Share Tweet Share





Whether you’re new to the whole concept of databases, or a hard-core database geek, you need to have The Manga Guide to Databases. Really, you want this book. I quote from the promotional copy: “Princess Ruruna is stressed out. With the king and queen away, she has to manage the Kingdom of Kod’s humongous fruit-selling empire … a mysterious book and a helpful fairy promise to solve her organizational problems—with the practical magic of databases.” How many other tech books do you have with an opening like “Princess Ruruna is stressed out”? Published originally by a Japanese publisher in 2004, this book has been competently translated into American English by No Starch Press and technically edited for accuracy by Baron Schwartz. The book alternates between regular database textbook exercises and three to ten page well-drawn Manga comic episodes in which Princess Ruruna uses databases to manage the fruit harvest, save her country’s economy, and avoid an undesirable marriage. The fact that the database techniques and knowledge described by the cute-as-a-hello-kitty fairy are accurate just adds to the surreal quality of the book. There’s something unbelieveably head-spinning about Anime characters discussing SQL, third normal form, distributed databases and transaction concurrency (yes, really). I’ve a feeling more copies of this will be bought by database geeks who are tickled by the whole concept, but it would also be a good purchase for any web geek you know with poor SQL who likes Anime.