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Five Star Stories Reboot


CrusherJ

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Reposting this info from GEARS Online. Looks like Five Star Stories will be continuing starting with a 7 volume reboot of the series with the 13th volume being released about a year after the first release of the reboot. Thanks go to Euhsung over at GEARS Online for translating this info:

"Many apologies for the long hiatus of the Five Star Stories.

Once production of the animated feature GothicMade is finished, work on the Five Star Stories will restart.

The Five Star Stories: Reboot is a commemorative edition printed for the Five Star Stories' 25th anniversary 2011, and was the result of a proposition made by Newtype.

Reboot is a compilation of the serialized material, published in the same format as existing Tankoben. Following serialization order, covers and top pages will be included at the beginning of each serialization chapter. All material that has been modified in the conversion to Tankoben format will be presented as-is when serialized.

To prevent user confusion, all terminology will be updated to the latest revision (e.g.ダムゲートコントロール for Dam-Gate Control, レッド-ミラージュ -> L.E.D-ミラージュ for LED Mirage). The latest revision uses the Design series as reference.

Readers may wonder about the future status of the existing Tankoben with the release of designs. This issue will be clarified hereafter, so there is no need for worry.

Reboot will sell alongside the 'Official' (existing) Tankoben temporarily.

Volume 13 is expected to be published about a year after serialization resumes. At that time, all Tankoben (up to and including 13) will be republished in the Newtype (serialization) format. All Tankoben published hereafter will also use this format.

Reboot is published in the smaller format identical to that of existing Tankoben; however, content is arranged predominantly by story chapter. Therefore, Reboot will condense the 12 existing Tankoben of material into 7 books.

Please wait just a bit longer for serialization to resume. I promise it will be satisfying to all.

Nagano Mamoru, 2010-12-18

-No news of D4.

-7 volumes published every 2 months ~ Feb 2010 is the promised date

-New models by Tani Akira (LED Mirage), Volks (Prominence and Neptune, Auge Arusqull, Jagd Mirage), Volks, etc. to be announced.

-Format of Reboot is B5 (JIS); Future volumes will be in B4 (JIS), as per Newtype. Note that English volumes are in B4 (JIS).

-Serialization chapter refers to each unit of ~32 pages in each Newtype magazine.

Story Chapter is as follows:

1: Destiny Lachesis

2: Clotho the Sleeping Witch

3: Traffics I

4: Wandering Atropos

5: The Chivalries

6: The Majestic Stand

7: Full Fragile

8: Monarch Sacred

...etc"

Five Star Stories Homepage: http://automaticflowers.ne.jp/

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Interesting. I'm not all caught up with FSS anyway, since the English stuff was never released in full. I know people have mentioned fan translations of the last FSS Japanese issues, but I could never be bothered to find them since Nagano has left the series dormant for so long anyway. But at least something is happening now. That has to be good.

Though to be honest, I'm much more curious when that damned Wave model of the SR-4 Last Junchoon is going to be released. If I remember correctly, they had released production pictures of that thing more than a year ago. I'm dying to own a good FSS toy.

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Never read any of the mangas or know that much about it but I WANT TO SEE AN ANIME OF IT!! lol The mecha designs are amazing!

It's MUCH too complicated to become a successful anime...unless they did a "Gundam Evolve" type of thing with short films that reenact scenes from the story.

Anyway, I'm glad Vol. XIII is coming out eventually, and since I was sucker enough to rebuy the English versions when they reprinted them, I'll probably be sucker enough to buy the reboot.

Oh well, at least Nagano hasn't forgotten about the series...which is what I was beginning to fear.

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Interesting. I'm not all caught up with FSS anyway, since the English stuff was never released in full. I know people have mentioned fan translations of the last FSS Japanese issues, but I could never be bothered to find them since Nagano has left the series dormant for so long anyway. But at least something is happening now. That has to be good.

Though to be honest, I'm much more curious when that damned Wave model of the SR-4 Last Junchoon is going to be released. If I remember correctly, they had released production pictures of that thing more than a year ago. I'm dying to own a good FSS toy.

I've been wondering about the Wave model as well. The Wave site hasn't been updated since September. I hope the project hasn't been scraped, the preproduction pieces looked amazing!

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Man, the "reboot" had me worried, thought Nagano or some other mangaka was literally rebooting the entire story. Looks like it's just a re-publication of existing material. Nice to see FSS started up again though, my 12 volumes are still waiting some sort of story continuation...

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this is good news if its a new anime but from what I am understanding is its a new Manga series which sucks since I dont read manga. I saw 2 or 3 anime shows on this series and it was very nicely animated, story was fantastic. I dont know why it would be hard to understand. Basically it has the similar plot lines of any Scifi story with multiple habitable planets colonized from previous generations of humans.

Edited by Snail00
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That's great...but when's my english version #27 going to come out?

Also, I don't know if this is still a viable strategy, but when I bought my original 26 volumes I searched on bookfinder (or maybe abebooks) by serial number. I found 'em all from various sellers who had no idea what they were and just wanted to offload them for between $2 and $7 each. That was some time ago, but if you want to get in to FSS cheap, I'd give it a shot.

Edited by Phyrox
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this is good news if its a new anime but from what I am understanding is its a new Manga series which sucks since I dont read manga. I saw 2 or 3 anime shows on this series and it was very nicely animated, story was fantastic. I dont know why it would be hard to understand. Basically it has the similar plot lines of any Scifi story with multiple habitable planets colonized from previous generations of humans.

How could have seen 2 or 3 Five Star Stories animes? They only made one film. :mellow:

And if you look at the manga, you will see just how deeply the world of FFS is developed...the full story covers thousands of years (or billions, depending on how you count it) with dozens if not hundreds of characters, lots of jumping back and forth in time and space, and pages and pages of explanatory notes to keep things clear.

It would be impossible to adapt the whole story as a film of any kind.

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How could have seen 2 or 3 Five Star Stories animes? They only made one film. :mellow:

And if you look at the manga, you will see just how deeply the world of FFS is developed...the full story covers thousands of years (or billions, depending on how you count it) with dozens if not hundreds of characters, lots of jumping back and forth in time and space, and pages and pages of explanatory notes to keep things clear.

It would be impossible to adapt the whole story as a film of any kind.

I am sure its cool but I like the graphic novel in Western comic format. I checked out the Blech Mangas and I just cant get into black and white. Although I am sure it is a fantastic read for some but I think the story is rich enough for someone to tackle in either anime format or live action film. As for the movies it was like 10 years ago. I had 2 dvds so I guess it was part one and part 2 of the movie. I really Really liked it. Now I am trying to find those DVDs and bubkiss nowhere to be found even through legit means

ANNNNNND I cant wait for Bandai to release their Mini SOC FSS mecha

Never liked the mecha or character designs.

Watched the movie once, long ago. OK, but not my sort of thing.

No interest in manga.

Graham

whawhawhaaat

You dont like the mecha designs ....they are the most beautiful mecha ever designed,outside of the Guymeleth Escaflowne

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I am sure its cool but I like the graphic novel in Western comic format. I checked out the Blech Mangas and I just cant get into black and white. Although I am sure it is a fantastic read for some but I think the story is rich enough for someone to tackle in either anime format or live action film.

So...you've never read the comic, but you're sure it can be adapted...? What are you basing that on?

Pick 'em up and read 'em sometime. You'll see the impossibility of adaptation pretty quickly.

As for the movies it was like 10 years ago. I had 2 dvds so I guess it was part one and part 2 of the movie. I really Really liked it. Now I am trying to find those DVDs and bubkiss nowhere to be found even through legit means

:huh:

There's no Part One and Two...it's a single, continuous movie.

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So...you've never read the comic, but you're sure it can be adapted...? What are you basing that on?

Pick 'em up and read 'em sometime. You'll see the impossibility of adaptation pretty quickly.

:huh:

There's no Part One and Two...it's a single, continuous movie.

To be fair, it's not impossible. You'd need to pile on the lush detail affordable only in well funded OVAs. The studio will need to be able to cover comic, love, mech, AND samurai battles, not to mention all the political maneuvering. Will definitely have to be Japanese drawn, none of that "contract out to Korea" deal, due to the mech designs. Voice and music talent would need to be top notch and very flexible (Amatersu and Lachesis each have TWO voices). On top of all that, it would have to be OVA quality, but series length, probably running quite a few seasons with absolutely no filler, AND produced at a slow enough pace to not overtake the manga.

I only know one other comparable series that made the successful transfer: Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and compared to FSS that's a pretty self-contained and well known piece of work.

Improbable, yes, but not impossible. However we can always dream. :lol:

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I still have a few holes in my collection of the volumes that were released in English, and the volumes I'm missing are either hard to find or really expensive when I do manage to find one. Whoever thought up their release scheme was an idiot. Multiple books with the same cover being released at once made it really hard for comic shops to keep things straight. They should've just stuck with the Japanese format for the things.

I wouldn't mind a reboot, really, if it condenses the story and actually, some of the early art isn't that great.

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I still have a few holes in my collection of the volumes that were released in English, and the volumes I'm missing are either hard to find or really expensive when I do manage to find one. Whoever thought up their release scheme was an idiot. Multiple books with the same cover being released at once made it really hard for comic shops to keep things straight. They should've just stuck with the Japanese format for the things.

I wouldn't mind a reboot, really, if it condenses the story and actually, some of the early art isn't that great.

I'm not convinced this is the "reboot" that the word implies and we've been conditioned to think of by Hollywood. A quick gander at the OP and at the website would say this is more of a "restart" of commercial and fan interest in the series. It's a compilation of material that was serialized in Newtype magazine over the past few decades, with earlier names updated to current standards. All past volumes will also be republished in a LARGER format, which can only be a GOOD thing. :D

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I'm not convinced this is the "reboot" that the word implies and we've been conditioned to think of by Hollywood. A quick gander at the OP and at the website would say this is more of a "restart" of commercial and fan interest in the series. It's a compilation of material that was serialized in Newtype magazine over the past few decades, with earlier names updated to current standards. All past volumes will also be republished in a LARGER format, which can only be a GOOD thing. :D

Oops. I passed right over your earlier post.

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I adore the mecha designs of FSS. Nagano's work in FSS is likely the closest Japanese mecha design will ever come to high art.

I've been wondering about the Wave model as well. The Wave site hasn't been updated since September. I hope the project hasn't been scraped, the preproduction pieces looked amazing!

That sucks. They better not drop this figure. I've been waiting years the the release of a proper FSS figure and this Wave figure was doing everything right so far. It has to be released. It just must be :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

So during my first break at work, I went to the bookstore around the corner, where they informed me that the Reboot book had sold out. During my next break, I went a couple of blocks to Books Keibundo, where they had two stacks of the thing. Go figure.

Anyway, there are more differences between this volume and the previous Vol. I than there were between the original version Vol. i and the 1998 edition.

First and foremost, this is the series exactly as it was printed in Newtype magazine. As such, while the previous edition had no chapter divisions beyond the Prologue, this one has title pages every fifteen pages. Also, at each chapter break, it features early designs for some of the ships, Mortar Heads, and characters in the book. The Epilogue to the Lachesis storyline, originally featured in Vol. II, has also been coaxed into this volume.

Unfortunately, the added art comes at a cost: there are several pages (including the scene of Dr. Ballanche awakening Lachesis that opens the story proper in the previous version of Vol. I) that are simply not here, since Nagano added them in the books. This should make the Atropos volumes especially different, since there are several parts he redrew or simply threw out and replaced in the collected volumes for that storyline. But as it stands, the book feels incomplete, showing the preliminary version of the story before it was finalized in book form. As such, it's interesting for the devoted fan (like me), but I'm thinking of "Reboot" more as a companion piece to the original books than a replacement.

There are also fewer color pages than there are in the previous version.

So yeah, it's nice, and there are some very cool things about it, but I wish they had simply bulked out the original version of Vol. I a little more...put the title pages and alternate artwork in the back, put some annotations showing where the chapter breaks were originally, stuff like that. The way it is now, the new book is not different enough for me to comfortably recommend it to people who already own the previous collection, but it is different enough for me to hesitate recommending it to new fans. For freaks like me who enjoying poring through the two books side-by-side, noting where this panel is slightly different in the Reboot, or that page is absent entirely, it's kind of fun. But there aren't many freaks like me, really.

Oh, and if you're interested in getting the L.E.D. Mirage figure, you've got, as Electric Indigo said, to jump through a few hoops. You've got to get Reboot Vol. 1 - Lachesis (available now, obviously). Reboot Vol. 2 - Clotho (April 9), Reboot Vol. 3 - Traffics (June 10), and one of two issues of Newtype, either the April issue (due out March 10) or the July issue (due out June 10). Just cut out the proofs of purchase and send 'em in.

There will also be a K.O.G. figure in it for you if you buy Reboot Vol. 4 - Atropos1, Reboot Vol. 5 - Atropos2, Reboot Vol. 6 - The Chivalries, and Reboot Vol. 7 - The Majestic Stand1...but you won't be able to do anything about THAT until August.

Edited by Gubaba
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Ok, thanks for the review. Shame it hasn't turned out to be "the" definitive volume, but I'll probably pick it up anyway just to see the differences myself.

Given a few days to rationalize my purchase think about it, I guess I think of it as being like a "director's cut" versus a "theatrical edition." If both versions are good and worth owning, I don't really mind having mostly the same material twice over.

(Actually, in this case, five times over, considering I own the original Japanese Vol. I, the 1998 Edition Vol. I, the first (stapled) English release, the second (squarebound) English release, and now the Reboot... :wacko: Thank goodness I never got into collecting Tales of Joker as well! )

Edited by Gubaba
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  • 10 months later...
  • 4 years later...

The volks web site shows an A-tol at 1/144scale ims kit. I was wondering if anyone had anything good to say about the 1/144 batshu.

Their 1/144 kits look very respectable. The Batshu is ever-so-slightly nicer than their 1/100 offering, but I suspect that that has something to do with the time between releases and the refinements in the tooling process. The latest 1/100 kits (LED and Terror) are excellent.

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I have the volks 1/100 bang and it's a good size kit,but space is getting limited so the 1/144 ones may be the ones for me. The batshu does look great and the a-tol looks impressive to me so I may have to get them before their gone.

That terror mirage will still be my next buy.

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  • 1 month later...

I've never seen the film nor read the manga, but the mecha designs are amazing. Those models are beautiful already without even being painted. I've always been fond of the Jagd Mirage "Green Demon", after seeing pics of a custom model at some convention years ago. It's such an intricate, delicate, and insectile design-very eyecatching. It'd make for a tedious, but rewarding production model. But so many of the other FSS mecha would also make great displays. I forget who posted it above, but I agree that these designs approach high art in this medium.

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Yeah, that would have been me that posted that :)

These new 1/100 scale mortar headds look incredible. They certainly do the designs justice. That KOG looks astounding.

Eventually I'd really like to have some kind of FSS toy. I wanted that damned WAVE Last Junchoon ODK they were making, but then they cancelled it. Quite possibly could have been one of my favorite toys ever.

Funny a FSS topic should come up again, I'm just in the midst of obtaining a bunch of art books from the franchise. Long overdue. FSS books are probably the art books I look at the most. The artistry and aesthetics are more rewarding than almost any other mecha designs I've seen.

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