白鳴琴 (White Harp) (Part 3)

February 26, 2023

Some more comics, and a word from the book’s organizer, Akio Kobayashi.

The part covers pages 45 – 72

怪傑がるマン(The Magnificent Gar-man)

By Miya Kasuga (春日美弥)

Notes

Mamushi (まむし) can mean both pit viper, or broiled eel when referring to food

平和な生活 (Peaceful Life)

By Akio Kobayashi (小林昭夫)

Notes

As a general note, the characters do actually use the term “GF” in the text. I had no idea that it existed in 1980s Japanese vernacular…

Tops is a cake maker in Japan that still exists today! On their site, you can order chocolate cake among a variety of other flavors (be warned the site loads pretty slow)
Mutsumi Inomata is a famous Japanese illustrator and animator. You might be familiar with her work from the Tales series of video games. The character drawn here is from the aforementioned story found in her book GB Bomber (GBボンバー). This is the only picture I’ve been able to find of him.
Like Tops, Harbs still exists today as well. As Kobayashi notes however, it’s quite pricey.

From Akio Kobayashi…

Next is a section written by Akio Kobayashi, the organizer of the circle that published this doujinshi. To preserve the artwork, I uploaded the pages as they are here with the translation following.

The Books of the Rose Tinted Circus Troupe

To date, all of our books have sold out, except for a few copies of “The Castle of Cagliostro”…Oh, and a few of Glass House 2. The fifth book to be distributed is “Acrobunch,” as mentioned at the end. Next, we plan to create the all-color luxurious edition original work “Tarot Card” for our 6th release.

This collection of original works is actually my true passion. We want our readers to know that all the people who have been thought of as “drawing only parodies” actually have such wonderful original characters. Don’t say things like, “oh, just an original?” Please give it a read. (…It’s still in the planning stages~)

I attempted to edit in some translations, though it’s a bit sloppy…

Original characters…it’s still a pleasure to draw them. Anime parodies have ready-made characters and backgrounds, so it is possible to get a kind of “implicit understanding” without much explanation. However…that is not so with originals. The reader must come to understand the setting, and then feel the charm of the characters and appeal of the work. This is a difficult task, but it is a real testament to the author’s abilities.

Letters and Etiquette

What a pompous title… I don’t know much about “etiquette”, and writing out such a preachy title makes me want to awkwardly laugh at myself, but it seems that the kind of letters and interactions that I would consider “terrible” are common in the world of doujinshi. You can’t make doujinshi unless you are prepared for that kind of life. Some say they’re fine with it, and I wonder why, since the fact that it deviates greatly from the common sense of the world is explained with “because it’s doujinshi”… But no, I can’t accept it being brushed aside by such a non-reason.

Letters have been a major problem among my friends for some time, and for the extreme ones, we’ve asked each other, “what do you think of this?” Fortunately the Rose Tinted Circus Troupe has not received such terrible letters, but the extreme ones that have been shared are so bad and without a sense of common etiquette that you can’t help but laugh.

No, it is no laughing matter.

The recipients are terribly hurt by the insensitive letters. We are happy to receive comments on our work and accept even harsh critiques of the book’s quality. However, personal matters and unfounded slander, or obsessive letters should not be sent. Nevertheless, if it’s only the violence of words, there is still a way to handle it.

The most common is the classic one, which is to put a razor blade in the mouth of a letter. It is fine for someone to give you a blade of a box cutter as a joke, but to put a razor in the mouth of the envelope so that you can cut your hand is a very dark thing to do.

There are so many other true stories that if I were to go into detail, I could write a book about them. But none of these things would have happened if we had only been considerate to each other and had a little more common sense. I would like to ask everyone to think about etiquette and common sense next time. And of course, it is an issue that we too should consider.

Thank you for your attention. ♪

Akio Kobayashi

~

Following is an ad for the Arcobunch themed doujinshi Kobayahi mentioned earlier.

Next are two more ads.

The top is based on a show called Space Warrior Baldios. However, the bottom is interesting because it’s actually an ad for custom T-shirts, based on Gundam, Godmars, Voltes V, Acrobunch, and Macross. I wonder if anyone who ordered these still has them? I’d love to see pictures…