The Sea of Fallen Beasts

Illuminati-manga and I are happy to add another manga to the list of Hoshino Yukinobu's works translated in English! Come to think of it, I think this is the 2nd Hoshino Yukinobu work for both of us, as I had done Stardust Memories previously and they've started doing Inherit the Stars (adaptation of James P. Hogan's short story by the same name) some months ago.

For those of you who don't know who Hoshino Yukinobu is, he's pretty much the mangaka when it comes to hard sci-fi manga. His representative works are probably 2001 Ya Monogatari and the Munakata Kyoju Denkikou series, and it's a shame the latter has yet to see the light of day in English. If only there were other interested translators who didn't have their hands full with a 60-volume long manga...

In any case, The Sea of Fallen Beasts (Horobishi Kemonotachi no Umi), despite the plesiosaur on the cover, doesn't really have anything to do with dinosaurs (to my slight disappointment). And unlike Hoshino's usual futuristic settings, the self-contained short stories in this 1-volume long collection all take place in the 20th century. I won't say any further as to not spoil anything, but I will say that my favourite story was Legend of the Demon Whale.

P.S. I'm still on break. This is something that I had finished translating before going on my break.

P. P. S. I recently learned that Hoshino Yukinobu influenced Tsuruta Kenji of all people to become a mangaka (never would've guessed that, considering their art and story-telling style are quite different). In fact, Tsuruta liked Hoshino's 2001 Ya Monogatari enough to publish a parody of it!

Damn, he got Hoshino's art down pat.

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