From the back cover:
Ban, Shido, and Emishi make their plans for rescuing Ginji… and for retrieving the limbs of the Venus! Meanwhile, Ginji talks to Miss hela about her hatred of the Venus de Milo and her plans to destroy its mystique by reattaching its arms! The final battles begin with everyone facing off and the secret behind the seven Mirokus is revealed!
Review:
It’s been six months since I read volume 12, and I must extend special kudos for the well-done Story Thus Far recap. And then promptly revoke them for the untranslated sound effects. Sound effects glossaries at the back of the book are a tad annoying, but there’s not one of those either. I can read the sounds, but I don’t always know what they’re supposed to signify. “Poto” when a rat appears means… what? Ta-dah? Poof? Scamper?
I’m not very excited by the Venus arc. It’s kind of boring after the whole Infinite Fortress storyline. With so many mysteries of that place still to be explored, I’m impatient for the characters to go back there. The one aspect of the current storyline that is interesting to me is the Miroku family, but even that is due more to differences between manga and anime than any amazing awesomeness they possess.
So, everyone fights somebody. Ginji is cool as the Lighting Lord. Ban is cool with non-spiky hair. The lady who’s trying to reunite Venus’ arms with her body has a really stupid motivation for doing so. And there’s random crack about some drug enabling you to set your body on fire and be a badass. Maybe I’m more willing to suspend disbelief for kooky fighting abilities in animes. Whatever, just end you stupid arc, end!
I think a lot of people complain about translated sound effects because it requires too much editing of the artwork to remove the Japanese. The publishers were probably just listening to fan complaints but they should include a golssary.
I think Tokyopop is actually just really inconsistent. Tokyo Babylon had a glossary. Some sound effects are translated in Fruits Basket just sort of at random. I can’t remember if later volumes have the glossary or not.
If they didn’t want to change the artwork, they could always do it the way Del Rey does, and put the teensy translations off to the side.
Glossary vs. small notes in the margins is really the same problem as endnotes vs. foonotes. Hate the former, love the latter. If the additional text is important to the reader’s understanding of what they’re reading, then it should be ON THE PAGE. You shouldn’t have to interrupt your reading and flip to another part of the book. If it’s not important, but is, for instance, just a citation telling you where a quote came from, then an endnote is ok.