Discussion of Mari Okada's Autobiography
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Our first non-fiction book!
Discuss the preview (and when it comes out, the full book) here!
To clarify: We are NOT going to be releasing this weekly for members like our other books. We are just releasing it as an ebook (with a preview part for free).
It's an autobiography, and not really appropriate for piecemeal serialization. -
Ah, the personal story is revealed!
I wonder if this will explain what made her want to (spoilers for any Mari Okada work)
. =[
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Congratulations on branching out.
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Hmm, not my thing. I'll pass this time :)
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Dont know if I'll finish it, but I will definately get the book.
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I hope you have success with this, but to be honest this is not something that I’ll be getting.
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I’ll definitely pick up a copy but it is disappointing to see content locked out of the free period other books see. Any reason it couldn’t have been put up whole for a couple of weeks and then ebook only?
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Wow. You guys are translating this?
What a surprise! I was wondering whether we'll ever get to read it when I first read an article about it. -
It isn't the sort of thing I'd usually read, but that sample kinda hooked me.
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@demelza Well, there are 3 reasons sort of.
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This is our one (and most likely, only) license from Bungeishungu, and I didn't want to have to go through the long and complicated process of explaining to them about our subscription revenue licensing system and all the complications that adds to the contract. Just doing a simple e-book license was was more straight forward.
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The pre-pub/ebook model works best for series, as the pre-pubs serve as a continuous advertisement for the books over time. But when it's a one-volume book and done this effect is minimal. Rather than that, we have a bit of a marketing plan over the next month until it's released. For example, we will be putting out another excerpt that's exclusive for members about a week before it's released, so you can check out more then.
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As an autobiography, I don't think the weekly serialization is very... appropriate. Okada didn't intend this work to be split up into weekly segments like one of her animes, and since it's her own life story I am a lot more hesitant to release it that way. Secondly, it's (obviously, as you can see from the tepid reaction on this thread) not something which I assume would appeal to our usual members and readers. Trying to use it as a draw for new subscribers isn't going to be effective at all. So instead I am using our platform just as advertising and marketing, and seeing how the ebook performs in the various mass-ebook stores.
Oh, but our premium ebook will have some special stuff: We've got a signed shikishi (one of those gold-rimmed square signature sheets) from Okada herself which I will scan and include in the premium ebook. And one person who preorders it from us will get the original! ;)
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I read the excerpt. It was hard to follow, because I've only heard Mari Okada's name pop up a couple times among people who are more into anime on different discord servers I hang out on. I recognize the anime Ano Hana, but it was through UTW's translation and how they didn't remember the name of the anime that they translated that day. However, I don't know the story around it or any of her other works.
That said, toward the end of the excerpt I got an impression of what was going on. I don't know if it was from the beginning of the book or somewhere later on, but with a bit more context, it could make for an interesting read.
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@eins That's the prologue of the book, it's sort of like a teaser and it starts with a recent incident, and then chapter 1 starts off with her childhood.
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Maybe it'll be helpful to have her list of works here?
From Wiki:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari_OkadaDT Eightron (1998; script)
Angel Tales (2001; screenplay)
Crush Gear Nitro (2003; screenplay)
Popolocrois (2003; screenplay)
Diamond Daydreams (2004; screenplay)
Rozen Maiden (2004; screenplay)
Basilisk (2005; screenplay)
Canvas 2: Niji Iro no Sketch (2005; scenario)
Animal Yokochō (2005; scenario)
Rozen Maiden: Träumend (2005; screenplay)
Fate/Stay Night (2006; script)
Aria – The Natural (2006; screenplay)
Simoun (2006; screenplay)
Sasami: Magical Girls Club (2006; series composition)
Sasami: Magical Girls Club Season 2 (2006; series composition)
Red Garden (2006; screenplay)
Venus to Mamoru (2006; series composition)
Sketchbook ~full color'S~ (2007; series composition)
Kodomo no Jikan (2007; series composition)
True Tears (2008; series composition)
Vampire Knight (2008; series composition)
Vampire Knight Guilty (2008; series composition)
Toradora! (2008; series composition)
Black Butler (2008; series composition)
CANAAN (2009; series composition)
The Book of Bantorra (2009; series composition)
Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor (2009; series composition)
Black Butler II (2010; series composition)
Otome Yōkai Zakuro (2010; series composition)
Gosick (2011; series composition)
Fractale (2011; series composition)
Wandering Son (2011; series composition)
anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day (2011; series composition)
Hanasaku Iroha (2011; series composition)
Aquarion Evol (2012; series composition)
Black Rock Shooter (2012; series composition)
Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine (2012; series composition)
AKB0048 (2012; series composition)
Blast of Tempest (2012; series composition)
Pet Girl of Sakurasou (2012; series composition)
AKB0048 next stage (2013; series composition)
Nagi no Asukara (2013; series composition)
Selector Infected WIXOSS (2014; series composition)
M3: Sono Kuroki Hagane (2014; series composition)
Selector Spread WIXOSS (2014; series composition)
Kōfuku Graffiti (2015, series composition)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (2015, series composition)
Kiznaiver (2016, series composition)
The Lost Village (2016, Script Supervisor)Cinnamon the Movie (2007; screenplay)
The Anthem of the Heart (2015; screenplay)
Ankoku Joshi (2017; screenplay)
My Teacher (2017; screenplay)
MAQUIA: When the Promised Flower Blooms (2018; director, writer)I've seen a few of her works, though definitely some I've dropped. She seems to get a decent amount of flack in certain circles online, but she's ok to me. I really like Blast of Tempest.
Edit: I put the ones I watched through fully in bold, and the ones I either dropped or skipped around out of curiosity with in Italics.
I wanted to watch that Nagi No Asukara one a while back, but iirc it was locked behind the Crunchyroll paywall.
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@sam-pinansky That makes sense. I wouldn't be too disheartened by the reactions on this thread. Question for you though. Are you considering pursuing a hard copy release of this book?
Edit: I missed that last paragraph. I will definitely be preordering this book.
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She's mostly known for AnoHana, The Anthem of the Heart, and Nagi no Asukara. (which are her original works)
I would recommend Sakurasou as it's one of my fav (but she was only on the series composition in this one, I love Sakurasou's director work too—she's NGNL director as well) -
@Terrence Thanks for the list. She's been involved in a lot. I haven't seen all of those, but I tend to like the series she's involved in.
@Paul-Nebeling I may have come off a bit harsh, but I'm leaning toward using a credit on it when comes out.
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Dumb question, can you actually preorder this? The gold button is not there for me. That said, I'm sold on this.
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@alocervancouver Are you on the volume page? The preorder links are there for me.
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Yep gotta preorder this. I remember watching "The Anthem of the Heart" in theaters and crying my eyes out. It's quite different than the usual affair but "Anohana" and "The Anthem of the Heart" had so much feels and just reading the prepub make me feel like this is a much sadder version of Shirobako mixed with Anthem of the Heart.
Anime Expo screws up screening and panels so often now I feel so incredibly sorry for all the creators who have to sit through something like that.
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@paul-nebeling since this one doesn’t have any color inserts we could do it print on demand without too much issue. If the ebook sales are pretty good doing a small print run is not out of the question either. But I’m not going to risk it selling only 200 copies or something when I need to print min 3000.
