#tpn references

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Hey wait speaking of the musical doing well do you think there's hope for it to become somewhat popular or has the japanese fandom moved on

[Post regarding the announcement of the stage musical]

Depends on how we're measuring for popularity?

With how little news is coming from official sources it's hard to gauge, but looking at Demizu's twitter, her TPN-related posts are usually the ones that receive the most engagement.

2025 New Year's Posts (Source | Source):

TPN 9th Anniversary Art and art posted two days later:

Norman doodle by Posuka Demizu celebrating his seiyuu Maaya Uchida's marriage to Kaito Ishikawa with no context on the post itself and her doodle of Kaito Ishikawa's character from Beyblade X, Khrome Ryugu, with no context on the post itself (separate post congratulating them):

2025 Christmas Posts (Source | Source | Source):

2026 New Year's Art (Source | Source):

Ray's 2026 Birthday Post and a post from the next day:

Small sampling but you get the idea, there's still an audience interested in TPN.

But is that audience willing to spend money on it?

According to 寿 三井 @/Josu_ke on twitter, TPN sold 10 million physical volumes in Japan since it ended in 2020 (link to HQ chart if tumblr nerfs it):

But most of that was in 2020-2021 based on Demon Slayer's numbers, which also ended in 2020 but picked up enough sales in Japan with the release of the Infinity Castle movie in 2025 to mark a little uptick on the chart:

2010-2019 for comparison:

(Original Oricon data chart complied by @Josu_ke in 2021 | @yakuneba_staff's series' 7th anniversary tweet in 2023 | List of best-selling manga Wikipedia Page)

This isn't factoring in merchandise sales, but with TPN season 1 performing poorly leading to the severe truncation of season 2 taking it from a critical darling of Winter 2019 to the laughing stock of Winter 2021 damaging its reputation and popular consensus outside the fandom that anything after the escape is of lower quality, I think the musical has the potential to be popular within a niche of the fandom, but not a big pull to draw a lot of new blood in, though this is based on the assumption that by virtue of popularity and practical logistics they'll follow the lead of the live action movie and only adapt the escape arc rather than adapting material that's never been adapted before like Goldy Pond. We'll see what any new news brings us!

[fullscoreshenanigans]

(Source: wj_circulation - Tweet #1 (HQ Chart) | Tweet #2 (HQ Chart) | Tweet #3 | Jump Circulation Data Site)

[Related Stats Posts - The 42 million copies data is from the 7th anniversary (2023/08/01)]

[fullscoreshenanigans]

I have watched the first season of the anime and have held off on season 2 because I heard it’s bad. What I’d like to know is how to read the manga and where one could do it online. Is it better to save up and get physical copies and what are things I need to look out for? What apps/sites are good and what are ones to avoid? Is it better to start with chapter 1 or post Escape arc if you’ve seen the anime?

I respect how thorough you are, Anon o7

I think the first three episodes of S2 are worth watching even with what they cut out just because I love the cast and hearing them voiced, I adore Obata's soundtrack, and I appreciate the little nuances the creatives at CloverWorks managed to include before TPN Committee told them to crank it into high gear by cutting roughly ~70 chapters worth of content to make the remaining ~68 chapters they would cover less impactful.

(By serena_w17 on Reddit)

(Little bit inaccurate since chapters 5, 39, and 40 were cut as well as the retooling they did of chapters 179-181 but for convenience/to save on text space)

I also heard S2 was bad after binging S1 back in March 2021, so I started reading the manga from where S1 left off. I figured I'd read and watch until it really began to diverge, and then focused all my attention on finishing the manga first. Then I went back and finished the second season, and then because I adored the series so much I went back to read the introduction and escape arcs to see what I might have missed from watching the anime.

Is it better to start with chapter 1 or post Escape arc if you’ve seen the anime?

The main thing the anime is missing is the characters' internal monologues. I love what S1 did with the medium shift even though the article I quote in this post contends the removal of these monologues doomed future seasons due to depth being removed from the characters (some more than others) and the series moving further away from the mystery thriller atmosphere the first season grounded itself in.

If you're interested in seeing more of the characters' thoughts, start at chapter 1. You'll also get to read chapter 5, which was almost entirely cut save for Krone's and Carol's introductions right at the end, though it doesn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things besides shuffling a few dates around.

If you'd rather move on to new material more quickly, you have two options:

1. Start at chapter 38 in volume 5. This is right where S2 picks up. 2. Start at chapter 51 in volume 6 after watching the first three episode of S2 where things really begin to diverge.

The first two episodes of the S2 are pretty faithful (see the earlier horse chart), even though chapters 39 and 40 were cut entirely, so if you're someone who really prefers watching over reading as much as you can, opt for option 2.

Is it better to save up and get physical copies and what are things I need to look out for?

That's entirely based on your personal preferences and potential budgetary and space concerns. I usually read manga digitally now and will only opt for physical copies if I really adore a series (I ended up buying TPN physically twice because I didn't consider they were eventually going to release a box set…watch me buy it a third time if they end up releasing perfect editions)

but if you find it less distracting to read a physical copy or are really into growing a physical collection, I don't think there's anything you need to be wary of if you're buying in person. Online sellers might not care to package them properly or put price stickers on them that can be a pain to remove. If anything I'd worry more about bootlegs when trying to buy the blu-rays since the official Aniplex ones run 130 USD on Crunchyroll if you're in the US.

What I’d like to know is how to read the manga and where one could do it online. What apps/sites are good and what are ones to avoid?

Again not sure where you are in the world, but you can always read the official English VIZ release through their site for 3 USD/month if you just want to quickly and safely read the series without caring about visual quality and to support official releases. This includes the bonus chapters for Ray, Krone, and Isabella that have never physically been released (listed as Chapters 181.1, 181.2, and 181.3; Krone's chapter is a manga adaption of her story in the second light novel for the series).

The only thing to keep in mind is if you read the weekly digital releases over the digital volume releases is that you'll be missing the bonus sketches/extended scenes/deleted scenes that are included for every chapter, like this one for chapter 1:

(Spoilers for some of my favorites of these here and here)

If you want higher quality scans (don't ask me why official sites won't offer you the highest quality when you're paying for their services), you can DM me because I prefer not to namedrop them openly in the interest of the sites remaining up. But if you're not comfortable doing that and are using adblock you can probably search and find something. Just try to opt for the official English VIZ release so you don't miss out on the volume bonuses or the extended version of the final chapter.

[fullscoreshenanigans]

do you know where to find all the tpn official arts outside of the manga? I also want to know where to find the artbook content so I was wondering

I'll have to open this up to @1000sunnygo but my understanding is Art Book World is *the* quintessential collection of TPN art outside of Demizu's character birthday drawings and other pieces on twitter created post-2020 (I have a little incomplete collection of them in my Posuka Demizu tag, with these being my personal favorites of the trio).

Highly recommend purchasing if you have the means and access, not only for the art but also the insightful interviews.

All the art is sourced and divided into sections based on the source.

(Volume 13 frontpiece rough. 🥺 And the volume 14 cover rough is very cool.)

If you're looking for the original raw covers of WSJ featuring TPN, here's a link to them on WSJ's wiki.

If you mean the promotional anime art that typically is put on clear files and turned into acrylic stands, as far as I know no one has ever compiled them all together in one single-page gallery for browsing outside of online shops selling them. (My small tag of it is here.)

On tumblr there's @just-like-playing-tag's compilation lamenting how TPN Committee can't be bothered to understand Emma's character and preferences because marketing that she's a girl takes precedence.

Offsite, the closest you'll probably get is TPN wiki's collaboration page listing, though as I've mentioned before don't confuse tlieilt_625p's art with official promo art. I still have no idea why their stuff is in the wiki gallery pages; it just serves to confuse more people.

For example, the TPN x Princess Cafe collaboration:

Their style is insanely close to the official art on a quick glance, but the heads and limb lengths and widths are a bit off.

My favorite promo collaboration art is probably with Megane Flower glasses (cute comic focusing on it by @kewstiny) just because I'm always a sucker for characters who normally don't wear glasses wearing glasses and vice versa, but also for reasons addressed here.

We are ignoring that Gilda, Sonya, and Vincent would have been more fitting for this promo because they aren't as recognizable for marketing. 😔🙏 Fucking crying over Emma either gluing or duct taping the frames to her face or just like...holding them for the shot vkldlf

Honorable shoutout to this collab though

Whippin' this out on a date like "relax, babe, I got this"

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Idk if you've seen this but I found this artbook at my local bookstore, apparently it came out in may of this year? There's a bunch of sketches and early concepts in here too! It was 25 euros and I might just come back for it idk

DEFINITELY GO BACK AND BUY IT IF YOU CAN it's very much worth it for a TPN fan. 🙏😌 (Guess whose dumb ass bought it twice because she thought they wouldn't translate it into English since VIZ didn't translate the light novels or mystic code book over here 🤪)

I've talked about it here as the most comprehensive collection of official art Demizu has drawn for the series pre-November 2020, have a tag for the times I reference it here if you wanted to peruse some stuff you might not have had time to see, and @1000sunnygo has kindly translated all the interviews found in it here (second section) if you ultimately decide against purchasing it.

Also while you were flipping through did you see the original early concepts of the volume 20 cover Demizu drew for RENthusiasts (potato quality photos here)

𝓣𝓗𝓔𝓨 🤍🧡🖤

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Making this a separate tangent from an ask but I cannot stress enough how much I hate that the TPN wiki has this picture of a woman with a baby from the powerpoint ending under Isabella's anime gallery when we have the pictures of her with Gilda and of her sitting with Alicia, Jemima, and Yvette.

She either learned how to play the guitar to honor Leslie sometime after arriving in the human world, or she learned when she was a child at Grace Field, but we just never got to see her play it before. She didn’t have another biological child. “Oh, the lighting is different, that’s why the hair color doesn’t match”/“She dyed her hair” I just can’t fucking believe you lkdjflkds ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

What I would have given for there to be commentary from director Mamoru Kanbe in the S2 Blu-ray booklet like we had in S1’s or any interview with him finally confirming or disproving it's her.

Also hate how the wiki has fanart by tlieilt_625p in multiple galleries because their style is so ridiculously close to the anime canon’s style that you have people confusing their work with official art on quick glance all the time. (I was guilty of this when I first got into the series, too.)

They've deleted their twitter so I can't link directly to any of these, but even if you have countless people reuploading it without asking for permission or properly sourcing it (I also can't stress enough how much I fucking hate pinterest for this kfjsdk), Google search does corroborate this. Sometimes it's more obvious, but there are some pieces with nigh imperceptible differences.

tl;dr: take the wiki with a grain of salt regarding anything other than character birthdays cited in the mystic code book character profiles, character heights listed in the mystic code book character profiles, the interviews page (per @1000sunnygo in the tags of this post; see also here) and most of the release dates (though as of 17/2/24 pages like chapter 112 are inaccurate).

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Hi, wasn't sure if my previous ask got through, but my friend and I decided to translate the first chapter of the TPN Western Literature book a few weeks back!

Me when that drops:

For anyone not familiar:

Definitely worth checking out!

• "Chapter 2: Original Faith and Judeo-Christianity" can be found here. • "Chapter 3: Gender (Masculinity/Femininity)" can be found here. • Finally, here are a few posts where I've referenced it.

I feel like most readers will be aware of the connections to Barrie's work, but it'll be cool to see Lewis Carroll‚ Mary Shelley‚ and J.R.R. Tolkien all referenced in relation to the series as well.