SUGARHOLIC v4 Review
Reviewed by Emily Kazanecki

In this volume of Sugarholic, Jae-Gyu goes to Thailand as he first date with Whie-Hwan. She finds out that he had spent some time there as a child. When his past is uncovered, he is taken away. Jae-Gyu is alone in a foreign country – until she sees Hee-Do, her childhood friend turned idol who has a crush on her. Will Jae-Gyu turn away from Whie-Hwan just when he began to open up to her? The story begins when Jae-Gyu is sent to live in Seoul. She...
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WORDS OF TRUTH AND WISDOM: Economically Speaking
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley

A little while ago, we were thinking about our relationship with one of the publishers we work for, and wondering if maybe we got ourselves in trouble. We wrote something on our personal blog about something we translated for them, and a fan found it and reported about it on his blog, because it was a series he really liked. That's cool; we don't have any problem with that. The problem is that when we wrote about that particular translation, we also...
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CIRQUE DU FREAK v6 Review
Reviewed by Emily Kazanecki

There is a vampire war brewing in this volume! Darren has to avenge his friend's death while accusing another of being a traitor. Can he save the vampire race? Cirque du Freak is an English translation of a Japanese manga based on a young adult novel by Irish author Darren Shan. I have read the first volume of the novels, but the series has changed a lot since then. Main character Darren Shan has been turned into a half-vampire in order to save his...
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WORDS OF TRUTH AND WISDOM: "Ayame Soma Legal"
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley

Our work schedule his us like a sack of bricks this week, so we have even less time to write a column than we did the last time we had no time to write a column. We thought maybe we would just reprise a former column that was pretty popular, but since we've gotten so interested in Google Translate, we thought we'd present the column again...with a twist! Oooooohhh! See, we keep seeing people say (see because it's on the internet, so we're reading...
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PIG BRIDE v3 Review
Reviewed by Victoria Martin

Hey everyone, it's been awhile. Sorry about the delay, life has been a bit hectic of late but hopefully it will start to settle down now and you'll see more regular reviews from yours truly. Before we get to the review, I want to take a moment to remind everyone about our lovely forums. I'd love to see people over there to discuss not only the reviews but manga and other stuff in general. As an added incentive, I've put up a poll in which you can...
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ROMEO X JULIET OMNIBUS Review
Reviewed by Emily Kazanecki

This is not your traditional Shakespearean tragedy. Based on the anime of the same name, this manga only follows Shakespeare loosely. It includes characters and general plot points from the original play, but adds more exciting things, like dragonhorses. This is an omnibus edition containing both volumes one and two. I have not seen the anime, so I cannot comment on how closely they match. However, I have read Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and...
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TWIN SPICA v3 Review
Reviewed by Penny Kenny

I'm a little surprised by the love the manga blogosphere has poured out on Twin Spica. Don't get me wrong: it's good. It just doesn't seem that good. But then again, I am jumping in on the third volume, so I might have missed that singular something that grabbed everyone else. In volume three, astronaut trainee Asumi worries that her father might have been responsible for a rocket's crash; Mr. Lion, a ghost-astronaut dressed in a lion suit, watches...
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WORDS OF TRUTH AND WISDOM: (Wo)man vs. Machine
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley

I have to admit that after our last column, we continued to have a little too much fun playing with Google Translate. While editing a translation, we would get to phrases that were a little baffling, and we would try them on Google Translate for the heck of it and it was hilarious. But sometimes it actually gave us some good ideas, leading to a very brief moment of inner conflict when I wondered if using Google Translate might be a little unethical....
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KOBATO v2 Review
Reviewed by Penny Kenny

Clumsy Kubato has managed to collect some tears from wounded hearts, but she has a long way to go before her magic bottle is filled. In the meantime she tries to help Sayaka keep the loan sharks away from the kindergarten and discovers grumpy Fujimoto isn't so awful after all. In some ways Kobato is a variation on Clamp's own Card Captor Sakura manga: you have the enthusiastic heroine, the magical mascot, the quest that is a metaphor for growing...
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KIMI NI TODOKE v7 Review
Reviewed by Emily Kazanecki

Don't you just love seeing your favorite shojo characters celebrating the holidays? I sure do, and that is exactly what this volume of Kimi ni Todoke is all about. The star of this manga is Sawako Kuronuma, often called Sadako by her classmates. She has long black hair and pale skin that reminds them of the character Sadako from Ringu (remade in the US as The Ring.) She never had any friends until Shota Kazehaya, one of the most popular boys in school,...
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WORDS OF TRUTH AND WISDOM: A Long Way For Watson
Written by Charles Webb

We were kind of stumped on what to do for a column this week, so I thought, “Maybe we should just type up another literal translation for fun and be done with it.” Thinking about it further, since the forums are still pretty new and this might be a fun way to generate some interest in them, we came up with the idea of posting a literal translation, and then having people help out on the forums with an experiment to see if anyone could make a normal-sounding...
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The Last Tourist In Egypt
Written by Charles Webb

We're taking a break from our regular content to bring you just an incredible account from our very own Zack Davisson. Although we're a couple of weeks out from the political turmoil that gripped Egypt, it's still very fresh for Zack and his wife who've just returned from the country. The couple traveled to Egypt just before the historical outbreak of protest and upheaval that has seen the ouster of longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Zack...
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