

Shingei no Kyojin

Kamisama Hajimemashita

 PS: Aniplay will be held on the 26th of April! Too bad I won't be able to go and see it, but if anyone does, I would really like to hear how it went. 

 If you're interested in the event visit the following links:

Aniplay's facebook event page

Aniplay

The Bulgarian versions of Naruto, One Piece and Death Note

 I know that this is quite a belated post, but I have been really busy with university and other personal stuff and I hadn't had any time to write in the blog, even though I really wanted to. So today's post will be all about the Bulgarian versions of the Japanese mangas Naruto, One Piece and Death Note.
 The first volumes of Naruto and One Piece were published in the autumn of 2012 and the first volume of Death Note was published in the end of October 2013. They were all published by Artline Studios. For now on out market we have volume 1 to volume 5 of Naruto, volume 1 to volume 4 of One Piece and volume 1 of Death Note. They are all translated from Japanese language to Bulgarian language. Naruto and One Piece were both translated by Maire Buyuklieva (Майре Буюклиева) and Death Note was translated by Slavi Georgiev (Слави Георгиев).
 First I will talk about the things I didn't like and then I will talk about the things I liked about the Bulgarian editions. I will talk about all of the mangas, because they have basically the same issues. The main topic of this review will be the Bulgarian edition and not the story of the manga.

Dislikes

 So first of all the volumes look pretty nice with their dust jackets, but when you remove the dust jacket you can see the hard carton cover of the book. I find it too thick for such a small book. It's hard to bend and if you push it a little bit too hard you might tear it. Most of the Japanese addition manga I have, have a soft carton cover, which makes the book easy to open and read. I think that this hard cover wasn't the best choice of the Bulgarian publisher.You can see the examples on the both sides of the text and below is the image of how the cover almost tore.

  Second, I think that there was a problem with the printing of volume 2 of both Naruto and One Piece. As you can see on the side there are stripes in the screen tone that should not be there. However, as you can see on the picture below, this issue has been resolved, which is nice.
 The last thing I want to mention is the translation. I think that I found this problem only in Death Note. The particular example I have is with the word "shinigami". The translator decided to keep the original Japanese word in the translation, which is not bad, I actually think that this was the right move. However, this is a word that appears on the first page of the manga, literally in the first text bubble. Most of the Bulgarians (who aren't anime fans or aren't studying Japanese) don't know what this word means. True, it becomes clear that shinigami is a death god in the first volume, but the Japanese reader is aware of what it means in the begging. I think that there should have been an explanation under line or something of the sort for that one. 

 Likes
 There are many that I liked about the Bulgarian editions. 
 First of all I'd like to mention the size. They are all exactly 112x176 mm, which is the original size of Japanese manga. It's smaller than the size of the English edition, but I personally like it better.
 Second, I loved the dust jackets. This is also a feature of the Japanese manga, which the English edition usually lacks. 

  And third, I really liked Maire Buyuklieva's translation. I have done translations for university and I know how hard it is to translate onomatopoeia and some more specific Japanese phrases, but she has really done it quite well. There is also an explanation of every single kanji that appears on any page, which I appreciated a lot. 
 True, it does sound a little weird, when I read manga in Bulgarian, but I think that that is only because I'm not used to it.

 In conclusion I'd like to say that in my personal opinion Artline Studios are doing a great job and I'd really like to see more manga translated and published in Bulgaria. Also, I will be collecting Naruto and Death Note, but I won't be buying One Piece any more, because it's definitely not my cup of tea (as you can see I only bought the first three volumes and I read the forth one, because a friend gave it to me).
  For more information visit on these mangas the following link - Artline Studios

Bulgarian Comic Books

In this post I would like to talk about comic books, which are drawn by Bulgarians and have been published lately in my home country. I recommend all of these if you are interested in contemporary Bulgarian artwork and comics. There is a lot to be seen and learned from these five books.

 Aniventure 2013: Manga, Art, Fanfic - Winning Entries

This is the annual Aniventure book, in which you can find all the winners from the contests, mentioned above. There are three short mangas for the three winning places:

First place - "Kaena" ("Каена") by Boyan Ganev

Second Place - "Legend of Sunny Moon" by Cindy Nayn (Alexandra Stryaskova)

Third Place - "Two worlds" ("Два свята") by Kalin Popov Kalin Popov's Gallery

And the winning fanfic is "Think of the future" ("Мисли за бъдещето"), a "Naruto" fanfic by Cindy Nayn (Alexandra Stryaskova).

There are also photos of winning cosplayers from Aniventure 2012:

Dara Karaboeva as Hizaki from Versailles

Jivko Kabaivanov as Loki from the Marvel Universe

Kiril Popchev as Pyramid Head from Silent Hill

Kiril Lambrev as Vash the Stampede from Trigun

And finally in this book you can find artwork by the artists Denitsa Stancheva,  Fotis Ntalianis, Silviya Ivanova and Bistra Sandjakyan. 

This book is only 90 pages long, but it's a really good compilation of works. I personally really liked Boyan Ganev's and Kiril Popov's works, although I think that Kiril Popov's work look kind of unfinished artwork wise. I don't think that you can find this book in the bookstores, but you will probably be able to get it at the events organized by club Nakama. 

"Co-mixer" - vol 3 and vol 4

"Co-mixer" is a compilation of short, 2 to 5 pages long, black and white comics that are gathered under the same theme. The theme of volume 3 is Weaknesses and the theme of volume four is Noises. I really like "Co-mixer", because it gathers so many different artists in one place. You can see manga styled artwork and caricature artwork and so much more in less then 100 pages.
For more information on "Co-mixer" itself

For more information on "Co-mixer" vol 3 

For more information on "Co-mixer" vol 4 

Places, where you can find "Co-mixer" 

 "Pocket comic book" ("Джобен Комикс")

"Pocket comic book" collection of short stories by 9 Bulgarian artists like Ivan and Sybilla Koritarevi, Satanasov, Nikolai Popov and more. Inside you can also find interviews of famous Bulgarian artists, working in the film industry like Antoni Hristov, Evgeni Tomov and Vladimir Todorov. 
This book is an amazing project and I really hope they continue to publish such compilations. 
For more information on "Джобен Комикс"

"Stephen King's N."

"Stephen King's N." is a graphic novel, based on Stephen King's short story "N.", written by the American writer and producer Marc Guggenheim and drawn by the Bulgarian artist Alex Maleev. This graphic novel was published by Bard in 2012 and can be found in almost every bookstore.

The artwork and the story are amazing and I definitely recommend this to anyone, who likes suspense horror stories.

Click here for more information on Stephen King's N

I'm back home and Claymore

Hey guys! I'm safely back home, but I have been doing a lot of stuff for university and my new home (mainly cleaning and decorating (a lot of decorating)), so I haven't had much time to write a new post. I'm planning to write posts about all the new Bulgarian comic books, that I have read (the new volumes of Co-Mixer, Pocket Comic Book (Джобен Комикс) and Stephen King's N.). I'm also currently reading the Bulgarian releases of Naruto and One Piece and I really want to say a few words about them, so expect a bunch of new posts soon. 

For now I just want to make a little announcement (again). The last manga, that ArtLine Studios has planned to publish next year is Norihiro Yagi's Claymore (クレイモア). It's a dark fantasy/horror manga and I have watched the anime, so I'm really looking forward to this release.

News!!

This post will be basically about a few announcements I want to make.

So first of all, I'm going home next week. I spent exactly an year in Japan and it was amazing. You probably have seen all my posts with photos and figures and what not from Japan. There are a few more pictures that I would like to upload and I will do that very soon. So my flight is next Saturday and I am expected to arrive in Bulgaria on Sunday morning. I really can't wait to see all my friends and catch up with all the comics and manga, that have been released, since I came here.

Speaking of manga, the next announcement I want to make is about the new manga releases in Bulgaria.

Artline Studios, who started publishing Naruto and One Piece, have announced that they will start to publish Tite Kubo's manga Bleach and Ikeda Akihisa's manga Rosario to Vampire at the begining of 2014. I am not really into the ecchi and harem genre, so I guess I won't be getting Rosario to Vampire. I actually got a look at it this morning and I couldn't even stand through one chapter. It's definitely not my style. However, I am really looking forward to seeing Bleach on the Bulgarian comics market. I really love the first arc of the story and I find Tite Kubo's artwork amazing. I'm actually reading Bleach since my second year in high school and I was really into it at the time. I hope the translation is good.

That's it for now. Expect my final uploads from Japan soon.

Announcements!!!!

  I am in Japan right now, but I follow closely of the anime and manga events that are happening in my home country, Bulgaria. so I decided that it's the right thing to do to write about them here, since this was the original idea of this blog - to follow the development of anime and manga culture in Bulgaria. 

  First of all, the dates for Bulgaria's biggest anime convention Aniventure are out - the 7th and the 8th of September. It will take place in Sofia again. The exact place is Sofia Event Center at Paradise Mall. Of course, there will be the typical Cosplay contest, AMV contest, Manga contest, Artist's Alley, FanFic contest, Exhibition and many many more! Too bad I will have to miss it this year, because I will be going home at the end of September. But if you can, go and see the event. I'm sure it will be awesome. I would really love to see at least some photos and read some reviews. 

  For more information about the event you can visit the following links:

Club Nakama's web page

Aniventure's facebook page

Anivnture's facebook event page
  The other announcement (which I should have made a few months ago) is about manga.
  Right after I came to Japan, Art Line Studios started publishing Naruto and One Piece in my home country. They have also promised to start publishing Death Note this autumn, and I'm really looking forward to seeing Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba's  work on the Bulgarian market. And if everything goes well they might even start publishing Bleach.
  For now we have volumes one to four of Naruto and volumes one to three of One Piece. They are the typical Japanese size volumes (which is awesome, because I love this size) and they have these protective covers that the Japanese manga have, which is just amazing. I don't thing that any other non Japanese publisher is doing that with manga volumes. The price of one book is 9,99 levs, which isn't really that much and I think that it's the perfect price for a volume of manga. Of course, the cheaper the better, but our market is still too small for us to demand cheaper manga. I still haven't seen them or read them, but I'm hearing some mixed opinions from my friends. I will certainly get my hands on them when I get back home in September and I'm pretty excited to see what they have done with the translation and the edition as a Japanologist and as an Otaku. 
  If you're a fan, go and buy them and tell me what you think. I would really like to hear as many opinions as possible. I'm also pro sponsoring Bulgarian comic and manga economics so go buy them, for the sake of our manga and comics market! 
  For more information about the volumes of Naruto and One Piece visit the following link:
Art Line Studios 

Aoi Bungaku

Ever since I started learning Japanese Studies in university, I've been really fond of Japanese literature and the more I read the more I grow to love it. I've read a couple of books by Haruki Murakami, some detective stories by Edogawa Rampo, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima, The Pillow Book by  Sei Shonagon, my favourite book by a Japanese writer - A Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka and many more. 

About two years ago I stumbled upon an anime called Aoi Bungaku (青い文学/Blue Literature). I found it interesting, but there were some things that I didn't quite understand at the time. I really like to compare anime, based on a book to the actual book, so I was eager to read all the stories from Aoi Bungaku, but at the time I couldn't find them. A few months ago I was staying at my fiance's grandparents' place and they were so nice as to tell me to have a look at their old library and to take the books I like. So I started searching the library for interesting books and I found a lot of books by Japanese authors and took them all, without much looking at what I'm taking. Later, when I was looking more closely at them I noticed that I had taken some really interesting things like a book with short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, which include Hell Screen (地獄変) and The Spider's Thread (蜘蛛の糸). Later a friend gave me Kokoro (こころ) by Natsume Souseki. And in the end I found a book by Dadzai Osamu, which includes the stories No longer Human (人間失格) and Run Melos (走れメロス) in a local bookstore.
So basically I was able to read all the stories from Aoi Bungaku, except for one, which I can't find - In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom (桜の森の満開の下) by Ango Sakaguchi.
I'm sure that most of you have heard of the anime and if you haven't read the actual books you should give them a try, because they are a lot different from the anime. The anime exaggerates a lot and shows the main characters in a different light.
SPOILER ALERT FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEITHER WATCHED THE ANIME NOR READ THE BOOKS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
For example in No Longer Human in the anime the main character pushes the woman from the cliff and then jumps after her as for in the book they jump together, trying to commit double suicide. In Run Melos and The Spider's Thread the anime producers have added a whole new storyline to the original one. In Run Melos it has nothing do with the original one, but I really like how they've merged them together. In The Spider's Thread the new story line serves to explain the actions of the main character and his personality. In Hell Screen in the anime the ruler of the city is the bad guy who like perverted things, as for in the original story the artist himself has a really twisted mind and even tortures his student in order to see in reality what he wants to draw. In Kokoro in the anime, they have omitted about 2/3 of the story and the anime shows only the end of the story. The first part of the book was actually kind of boring, because almost nothing happens, but I think that it's important, because it makes you wonder why the author is building up such suspense.
END OF SPOILER :)
To be honest, I like the books more than the anime. They just explain the story and the characters' actions better and I really like how the Japanese authors write. If you've watched the anime and haven't read the books, I really recommend them to you. You might find them a little strange at the beginning, but they are very interesting. 
About the books, from which I read the stories (for Bulgarians only) - the book with short stories by Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Kokoro by Natsume Souseki are really old editions and I'm not sure if you can find them. You might try some of the bookstores fo used books and the libraries, of course. As for the book by Dadzai Osamu, it was published in 2011 by Altera and it can still be found in some bookstores. I bought mine in Plovdiv, because I couldn't find it in Sofia. All of them are translated from Japanese to Bulgarian and the translations are really good.
If someone knows where I can find and read  In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom (桜の森の満開の下) by Ango Sakaguchi, please tell me!
Comments are always welcome.  

Aniventure 2012 - artwork and books

There was a lot of artwork and many artists on Aniventure 2012 and here are the ones who were most interesting for me:

The Artist's alley

At the Artist's alley I saw four of my favourite artists on deviantArt. Here are links to their galleries:

http://tenzeru-chan.deviantart.com/

http://moon-valkyrie.deviantart.com/ 

http://xbunnylace.deviantart.com/

http://vegigi.deviantart.com/

I bought a lot of stickers and bookmarks from them. They are ally awesome. Be sure to check them out.

 This is the book, where the winners of the Manga contest and the winner of the Fanfic contest were published.

First place of the Manga contest was taken by Kalin Popov and his story Endless Darkness (Безкрайна тъмнина). It was interesting to read, although there were some things that weren't very well explained. The artwork is not bad, but this guy definitely has some trouble shading and every panels looks kind of unfinished and reminded me more of a sketch. 

Second place was taken by Yana Lyapova and her story Graveyard Stories (Гробищни истории). Actually, this was the one I liked the most from the contest this year. The story is interesting and well told and her artwork is really cute. There are some panels that look kind of unfinished, but as a whole it's really well made. 

Third place was taken by Alexandra Stryaskova and her story Little London Witch. The artworks is pretty average and the story is cliche and I think that she might have had some trouble with the scanning, because the pages of the manga look weird. To see more of her artwork you can visit her gallery - http://friendlyassasin.deviantart.com/

The award of the Fanfic contest was given to Nadejda Ivanova Georgieva and her story Dreams and Reality (Мечти и реалност), which is based on Naruto. I am not a Naruto fan, but I really loved this fanfic, because it's so different and well written. 

In this book you can also find artwork by the following artists:

http://the-dolphins-cry.deviantart.com/

http://eyesofsuffering.deviantart.com/

The white haired female mascot on the cover of the book was drawn by http://engells.deviantart.com/

 Co-Mixer is a very interesting project, that features Bulgarian comics, which i really liked. It has only two issues for now and every issue consists of a number of comics on a certain theme, for example the theme for number two is second hand.

For more information on the artists and Co-Mixer itself, please visit their blog - http://co-mixer.blogspot.com/

Bulgaria Cosplay Book was created by Lyubena Fox and Georgi Teofilov. It features five Bulgarian cosplayers:

Lybena Fox as Megurine Luka  from Vocaloid and Inori Yuzuriha from Guilty Crown

Irina Tsapreva as Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid

Alexander Hawkins as Akira from Togainu no Chi and Zero Kiryu from Vampire Knight

Ayame Midori as Ling Xiaoyu from Tekken

Kalina Marinova as Tira from Soul Calibur

I hope they make more like this with more pages and more cosplayers in the future, because even though this one is well made, its too short.

You can find some of the pictures, which were in the book in Lubena Fox's gallery - http://lyubenafox.deviantart.com/

For more information about Aniventure you can visit the following web pages:

http://www.aniventure.net/

http://nakama-bg.com/

Aniventure 2012 Day 2

Ok, so as I said in my previous post, the main event of the second day of Aniventure is cosplay. And this year all of the cosplayers were really great. The ones I really liked are - The Lord of the Rings group, Hizaki from Versailles, Miku, Pyramid Head, Inori and Shuu from Guilty Crown, Vash the Stampede (I've wanted to see a Vash cosplay for years and this came as a really pleasant surprise for me), but the ones I liked most of all were Loki and Lady Loki. In my opinion they were the best. 

The only thing that kinda ruined my experience and left me with an unpleasant feeling was the constant screaming of the people who were sitting in front of us and behind us, who really wanted to offend some of the cosplayers. They were really loud and annoying. One of my friends even constantly covered her years, because of that. And my conclusion of all that was that even though the event progresses and becomes better and better with every year, the audience still hasn't learned how to behave. 

So after the review of the cosplayers there were three scenes, played on the stage by three groups of people - Naruto, a mash up of gender bender Avengers and some anime characters like Luffy from One Piece (who was also a woman), Rin from Ao no Exorcist and many others, and the last one was the group of Lord of the Rings. All of them were really funny and everyone was in character, which was awesome! The one I liked the most was Naruto.
There were also many many cosplayers in audience and when I was walking from hall to hall I felt like I was in another world and it was really great. 

And here is a list of the winners:

Chosen by the jury:
- Best costume - Hizaki
- Same as original - Loki
- Best of show - Vash
Chosen by the audience:
- Best costume - Loki
- Same as original - Loki
- Best of show - Miku
Award for requisite - Pyramid Head

Going to EuroCosplay - Pyramid head
Best game cosplay:
1st place - Bayonetta
2nd place - Zero
3rd place - Glados
Best scene - Naruto

As you can see Loki won a lot of things and I really wished that lady Loki had won something too, because she was amazing.

I am really sorry that I didn't take more pictures, but I was too busy watching :D

Me with the two Lokis

Suzuki and Sebastian

I will finish this post with a link to a channel where you can see videos from the cosplay - http://www.youtube.com/user/CosplayBG/videos
I plan to do at least one more post about Aniventure 2012, because there are more things I want to say, especially about the artwork, so check in a day or two, if you're interested.
Comments are always welcome :)

Aniventure 2012 Day 1

Aniventure is the biggest anime event in Bulgaria, organized by the National Anime and Manga club Nakama. It has been held for 7 years in a row and this year was my 5th Aniventure. Today was the first day of the event, tomorrow is the second day and I decided to do separate posts of the two days, because they are very different. 

Aniventure 2012 is held in party center 4th kilometer, which is a very convenient place for conventions, because it has enough and spacious rooms for everything to fit in. Tickets are 10 lv (~5 euro) for one day and 15 lv (~8 euro) for the two days. 

Ok, so this is my personal experience from day one.

I woke up at about at about 5:00 in the morning, because I was very anxious since I didn't know who will be with me during the day and I was worried that I might end up going alone. That didn't happen and I am very glad of the fact.

I went to the party center very early so that I could get inside earlier and buy some merchandise, which I eventually did :D You will see what I got below. After I bought what I liked I went to the opening ceremony, which was very amusing and they had chosen my favourite hosts - Hipi and Dora. They really know how to entertain the audience. During the day I visited the Pixel art workshop and the Kirigami workshop, which were fantastic. I also visited some of the lectures and I really liked the one about Wonderflex - a material, from which you can make cosplay armor and other things. At the end of the day was the AMV contest and I really enjoyed the AMVs this year.

I want to thank especially to my colleges Rali, Ili and Suzuki, who were with me during the day. 

 Gathering before the event starts

 The opening ceremony. Really funny sketch! And very witty too.

The lecture about Wonderflex. The woman, who lead the lecture is a Romanian cosplayer, who is known as Shinju. 

The Art exhibition. 

Some stands 

 Shodo (calligraphy)

Kazami Mizuho from Onegai Teacher
6x5 cm

You can take her skirt off :P

 Chii from Chii's Sweet home
3,5 cm

 This is the little Totoro I made at the Pixel art workshop

 Totoro wood carving, really awesome!

Three books I bought, still haven't looked them through.

The kirigami I did

Tomorrow I will post my experience from the second day, which is all about cosplay, so stay tuned! :)