Mr. Nakai's Illustrations: The Wizard of Oz

Here are Mr. Nakai's fabulous illustrations again!

Enjoy his wonderful works to your hearts' content.
(Click image to enlarge.)

1 Dorothy

2 Cyclone

3 Munchkins

4 Scarecrow in Munchkin

5 The Scarecrow's Problem

6 Tin Woodman

7 Cowardly Lion

8 Yellow Brick Road

9 JUMP!

10 Kalidhas

11 HELP!

12 Keep it up, Lion!

My favorite is #8 Yellow Brick Road. Look at their faces!

Oh, I like #9 too. And #4, #11, #12...and everything! :D

How about you? Which picture is your favorite?

Wonderful parade of "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz"

Here is Mr. Nakai's picture scroll.

Can't you hear their uplifting music? ;D

19 The Imperial Cornet Band

20 Flag Bearers, the Coward Lion and the Hungry tiger 

21Dorothy and Ozma, the Scarecrow and the Saw Horse, and Tik-tok 

22 The Royal Court Band

23 Prof. Woggle-Bug and Students of the Royal College of Athletic Science

24 the Tin Woodman and the Royal Army

25 The Royal Army and Jim

26 Jim, Zeb, and the Wizard

Mr. Nakai's Illustrations #3

Mr. Nakai sent me more illustrations!

Enjoy his beautiful world!

The  Princess of the Vegetable Kingdom

Taking a Short Break

 

Attack by Mangaboos

The Valley of Voices

Fight with the Invisible Bear

Cloud Fairies

The Braided Man

Gargoyles

Wonderful Escape

Dragonettes

Jim and the Saw Horse

Self-righting Dolls

This is the end of the illustrations of "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz" I received.

Actually, Mr. Nakai sent me more illustrations. But they have a different theme, so, I'll post them in another entry.　It's coming soon. Don't miss it! ;)

Wonderful Illustrations of Oz Again!

 I've received 6 more pictures of "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz" from  Mr. Hatsuo Nakai!

Dorothy and Zeb

Earthquake!

The Glass City

The Sorcerer of Mangaboo

The Wizard of Oz

The  funeral of Gwig

These illustrations make you want to read "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz," don't they? ;D

Wonderful Illustrations of Oz

Do you know of Mr. Hatsuo Nakai? He has been painting fabulous illustrations of Oz for 19 years.

You can see some of his works in "The Baum Bugle," the official journal of International Wizard of Oz Club.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?331027
According to this site linked above, his works appears on "The Baum Bugle, winter 1996."
(You can buy a copy from IWOC's online shop.
http://shop.ozclub.org/product.sc?productId=369&categoryId=7
It says "autumn 1996," not "winter 1996." I don't know why.)

Mr. Nakai told me that he has 72 Oz paintings and sent me six of them to display on my blog.
(I can't thank him enough.)

These are the paintings. Click to enlarge.

I'm sure that all of you who visit this blog can recognize the depicted scenes without any explanations.

Words like "marvelous" and "amazing" do not do them justice; These paintings are just fantastic!

New translation is being released.

There had been only one complete translation of Baum's 14 books into Japanese. It was published by Hayakawa Publishing. Sadly, that version has been out of print for a long time.

At the site Fukkan.com, many people have asked that the whole series be reprinted.
http://www.fukkan.com/fk/ItemComment?i_no=68319797

But Hayakawa didn't react at all (at least, as far as I can see). They didn't even do anything in 2000, which was the 100th anniversary of "The Wizard of Oz". I had almost given up hope that they would re-print the Oz books someday.

However, a miracle happened! Fukkan.com decided to reprint the Oz books. No, actually, they are not reprinting. Instead, they are making new translations of the books with new illustrations.

Honestly, I didn't want to buy them because they are much more expensive than the old version. The old ones were small paperbacks, but the new ones are high quality hardcovers. Since I have been used to the old translations and illustrations, which were great, I didn't think I would need the new versions.

Another miracle happened! I accidentally found the twitter account of one of the translators of the new version. I followed her and she followed me back. It aroused my interest in the new version.

I ordered "the Emerald City of Oz", the 6th book, through Amazon.co.jp. Now I have that one.





Since it is very difficult to get the Hayakawa version, though I still love it very much, I hope this new translation becomes our new standard.

Also, in the new version, "Little Wizard Stories of Oz" are being translated for the first time in Japanese. This is great news too!