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Hideyuki Kikuchi
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Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition (Novel) Kindle Edition

by Hideyuki Kikuchi (Author), Jun Suemi (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 40 ratings
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In the first decade of the 21st century, a supernatural phenomenon called the Devil Quake leveled the city of Shinjuku in three seconds flat. Since then, wrapped in a phantasmal miasma, the accursed place has earned the abhorrent designation of “Demon City.” In the blink of an eye, it became a land ruled by the hair-raising and the bizarre.

The year is now 2030. A powerful warlock hiding out in Shinjuku attempts to assassinate the secretary general of the Earth Federation, bringing the planet to the brink of disaster. Wielding the fearsome and mysterious martial art of nenpo, high school student Kyoya Izayoi may be the only person capable of resisting the rising forces of evil.

The legendary series now springs back to life in this new omnibus edition!
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  1. Print length
    432 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    August 28, 2012
  5. File size
    3746 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
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  8. Enhanced typesetting
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0093OPHDY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Digital Manga Publishing (August 28, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 28, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3746 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 40 ratings

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Hideyuki Kikuchi

Hideyuki Kikuchi

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
40 global ratings
Hideyuki Kikuchi's Debut Novel
5 Stars
Hideyuki Kikuchi's Debut Novel
The release of this English language translation of Hideyuki Kikuchi's debut novel DEMON CITY SHINJUKU means that every single book of his that has been animated is now available to English speaking fans. Honestly, I wouldn't have expected to live to see this happen when I first learned that some of my favorite anime titles were based on novels by the same writer. I was incredibly surprised and happy when VAMPIRE HUNTER D got translated and my amazement has only grown when it was followed by WICKED CITY, A WIND NAMED AMNESIA and now this. It's not like I'm completely satisfied just yet, not with at least seven WICKED CITY sequels as yet remaining untranslated, but it's still interesting to think back 15 years and to realize how far the international market for these titles has come since then.What's important to know about this book is that it not only contains DEMON CITY SHINJUKU but also its first sequel, DEMON PALACE BABYLON (both books have also been adapted into manga form by Shinichi Hosoma and an English translation was published by ADV Manga in 2003/2004). You also get a total of three afterwords, the original ones from the books' seperate releases and the one written for the collected omnibus volume.The writing style of DEMON CITY SHINJUKU and DEMON PALACE BABYLON is closer to WICKED CITY than to the VAMPIRE HUNTER D novels and makes for a brisk, fun read. As usual with books where one is already so familiar with the movie version, it's fascinating to note the little differences here and there. I'm not going to spoil the fun of discovering those for yourselves, though.
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Top reviews from the United States

Phantom983
5.0 out of 5 stars Well packaged
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2020
Verified Purchase
I bought this book for my husband who was really worried about what condition it would arrive in. He's very particular about the condition of his books. Paperback books aren't always packaged well to arrive in the best condition. This I've was well packaged with very good padding. It arrived in immaculate condition. Was very pleased.
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M. Metreyeon
5.0 out of 5 stars Can't wait to read
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2012
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While I haven't read it yet I do look forward to doing so, because I'm already a big fan of this author. I'm currently collecting his Vampire Hunter D Series and managas and have read Invader Summer and his short D stories as well. This being his earliest book it will be an interesting read. This is the one that he is most known for other than D and I looooove D.
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StampReadNapRepeat
4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2013
Verified Purchase
Not my favorite of this author's works, but i still greatly enjoyed this novel. 5 stars for first part, 3 1/2 for second act. And i for one, liked the anime that was based off this. LOL
One person found this helpful
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John Smith
3.0 out of 5 stars Curious rather than pleasurable
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2012
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Let's get one thing straight: even though "Demon City Shinjuku" is unequivocally Kikuchi's life's work rather than the just as unequivocally more popular Vampire Hunter D, the "Demon City Shinjuku" in question is the setting, not this novel and its bundled sequel.

It's for good reason that Kikuchi abandoned all the characters that show up in this work aside from the brilliant Dr. Mephisto since you can find their ilk in any volume of action oriented boys manga, but those same reasons have undoubtedly inspired him to include his unintentionally ironic vision of what at the time was near-future Shinjuku in something like 2/3 of his written works.

Unfortunately the lousy localization job that Digital Manga Publishing did on this book took it from the relatively mediocre (compared to Kikuchi's later works) to the outright abysmal, and their slapdash efforts with Yashakiden (see my lamentation of a review of the 5th and final volume of that series for more details) have quite possibly consigned the rest and best of Demon City Shinjuku to the other side of the Pacific for good.

At this point in the review I almost hate to pick up picking on Eugene Woodbury, the translator, from my review of Yashakiden volume 5 (which I wrote a couple hours ago), but even though his background gives me no reason to doubt his intimacy with either the Japanese or English languages, and at that rate the caliber of human being he must be, the projects he's worked on with DMP leave me questioning his ability to put his own ego as a writer aside to the degree required to pleasantly render Kikuchi into English.

I myself am not even enough of a linguist to accurately convey the quandaries that Kikuchi places his prospective translators into, but hopefully if I say it comes down to the difference between relaying what someone is saying and trying to explain WHY they might have said it in the first place you'll be able to comprehend the issues Kikuchi presents. Put another way, Kikuchi's dialogue is by no means his strength, but at the same time it's by far the most straight forward part of his works to translate (making the incoherent dialogue in DMP's English rendition of this work all the more mind boggling). On the other hand Kikuchi's prosaic narrative passages, his descriptions both of the engaging atmosphere his beguiling characters are ignoring the majesty of and the intense violence which functions as the engine that propels his works to greatness, are at once what define him as a writer and prove to be the stoutest obstacles to rendering his works in English. Of course the greatest irony of all this is that Kikuchi has far more western sensibilities than the average Japanese writer. I'm at a loss to compare him to a modern English writer (definitely not Stephen King, if anybody's the Japanese version of King it's probably Banana Yoshimoto), but even though I've been called crazy for making the comparison, Kikuchi always puts me in mind of Byron, only better.

I would say the opposite, that their strength is dialogue and their weakness is imagery, of just about any other Japanese writer that's found popularity in English. Haruki Murakami (who in the first place is probably the most American man to ever emerge from Japan's "student protests" scene) in particular essentially writes glorified monologues that work even more brilliantly in English than they do in Japanese DESPITE how hard Jay Rubin tries to inject himself into the translations (if you have money to burn grab his nearly unreadable translated collection of works by Akutagawa to see what I mean, I like Alfred Birnbaum's translation efforts just fine by the way, not least of which since back in the day he managed to make Pinball 1973 into something that's actually worth reading).

Having firmly gotten off the topic of the work I ostensibly set out to review, I'll conclude by saying that not unlike Haruki Murakami's debut work Hear the Wind Sing, the only people who this book can possibly entertain are die-hard Kikuchi fanatics who grew to appreciate him due through Vampire Hunter D since the contrast between the two projects is positively stunning, but the qualities that Kikuchi has since gone on to master still manage to shine through in spite of the low quality English localization.

Also check this out if, like another reviewer here on Amazon, you actually managed to enjoy its anime adaptation. Come to think of it, the stuff that Streamline Pictures did to the anime adaptations of Kikuchi's works in the late 80s and early 90s is not entirely unlike what DMP is doing to his novels (with the exception of the joint publication of the Vampire Hunter D series that Kevin Leahy's adoration and Darkhorse's firm hand have been able to deliver to us more or less intact) now.

Oh man. Seriously. I used to laugh every time I saw the word "gorgeous," and phrases like "D's sword limned an arc" and "paraffin white skin" re-used ad nauseum in all the volumes of Vampire Hunter D that Kevin Leahy has translated, but reading THIS THING actually succeeded in making me long for the idiosyncrasies of that particular translation project...
5 people found this helpful
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Golgotha 23
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2016
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I liked it. Very entertaining and fast paced.
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Terry overton
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2017
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Awesome!
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Kemushi
5.0 out of 5 stars Hideyuki Kikuchi's Debut Novel
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2011
The release of this English language translation of Hideyuki Kikuchi's debut novel DEMON CITY SHINJUKU means that every single book of his that has been animated is now available to English speaking fans. Honestly, I wouldn't have expected to live to see this happen when I first learned that some of my favorite anime titles were based on novels by the same writer. I was incredibly surprised and happy when VAMPIRE HUNTER D got translated and my amazement has only grown when it was followed by WICKED CITY, A WIND NAMED AMNESIA and now this. It's not like I'm completely satisfied just yet, not with at least seven WICKED CITY sequels as yet remaining untranslated, but it's still interesting to think back 15 years and to realize how far the international market for these titles has come since then.

What's important to know about this book is that it not only contains DEMON CITY SHINJUKU but also its first sequel, DEMON PALACE BABYLON (both books have also been adapted into manga form by Shinichi Hosoma and an English translation was published by ADV Manga in 2003/2004). You also get a total of three afterwords, the original ones from the books' seperate releases and the one written for the collected omnibus volume.

The writing style of DEMON CITY SHINJUKU and DEMON PALACE BABYLON is closer to WICKED CITY than to the VAMPIRE HUNTER D novels and makes for a brisk, fun read. As usual with books where one is already so familiar with the movie version, it's fascinating to note the little differences here and there. I'm not going to spoil the fun of discovering those for yourselves, though.
Customer image
Kemushi
5.0 out of 5 stars Hideyuki Kikuchi's Debut Novel
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2011
The release of this English language translation of Hideyuki Kikuchi's debut novel DEMON CITY SHINJUKU means that every single book of his that has been animated is now available to English speaking fans. Honestly, I wouldn't have expected to live to see this happen when I first learned that some of my favorite anime titles were based on novels by the same writer. I was incredibly surprised and happy when VAMPIRE HUNTER D got translated and my amazement has only grown when it was followed by WICKED CITY, A WIND NAMED AMNESIA and now this. It's not like I'm completely satisfied just yet, not with at least seven WICKED CITY sequels as yet remaining untranslated, but it's still interesting to think back 15 years and to realize how far the international market for these titles has come since then.

What's important to know about this book is that it not only contains DEMON CITY SHINJUKU but also its first sequel, DEMON PALACE BABYLON (both books have also been adapted into manga form by Shinichi Hosoma and an English translation was published by ADV Manga in 2003/2004). You also get a total of three afterwords, the original ones from the books' seperate releases and the one written for the collected omnibus volume.

The writing style of DEMON CITY SHINJUKU and DEMON PALACE BABYLON is closer to WICKED CITY than to the VAMPIRE HUNTER D novels and makes for a brisk, fun read. As usual with books where one is already so familiar with the movie version, it's fascinating to note the little differences here and there. I'm not going to spoil the fun of discovering those for yourselves, though.
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5 people found this helpful
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Carolina Ramos
4.0 out of 5 stars Del autor que nos trae Vampire Hunter D
Reviewed in Mexico on March 6, 2017
Verified Purchase
Son las dos novelas que componen la saga de Demon City y, que a su vez, pertenecen a otra saga de libros que suceden en el mismo universo.
Como obra no está mal pero tampoco es maravilloso.
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