Night on the Galactic Railroad Gets New Manga

Classic novel inspired 1985 anime film

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Gakken Education Publishing published a new kids' manga adaptation of Kenji Miyazawa's Night on the Galactic Railroad(Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru) novel in Japan on Friday.

Hinata Kino drew the manga is part of the Manga Junior Meisaku Series (Manga Junior Masterpiece Series), which adapts literary classics into manga for elementary and middle schoolers. The manga uses pictures and modern speech to make the older works easier to understand.

Gisaburô Sugii adapted the original novel into an anime film in 1985. Central Park Media released the film on DVD in North America in 2001, and Discotek Media announced in February that it plans to re-release the film on DVD and Blu-ray.

Stone Bridge Press and One Peace Books both published the original novel in English, although Stone Bridge Press used the title Milky Way Railway.

Miyazawa (1896-1933) was a famous Japanese children's book author. In addition to Night on the Galactic Railroad, he wrote stories and poems that would inspire elements of From Up On Poppy Hill and Pom Poko.

Miyazawa's children's poem Rain Won't (Ame ni mo Mukezu) wasillustrated into a picture book by animator Koji Yamamura (Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor, Mt. Head, Babel's Book) and translated into English.

Miyazawa's own life inspired an anime, Ihatov Gensou: Kenji no Haru(Vision of Ihatov: Kenji's Spring), in 1996 from Shoji Kawamori(Macross, Escaflowne) and a manga, Manga Miyazawa Kenji, in 1993 by Ko Yano. Miyazawa is also a character in Kafuka Asagiri's mangaBungō Stray Dogs (Literary Stray Dogs). Tokyopop released Kenji's Spring on DVD under the name Spring and Chaos. Japan and Stuff Press published Manga Miyazawa Kenji under the name The Manga Biography of Kenji Miyazawa, Author of Night of the Milky Way Railway.

Source: Comic Natalie