TokyoPop was one of the first manga publishers in the US, or something. They even started publishing the novels that the mangas were based on, namely the Slayers novels.

Slayers has been one of my favorite anime since I was in elementary school - one of the first I ever saw. Sometimes the show can get a little overly silly, which was fine when I was ten. Not so much now. That is why I liked the books so much - same basic story (plus some), but a little less silly. I went through heck waiting for the novels to come out. At one point, I had to wait six months for amazon.com to ship a book that I ordered with two-day shipping. After book six, I bought seven and eight but never had time to read them until last week. Being an occasional optimist, I thought the unwanted wait might turn out for the best because by now book nine (and if I was lucky, ten) should be in stores.

Spoiler alert: I thought wrong, and I wasn't remotely lucky.

Let's backtrack a little. First, you should know that there are fifteen Slayers novels in the main series (not including prequels and shorts). The first eight are one story arch while nine through fifteen end with a second arch. Also, the first story arch corresponds with the Slayers anime series one through and three (Slayers, Slayers Try, and Slayers Next - which I own on DVD and were all released when I first saw Slayers). Well, damn. I am disappointed again. I just checked some facts. More Slayers anime came out in 2008, Slayers Revolution and Slayers Evolution-R. I thought they were based on books nine through fifteen, but they're not. And turns out Slayers Try wasn't based on the books either, and Try is of what Slayers (R)Evolution are a continuation. The second arch was apparently never even made into a manga in Japan. More bad luck.

So turns out TokyoPop only wanted to release up to book six in the Slayers series, which doesn't even conclude part one! Luckily, they were convinced to also publish seven and eight. After reading those, I checked to see if the next ones had been translated and published. What I found instead was that TokyoPop closed it's publishing branch altogether as of April 15, 2011.

Kill.
Me.
Now.

They are publishing no new manga. BUT. They still own all the rights that they were sold. Which translates to no one can make the manga (or novels...) unless TokyoPop sells it. Even the original authors can't do anything about it because they sold the rights already. It's even more annoying, because some of TokyoPop's projects are finished! Just not published, and now never will be. I hope against hope they don't own the rights to Slayers nine to fifteen so that another company might pick them up, and even that is an extreme stretch because apparently sales weren't high on the first arch (stupid Americans!! READ STUFF!!) which is why TokyoPop was reluctant to publish the last two.

So I took to scouring the Internet to hopefully find the other novels online. I found a few translated by fans. They were terrible. This one was one of the better ones, but still pretty confusing, and all the battle scenes were missing. I couldn't even figure out what point the author was trying to get across in this one. There was an itsy bitsy ray of sunshine when I found this site, which had all the missing books listed. I read book nine (which is how I knew that other site wasn't translated right) and it was flawless. It was exactly like reading the TokyoPop verions. It even had colored illustrations and the extra stuff with the author at the back! Then I noticed ten to the end haven't been translated, and that page was last updated in January of 2009. I can't even read a manga to find out the end!

That leaves me two options. I found most of those links from another site, and it has links to summaries of the rest, so at least I will know what happens.... I can also learn Japanese and order the novels online. Unless another publisher picks them up.... And there's also the (R)Evolotion series - at least it's more new Slayers (for $50 each...). I could also see about getting my hands on the Japanese novels and putting them into Google translate....

FFF and I just realized if TokyoPop isn't releasing any more manga, that means no new Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden. Nevermind. No need for the panic attack. Genbu Kaiden is published in English by VizMedia. The story was on hiatus though because the author got sick but she was supposed to start up again in 2010.... But that's a whole 'nother thing.

On a semi-related note, I liked the books a little better than the anime, for the most part. They weren't as silly, Lina's first person is really fun, and it was the same story. There was one part where I liked the anime better that I remember. At the end of Slayers Next, [spoiler alert] Gourry jumps into the Lord of Nightmares mess to save Lina and they kiss. I was getting to that part in the book, REALLY looking forward to it. I hoped there'd be more on that than there was in the anime. Especially since it was through Lina's point of view and it seemed to be headed that direction with her thoughts in the book. But less happened. They didn't kiss. Gourry was unconscious for the Lord of Nightmares thing. Boo!! I was hoping Kanzaka would eventually get to that kind of thing in novels nine to fifteen but now I may never know.... BRB off to Dragon Slave what's left of TokyoPop (which still thinks it can make live-action anime movies...ugh).

Also, Lina is my hero.

Nope, not mine. You can tell your heart attack to stop now. Two of my very good friends got engaged a couple of weeks ago.

 I am so excited! I love it when I get to watch a relationship grow from the beginning. I remember vividly Hannah telling me at Wendy's that a boy in her class had asked her out and she didn't know what she wanted to do about it (but I bet she really did). I also remember her saying while dating her previous boyfriend that she didn't really want to get married. A few months after dating Harry though, she talked like she had changed her mind. So I can't say I was surprised, but I can say this is one of the best non-surprises ever. It also gave me a change to make fun artsies! I've been wanting to make cute little people and have been failing, but I love how this came out. I can't wait to be a bridesmaid in your wedding!

Proposal stories are always entertaining, and this one is quite special.
Harry's grandmother died. He had already planned on proposing, but this changed things. Especially since his dad knew he was going to propose that week and he put Hannah in the obituary as Harry's fiance. Well that was okay, because the obituary would come out after Harry proposed on Saturday, as he planned.

Except it didn't. The obituary came out the same day. Hannah wouldn't see it, but all of Harry's church would, and they would put it on Facebook, which Hannah would see.

Good thing he was ready! And his grandmother obviously lived an amazing life with even more amazing family. And even in death, she managed to bring Hannah and Harry together!

All together now: Awwwwwww.

Iiiiiiiiiiiin other news... today is my halfiversary with John. Hahaha. I invented that word. Anyway, it's been six months so I'm a bit giddy.

I'm going to go stare into space, let my eyes glaze over, and sigh happily for a while.
Also, I risked it and invited John to be my date to Hannah's wedding, which will be June 30th, 2012. He said he would be my date to all my weddings.

Hmm.... let's dote happily on that.

Covers for epic stories we wrote as seniors and early logos my first year at Anadarko.