TMNT Manga
 

ok, here's my question: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Japanese Manga, is there such a thing, and if so, where i can get some?

Yeah, there's lots of it, but you wouldn't be interested in most of it. The majority of vintage TMNT manga is nothing but adaptations of episodes of the Fred Wolf cartoon with pretty lousy art.

Here's a rundown of the various TMNT manga series as well as a history of the line in Japan (though you can just skip to the manga section if that's all you want to know about).

You can read the entire Mutant Turtles Gaiden series here. It was a single volume, 4 chapter series of original content and its amusing, if anything. Art's pretty good and the story is a nice hybrid of light-hearted action and goofiness.

There's also a 3 volume Super Mutant Turtles series that's made up of original content. I intend to translate it, some day, but I'm waiting until I can get my hands on the first volume (Alex Winters owns volumes 2 and 3, and he provides me with the scans I need for translation, but neither of us can find Volume 1).


Anyway, hope that helps. Alex has lots of scans of the episode adaptation series if you'd like to see what that art looked like (but it isn't anything to write home about).

can u provide more links from Alex? and actually u might be surprised to learn that yeah i am interested in most of it, hense this thread. i'd like to hunt down some of it. can u give me a rough idea of how much there is?

Well, Here's Alex's flickr page full of scans. If he has more, I'm sure he'll come along and link you to them.

You may want to read some of that article I linked you to since it gives a complete rundown of what was produced.

But to simplify it for you:

15 volumes adapted episodes of the cartoon (two episodes per volume, so 30 episodes total).

1 volume adapted TMNT III.

1 volume of Mutant Turtles Gaiden.

3 volumes of Super Mutant Turtles.


That's about the size of it. There were also fumeti style "comics" (photographs of toys with captions and panels) and "story page" collections (two page color spreads with narrative text, but not really comics).

But so far as manga goes, that's all there is. There were some comedy strips that were done in a newspaper comic style, but I can't find anymore info on where they were published or if they were ever collected, so I can't say much in their regards (Ninjaturtles.com has some scans of them in their manga section but no furhter info).

ok, cool. thanks for all the info. just one more thing, how the heck do i find any of this, is there a site that sells it?

Yahoo Japan is the only auction site I've ever seen them appear on, and even then you're pretty much at the mercy of whether the sellers ship to America.

Some members of this site own copies and I know that's where Alex got a good chunk of his collection from, so you could ask around the buy/sell forum here and see if anybody is trying to unload some copies.

I, personally, don't own any. I had to get scans from Alex so I could translate and image edit them for my site.

shoot, so odds are not in my favor that book stores or comic shops around Canada would have any, dang! well maybe i'll get lucky. thanks again. is Alex on this site?

Who's "Alex"?:P

Sounds like he has a pretty good collection, maybe he has some items I don't!

you've got Manga? any doubles you'd part with?

Sorry, bud, but I don't own any doubles and don't have any intentions to sell at this time. I bought two from Roseangelo and all the rest off Steve Murphy, but I'm not sure if either of them have any extra copies left.

shoot. well thanks any way. i'll try Roseangelo just for fun

You can see a good number of scans from issues 5 & 8 courtesy of tOkKa's Flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/terribl...engenkicomics/

Enjoy! It's some pretty wild stuff!

so if i were to actually buy/find some of this, it's not actually translated then?

There has never been any official translation or international release of any kind for any of the TMNT manga.

When I did my translation of Mutant Turtles Gaiden, I made sure to keep in contact with Mirage via Dan Berger, letting them know what I was doing and updating them when I completed new chapters. Berger liked my work and encouraged me to continue with the series, showing it to the other guys at the Mirage office.

So while my translations aren't officially sanctioned or anything, I at least got "permission" to do them, and by "permission" I mean "this is cool so we aren't going to have our lawyers send you a cease and desist notice".

Now that Viacom owns the Turtles, that "permission" likely doesn't still stand, but so long as their lawyers don't find out about it, I should be fine.

well here's hoping that i can find some. i don't care if i can read or understand it, i'll just look at the pictures

Awesome thanks for the info!

i think my hunt for the Manga is going good. can get these:

15 volumes adapted episodes of the cartoon (two episodes per volume, so 30 episodes total).

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_c1uLvGqaoqE/TM...s/TMNTpic2.jpg

1 volume adapted TMNT III.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_c1uLvGqaoqE/TM...8/TMNTpic1.jpg

Wow!!!! That´s an amazing supercool purchase!!!
Im so jelous!!! LOL!!! Congrats!!! Those looks great!!!

yeah. kinda costing a pretty penny though. going to have to think it over.

If you're not buying these, I would sooo love to buy those manga. :)

I'd be curious to see scans of the third movie issue if somebody ends up buying these. I've seen this set before on Yahoo! Japan Auctions and it looks like shipping will cost you pretty heavily. Still, you do get the Super Turtles #1 issue included (shameless plug for DrSpengler's translation project).

I recently picked up an extra set of TMNT manga in Chinese. I'm looking to sell them off, though I'm reluctant to mess with international shipping at this point.

If you ever change your mind, I'd be happy to buy those manga from you. :)

Yeah, you'd be the first one to whom I'd offer them, since you've done me so many favors in the way of scans over the years. I'm just not sure I want to bother with international shipping rates and the hassle if I can find some ready American buyers.:)

I totally understand, no problem! :)

i'm going to get them after all. i mean i want them bad enough and i doubt i'll ever have this kind opportunity again. kinda hopin to talk the person down in cost. contacted me via ebay after i posted to ebay's "Want It Now"

could u post some pics?

I like it but Shredder looks weird

what doesn't look weird in Manga?

Sure thing, the Chinese covers are pretty much rehashes of the Japanese originals, although sometimes the cool Chinese TMNT logo obscures the art.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56...PopComics2.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56...omics_back.jpg

omg! those are so awesome!

ouch, ok so my Manga guy got back to me, and this is the price: (15 Manga Volumes and the Movie Manga) 180USD and postage will be 51USD for Sea Mail (8-10 weeks)! someone tell me, is this fair or am i being had? should i really pay that much?

That's really hard to say with items so rare as these books. It's very hard to find these things outside of Japan. I paid $15 a piece for the first two manga volumes I bought (thanks, Rose!). It looks like the seller wants $11.25 a piece for each one. The shipping rate from Japan sounds about right, since I paid about $20 in shipping for one issue a few months back (Air Mail, I think). I personally don't like to drop a ton of money on stuff that's being shipped from an overseas country because I have less confidence it will arrive, and if there is a problem I figure I'll have a harder time getting it resolved due to the language barrier.

I guess it's all up to how much you want these things.

i'm thinking i'll try to talk him/her down some on the price maybe. and yeah i do want them badly. as i said i doubt i'll ever have this kind opportunity again

well i've done it! i've got some Manga on the way! all i've got to do is pay, but i made arrangements to pay Friday.

the rest of the Manga out there is obviously going to be a challenge to find, as i've checked different ebay sites with zero results

Congrats on your purchase! :) Hope they arrive safe and sound.

I hope you get it all worked out with these books. Just tell me you didn't mortgage your house for 'em!:P

yeah i hope so to, it's going to take a few weeks for sure :tcool:

nope, i still live at home! :tlol:

however it's a damn good thing i've got two jobs! :twink:

getting three bonus books with my order:

one TMNT Quiz book, one guide book, and one comic book.

That's pretty sweet! :)

Sweet deal! I hope you post some pics/scans once they arrive!

There's no plans currently to remove these manga scanlations from your site, is there DrSpengler? I still haven't gone back and read them yet, is why I ask.

Nah, my translations are staying up until I get a bitchsmack from Viacom's lawyers or something like that.

Even then, if that happens, I'll keep them saved to my harddrive so you can always PM me and I can e-mail em to you if worse comes to worse.

I'll try and get to the last quarter of Super Mutant Turtles Vol. 1 this weekend. After that, it might be a little while before I get to Vol. 2. Juding by the stats function on my blogger dashboard, NO ONE reads the things. My comic revies and especially my articles tend to get the most pagehits so I figure that's what the majority of my readers want to see.

The manga is more or less a personal project, considering the lack of interest. I intend to get the final two volumes done, though, but probably some time next year. I'll have Vol. 1 completed before the end of 2010, though. Promise.