Akaboshi: Ibun Suikoden: Research Notes (Patreon)

Tucker

Six Words:

• Water Margin of Error: Mystic Boredom

AUTHOR

• Amano, Youichi 天野 洋一（あまの よういち)
  • Ah-mah-no, Yo–ichi

TITLE:

• Akaboshi: Ibun Suikoden  AKABOSHI -異聞水滸伝-
  • Ah-kah-bo-shee, Ee-bun (similar to the oo sound in hood) Suey-ko-den
  • Akaboshi literally means “red star/planet,” but the translation I found decided to translate it as “morning star,” which is acceptable, I guess
  • “Ibun” means something like “differing account” or “side story,” meaning that they aren’t going to be strictly following the plot of the original Water Margin story.
  • Suikoden is the Japanese name of the Chinese novel. It is written as “water-vicinity-legend.” Apparently another English title for The Water Margin is “Outlaws of the Marsh,”
    • Are you familiar with the classic Konami strategy RPG series Gensou Suikoden? It basically just means “Fantasy Water Margin,” and of course, it is loosely based on the same source material as this manga

CHARACTERS

• Kin, Suiren 金翠蓮（きん すいれん）
  • Keen, Suey-ren
• Tei
  • Tay
• Taisou 戴宗（たいそう)
  • Thai-sew
  • Chinese name: Dai Zong
• Kaoshou 花和尚（かおしょう）
  • Kah-oh-show
  • Name means something to the effect of “head Buddhist priest of flowers”\
• Oushin 王進（おうしん）
  • Oh-sheen
• Jisen 時遷（じせん）
  • Jee-sen
• Rin-Chuu/ “Hyoushi-tou” 林冲（りんちゅう）/豹子頭（ひょうしとう）
  • Reen-chew
  • Nickname: Hyoh-shee-tow
    • For the “hy” sound, think of the English name “Hugh,” which would be written in Japanese as “Hyuu”
  • Better translation of nickname than is in the manga would be “one of the head of a leopard’s cub”
• Kosanjou 扈三娘（こさんじょう）
  • [cone-sahn-joe]

OTHER

• Taiten-Gyoudou 替天行道
  • Tie-ten, Gyo-dough
  • Written as “exchange”+”heaven”+”going”+”path”
• Saishuu Unjouken 鄆城県
  • “State of Sai, Unjou County/Prefecture”
  • Sigh-shoe, un(somewhat like the “oo” in hood)-joe-ken
  • Definitely a Japanese transliteration of the original Chinese (Yuncheng County, Shandong Province), as is most of the proper nouns in this series so far
• Bandits of Ryouzanpaku 梁山泊
  • The Japanese name of Mount Liang, the mountain stronghold of the 108 heroes in the Water Margin
  • Going to copy my notes from Sakura Tetsu about pronouncing “ry” sounds in Japanese:
    • To get the Ryou/Lyou pronunciation accurate to Japanese (as a single syllable), practice saying the syllables “low”/”row” (being mindful to only touch the front bit of the tongue to the top of the month when pronouncing the consonant) and then a long “yo.” Then, practice sliding your tongue from the L/R position to the Y position. That sliding motion is how you get the consonant sound in Japanese usually written as “ry”
  • Ryow/Lyow-zahm-pah-ku
• Fukuma no Tsurugi 伏魔之剣（ふくまのつるぎ)
  • Fuh (again, think of the oo sound in hood)-ku-mah-no-Tsu-ru-ghee
    • Ts sounds are exactly the same as English, only Japanese allows it at the beginning of syllables, while English only allows it at the end!
    • Practice by repeating  “pots and pans,”  but then then think of the words being spaced like “pah tsand pans” …congrats, you just made the ts sound!
  • Means something like “Blade of the tamed demons/magic”
• Chi-ken
  • Chee-ken
• Shinkou-Enryuu
  • “Sacred-traveling flame dragon”
  • Sheen-koh, En-ryuu
    • See the “ry” note above
• Mugen Hyakka: Ringe 夢幻百華・蓮華
  • Muh-gen, Hya-っka,  Reen-geh
  • For the “hy” sound, see the Rin-chuu character note above
  • Remember from my previous notes that the little っ character denotes a beat of silence!
  • Attack name kinda sorta translates to “Illusory Bouquet: Lotus Flower”

MaxyBee

Author: Yoichi Amano

Prior works to Akaboshi:

- Over Time (2006, 3 volumes, 19 chapters, Weekly Shonen Jump)

- The start of WSJ’s baseball curse, a very real thing that exists. Think Hikaru no Go or Field of Dreams or Angels in the Outfield, but it’s about a dweeb baseball player haunted by an awesome baseball player classmate of his. A flop, but it came out at the right time to be a part of the Kochikame 30th anniversary project (just like Zan!). That and it’s baseball manga, so it rules.

Works after Akaboshi:

- Examurai (2010-2011, 2 volumes, 8 chapters, Jump SQ)

- Crappy future-set fantasy story starring some of the many members of Japanese boy band Exile. I’ve read this and can barely remember it, so you know it’ll be some WOEFUL Shonen Flop fodder in the future.

- Stealth Symphony (2014, 3 volumes, 20 chapters, Weekly Shonen Jump) (written by Ryogo Narita)

- You’ve already covered this one. I think it’s a five star series that rewards rereading a hell of a lot, I think you guys weren’t as hot, and readers at the time were less kind than any of us.

- Ana no Mujina (2014-HIATUS, 4 volumes, a complicated amount of chapters, Shonen Jump Plus)

- Supernaturally-powered con-man helps cops punish the unpunishable or something. Doesn’t number its chapters properly, and chapters can be LONG. Like the last one before hiatus in 2016 was 70-odd pages. Never coming back.

- Mist Gears Blast (2018-2019, 2 volumes, 18 chapters, Shonen Jump Plus)

- A video game tie-in for a live service phone game that didn’t last the year. Shueisha bet on this with this manga and a novel (also illustrated by Amano), but if people didn’t give a shit about the game they DEFINITELY did not care about this. Mediocre JRPG bullshit, with mist that brings ruin and monsters, like Final Fantasy 9 I guess.

Who they were an assistant for:

- Hideaki Sorachi (Gintama)

- Tohru Uchimizu (The Love and Creed of Sae Maki, a bunch of WSJ flops in the 00s)

Notable assistants:

-  No notable ones as far as I know

Series: Akaboshi -Ibun Suikoden-

Publishing

Series it replaced:

- Bokke-san by Yoshiyuki Nishi (remember this?)

Series that replaced it:

- Neko Wappa by Naoya Matsumoto (of Kaiju no.8 fame)

Cover appearances:

- Debut issue 25/2009 (sick cover, by the way)

- Group cover 37-38 / 2009 (chibi protagonists eating shaved ice, very cute)

Manga Itself

- Based on Water Margin, one of China’s four great classical novels. You may recognise it as also being adapted into the Suikoden series of JRPGs. There is some debate among eastern and western scholars as to what four should be considered the four classical novels, because there’s six common choices, and scholars seem to hate just including all six, but Water Margin is always in there, along with Journey to the West, which of course inspired Dragon Ball, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, the tv show Monkey, and just about everything else ever. I’m more of an ‘Investiture of the Gods’ person, so have no care for which four of the six get the most praise.

- A very pretty comic lacking a lot of clarity and much in the way of panel to panel storytelling. Busy.

- The scans are dogshit low quality stuff that make it look worse than it is (as was the way back then), but it is still quite hard to focus on.

- Between this, Stealth Symphony, and the baseball series Over Time, I’m under the impression that Amano really likes wide and varied casts that he can do character design work for more than the actual comics part of his job.