Welcome to Tales of Magatama, your English resource on Dragon Sword and Wind Child (空色勾玉) and Noriko Ogiwara’s Magatama trilogy (勾玉三部作). Navigation is in the horizontal menu above and in the sidebar. Any questions and/or comments can be left via comment box under relevant pages or any update post. You can also subscribe to updates with our RSS feed. Thank you for visiting — buy the book, spread the word, and come back soon!
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Your English resource on「Dragon Sword and Wind Child」
The old “Color of the Sky” website
It’s a little trip down memory lane for me. For anyone new to Tales of Magatama who wonders how this website used to look like, I guess I unintentionally left a few pages of the old site “The Color of the Sky” still online and intact, here:
NOTE: I would suggest using a pop-up blocker or a browser (i.e., Google Chrome) that automatically blocks pop-ups. My old free host loved to spring those ads on you. A major motivating factor behind why I made the move.
- Dragon Sword and Wind Child characters page
- Outdated contact information
- The disclaimer used to have a page all to itself
- Outdated acknowledgments page
- The old guestbook — We don’t really use it anymore
The old site was 100% HTML-based and constructed almost exclusively out of images. Where would I be without you, Photoshop? ♥
Kind of have to admit I’m still rather fond of the old layout, haha :]
SWET interviews award-winning translator Cathy Hirano
Cathy Hirano, translator of Dragon Sword and Wind Child, has twice garnered the prestigious Batchelder Award for her translated novels. The Society of Writers, Editors, & Translators (SWET) interviewed her about Moribito and DSWC in July.
“SWET member Cathy Hirano is a Japanese-English translator living in Shikoku. Her translation of the young adult (YA) novel The Friends by Kazumi Yumoto (Natsu no niwa; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996) won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for children’s literature in translation and the Boston Globe–Horn Book award for children’s fiction (both in 1997). Misa Dikengil interviewed Hirano via email about two recent YA publications: a translation of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi (Seirei no moribito; Scholastic, 2008) and a revised reissue of her 1993 translation of Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara (Sorairo magatama; VIZ Media, 2007). Shortly after the interview, Hirano’s translation of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit received the 2009 Mildred L. Batchelder Award for Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic.”
Read the full interview here:
Young Adult Fantasy in Translation (SWET)
Magatama trilogy fanart on Tegaki E
For those who don’t know, Tegaki E is a blogging service where entries and comments are handwritten, ie. with a mouse (or tablet). Recently it has blossomed into a thriving art site. Think of it as a cross between deviantART and Facebook Graffiti.
The ‘Magatama Trilogy’ tag on Tegaki has many entries, so here are the search results, feel free to browse through them! (This link has also been added to the Fanart page.)
There’s a ‘Noriko Ogiwara’ tag on Tegaki as well. It includes Magatama trilogy art as well as fanart for her other novels: link
Dragon Sword and Wind Child cosplay
Here’s a treat for you today — Dragon Sword and Wind Child cosplay featuring Saya, Chihaya, and Torihiko. Look at those gorgeous handmade costumes! And I wonder where they got the Dragon Sword!
Cure is a Japanese cosplay community. You’ll need to register in order to view the photos fullsize. Fortunately, registration is free and the site has an English version that is easy to navigate.
“Everyone has books that they grew up reading”
Another review from 2007, dated but still relevant and compelling, by Lesley Smith:
“Everyone has books that they grew up reading, titles which have as much power over them as adults as they did when seven years old. I’d love to say that Dragon Sword and Wind Child (空色勾玉 or Sora Iro Magatama) was one of the ones I read as a child but from reading it I can guess how children in Japan must have felt. … Dragon Sword and Wind Child is [Ogiwara's] debut novel and was translated by Cathy Hirano back in the early nineties and up until Viz republished it, English copies have been almost impossible to find.”
Read the rest of the review at:
Through the Eyes of a Journalist
You’ll be pleased to learn that VIZ has Cathy back to work on Dragon Sword’s sequel, Hakuchou Iden. Let’s all wish for the best!