This is the first time I believe this story has been translaed to Spanish, and the timing couldn't have been more auspicious given Hayao earned his second Oscar. I am uncertain if this edition was translated directly from Japanese or it is a second translation over the English version. One part of the text mentions it is a Japanse -> Spanish translation. But at the same time, the book includes a 3 page message from the English language translator.

As I expected, even though this edition was printed in Mexico City, the translation is in Spain Spanish instead of a neutral Latin American. It isn't badly translated per se, but it does use some seseo verb tenses and unusual words that are not in common use in Latin America.

What we do get is very high quality printing with glorious riveting colors. So while I might regard some linguistic preference reservations about the translation despite being a Mexican subsidiary of the US editorial, the printing quality is fabulous. A worthy collector's item for hardcore Ghibli Studio artwork fans.

I was always aware Hayao wrote Nausicaä manga over the years, but I never knew he wrote this story. And given my copy is the 2nd print barely fresh out of the printing house, I have high hopes sales will be good enough to entice the editorial to translate the rest of Hayao's work to Spanish. Manga sells like hot pancakes in Mexico no matter the cost, and I have high hopes Nausicaä would sell very well even if each tome was priced at 300 mxn a pop.

Given I am unfamiliar with Hayao's work, I entered this book with no prior knowledge of it, only that it instantly has artwork and character designs that were used later on in Nausicaä and The Princess Mononoke.

It is a simple story, imbued with Hayao's magical touch and a strong & brave female supporting character to help Shuna along the way. A fast read that I finished in just 1 hour, it's a fun story that can be enjoyed even by people that are not well attuned to Hayao's feature films.

Good read. ( )

Loosely based on a Tibetan folktale, Shuna's Journey was originally published in 1983, two years before the launch of Studio Ghibli. Reading it now, it’s this epic, ancient, futuristic, sprawling storyline full of gods and slaves and ancient decaying civilizations. It contains all the themes you come to expect from Miyazaki - particularly his focus on people grown estranged by nature and a world knocked askew by greed. It has a noble hero and a smart heroine. And yet, Shuna's Journey is not a manga proper but rather an illustrated story. It almost reads a storyboard for a film that never was. The watercolor illustrations are quite wonderous as one would expect from Miyazaki.
The storyline might be one of Miyazaki's most somber and adult stories he has ever penned. Shuna's Journey tackles themes of human trafficking making this work more teen and adult oriented than a work for children. This is not to say that older children can't understand this, it just skews more towards an older audience. I would say this is suitable for middle grade readers and up.
To have this in print, is a rare gem, and a fascinating glimpse into Miyazaki's early career. You can see in this story Miyazaki's key narrative occupations coming to life and it's a beautiful and epic thing to witness. ( )

It's so great to get to reread this! The watercolor art is so beautiful and the story is so lovely! The translation is amazing and it's just a good read.

Miyazaki wrote this while writing the Nausicaa manga and drafting his concept for the Earthsea film, so there are similarities in Nausicaa, and Goro outright used art and scenes for "Gedo Senki". There are also a lot of art, scenes, and characters that showed up later in the "Princess Mononoke" film, which was neat to see, so it's sort of the closest thing we'll probably ever get to a "Princess Mononoke" manga.

Overall I really loved this, and glad to finally own it. ( )

An absolute joy to read with as always the social commentary is as relevant now as it was then. I particularly enjoyed drawing visual connections between Shuna's Journey and Miyazaki's films. ( )

With his village just eking by at a slowly dwindling subsistence level, a young prince sets off atop his faithful yak in search of a magic grain that will bring bumper crops. Wait, is this a Norman Borlaug biography? Or a messed up version of Jack and the Beanstalk?

Actually inspired by a story from Tibetan folklore called "The Prince Who Turned into a Dog," Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki reimagines it into a fantasy quest with cannibals, slave traders, and giants. You'd think that would be exciting, but the story is told almost entirely in captions in a monotone narration that left me feeling removed from the story and its wooden characters. Plus, the dog transformation is metaphorical instead of literal in Miyazaki's version, so no cute puppies for me, just a dumb old yak.

FOR REFERENCE:

The Japanese translation of "The Prince Who Turned into a Dog" by Kimishima Hisako originally appeared in 1964 in the folklore anthology, 白いりゅう 黒いりゅう: 中国のたのしいお話 (Dragon black dragon white - pleasant talk of China, ISBN 9784001103076). In 2013 it was turned into a picture book with illustrations by Jin Goto: 犬になった王子――チベットの民話 (The Prince Who Turned into a Dog - A Tibetan Folk Tale, ISBN 9784001112429). ( )