Yesterday was Moto Hagio’s 61st birthday, and my 45th. We share a birthday with Florence Nightingale, which explains why May 12 is also International Nurses Day. So hug a nurse, and read something by Hagio (and translated by me). Okay, so everything I ever translated by Hagio (which is to say, everything by Hagio ever legally translated into English) is out of print, but used copies of A, A’ and Four Shoujo Stories (which contains Hagio’s They Were Eleven) can be found used, and I believe you can still order The Comics Journal #269 (which includes Hagio’s short story “Hanshin”) from Fantagraphics. Or you can pre-order A Drunken Dream and Other Stories and wait patiently till September 8.
The new Special Edition Bungei volume on Moto Hagio
But if you can read Japanese, you can order the new Special Edition Bungei book on Moto Hagio, which goes on sale in Japan on May 14–which is to say, some ten hours from now. Naturally, I wouldn’t be plugging this volume if I didn’t have something to do with it. But even if you don’t read Japanese, you will not be missing much (much by me, anyway), since my own contribution is basically some annotated excerpts from my 2004 long interview with Moto Hagio, published in the aforementioned TCJ #269, and available for you’re reading pleasure here. And if you do you read Japanese, you (and I) are in for a real treat, since the book is chock full of great stuff by great people, many of whom I count among my friends. It also includes some previously unpublished short stories by Hagio from her earliest days as a professional manga artist, which is reason enough to buy it.
So, Happy Hagio Week.