How to Use the Ultimate Manga Guide
This document describes how you should use the Ultimate Manga Guide. What follows is a description of features in the Textguide AND in the Webguide. The features that have been added by the current maintainer to the text/webguide are indicated by a New icon.
The Ultimate Manga Guide lists manga artists in English alphabetical order. Each manga artist has a brief biography (where supplied, somewhat more organized than before), and a list of their most important or recent mangas, in loosely chronological order.
For each manga, the following information is listed, with optional items in [ ] braces:
If possible, a list of dates of publication of every volume. This will be
in the following format [01:9503|02:9507...] which means that tankoubon #1's
first edition appeared in march 1995. When it is possible we will indicate
even if a tankoubon is out of print. This will be done by replacing the ":"
by a "X". For this info we have based ourselves on the monthly mangalistings
on fj.rec.comics or on the dates on the last page of every tankoubon.
synopsis/review/plot summary; (these are often provided by readers of the net, and tend to reflect individual tastes and opinions, as with any review. They should not necessarily be regarded as authoritative or objective. Contributors' names are credited at the end of the Guide. They won't contain too many spoilers.)
list of relevant URLs. (provided as a sample only, not intended as a full cross-reference to manga on the Web, and not guaranteed to be current.)
[Special features]: This will give a short description of the 'little bonuses'
added by the author one can sometimes find in the tankoubon edition. Examples:
technical datasheets, features regarding the covers, it is also mentioned
here if the tankoubon edition contains color sections.
APG: Even if this is the manga guide, it still is useful to know if
some series has been animated or not. If you find this abbreviation,
then the series has been animated. After this phrase you can find the
keys to search for in the Anime Pocket Guide from Alan Takahashi.
TRA: A tag that indicates that this series has been translated partly
or entirely into one or more foreign languages. Following the tag is
a list of the known languages into which the series has been
translated. The tags are: (E) for English; (F) for French; (S) for
Spanish; (G) for German; (D) for Dutch; (C) for Chinese; (P) for Portugese.
In the line preceding the name of the author, you'll find updateinfo: if
the line has two plus-signs upfront then the author has been added since
the last version, if the line has two stars in front of it then the entries
have been updated. This is by the way also used to generate the new section
of the html- version.
Japanese bookstores only require the title, artist/author and publisher to order a manga. ISBNs are not necessary.
Remark concerning the prices mentioned in Yen: an effort has been made to provide as much as possible the prices with sales tax included. Sometimes the wholesale price has been mentioned (the difference is 3 %). We have not indicated which one of the two has been included. There is a little trick (although not always correct) to determine if the price you see is the price with or without sales tax. Almost always the price with sales tax is rounded to the nearest multiple of ten yen. So when you see something like Y583 one can assume this is a wholesale price (Y583 + 3 % makes about Y600).
The best way to find information in this guide is to keep a copy on-line and search it electronically with a text editor or word processor. For those looking for recommendations for new mangas, or information in general, it is also suitable for browsing at random.
The Detailguide is not yet available to the public in its textversion. I'm thinking about making
it available like the main manga guide, but I'm hesitating. Anyway, all the information in it can also
be found in the Webguide (this encourages you to browse my site :)). The file contains for every tankoubon listed
the title, ISBN-number, translation of title, a list of all chapters (with pagenumbers) with their titles translated.
A synopsis for every chapter, sometimes the story has even been completely summarized. When I had too much time, I also
included JIS titles. Of course, entering all the info needed for this guide is rather cumbersome, so I cannot promise
thousands of tankoubon in this format in the near future. You can see that help is desperately wanted here:
contact me on my e-mail-address.
The above should warn you enough that the detailguide contains EXTENSIVE SPOILERS especially for those chapters for which there is a complete summary. You have been warned. Do not complain to me.
In every chapter, there is also a mention about the number of color-pages in it. There are three possibilities
and they are described further in this document.
If there are new and important characters in that chapter, they are mentioned.
A lot of coverpictures can be viewed in the Webguide. They are reachable by clicking
on the appropriate tankoubon number in the timeline of the mainguide.
The Timeline available with many series is used as a link between the Main Manga Guide and
the Detailguide. There are two possibilities here. 1) There is no equivalent in the Detailguide
of the tankoubon in question available. 2) There is an equivalent in the Detailguide.
In the first case, you only see the cover when clicking on the link. In the second case, you
see a combination of the cover and the HTML-ized detailsection.
If available, an authorpicture has been put on the page
There are links between the file
which collects the names and adresses of all the contributors and the Manga Guide. By clicking
on the sign with the initials of the person who wrote the synopsis, you go to the file of contributors.
In the biography of an author, the prefecture
of birth is clickable. It brings you to a map of the according prefecture. In the future, I will develop
a timeline of authors.
The detailsections which contain synopses about every chapter, also contain information
about whether a chapter contains colorpages or not. As you may know, manga is almost
always in Black and White and very seldom are there color-pages. Even so, almost
every magazine has the habit of including some color-pages every issue. So, authors
make from time to time on the demand of the publisher a number of color-pages (almost
always four pages). Unfortunately very few publishers will reproduce these color-pages
in the tankoubon (Shounen Jump e.g. has never reproduced color pages). On the other hand,
some publishers do reproduce them in the tankoubon (mostly manga for an older public).
Another possibility is that a chapter is printed in only two colors (i.e. black and white and some other color).
Maison Ikkoku was done this way for example.
So there are three possibilities and you can find this information in the webguide.
This icon means that the original full colorpages have been reproduced in the tankoubon.
The number of pages is also available under the ALT tag (you can see this in newer browsers
by holding your mouse over it).
This icon means that the original colorpages have been reproduced but that the original
was printed in two colors. Same remark for the ALT tag.
This icon means that there were originally color pages in the magazine, but the publisher
has decided not to reproduce them in the tankoubon. Same remark for the ALT tag.
For some series there is a page which lists the
most important characters of the series with a small picture for each character and a description of it.
Just like in the main guide, the contributors have been linked to the contributions file.
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If you have suggestions or ameliorations concerning the usage of the guide, email me at:
pvhuf@geocities.com
Maintained by Peter Van Huffel © 1997-1998.
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