slayers

I had another bit of tangential web surfing last night. This one started with following a link in this tweet by wah to a drawing of Hajime Kunihiro (Saki) on pixiv, then going to the series’ Wikipedia article to find out what role she played. I noticed a mahjong arcade video game based on it was revealed at TAF 2009 and this Gigazine story was cited as a reference. I looked at other stories on that site including this one about 133 GeGeGe no Kitaro and Yokai statues on Mizuri Shigeru Road in Sakaiminato, Tottori, Japan, named for the manga’s creator. Statue #102, a takekiridanuki (bamboo-cutting badger), was donated by Slayers author Hajime Kanzaka. (Another Hajime!)

Clicking on “Slayers” in that description took me to its Wikipedia article and I saw that Tokyopop has been publishing the light novels in America, the latest being number 8 in January 2008. However, there has been no word on when they might release the 9th through 15th novels. (You can read summaries of some of the novels here.) I checked Amazon and all eight are in-stock albeit in very low quantities, i.e. single-digit level. I liked the first 4 episodes of the anime, which I watched through Funimation’s free video offering and have been meaning to continue, so I decided to buy the first one to see if I would like it before hopefully continuing to the rest.

Along with ordering the first novel from Amazon this afternoon, I also bought Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals by Hiroki Azuma and 500 Essential Anime Movies: The Ultimate Guide by Helen McCarthy. I intend to write something about each of those in the future, likely to varying degrees.

P.S. I almost forgot to mention this post on Manga Life about how fans working together to express to Tokyopop their support of the novels’ publication and concern over rumors of its cancellation. I’m guessing it might have been posted in February 2006 based on this and some Internet Archive digging, which I had to conduct since Manga Life does not put clear dates on their posts.