Tokyopop has so far translated two volumes of the Rozen Maiden manga, of which the anime series was based on. I resent saying or mentioning Junk’s actual name, but this is one of the extremely rare cases where I will bear the torment and use its full name to make a point. Tokyopop spelled its name in the familiar form “Suigintou” in the first volume, but yet in the second volume its name ended with an “h” as in “Suigintoh”. I understand both spellings essentially sound phonetically the same, but its name needs to be consistent. Also, it is a bit strange how they made the Rozen Maidens speak French. Considering the Rozen Maiden’s names have a German counterpart (eg. Reiner Rubin meaning pure ruby for Shinku, Kleine Beere meaning little berry for Hina), if they wanted the Rozen Maidens to be affiliated with a different language, wouldn’t it make more sense to have the Maidens speak German?
I acquired the manga because I want, no, need more of Shinku. This need of mine is deeply fundamental and is perpetually there, but unfortunately, I was not satiated in any quantity from the manga. The manga Shinku has a habit of making an expression with her lips propped upwards into a triangle. And the drawing of Shinku is often more childish, even outside of super-deformed situations. The art and portrayal strongly constructs a manga Shinku that is more immature and less refined than the anime Shinku. Because the anime Shinku is a kind of exact perfection, the manga version, with her differences from the anime quintessence, even if the deviances were miniscule, is infinitely less appealing. The manga Shinku is just another character to me. No, she is not the one I gave my heart and my soul to.
