Falling Stars

Normally I never buy manga I already own in another edition.

But the new CLOVER omnibus published by Dark Horse was just too pretty to resist.

( Feast your eyes on this! )

Years ago, Tokyopop published CLOVER in English. I already had the whole series in Chinese, so I only picked up the first Tokyopop volume out of curiosity.

It was a disappointing experience. Although Tokyopop did reproduce the translucent dustjacket and colour illustrations, the translation was sometimes awkward, the text was in an unattractive serif font, and the artwork was flipped so the pages read left to right - remember those days? - which had odd results since one character had an artificial hand.

I wish I still had it for comparison, but I ended up donating it to the library. I didn't even know that edition had gone out of print.

Anyway, Dark Horse has done a fine job with this omnibus. The paper is good quality stock, the images are crisp, the font is standard, and the artwork has been kept in its original orientation. And I've only browsed it so far, but the translation seems for the most part to be smooth and accurate. (I have nitpicks about a few names, but I suppose romanisation is a judgment call.)

But the real lure is in the colour illustrations: not only the cover art and splash pages are included, but also a bonus gallery of seventeen gorgeous images, most likely sourced from CLAMP's various artbooks.

If you've never read CLOVER before, this is a beautiful way to start.

( More pics )

( Spoilerish nitpicking )