Monthly Archives: October 2008

Show #064Direct Download:

Music: Conan the Barbarian theme by Basil Poledouris, Berserk music "Forces (God-Hand Remix)".

• Vertical has published the first 5 novels of the Guin Saga, the 120+ volume fantasy series that inspired Berserk and other Japanese fantasy in a Tolkien-esque way (that is to say, Kaoru Kurimoto inspired Japanese fantasy as much as Tolkien inspired the genre in the West, but Guin Saga is not in itself Tolkien-esque).
• 3-4 Guin Saga volumes come out every year in Japan
• The author also publishes a few other books, cleans the house, and is a regular on a quiz show (Specifically Hinto de Pinto). And she’s a literary critic. And she’s a composer. And she composed a musical based on the Guin Saga that has been performed in Tokyo.
• Kurimoto-san married the editor of the sci-fi magazine that first published Guin Saga.
• Noah vocab: Phatic. "A Phatic Experience."
• Guin Saga is the "Mother of Light Novels," along with the Vampire Hunter D novels.

• What is a light novel anyway?
  • Short and Fast read
  • Has illustrations
  • Usually "genre" but not always
  • There’s often a psychic
  • "Feats of the imagination"

• Guin Saga is soon to be an anime series from Aniplex
• Guin Saga is translated by Harvard graduate and fantasy fan Alexander O. Smith (who probably edits his wikipedia page about himself retracted, see below).
• We’re all glad about the Viz Big editions of Vagabond.
• Yoshitaka Amano got famous in part for his Guin Saga covers!
• Noah and I recommend King Naresuan 1 & 2 (but mostly 2). We’re looking forward to part 3.
• Finally at about one hour and 17 minutes Dungeons and Dragons comes up. That’s one hour and 15 minutes longer than it usually takes for Noah to start talking D&D!
• Is the leopard headed fighter in Tekken a Guin reference? Or a Tiger Mask reference?
  • UPDATE: Since Guin was first published in 1979, it post-dates Tiger Mask by 11 years. HOWEVER, as it turns out, before Tiger Mask was a Japanese pro-wrestler, it was actually a MANGA! Who knew???