athenaltena

I finally got my paws on Gunslinger Girl volume 4 today. I only heard that it was finally out by accident when I was browsing through Anime Insider at Big Y before I went to work, but when I saw the ad announcing it I almost said out loud "Took you freaking long enough, ADV!"

It's really been almost about a year since the last one was released, and I know I wasn't alone in terms of being pissed off about ADV just putting it on hold without a definite reason given, as at least a few people were hoping they'd drop it so another publisher could pick it up since other countries have been getting new volumes. I was almost to the point of ordering it from a British bookseller, but then *boom* there it is. Not only did they put a huge flyer in Anime Insider (and Newtype, apparently) saying that it was coming back, but now they had ads for the next volume in the back as if to say "Don't worry, we'll keep translating it." I just hope they keep to that.

Either way this whole thing was a PR blunder on ADV's part. There are few ways to alienate your customer base like stopping translation out of nowhere and not giving a reason to the public.

What was incredibly funny is that as I was in the store walking towards the counter some guy saw the book in my hands and immediately looked up at me and asked "Where'd you get that?!" at which point I just meekly pointed towards the manga section and he scurried off. I was rather glad to see what I wasn't the only one waiting for this book. :P