How can you tell a first printing of The Twelve Kingdoms?

Turn to the last page. The colophon knows; the ISBN will not tell you.

Japanese books record their own printing history in the okudzuke, the colophon block printed at the back: publisher, dates, and the impression number. A first printing shows the edition’s first issue date with no later impression marked; reprints add their own dates and impression counts to the same block. That page, not the barcode, is where a Twelve Kingdoms printing declares itself.

The ISBN cannot do the job. One ISBN serves every impression of an edition: Shinchosha’s codes run in an unbroken sequence across the whole series, from 124051 for The Demonic Child to 124066 for the 2026 collection, and Kodansha’s White Heart volumes share their 4-06-255 numbers across all their reprints. Two copies with identical ISBNs can be a first printing and a tenth.

THE COLOPHON TEST

What to check, in order

THE IMPRESSION LINE

Open the back page. The colophon states the printing date; later impressions are marked as such with their own dates. A copy whose colophon shows only the edition’s first date, unaccompanied by reprint lines, is the first printing.

THE OBI

First-issue obi strips are a pleasure and a clue, not proof: anniversary bands belong to 2020s impressions, and the 2025 musical band marks its own printing. An obi can be married to the wrong copy; the colophon cannot.

THE EDITION FIRST

Printing questions only make sense inside one edition. Decide which object you are holding, White Heart, Kodansha Bunko, or Shinchō Bunko, before asking which printing it is: the three are different books wearing one title.

EDITION BY EDITION

The tells that matter

WHITE HEART · 1992–2001

The collector’s originals: X Bunko colophons, the white heart mark, ISBNs in the 4-06-255 range, Yamada covers. Sixteen volumes; the two-volume novels are first complete only as pairs.

THE DEMONIC CHILD · 1991

The series’ true first book has its own first edition: the 1991 Shinchō Bunko Fantasy Novel Series printing, ISBN 4-10-124021-3, two decades before Shinchosha folded it into the numbered line as 124051.

SHINCHOSHA · 2012–

First printings of the complete edition carry the 2012 to 2014 rollout dates in their colophons, and the newest books theirs. The spine codes, お-37-51 through -66, identify the volume, never the printing.

ENGLISH · 2007–2010

Tokyopop’s first editions are the Pop Fiction hardcovers; paperbacks followed about a year later. On the English shelf, the binding is the quickest first-edition tell there is.

MORE FROM THIS SHELF

The Twelve Kingdoms archive

THE SHINCHOSHA EDITION

The complete edition and its spine codes, explained.

WHITE HEART

The original label and its sixteen volumes.

THE NOVEL GALLERY

The covers each edition should be wearing.

How can you tell a first printing of The Twelve Kingdoms?

THE COLOPHON TEST

EDITION BY EDITION

MORE FROM THIS SHELF

THE FIRST WORD