Jiangshi X: Research Notes

Tucker

Viz accidentally published the Mandarin translation

Tucker Recommends Instead: Mister Vampire III (awesome Hong Kong jiangshi action comedy movie)

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Title:  Kyonshi–X キョンシーX

•  Japanese: Kyone-shee X

  • Kyonshi is the Japanese term for our hopping vampire friends. It’s also the term for them with which I’m most familiar since I grew up with the NES game Phantom Fighter that used the Japanese term for them.

• Chinese: Chyahng-shee X

  • The sound often written as the letter J in pinyin (romanized Chinese) sounds nothing like the sound associated with the symbol in English (or Japanese, for that matter). In standard Mandarin dialects, it stands for /t͡ɕ/, which is pretty similar to the sound we make with the letters “ch,” but with the tongue making contact with the top of the mouth a little further back. If you can’t do it, a normal “ch” sound is an okay substitute.                       (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolo-palatal_affricate)  

  • I’m not familiar enough with tonal languages to write intelligently about what tones each syllable should get.

Author:  Kurazono Norihiko 倉薗 紀彦

• Kɯ-rah-zo-no, No-ree-hee-ko

Note about the official English translation:

The way character names, place names, attack names, and all other manner of proper nouns appearing in the manga are presented is significantly different in the original Japanese text versus the official Viz English translation. In Japanese, names and terms are presented in kanji, the character set adapted by Japanese from China in ancient times. Japanese readers of Jiangshi X (or as it’s known in Japanese, Kyonshi X) read these names using modern Japanese readings for the kanji.

However, in the English version, these kanji characters are instead interpreted as their native Chinese (most likely standard Mandarin/Han) equivalent written out in pinyin (romanized Chinese pronunciation). These different interpretations of the same symbols make pretty much everything sound very, very different depending on which version you’re reading and also means that there is no single correct answer for how one should refer to just about anything in this series. Wouldn’t want to make our jobs easy, huh?

Characters

• Xiaohu 小虎 (JP: Kotora)

  • Chinese: Shyao-hoo

  • Written as “little tiger”

• Heihu 黒虎 (JP: Kurotora)

  • Chinese: Hay-hoo

  • Written as “black tiger”

• Jiuli 九里 (JP: Kyūri)

  • Chinese: Chyoo-lee

  • See note in title explanation about “J” in pinyin

  • Written as “nine reasons”

• Chaoyun 超雲 (JP: Chou’un)

  • Chinese: Chow-yoon

  • “Ch” in pinyin stands for the consonant sound written as /ʈ͡ʂʰ/ in IPA….you know what? Just pronounce this like English “ch.” 

  • Written as “ultra cloud”

• Longhu Xuanshui 龍弧玄水 (JP: Ryūko Gensui)

  • Lonhg-hoo Shwan-shwee

  • Written as “dragon arc illusion water”

• Konglun

  • Kong-loon

• Zhang Sheng

  • Zhahng-sheyng

  • The “zh” is like the s in “lesion” or the g in “montage”

• Jiutian Xuannu

  • Chyoo-t’yawn Shwan-noo

• Zhen

  • The “zh” is like the s in “lesion” or the g in “montage”

• Feng Ling

  • Fang-ling

Other

• Daoshi

  • Dow-shee

• Shenxian Village

  • Shen-shyahn

• Dadaoshi

  • Dah-dao-shee

• Bagua-daoshi

  • Bah-gwah Dao-shee

• Wu Dou Jiu Dao

  • Woo Doe Chyuu Dao

• Xian Dan

  • Shyawn Dawn

• Shi Lei

  • Shee-lay

MaxyBee

• Norihiko Kurazono

  • Notable people they were an assistant for

    • Hiroyuki Kikuta on HORIZON (rugby series)

    • Katsutoshi Kawai on Monkey Turn (hydroplane racing series)

    • Kei Kawano on Yuuto (speed skating series written by Yumi Hotta, of Hikaru no Go fame)

    • Mizuki Kawashita on Hatsukoi Limited (romance series that is somehow a flop despite having an anime)

    • Kosuke Iijima on Obo Samba!! (gag series about monks)

  • Notable people they had as assistants

    • Yoichiro Tanabe (of Oshiete! Furedou Wanda-san fame)

      • Tanabe assisted on Magic Peddler Roma.

  • Other works

    • Magic Peddler Roma (2009-2011, 5 vols, Sunday Super)

      • Roma is a peddler of mysterious magical objects, which when used selfishly by her customers generate a greed energy that she is then able to collect. It’s kind of twilight zoney as a result. 

    • Hocus Pocus (2011-2012, 2 vols, Comic Flapper)

      • Boy goes to entertainment school, befriends magician girl. Chaos ensues.

    • Rin Mishima Doesn’t Believe It! (2011-2013, 3 vols, Comic Dengeki Daioh)

      • Rin Mishima cannot stand strange things, and so starts an “occult eradication study group” to debunk and destroy such things.

    • Voyage au Centre de la Terre (2015-2017, 4 vols, Monthly Comic Beam) based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name

      • That’s right, Journey to the Centre of the Earth in this adaptation of the popular classic. As with most Beam novel adaptations it’s about being faithful and making it look cool, and does these two things.

    • Automaton (2018-2020, 5 vols, Morning Two)

      • It’s a super hero series set in an increasingly violent world.

    • Liber -Heterogeneous Criminal Investigation Unit- (2019-2020, 3 vols, LINE manga)

      • A full-colour and very violent crime manga wherein a special crime investigator tries to catch a deranged serial killer who livestreamed the torture and dismemberment of one of his victims.

    • Across the Moon River (2024-present, 1+ vols, Manga One/Ura Sunday)

      • Kurazono’s newest series, following a bunch of teens as they get caught up in a science fiction adventure involving government conspiracy and also the moon
        

• Publishing

  • Run Dates: 

    • January 23, 2023 to February 19, 2024

  • Series it replaced

• Not how Jump Plus works

• Series that replaced it

  • Not how Jump Plus works

• Series that started at the same time as it

  • None. 

• Chapters/Volumes: 

  • 35 chapters/4 volumes
    

Manga Itself / Misc thoughts

• I don’t have much for this one, the manga is just a Naruto clone in a lot of ways, but I do want to note that the author has been in the industry over 20 years between assistant work and their own series, with no real hits to their name, despite working for several publishers and under some hit-making authors in his time. That’s just… pretty sad.

  • His Jules Verne manga is pretty good though.