Media
I have gathered miscellaneous Dream Saga art below. The chapter covers, sidebar extras and concept sketches I assembled, cropped and cleaned from the volume scans. For the colour art, I have only listed illustrations that weren’t displayed at Megumi Tachikawa’s official site (now archived) — please pay it a visit to see more of her Dream Saga art, especially the colour versions of some of the chapter covers! I also highly recommend Shiori’s archive of Dream Saga scans over at Hot Water & Milk!
There’s no need to credit Setting Sun when using these images, though a link back would be appreciated so others can find the gallery. I only ask of you to respect that this gallery took a lot of time and effort to make, so please do not
- upload the images or thumbnails to a gallery,
- distribute a significant amount of them anywhere else,
- direct link them, or
- claim them as yours.
Click on the images to enlarge them. Don’t click on the links in the middle if you consider the identities of Yuuki’s comrades a spoiler.
Colour Art ☉ Chapter Covers ☉ Sidebar Extras ☉ Concept Sketches ☉ Volume Scans
Colour Art
Part of the colour illustrations collected here are presumably scans of the Japanese volumes’ dust jackets or from the chapters’ release in the Nakayoshi magazine, as several of them are colour images within the manga. These scans are from different sites, and I have been preserving most of them since 2003. I am uploading them here as they seem to have been lost to the internet.
If, by any chance, the persons who scanned these happen to see this and would like me to remove the scans, please message me. I do actually have a few more illustrations not uploaded here due to their low quality. If you’re a big fan of Dream Saga and would like to see them anyway, poke me!
Chapter Covers
The following images are all the chapter covers as well as any extra images that were originally coloured. (When series run in magazines, they may get colour pages; when those chapters are collected into a volume, they’re usually printed in black and white.) As stated above, for colour versions of some of these, look under Colour Art and visit Megumi Tachikawa’s website.
Sidebar Extras
Megumi Tachikawa chats a lot in the beginning of the chapter blurbs and in the sidebar, not just in Dream Saga; it’s something I enjoy reading a lot, and she also gives a lot of input on drawing and being a mangaka. In the volumes, she adorns those chats with images, each volume featuring a different frame around the characters. I’ve decided to make a separate section for these because they’re so adorable.
Be sure to check out the last image, the bonus pages of the last volume! My answer? I’m the fondest of Souta, who is my favourite character in Dream Saga, but there’s something about Keima that is very, very alluring… (And considering how often she mentions him in side remarks, I think Megumi Tachikawa thinks so too.)
Concept Sketches
In the last volume, Megumi Tachikawa included concept sketches of the main characters along with commentary. They’re worth a look, especially due to the height comparisons!
Volume Scans
Dream Saga can neither be purchased in German (2002–2003) nor in English (2004–2005) anymore, having been out of print for a long, long time. The scanlation groups Purple Innocence and ryuuroden scanned the English version by Tokyopop though, and scans are still available on the internet. The situation is this: Tokyopop’s US manga publishing division has been defunct since 2011 and no longer has the rights to publish the previously licensed manga titles; Purple Innocence hasn’t been active in eight years and, just like ryuuroden, presumably doesn’t even exist anymore.
I’d very much like people to discover and read Dream Saga, but the only way to do so (unless you get very lucky and find old used copies of Dream Saga) is via manga aggregator sites. As I don’t support certain sites (Batoto is okay, Mangafox is not), I’d rather you get the series from here. If I’m asked to remove the volumes, I will, but until then, I’ll leave them up here. Credit goes to the scanlation groups mentioned above.
If you enjoy the series, please consider purchasing the volumes from the Japanese Amazon to support the mangaka. They’re available for the Kindle!
Translation Notes
Some notes about the English version in comparison with the German version, which I’m most familiar with: Tokyopop makes weird translation choices in how it doesn’t handle Japanese terms consistently, especially those related to mythology. It leaves many Japanese terms untranslated with no translation notes or additional dialogue text to clarify what they mean (for example, the Amatsukami — gods — who Yuuki must find, or the Ama-no-iwato, the heavenly rock cave). On the other hand, it doesn’t refer to the Magatama as such, but simply calls it a “magic stone”.
Obviously, I can’t judge the English Dream Saga translation based on the Japanese original since I cannot read Japanese, but a few other things such as plain species names hinder the reader’s immersion when it comes to Takamagahara. For example, when the group sees Agatenights, an ammonite-like species, they’re translated as “pearl shells” — a product, rather than a species name. Takamagahara’s month names are also not consistently translated, as in earlier volumes, they’re simply referred to by their Nakatsukuni name.
