This is some basic advice for people who are new to hentai and/or who cannot read Japanese, as inspired by
this thread. Rather than make a new thread, I felt this would be the most appropriate place to post this information.
How to tell when a doujinshi, tankoubon, or magazine was published
You turn to the publication information page, found towards the very end of most doujins and tankoubons and found near the table of contents in most magazines. Let's say we're looking at a manga (tankoubon) and we see this date:
２００８年８月２４日
In the context of calendar dates, the kanji 年 means "year," 月 means "month," and 日 means "day." In other words, this reads "August 24, 2008" in the English calendar.
What to do when the publication date doesn't match up with the release date
Most magazines are released one month before their official volume date. This fact is reflected by the table of contents page. (See attachment #1 below.) Comic Megastore H Volume 69 was called "the September 2008" release, as indicated by its front cover and its spine; however, as you can see on the ToC page, the actual release date was August 2, 2008. This is written in the notation year, then month, then day, or YYYY/MM/DD, or 2008/8/2 for August 2, 2008. To the right of this, you see the characters ９月号. ９月 means "the ninth month," or September. 号 is a suffix/marker used to indicate a volume or issue number. In this context, thus, it might read "September Edition" or "September Issue" when translated into English.
When you save hentai to your own collection, it is customary to name the digital folder after the
official month and year rather than the actual month and year of release. In other words, Volume 69 of Comic Megastore H is officially the "2008 09" release, even though it was released in August (８月) of 2008. There is no particular reason I can think of as to why you should feel pressured into conforming to this custom -- I'm simply drawing your attention to it so that when you look for hentai magazines you know how to correctly ask for the appropriate volume. (This is one reason I advocate asking for magazines by
volume number rather than by
date of issue.)
Most digital scans of hentai tankoubons are listed by earliest known release date and not by the official date of publication. (See attachment #2 below.) Drill Murata's book
Aniyome Ijiri was officially published on October 25, 2004. However, most hentai encyclopedias (e.g. Hentai DB) will list it as having a release date of September 24, 2004. This is because it was first available at that time, despite what the actual date inside the book might claim.
Most hentai doujinshi release dates are accurate to within the week. Many doujins released at the Summer and Winter Comikets will have publication dates that either reflect:
a) the date when the author anticipated selling the book at the convention, or
b) the date when the author finished the doujin and submitted it for publication (1-2 weeks before the convention)
I can read katakana or hiragana but kanji making me :dizzy
