I’m writing this post to advise against purchasing Takao Saito’s Survival: Another Story from JManga.
Survival: Another Story is a one-shot sidestory to Takao Saito’s Survival, a 1978 shonen manga totaling twenty volumes, about a boy’s lonely struggles in an earthquake-ravaged Japan. The original story isn’t available in English at all, neither in print nor on JManga’s website. I can only imagine someone at JManga chose to translate this because it runs for a single volume, without any mindfulness of how it relates to Saito’s overarching series.
Another Story follows Satoru, a young man who passes out in the wilderness and is astonished to find himself in a city that has survived Japan’s massive earthquake. Though at first overjoyed at his return to civilization, Satoru quickly finds out the city isn’t the idyllic new home it seems.
While I’m unaware of Another Story‘s precise relation to the original, it doesn’t leave a strong impression on its own. The thought of seeing Takao Saito tackle a post-apocalyptic milieu is what originally bit my fancy, but I felt duped once I realized this was a disposable footnote that largely sidesteps that environment. I recommend JManga add supplementary information about their catalog, especially for more obscure selections such as this.
