Garasu no Kamen, Glass no Kamen, Glass Mask, Il Grande Sogno di Maya, Laura ou la passion du theatre
The Masterpiece
It's not just paper and ink...
The manga "Garasu no Kamen" (The glass mask) was serialized in the magazine
"Hana to Yume" starting from 1976.
The episodes were then collected into 41 tankoubons and then into 23 bunkobans.
More boards were published in "Hana to Yume" but those pages have never been
collected into official after-41 tankoubons.
On May 15th 1998, "Hana to Yume Platinum", a special number of "Hana to Yume" was published.
This contained some special after 41 re-drawn boards.
However, both the "Hana to Yume" versions are very different from the
official tankoubon edition. In fact, Suzue Miuchi redrew most of the scenes for the volumes,
especially for the last ones.
On June 25th 2001 the first volume of a new monthly edition of "Garasu no Kamen" was published.
It's "Gekkan Garasu no Kamen" (by Hakusensha).
It covers the same plot of the tankoubons and bunkobans but it is divided into 14 bigger volumes.
On December 16th 2004, exactly 6 years after the publication of the 41st tankoubon,
the 42nd tankoubon was finally published. The plot represented in this volume was completely
different from the one illustrated in the after-41 boards which were published in "Hana to Yume".
This disappointed some of the oldest fans especially
because several scenes were cut off and most of the others were totally redrawn.
Some special editions of the manga were issued by Hakusensha, containing selections of chapters.
September 2004: Garasu no Kamen "The Miracle Worker", My Best Remix, vol. 1 (316 pages) and 2 (301 pages).
January 2005: Garasu no Kamen "Take Kurabe", My Best Remix (445 pages).
February 2005: Garasu no Kamen "Cruel Stage", My Best Remix, vol. 1 (344 pages) and 2 (314 pages),
including Maya's crisis after her own mother's death.
On April 2006, "Garasu no Kamen Sen", a special volume containing the first 1026 pages of the manga
and a manga chronicle, was published to celebrate the new anime.
Nobody (except Suzue Miuchi) really knows if and when other volumes will be published.
In addition, even if it did happen, the plot would probably be very different from that of
the "Hana to Yume" magazine (the plot of the official tankoubon is getting more and more different
from that of the original "Hana to Yume").
Whether different or not, Garasu no Kamen fans from all over the world are still waiting for a (happy) ending
for one of the most passionate and beautiful love stories ever written.
Let's just hope that it's not true that Miuchi sensei stopped writing manga because of
her new religion.
Garasu no Kamen has been translated into Chinese (HK and Taiwan), Thai (Na Gak Kaew),
Korean (Yuri Kamyun), Indonesian (Topeng Kaca), Vietnamese (Mat Na Thuy Tinh),
Italian (Il Grande Sogno di Maya).
The first animated version (1984) was interrupted without an ending episode,
while a happy ending was created (and approved by Suzue Miuchi) for the drama (1997 - 1999).
A new 51-episode animated version was broadcasted starting from April 2005. There are several differences from
the original plot in this new version, but it is quite faithful to the manga.
And for those who dare to hope, I'm sorry, it has an open ending...
Publication dates of the two Japanese editions of the manga:
Tankoubon (Hakusensha)
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Bunkoban (Hakusensha)
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Credits:
Attention!
