Manga Monday: A Look At The Oh My Goddess! Omnibus

Follow Dark Horse Comics:

Manga Monday: A Look At The Oh My Goddess! Omnibus

07/27/2015 4:28pm

Dark Horse has been publishing Oh My Goddess! for 21 years, but it’s been a whole decade since we last introduced a new publishing format for it; in 2005, when we began to release it in its current tankobon-size, Japanese-reading edition. In two months that edition will be complete with the final volume of the story, Oh My Goddess! vol. 48. But that isn’t the end of Oh My Goddess! from Dark Horse; in fact we’re starting anew, just as we did ten years ago, to introduce this classic manga love comedy to the next generation of readers. And that new start begins this week, as Book One of the Oh My Goddess! omnibus hits stores.

In the image above, you see Book One standing on the left-hand side…appropriately backed up by some issues of the Japanese magazine that’s the original home of the manga, Kodansha’s monthly Afternoon (in the 1980s and 1990s, it was common in the U.S. to publish manga chapters in comic book format—which, as you can see, is actually similar in page size to a manga magazine). We wanted the Oh My Goddess! Omnibus to pay tribute to the look of its iconic home magazine, with its big character portrait and bold logo and graphic elements.

If only the omnibus could have been as big as Afternoon itself :-) (actually, that might not be such a good idea, as it would have been both much more expensive, and harder for bookstores to fit on their manga shelves). But the omnibus is definitely bigger than the current edition of Oh My Goddess!, and it also uses the highest quality paper yet (just look at the difference between the paper in the omnibus and in Afternoon). The combination is almost like the high-definition version of Oh My Goddess!; I’ve been over every panel of the series several times (well, it’s my job), yet in the omnibus edition, I found myself noticing small details I hadn’t before.

Here’s a look at the inside of Book One, which contains volumes 1-3 of the regular edition. If you’re familiar with the Dark Horse edition of Cardcaptor Sakura, the Oh My Goddess! omnibus books are designed the same way, with color manga and illustration sections printed on special heavier, glossy stock. At first I was a little worried about how a new generation would respond to those 80s eyebrows everyone was rocking in the early part of Oh My Goddess!. But thanks to Chaika Trabant, I hear they’re coming back big time.

To get technical for the next couple paragraphs ^_^ the omnibus edition will collect the entire Oh My Goddess! manga in 15 books. You may think, wait a minute, 48 divided by 3 volumes is 16, not 15, but don’t worry—none of the story is being left out. It’s just that while the first four OMG! omnibus books will contain exactly three of the regular volumes each, from that point on, the omnibus books collect blocs of chapters in order. For example, OMG! Omnibus Book Four contains all of vols. 10-12. The last chapter of Vol. 12 is chapter 72, so Book Five picks up the story from there, containing chapters 73-89. Book Six will then contain chapters 90-104, etc.

The reason the omnibus will switch from containing entire volumes to containing blocs of chapters is because, over the long history of Oh My Goddess! being published in Japan, the tankobon themselves started to vary considerably in length. Some were quite thick, such as the 248-page vol. 19, whereas others were rather slim, such as the 144-page vol. 33. Since the Dark Horse OMG! tankobon were based directly on the Japanese ones, they have the same variation. If we simply put exactly three volumes into each omnibus, eventually the difference in spine thickness would become very noticeable. That’s why we’re using chapter blocs instead, to make the omnibus books have a more consistent size. We’re going to try to also have these blocs contain logical start and end points; for example, Book Five begins with chapter 73, which introduces Skuld’s relationship with Sentaro, and ends with chapter 89, where Skuld attempts to reconjure her angel, Noble Scarlet.

I haven’t even mentioned yet one of the most attractive things about the Oh My Goddess! Omnibus Edition—not only looks, but price! At $19.99 U.S., you’re getting the equivalent of three upgraded volumes for less than the cost of two regular ones. We think this was also an important decision to encourage a new generation of readers to discover Oh My Goddess!—and if you’re a longtime fan, I think the omnibus is a great edition to recommend to others. They’ll find, as many of you have, that this was the longest-running manga series in English for so many wonderful reasons.

—Carl Horn

Manga Editor

Dark Horse Comics

Manga Monday: A Look At The Oh My Goddess! Omnibus

Tags

Recent Posts

Archive

Services

Sites

Company

Contact & News

Dark Horse Comics

Manga Monday: A Look At The Oh My Goddess! Omnibus

Tags

Subscribe

Recent Posts

Archive

Services

Sites

Company

Contact & News