As some of you know, I work in a bookstore. I am sure some of you are familiar with graphic novels and manga, which I believe is Japanese comics. This past week or so, The Star Trek graphic novel, I believe, (I pay too much concentration to my bargain section) was released as manga. Look at the cover on it. There's McCoy, Uhura, Chekov, and Kirk. Looking at them, I kind of not see a resemblance to them. Well, wait a minute, who does Kark look like? In the face, anyway. He reminds me of someone, well he seems to have that face and those expressionable eyes.

Pike?

Kidding .

Sam.

Thanks for this.

Ulli

Thanks for posting.

Okay I confess I have never red a manga up to now

I don't know how I missed this post, but I did Sorry for the late reply

I'd never heard of this and so I looked it up... To my surprise, this appears to be a manga by Westerners, not the Japanese. I used to read a lot of Tokyopop books. At the time, Tokyopop only imported and translated Japanese books. Looks like they publish Western (Japanese-style) graphic novels now, too!

Sadly, Star Trek doesn't seem particularly popular in Japan In a language school I went to, my friends and I were trying to explain "Borg mentality" to our Japanese teacher. Our teacher (and I later found out, most other Japanese people) hadn't even heard of Star Trek! I couldn't believe it!! So, I sort of went around asking all of my Japanese friends about Star Trek and only a few of them had ever heard of it - nobody seemed to have ever watched it I know that there are huge Trek fans somewhere in Japan... just apparently not many.

I did see one Star Trek series being aired in Japan while I was there - Deep Space 9. It was on very late at night - 4:00 AM or so. At the time, I wasn't the big DS9 fan that I am today... I really wish I had paid attention: if nothing else, it would have been novel to hear my (now) favorite characters dubbed in Japanese! Actually, of all the Star Trek shows, I think DS9 would probably appeal to Japanese sensibilities most (TOS & TNG are a bit too preachy... I'm not sure of Voyager ...DS9 is very much like native science fiction of modern Japan ). I've kept my eyes out for a DS9 Japanese manga since I got into the show. If it ever comes out in Japanese I absolutely WILL translate it and finally contribute something to the Star Trek franchise

Until then, I guess I should check out this Tokyopop book. It looks great

Wow, I learned something new today. I would have thought Star Trek was world known, so I assumed every country pretty much knew about it. It just goes to show, I should not quickly assume this.

I know, I assumed the same thing... I was shocked to find anyone that hadn't heard of Star Trek. I asked, "are you serious?!" about five times before I finally believed them

You know, if you would ask people in Germany, there would be a lot of them who have never heard of "Star Trek". Because the original series was and is always called "Starship Enterprise" and TNG "Starship Enterprise the next century/generation". So, there are a lot of people who know about Captain Kirk but have never heard the term "Star Trek". At least that's what I have experienced when telling people that I'm a "Star Trek-fan".

Maybe you shouldn't ask about ST but about Captain Kirk.

Ulli

Yes, I ended up buying one of the movies for a friend. The movies are out in Japanese - although I doubt they made it to the theater (but I could be wrong about that...). When I showed the cover of the box to my friends, a few of them recognized the uniforms a bit. I get the impression that Star Trek is the Japan as Doctor Who is to the USA. Unless I just have an especially skewed view of the USA (which is completely possible), it seems that, besides a few real Doctor Who fans, most people only recognize the TARDIS and the that scarved, fourth Doctor. If anything.

After thinking about it, I really can understand why Star Trek isn't as popular in Japan (maybe Asia as well): the episodes rely heavily on moral lessons that are distinctly Western. I guess the themes may not be as appealing to Japanese sensibilities... Then again, maybe they just need some suggestive advertising I think I'll go do a Star Trek entry to my Japanese BLOG