Old stapled books vs. New glued books

Canadian FSS Fan · Post by **Canadian FSS Fan** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:49 pm

Happy Hopping and myself both have early stapled versions of the manga, and I specifically was wondering if the newer diamond versions have MORE sleeve notes or skip some/leave some out.

What are the differences aside from the obviously cosmetic covers and staple/glued pages?

Nu Soard Graphite · Post by **Nu Soard Graphite** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:11 pm

The squarebound diamond versions do have additional material thats not included in the original stapled versions. Volume 5 (I believe) includes an article about Headdliners that is not found in the stapled version. Beyond that I can't help you, as the version that I have is the old one.

Canadian FSS Fan · Post by **Canadian FSS Fan** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:50 am

HH was under the impression it was the other way around.

Confusing to say the least.

errol · Post by **errol** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 2:46 pm

I just got the new squarebound versions over the weekend. My old stapled versions actually had liquid spilt on them by my cats, still readable, but kind of wavey on the top. So I purchased the new ones on Ebay and got a good deal. Anyways, I glanced through them and the only noticeable difference was the headliner info that some has already mentioned, a whole page about Spaads, the group fatima picture has all of thier names listed and an explanation of divers all in book 5. One last thing is in book 7 it has info on the invasion of Juno 3960 by Amaterasu. All in all pretty valuable information.
I have not yet started to read the new ones. From what I understand, the older versions were translated by someone other than Mr. Wisnom. I am interested to compare the two. I seem to like the translations in books 13-26 better than the old stapled versions. The old ones don't seem to be as serious. Believe me, I enjoy the comic relief but just something about them. Maybe the depth of the charactors in the things that they say is more versatile. I don't know, just my opinion. For all I know they could have kept the same translations from old ones in order to save money on translations? I am interested to read up and find out.
The only real problem with the square bound issues is not being able to open them wide enough to see the 2 page artwork. FSS seems to have alot of it which I really enjoy. And if you have other square bound books you know that durability is always an issue especially when trying to open the pages to far. It always seems like when you do, eventually the glue wears and the pages start to come out. I can't speak for the quality of these squarebounds, but so far it has not happened to mine. But I do have other books that ruined.
The good side of these is when on a book shelf they are much easier to identify issues. Also 13-26 are all squarebound so if you want your whole collection to be uniform, you want the squarebound. The last thing is in the stapled versions some of the extra information is in the fronts of the comics has been put at the end. More consistant with 13-26.
If you are starting from scratch, buy the new ones. If you can get a really really good deal on the old ones, buy them instead because there really isn't that much new info and most of it is on Gears anyways.

Long live FSS!!!

Nu Soard Graphite · Post by **Nu Soard Graphite** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 5:35 pm

Actually, the old version was translated by Mr. Wisnom.

It was the "prototype" volume 1 with the black border that was translated by someone else...Trish Ledoux and Toshifumi Yoshida of Viz.

LaughingMan · Post by **LaughingMan** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 5:32 am

I visited Beaverton (Portland) Kinokuniya today and saw that the store is selling the old staple bound versions for USD1.00 EACH. They placed in two boxes underneath a table of other discount books by the cashier's counter.
In my opinion, this is a very good deal, outweighing the fact that it is missing some of the additonal material found in the new square bound versions.

Canadian FSS Fan · Post by **Canadian FSS Fan** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 6:38 pm

I suppose I should contact them and not pass that deal up.

LaughingMan · Post by **LaughingMan** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 7:03 pm

Canadian Fan

You might also want to include the TOJ's in your order as well since Kinokuniya will charge you a "minimum" shipping fee on UPS service.

The store has about 6 of the square bound versions of manga at regular price. I did not look at them to see exactly which ones, but they seem to be somewhere from #21 up to the current #26 from the colour coding on the spine.

Besides these FSS books, I did not find anything else that is FSS related there. I was hoping to buy the earlier Character series booklets. I think the Seattle store has some and which i plan to visit in about a month or two.

happy hopping · Post by **happy hopping** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 8:46 pm

LaughingMan wrote:I visited Beaverton (Portland) Kinokuniya today and saw that the store is selling the old staple bound versions for USD1.00 EACH. They placed in two boxes underneath a table of other discount books by the cashier's counter.
In my opinion, this is a very good deal, outweighing the fact that it is missing some of the additonal material found in the new square bound versions.

Damn. I bought them at list price at Kino of Los angeles.