The History of the TMNT in Japan (a research essay)
 

"The (confusing) History of the TMNT in Japan"

This is a research essay (and opinion piece) that I'd been working on for a while. Thought I'd combine my love of the TMNT and my knowledge of the Japanese language and see if I couldn't make sense of the obscenely confusing releases of the various TMNT media in Japan.

Some of this may be old hat to a few of you, but maybe you'll learn something, too.

I had fun researching the thing; reading Japanese fan sites, manga, magazine scans and watching the various dubs (though, admittedly, I could not find any clips of that pesky NHK2 dub outside of the theme song and had to go by second hand info).


And thanks to folks like Adam Winters for making so much of his extensive TMNT manga and magazine collection available online. Definately VERY helpful.

very nice!I bet researching that,ETC, was very confusing.:tconfuse::lol::)

As someone who has always had an interest in Japanese TMNT and loves those manga scans... sweeeeeet. I'm part of the way through the article right now and it's a very fun read.

That was great to read. I've got the super mutants dvd & love the crap out of it. I wish I could get my hands on other japanese tmnt stuff. Its all so vastly different from that which I'm familiar with. I prefer it to a few of the american variations.

Oh, hey. I see a pic of the Japanese TMNT 3 movie poster, but I only see descriptions for movies 1, 2, and 4.

Very interesting post!! ..I was curious and I like to know about Japanish versions!!! Thanks a lot for share!!! :twink::tgrin:

Dude, this is one of your most impressive entries yet! It had been a while since your last update, so I figured you were working on something big! This is the definitive Japanese TMNT write-up that had been sorely lacking!

EDIT: I know it would probably be impossible to list every TMNT publication in Japan, but I don't think I caught a reference to the 9 book series that Shogakukan put out adapting OT episodes and the Super Turtles in #9 (you used a couple of cover scans in the article).

TMNT 2 and TMNT 3 share the same paragraph since there wasn't really a whole lot to say about either that warranted two separate ones. TMNT 2 used the same cast as the theatrical dub of TMNT 1, but TMNT 3 used a hodgepodge of the TV Tokyo cast and other talent.

Hm, did I mix up? The 15 volume Dengeki series of episode adaptations has its own write up in there alongside the aforementioned image scans. :-?

Interesting... I don't know the relationship between Dengeki and Shogakukan, but there were 9 additional books featuring full color illustrations (about with story text totaling about 15 pages a piece). I have #5 and #8 and here is a pic of #2 of that series:
http://page9.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp...282#enlargeimg

TMNTerminator has issues #5-9.

EDIT: Cover gallery for the 15 issue Dengeki series:
http://www.k3.dion.ne.jp/~h-kazu/dyn...in/turtles.htm

Interesting. I didn't see anything about them in the Japanese write-ups for the various manga I looked at.

Do you have any interior scans on your flickr account you could point me toward? I have a hunch that the stories inside are reprints of the Dengeki stuff with some bonus material, but I'm not sure (one look at the art would give me a fair clue).

Sure, thing, Spengs, I shot you an email!

Very interesting article, Dr. Spengler!
Two thumbs up for all the effort you clearly put into this!

Thanks for sharing!

Heh, I read it on my phone when I was at work, bored. Great read, I had no idea of half of it. Cheers!

dam just brought to my attention a whole ton of miscellaneous "odds and ends" manga, some I didn't even know about.

Too many to list, so I added a paragraph to the end of the "Manga" section of the article, briefly describing some of them off.


The show really was quite the hit, over there.

Hey, Spengs, one thing that always puzzled me about the Yoshioka pages from the Comic Bom-Bom magazines is why Splinter put on the Samurai armor (it does look like he actually mutates) and April transformed into a cat woman. I know it would be asking too much to try to translate that whole thing but can you piece together anything about the plot from those particular panels? Were they affected by the Muta-stones as well?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3327/...81647e4f_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3380/...3f77ab01_o.jpg

I do know that in the Dengeki Super Turtles #3, Splinter breaks out that same armor again (his feet look more normal though). It really does seem to come out of nowhere.

These wacky scans from a particular TMNT manga comic were once featured on the official NinjaTurtles.com website.

In all my collecting of Japanese TMNT material, I've never come across these:
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56...erasmus/01.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56...erasmus/02.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56...erasmus/03.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56...erasmus/04.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56...erasmus/05.jpg

If I were to guess their origin, I'd assume they appeared in something like Comic Bom Bom.

Can anyone provide some info on these images?

I can't provide any info, but I just wanna say...

Neato! Thanks for sharing. Are those "actual size" or do you have anything larger?

Indeed, if we could find bigger copies good ol' Doc could translate 'em.

Nope, I just saved the files from the old website. They were contributed by a fan named "Marius Vaga."

I can translate em right now, honestly. It's almost all hiragana, so I don't have to squint to read any microscopic furigana accompanying the kanji.

But just looking over them, they're... really stupid, but clearly aimmed at preschoolers. Narratively, I think Dan or whoever originally posted those cut out some panels, so those aren't the complete comic strips, anyway.

I have no clue where they came from, either. Dan (or whoever) on the official site said they got them in an e-mail and never described what magazine they were printed in. Likely a kid's book like Comic Bom Bom as Oldmanwinters suggested, but no real way to know for sure.