The Ultimate Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cine-Manga The Gift [Paperback]

Fox (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 2005

TOKYOPOP presents Buffy's 100th episode as you've never seen it before--filled with behind-the-scenes photos, director and actor commentary, excerpts from the uncut script, and intricately designed stunts. In this chilling Cine-Manga adaptation of "The Gift," one of the most unforgettable and shocking episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the apocalypse is at hand in Sunnydale! Buffy must square off against a true god when Glory prepares to use Dawn to unleash all Hell on Earth. The only way to save the day is to kill Dawnâ€"but Buffy refuses to harm her little sister, and the gang heads into battle knowing that some of them may not survive... This is the must-have tome for all Buffy fans, living and undead!

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: TokyoPop (November 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159816029X
• ISBN-13: 978-1598160291
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,946,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The 100th episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as a souped-up photo-novel, November 12, 2005

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ultimate Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cine-Manga The Gift (Paperback)

Remember the dark days before DVDs and videotape when the only way to watch a television show was on television? If you were fans of a show like "Star Trek" and you wanted to relive a favorite episode you had to catch it in syndication or you could page through your "Star Trek Readers" for the short-story versions of the episodes written by James Blish. Or maybe you had one of the dozen "Star Trek" photo-novels that took you through classic episodes from "The City on the Edge of Forever" to "Amok Time." These were pretty good in their time because, let's face it, they did not have a lot of competition.

The whole point of that prelude down memory lane is to note that it is interesting to have Cine-Manga put out a photo-novel of "The Gift," the fifth season finale of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." After all, the number of fans who already have all of the episodes on tape and then went out and got all seven of the DVD sets is legion. Why would we be interested in a photo-novel of one episode? The answer, which may or may not prove to be satisfactory to you, is that there is more here than just all of the dialogue and the camera shots from "The Gift." Thrown into the mix and commentary from the cast and crew, "BtVS" trivia, excerpts from the uncut script, and photos from the set including looks at the key stunts.

For example, Clare Kramer's head keeps popping up to explain Glory's character development, we learn that not all of the previous 99 episodes appear in the opening montage, there was a scene at the end that tries to fake us out into thinking Anya has died, and the fake head of Sarah Michelle Gellar that they put on the Buffy-bot makes her look like she should be in a George A. Romero zombie film. The net result is like watching a DVD with pop ups, trivia tracks, options to see special features, and the like. Only you are holding a book and not watching television. In that regard, this look at "The Gift" is worth a look. Now the question is whether this book on the 100th episode of "BtVS" will succeed enough to be followed by photo-novels on other key episode (e.g., "Becoming, Part 1 & Part 2," "Hush," "Once More With Feelings," [insert your own favorite here]).

Ironically, the photographs are the least impressive part of this version of "The Gift." In the old days they were big, not so much so that you can look at them but rather because of the economics involved (less photographs means more savings). These pages usually have four to eight photographs, and at the latter end of the spectrum they get pretty small. But what will appeal to "BtVS" fans are finding out the bits of dialogue that were cut (sometimes they were specific lines rather than short but entire scenes) and what Joss Whedon and the show's other producers were thinking. This is their opportunity to learn that Xander's comment "Shpadoinkle" refers to a song from Trey Parker's "Cannibal! The Musical" and other pop culture knowledge of no immediate or intrinsic value.

Sounds good to me.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jhaeman's Review, December 6, 2007

By 

Jeremy (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ultimate Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cine-Manga The Gift (Paperback)

The Ultimate Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Gift

Teleplay by Joss Whedon, Novelization by TokyoPop (2007)

RATING: 4/5 Stakes

SETTING: Season Five

CAST APPEARANCES: Buffy, Spike, Giles, Tara, Willow, Xander, Dawn, Anya, Glory, Ben

BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: "Tokyopop presents Buffy's 100th episode as you've never seen it before--filled with behind-the-scenes photos, director and actor commentary, excerpts from the original script, and incredible stunts. In this chilling cine-manga adaptation of 'The Gift,' one of the most unforgettable and shocking episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the apocalypse is at hand in Sunnydale--again! This is the must-have tome for all Buffy fans, living and undead!"

REVIEW

This is an interesting and unusual Buffy book. Labeled "cine-manga," the book basically layers photos of the scenes from The Gift into a comic book like format, and uses word bubbles to reproduce the character's speech. In other words, it's a picture-book style novelization of a great episode with some fun added features. The margins of many pages are filled with Buffy trivia, comments from the show's creators, and occasionally excerpts from the stage directions contained in the original script. Compared to the standard novelizations of episodes that Simon Spotlight produces, this book is a far more entertaining purchase and gives the reader who owns the actual episode on DVD a reason to own the book as well. Not essential by any means, but a fun little Buffy book all the same.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!!, February 22, 2006

By 

T. NORDIN (Long Pond, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ultimate Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cine-Manga The Gift (Paperback)

This book is a must for all buffy fans, or even just fans of this episode...the book itself has interesting, facts and trivia about the episode as well as behind the scenes stuff i personally love it!!