Back in the day the gold standard of computer programming books were the O’Reilly books which featured distinctive woodcuts of various animals on the covers — well look out O’Reilly because a publisher in Japan has introduced a series of of mangas on an entire range of geek topics! If you don’t speak Japanese No Starch Press is starting to translate this line of mangas into English. The first title in the series which is already out is The Manga Guide to Databases. Here’s the description from the publisher:

“Princess Ruruna is stressed out. With the king and queen away, she has to manage the Kingdom of Kod’s humongous fruit-selling empire. Overseas departments, scads of inventory, conflicting prices, and so many customers! It’s all such a confusing mess. But a mysterious book and a helpful fairy promise to solve her organizational problems—with the practical magic of databases.”

The artwork which is illustrated by Shoko Azuma looks pretty decent — here’s a link to an Adobe Acrobat file which has a sample chapter on What is a Relational Database? Other upcoming books (which can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com) in this series include:

The Manga Guide to Electricity

“Rereko is just your average high-school girl from Electopia, the land of electricity, but she’s totally failed her final electricity exam! Now she has to go to summer school on Earth. And this time, she has to pass. Luckily, her ever-patient tutor Hikaru is there to help. Join them in the pages of The Manga Guide to Electricity as Rereko examines everyday electrical devices like flashlights, heaters, and circuit breakers, and learns the meaning of abstract concepts like voltage, potential, current, resistance, conductivity, and electrostatic force.”

The Manga Guide to Calculus

“Our story begins as Noriko, a recent liberal arts grad, arrives at a branch office of the Asagake Newspaper to start her career as a journalist. With the help of her overbearing and math-minded boss Kakeru, she’s finally able to do some real reporting. But Noriko soon discovers the mathematical functions behind all the stories she struggles to cover.”

The Manga Guide to Physics

“This book’s story revolves around Megumi, a high school tennis star frustrated by physics class—and the physics of tennis. Luckily for her, she befriends Ryota, a geeky physics Olympian. After he’s persuaded to help Megumi avoid failing physics, Ryota teaches her about Newton’s laws of motion, vectors and scalars, and inertia, velocity, and acceleration. As Ryota explains classical mechanics, he uses real-world examples like roller blading, juggling, slingshots, braking cars, and tennis to show the importance (and fun) of physics in daily life.”

And there’s even a guide to statistics for financially focused otaku. I hope that there are other books in this series…

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