Drops of God Wine Manga coming to the US

WINE TALK
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Here is the lead paragraph…

By Russ Parsons
November 5, 2012, 1:28 p.m.
When last we visited “The Drops of God,” the totally addicting wine manga, the two protagonists were just beginning their battle to decide who would be the emperor of wine. In one corner, ingenue Kanzaki Shizuku, the son of Japan’s most legendary wine writer who had forsaken his birthright and gone to work in, gasp, a beer distributorship! In the other, Tomine Issei, a darkly handsome, gifted young wine critic with troublesome values.the lead paragraph

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There is in fact a problem with the US/English language distribution, but it’s unaddressed in this article which appears to have been written by someone who is NOT ACTUALLY READING THE MANGA. I have loved this manga up to now. Up to now…

You see, Vols. 1 thru 4 were released in English and in order. It’s a serial. That would be a work of fiction that proceeds from beginning to end, not jumping around from place to place. But now, in total contravention of the whole “serial” concept - that is, completely out of order and apparently at the request of the English language publishers - they skipped a number of volumes to release “THE NEW WORLD” volume last month.

As noted in this Amazon customer review: "I just received my copy which I pre-ordered on Amazon. I am heartbroken. I regret to discover that these publishers, who have otherwise been doing a brilliant job of bringing Drops of God to America, do not understand manga readers and manga book collectors. Or if they do, they had some financial issues with the series and decided to take this drastic editorial step. For Vol 5 “New World” - is not really Vol 5 and doesn’t follow Vol 4. Instead, it skips ahead in the story. The back cover warns us. I have been eagerly reading Vol 1, 2, 3, and 4 by the same publisher, Vertical. I’ve pre-ordered every volume as I have been collecting the books and following this story.

“I’m completely stumped and flabberghasted that the publisher has decided to do this. This is what the English language Oishinbo (another gourmet manga series) ended up as - a hellish hodge-podge of “best of” episodes with stories that started in the middle and made no sense…”
http://www.amazon.com/Drops-God-World-Tadashi-Agi/dp/1935654527/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352156109&sr=1-2&keywords=drops+of+god

Reason to rejoice? I think not. [swearing.gif]

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I have been reading this in the original and have been getting a friend to send me all the volumes as they are released in Japanese.

I am at Volume 34 now with 35 released in the next month or so. If the English version is so rubbish (the French is adhering to the full story which to be fair is more about the journey than the wines drunk) then I may have to translate it myself to you all, as it is absolutely brilliant fun. Once I know all the main wines, I want to organise an offline with all of them on display!! [cheers.gif]

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The English version is very well-translated, near as I can tell. The problem is that they skipped ahead from the end of the English Vol. 4 to whatever subsequent volume “The New World” represents, presumably assuming that I so can’t wait to read about California wines that I don’t mind skipping over a big chunk of the narrative along the way. But that’s a false assumption. I’m not buying “The New World” until they release and I read the volumes that precede it.

Like I said, this is serialized fiction, a continously developing narrative, not a series of stand-alone episodes existing apart from a specific timeline of events.

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Yes indeed, and you can see that as the writer gets richer off his new found fame, the wines that appear in the book, go up in both quality and price on the whole, and coincide nicely with the strength of the yen.

Vol. 1 Japanese version was released in 2004.

I’m sure it is superbly translated… Most of the New World section however is about Australia, although I can’t remember which country the disciple wine from that area comes from. Will have to look through my notes!

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Well, there was that Henri Jayer Clos Parantoux that figured prominently in the first volume!

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I believe it was the Richebourg that the father drank on his deathbed. 1959 I believe.

Then you have the Rouget Cros Parantoux a bit later on. The 99 with regards to the hear-say that it was actually made by Jayer.

There are expensive wines at the beginning, but the majority are good value or punch above their weight… later on, there is a higher number of clearly pricey and top notch wines.

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Didn’t that thing put Calera Pinot on the map in Japan, selling him out one vintage?

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It put a lot of wines on the map; in fact it put wine on a more general map as a whole.

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Wow…only in my wildest dreams do I have time to read comic books.

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Count me in as +1 for being pissed off that they skipped ahead to “New World.” I bought it and read it, but I want to know what happened in-between, and I don’t like that they told us the score in terms of the contest to guess the apostles.

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Keith Levenberg weighs in:

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I think the skipping of large chunks, really hasn’t helped anyone’s understanding of the story.

The blog post whilst a good read, fails to understand quite a lot of the story and focuses on the trophies, when most of the time, the wines in question are simple everyday drinking wines… the wine that gets him into wine is not a trophy but an everyday “Chateau Mont-Perat 2005”. Hardly extravagent.

Wine is also about memories, so I wouldn’t call it a superpower to compare wines to various different things, be it poetry, art, music.

I constantly compare art and music to wines, and vice-versa. Being able to draw makes it more aesthetically appealing (which I can’t so I don’t) but the images are there. One thing about Japan is that the culture has never been about trophy hunting, but having high quality things where people can not see them. Having a very plain kimono, but an extravagent inner gown and the like. Whilst some will go for the trophies anywhere, I don’t think this conveys any notion of a culture as a whole.