I'm trying to figure out how many poses from this year's Rising Stars of Manga finalist Samurai Zombie were ripped off from Blade of the Immortal. In the first three volumes of BoTI I found this one, this one, and this one.

...what the heck. I wouldn't do this with a legitimate entry, but here's a zip file of the contest entry in question, for ease of comparison:

Samurai Zombie Dot Zip

The Samurai Zombie figures I'm talking about are on the fourth page bottom right, fifth page top left, and eighth page bottom right. This is using the page numbers on the zip file, where two pages = one page, because the original pages aren't numbered and I can't be bothered to count them. It's really obvious which poses I mean, anyway.

EDIT For the record, since this post is being passed around: I'm not the one who first pointed out the similarities between Samurai Zombie and Blade of the Immortal. That was telophase. She talks about it in her review of this year's Rising Stars of Manga finalists here (first part of post here).

EDIT 2: This panel comparison wins. Recreates the entire last page of Samurai Zombie from Blade of the Immortal panels, among other things (comparison is madame_manga's).

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For the last few days I've been reading_genji. XD about time, I've only been in that community since December! I probably won't be as detailed after chapter 11 (the last chapter I read over the summer in a different translation) since it's a total pain in the neck, but here's my summary/commentary for the first four chapters of The Tale of Genji:

One
Two
Three
Four

Or just check the main community page, they'll be the first four entries from the top. Generally I'm not trying to be entertaining or deep, just thorough, in that the entries are what I honestly think (plus background information so that people who haven't read the book will be able to follow along).

A few general translation notes:
• Seidensticker translation is so much better than Waley, omg. The biggest difference is that one is written in involved Victorian English and has sentences as long as my arm, while the other is written in clear modern English. It might be that Waley's version is closer to the style of the original, which I hear is very involved, but Seidensticker's reads more easily, which is a relief.
• Very few footnotes in Seidensticker. I thought I'd be lost without Waley's notes naming unnamed characters, but it is actually easier to read without them. It figures: I've always been terrible with names, much better with descriptions and relationships.
• So far I don't miss the constant general Heien cultural notes either, but we'll see how I feel about that once I get to the chapters I haven't read yet. XD. I'll probably be okay, because this isn't my first work of Heien-era literature, but if I get stuck on anything I'll ask about it here? Where probably dozens of people will know more about this stuff than I do, and might be willing to explain it to me XD.