From: bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com   
      
      Spoiler alert:  I have tried to avoid anything that   
   would ruin the story for the reader of this group but   
   I am sure that anyone feeling spoiled will let me know   
   about it.  I wanted the format to look right and spent   
   a lot of time shortening these lines to get a consistent   
   appearance.   Well I messed up the newsgroup address line   
   again so if you replay add the rec.arts.anime.misc to   
   it please.   
      
   	Well the anime is 12 episodes long though the   
   10th and 11th episodes are run together. The manga is   
   123 chapters long so we can tell right away that there   
   is considerable time compression and with compression   
   and localization for the English speaking market comes   
   some distortion not only of time but of events.   
      For example:   
      The first play in the manga is not an adaptation   
   of "Romeo and Juliet" (as in the anime)but of "Rose of   
   Versailles" as done by the Takarazuka troop with Tatasuki   
   playing Fersen and Nitori playing Rosalie though Tatasuki   
   says Marie Antoinette would be a better  choice for Nitori.   
      It is not happening at the school festival but at the   
   Farewell Party for the 6th graders.   
      
      Other than that a lot of detail is included in the manga   
   that is left out of the anime but the most important stuff   
   is referred to in flashbacks.   
      
      Now despite these inevitable compressive distortions   
   of the manga the anime works very well and the final   
   scene of the anime is of the beginning of the second   
   play now entitled "I am a girl" and works very well.   
   Well enough to make me cry.  Very close in final tone   
   to the manga ending.   
      The art of the anime and manga are very close to   
   the artist/author's original and I have to say the   
   idealized children shown look much more like children   
   than many other manga or anime.  I say idealized   
   because there are no really fat or terribly ugly   
   children depicted.   
      
      I think anyone who likes serious manga will enjoy   
   the manga and anyone who reads the manga should watch   
   the anime.  The unfortunate thing is that there are   
   no licensed versions of the anime available and the   
   manga is in an over-sized and hard cover edition   
   which is not very cheap. The North American title   
   is "Wandering Son" which should have been perhaps   
   "Transient Son".   The unlicensed versions   
   of the anime available from various retailers are   
   apparently not only extremely digitally compressed   
   but incomplete, lacking the 12th episode and those   
   11 are on one dvd.   
      The manga release will be finished in it North   
   American release in a couple of years it looks like   
     as I am waiting for the 5th volume to be delivered   
   and the 6th volume should be out by the end of the   
   year.  I subscribed to this release, an option that   
   should be available for the anime as well.   
      The manga in fan-scanned and translated form is   
   online and seeing it online is the only reason I   
     am buying the hard cover expensive version from   
   Fantagraphics.  This is in line with my idea that   
   fan-scanned and translated manga is the equivalent   
   to the fans of the weekly or monthly releases in   
   regular Japanese magazines and promotes the series   
   that are translated rather than impedes their sales.   
      
      I have to say that this is a star-crossed anime   
   as it was being shown as the tsunami hit Japan and   
     the fan-subbed episodes are taken from the TV show   
   at the time and have the story running in Japanese   
   at the bottom of the screen.  This is why the 12th   
   episode was either not shown or was much delayed in   
   Japan.  The subject matter seems to have scared off   
   the business groups that might have subtitled   
   the show and brought it to the USA.   After all   
   hey are in business to make money not to make   
   educational and artistic statements. They don't   
     believe many people would be buying an anime   
   about transgender characters living & evolving   
   happier lives for themselves.   
      
      If you want to watch the fan-subbed anime it   
   comes up to about  2.5 GiB including two or three   
   soundtrack albums which I haven't had time to   
   listen to yet.  It is from a fansub group called   
   [umee] if you want to be sure of the contents.   
      
   	You may need to install VLC a cross platform   
   media player to enjoy this.   
      
      bliss   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)