Spice and Wolf: Controversy Sells?

Yesterday, Yen Press announced that they will be releasing a special dust jacket featuring the delicious original artwork by Ayakura Juu. Previously, Yen Press had come under fire by some hardcore fans about the changing of the cover which some described as ‘distasteful’. The change of covers was for marketability. Reasoning that with this new cover they could broaden their marketing opportunities. Rather than just selling to the manga crowd they could also reach the fantasy readers as well. Which is perfectly understandable. Making money is the number one priority. But Yen Press, for all their awesomeness, have other high priorities.

This would be the happiness of the fans. They announced they would release this dust jacket to online retailers and those who ordered online would receive it. They also releases the jacket in the Yen magazine. But from what I’ve read of those who got it from there, things aren’t so positive. You can’t please everyone. Which is the case. Some people are arguing that the people who don’t buy theirs online are being pushed to the side, or bringing up the point Sankaku Complex made in that ‘customers are important to us;  But not important enough for them to change the cover back to the overwhelmingly preferred original, it seems’. (Really, I stopped visiting Sankaku Complex three months ago to preserve my faith in humanity, so I’m just going off some of the things I’ve just read in the comments of said article).

While I am currently unemployed and unable to purchase the novel online, I will be buying it as soon as possible. This is one of my top five series. Of course, silly cover or not, I’ll be buying it! I will have to suffer with the new cover but that’s okay. The story is the same. Are people forgetting that? I mean it’s just a cover. I was a little bitter at first. But I’m just a sucker for Ayakura’s art. It’s not like they edited the story crazily here or anything. Hell, Yen Press is one of the best manga publishers there is. I mean, hello, it’s not like we’re dealing with freaking Tokyopop here. Now that would be tragic. They wouldn’t think twice about offending and enraging the fanbase (we still remember Rozen Maiden, jerks).

But I would like to ask anyone who is thinking of purchasing the Spice and Wolf novel to please order it online. I spoke, sorta, with them earlier and asked whether or not we can expect the new covers or the original for the rest of the series. They responded with saying:

“We will continue to produce alternate covers for future Spice & Wolf novels. We can’t expect retail support for them otherwise. Whether or not those alternate covers are jackets with the original covers underneath or we continue to offer jackets like this will be dictated by the success of this jacket. It will give us a great opportunity to gauge the success of each version. So this your chance, Spice & Wolf fans! An actual opportunity to vote with your dollars! Not buying tells us nothing. What you buy speaks volumes!“

Totally fair logic. So you heard them! We already know this great publishing company actually cares what we think! So now it’s up to you guys to tell them! And like they said, the best way to do this is to buy the series not boycott it! You’ll just be loosing out on a really great story. So I encourage everyone, I practically want to BEG everyone to go out and buy the novel online!

As of yet, the list of retailers that have agreed to participate in shipping out the cover with the novel is unknown. When further information is known on the list of retailers, I will update this post.

Yesterdays Announcement: here
Original Announcement: here

The Manga Guide to. . .

I thought this was too great to pass up. Like are you serious? Well we do have Moetan who teaches you English. So why not shake it up a bit?

We have here a series of textbooks (so to speak) that teach you various things such as calculus, electricity and physics. But as manga. Sorta. Now I don’t know how good these books are. From one of the reviews I read it seemed that [calculus] book’s story about the journalist was more interesting than the actual work. But of course. It’s calculus. It’s not interesting at all! Although I had to admit that the bit I read of the calculus book had me titterring.

Anyways, in the series you’ll find The Manga Guide to Calculus, The Manga Guide to Physics, The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology,  The Manga Guide to Electricity, The Manga Guide to Databases, The Manga Guide to the Universe, and The Manga Guide to Statistics.

Now I think I’ll be trying to get my hands on the Molecular Biology book. Which is, of course, the best of the best of science. My very favourite! So I’ll be watching out for that like a hawk.

Uekiya – Allegoria

I have been putting this review off for at least three weeks. No more excuses. Let’s do this.

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Exit Trance presents Speed Anime Trance Best 8

Thanks, as usual, to Pingas who provided this for me. I totally forgot about this. I actually had another album planned before I spent the rest the night doing nothing at all. Maybe I’ll get to that album if it is any good.

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IOSYS – ANIME HOUSE PROJECT 神曲 selection vol.1

IOSYS in my blog? It’s more likely than you think. Well this isn’t a touhou album so I guess it’s okay. I mean, IOSYS never really grabs my attention (okay, PV songs aside) so I don’t normally give the album a listen when they first come out. That being said, this is pretty old. But my new policy is to review even older stuff! And it was only released tihs year so what am I saying…? Anywho, it’s new to me! Plus, the next IOSYS album in the series comes out this month. But unless this one turns out to be stellar (and it’s not from what I’ve already heard) I won’t be picking it up due to the painfully generic tracklist.

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Exit Trance presents Speed Anime Trance Best 8 Info

Exit Trance presents Speed Anime Trance Best 8 will be out later this week and I can’t remember if I’ve given a heads up on what to expect. I’ll put it frankly though: no Katayoku no Tori. But do we really want Exit Trance to touch that? They have improved lately. Well hell, I misread! Actually, I skipped it. I was skimming the list and saw it! Now I’m both terrifiyed and excited! They have a newbie singer preforming it… ehhh… at least not Latte right? We  have to look forward to are Canaan’s ‘Mind of Judgement’, Pandora Heart’s ‘Parallel Hearts’, Saki’s ‘Glossy:MMM’, Bakemonogatari’s ‘Stable Staple’, Tales of Abyss’s ‘Karma’, Eden of the East’s ‘Futuristic Imagination’, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei’s ‘Super Scription of Data’, and Ghost in the Shell’s ‘Inner Universe’. I know there are two Kanameno and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu tracks as well. I’m also not 100% sure on Karma and Inner Universe. They don’t sound like common titles though.

Jeez, now I’m a little excited.

Also, thank you to Quake Records for finally putting the illustrators names on the album pages. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

Happy Halloween!

I planned to work on Loli Salad all weekend, starting tonight. I’m not doing much besides taking Princess loli-Leia (my sister) trick or treating tomorrow and possibly watching some scary movies tonight. So I plan to do a few things around here. But as usual twitter and Nightbug Creations distracted me. I plan on writing up a few reviews (starting with theat Anime House IOSYS thing) and looking at some new plugins, possibly. I’m also planning on starting to make a directory page of all the album reviews, sorted by artist. But that’s just what I want to do. Instead of doing it, I’m sitting here telling you what I want to do. So I’ll go work on that right now. (Actually, I started writing this at six. Six hours later and I haven’t even finished this post.)

miko+Resurrection – Sorairo Days

Bricks were shat. (I used much, much more obscene language in my surprise tweet, really) I mean I’m always up for a Sorairo Days remix but when I heard the vocals, my jaw dropped. I mean this video was uploaded in August (around the time of the Albatrosicks review here on Loli Salad) so it’s nothing new. But I hadn’t even heard IOSYS had done an anime album! You can bet there will be a review of this album in the near future. It doesn’t sound great but it’s miko. MIKO. I’m actually reminded of the early Exit Trance stuff (which the new instalment should be out soon, right? I hope I’m not behind…) but that Sorairo Days was good. Meh. Exit Trance never had miko (or ARM for that matter, since he produced this remix)! So I’ll give this darned album a shot! Look forward to it~

EDIT: they have Katagiri Rekka doing a version of Tori no Uta? I think I foamed at the mouth a little. In a good way! Next you’ll be telling me REDALiCE helps out too!

Wind Tune – 旅人のうた

Short album review for you guys here. Obviously only picked it up for the cover since I know NOTHING of Wind Tune. I gotta stop doing that, right? Well, I was under the impression that Wind Tune was a trance group? Maybe I’m confusing them with someone else…

(I actually didn’t know this album was very recent. Neat)

Today we’ll be using the demos posted on the site for your listening pleasure. Just giving you a heads up in case something seems off. Again, please tell me if something doesn’t work.

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[c76] Denshi Hotaru – Touhou Rat Kingdom

(If you notice an error in the title of this album, please tell me. I wasn’t sure if this information was reliable or not). This was one of the albums I downloaded purely for the cover. Delicious Patchouli and cute Nazrin? Count me in! Little did I know how awesome this album was. So excuse me if nobody else was interested in a review of this. I had originally planned to update with a sorta-not-not-official-we need to see other people-goodybye post. So this is better, right?

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