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Legend Of The Galactic Heroes Novel To Be Published In China Date: 8/25/2006 |
| Nikkei BP reports creator Yoshiki Tanaka's original 1982 Ginga Eiyu Densetsu (Legend Of The Galactic Heroes) novel will be published for the 1st time in China this fall. The books have sold more than 15 million copies in Japan. Unofficial / pirate Chinese translations have circulated online in the past. Japanese author Haruki Murakami is also popular there recently. The story of Gin'eiden as it's called for short tells the story of a grand galactic wide war in space opera format. Although hardly noticed upon debut, 10 volumes in total constituted the main book series that was released through 1987. The story won the "Nebula Prize" awarded by SF fans '88. Anime in the form of 2 movies and around 160 OVA episodes, an 11 volume manga run spanning 10 years and computer game adaptations followed. Pirate editions flowed widely into continental China, starting in Taiwan in '96. It's said the book series was the "Phantasy novel that had the strongest influence in China before Harry Potter's appearance" according to a review in the Chinese Communist Party published newspaper "People's Daily". The reporter mentions about 10 years ago, having turned on a satelite TV broadcast by chance at around midnight while staying at a hotel in Guangdong Province and seeing the animation. Situations such as setting of story and character individuality and other points such as the development of each war campaign seems similar to other stories like Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This may be a reason behind such a wide appeal in China. China's booming space program has made the series more popular than ever. Recently joining the small circle of countries to have placed men into space, an initeresting similarity can be seen in the name of the real life astronaut Yang Liwei and Gin'eiden lead character Yang Wenli. The first book arrives in October and the entire series is due out in a year's time. |
| Source: Anime News Service |
