News Archive - August 1998

[Archived news stories may contain broken links.]

August 23, 1998

Goodbye Info, Hello Digest

My account over at www.acm.vt.edu finally came back online (long story), so hopefully the hits will pick up here now that I set up a forwarding page. Anipike still hasn't changed their link, and I emailed them weeks ago. So, to those of you who are finding this site for the first time, welcome to the 3x3 Eyes Digest! I never really liked the name 3x3 Eyes Info, so I decided the new design and new location should have a new name as well. Anyway, take a look around and let me know what you think.

You'll notice the site is still under construction, so let me know if you spot any broken links. I'm trying to get the Products pages done by the end of the month, but I don't know if I'll make it. You can check my progress in my .plan file. Also, if you haven't done so already, please change your links to point to http://www.sazan.net/digest/

Kindaichi Shonen Novels

(Bear with me while I veer way off topic, because there is a connection to 3x3 Eyes.)

If you look at the Biographies page, you'll see the show Kindaichi Shonen no Jiken-bo (Young Kindaichi's Casefile) mentioned. I really like this mystery/detective anime, even though I have a hard time following the plot. Therefore I was very excited when I found two English-language Kindaichi novels at Kinokuniya Books in Osaka. I bought the first one, simply titled The New Kindaichi Files. It's a pocket-sized novel designed for Japanese people learning English, and there are Japanese footnotes in the back explaining words and phrases. It was some good light reading, and I plan to get the second novel soon.

So, what does this have to do with 3x3 Eyes? Well, the Kindaichi novels are part of the Kodansha English Library series, and they were translated from Japanese novels. What's more, the original Japanese novels are part of Kodansha's Magazine Novels series, which is the same series as the 3x3 Eyes novels. I checked today, and the first of the six Japanese Kindaichi novels published so far is indeed the same story as the Kodansha English Library translation. Does this mean that there may be English translations of the 3x3 Eyes novels in the future? Well, I don't know. The two Kindaichi novels were the only anime or manga related books that I noticed at the bookstore, but I will be sure to take a very close look the next time I go.

August 11, 1998

Shopping (part 1)

I love to shop, especially in Nipponbashi, Osaka. I was there a few weeks ago, and I happened upon some interesting 3x3 Eyes-related items.

I was in a used game store, and I noticed a Nintendo game (yes, for the original NES/Famicom) with some familiar artwork on the cover. It was an RPG called Justbreed, and the character designs were done by Yuzo Takada. This explains the Justbreed artbook. I honestly don't know why they would get a big-name artist to design the characters when they end up being little blobs of pixels on a TV screen, but I guess if it sells copies of the game, then it's justified. This store also had some copies of the 3x3 Eyes Mega-CD game in the bargain bin for (I think) less than 1000 yen. List price on that game was 9800 yen when it was released back in 1993. If you ever come to Japan, you can get huge bargains on high-quality used merchandise, especially game software.

Next I stopped at Jungle 2, a used anime store that has occasional auctions (that I always seem to miss). For the last auction they had a gorgeous 3x3 Eyes ~Seima Densetsu~ cel of the scene where Yakumo runs up and hugs Pai when he first sees her. This time they were auctioning off the Justbreed artbook mentioned above, and a complete three-volume set of Yuzo Takada's Hatamochi Henkutsu Otoko manga (literally Standard-bearing Eccentric Man), which was published in Young Magazine way back in 1985-86 and I'm sure is quite rare now. I have no idea how much these items would go for, but probably more than I'm willing to spend (which as you might guess is quite a bit).

The final stop was at Kid's Land, a hobby shop I've walked by a dozen times but never noticed until that day. No 3x3 Eyes stuff here, but they did have Nuku Nuku painted figures made by Sega, one of which I now own. According to HobbyLink Japan, the list price is 1980 yen, but I only paid 1580. Also, the actual figure looks better than the pictures there; Nuku-chan's hair is redder and she doesn't have the silly whiskers. I think there may have been a Pai figure like this at one time, but I've never personally seen one.

Shopping (part 2)

I happened to be in Osaka again on August 6, which turned out to be an auspicious day for 3x3 Eyes fans. First of all, 3x3 Eyes manga volume 29 was published that day. I was surprised to see this, since there is usually a four-month gap between volumes, but volume 28 was published only two months ago. Chapter title translations are already available on the Manga Translation page. This is an important volume, as it resolves the current storyline and has one sad plot development (I'm not going to spoil it). There is a T-shirt giveaway for people who bought the manga. I will have more details shortly (the deadline is August 24).

Inside volume 29 was an ad for the PlayStation game, which also went on sale on August 6. This game is already available in the USA through the usual channels (some good scans of the cover art there). There was also an advertisement for the 1999 3x3 Eyes My Poster Calendar. The idea behind the calendar this time is that you get 13 420mm x 298mm posters (approx. 16.5 x 11.7 inches), a clear sheet of plastic to put in front of the posters, and stickers to stick on the plastic to "customize" the calendar. This will be available near the end of November for 2000 yen. Contact your favorite anime retailer for pre-ordering information.

Finally, and perhaps most exciting, was the recent publication of volume 1 of Genzo Hitogata Kiwa, a new manga series by Yuzo Takada being published off-and-on in Kodansha's monthly Afternoon magazine. The tankoubon contains the first three chapters of the series, plus a bonus short story called "Goutsuuden", originally published in 1990, and some color illustrations and character sketches. The Genzo manga has the same sort of occult theme as 3x3 Eyes, but it is set in the samurai era. So far chapters have only been published sporadically (10/96, 10/97, and 6/98), but new chapters will be published in the upcoming November and December issues of Afternoon. I'll provide more information when I've taken a closer look at the manga.

Site News

Things are pretty messy right now, but I'll clean them up soon. Right now I am working on the Products pages, and they should be done within the next week. Not much will have changed from the old 3x3 Eyes Info pages, but I am adding all of the new products that I know about. After that I'm going to finalize some of the scripts on the site, add some new links, and probably make another pass over every page to make a few more site-wide changes. I'll try to work the Takada Band page in there too. I've decided to create a separate site here on sazan.net devoted to Yuzo Takada, so that I can give more coverage to things like Genzou Hitogata Kiwa. That won't be ready anytime soon, though. Right now I have to stop writing and head to the immigration office so they don't throw me out of the country. See you again soon (I hope).

August 5, 1998

Time Warp

Heh, if you're wondering why I said it was August 5 when most of the pages say they were updated in the middle of the day on August 4, it's because I'm in Japan, 16 hours ahead of this server in California. I'll try to stick to server time from now on.

Everything seems to be working out fairly well. I'm surprised the scripts worked more or less on the first try after copying them over. I've fixed a few problems related to the move, but let me know if you spot anything that I missed. All next week is a holiday from work, so I'll probably add the updated scripts then, as well as a few pages I still have sitting on my hard drive (3x3 Eyes Mailing List, Takada Band). I'm planning to add a few different search scripts, so that we can see which is best. Oh yes, I'll have some real news then too. Stay tuned.

On The Road Again...

The big news is my new domain name, sazan.net. (I just love to look at my InterNIC whois entry--I'm such a geek.) Web addresses don't get much more permanent than that, so hopefully this is the last time I will have to ask everyone to update your links for the 3x3 Eyes Digest to point to

http://www.sazan.net/digest/

My email address has also changed to dpark@sazan.net. Also, as of now there is no longer any 3x3 Eyes content at the Dark Side of the Wu, except for the name, so there is no reason to link there. You may have also noticed that the old 3x3 Eyes Info pages are currently unaccessable. My account on that machine expired at the beginning of this month, and while I did renew it, the check must not have arrived yet. You shouldn't be going there anyway, as everything is out-of-date. I'll say it again: please change all links for my 3x3 Eyes pages to point to this site.

So, besides the URL, what's new? Briefly:
Calendar, News Archive, Links, Glossary, Staff Biographies, Magic and Names Guide with a few footnotes, FAQ, survey added to this page, HTML and small modifications to every page, and a few things I've forgotten. Oh, be sure to check out the JPGs that I scanned from the manga a while back. They're in the Files directory. I'm sure a lot of things are broken (most likely the scripts) due to the move, so please tell me if you find a problem. I'll have another update with actual news in a few days.

Go to the News Archives for an index of past updates.

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Last updated: March 1, 2011 3:39AM UTC

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