26 October 2015

Historie c92

Finally a new chapter of Historie! These bi-monthly waits are killing me... I'm curious to see where Iwaaki is going with this "stranded cavalryman."

In other news, Iwaaki's side comments in this chapter mentions that he's now starting that new manga project he's been planning for some time now. You can read the news yourself here at this link. Iwaaki is looking forward to how the project will turn out under an artist who's been working with different genre of stories, as will I.

Download:
Historie c92: Sendspace

23 October 2015

Some Thoughts on Books I read in 2015 - Part 1

Around the same time last year, I decided to talk about real books for once. I initially wrote it as a change of pace from usual manga topics, but I realized it was a nice way to refresh my memory of books I enjoyed. So I'll do the same for books I've read this year. I was planning to do all of the books in one post, but I just realized I've already wrote almost 4000 words just to talk about 3 books, so I'll stop for now and write another post in November and December. Once again, these are all non-fiction as I get my dosage of fiction from anime, manga, and movies. For book lovers without a good local library, this site is your friend.

*P.S. I've also been thinking of starting a separate history blog, so as to keep these kinds of posts separate from this site, which was intended to be mainly for manga content. If any of you are up for this, or would rather have me keep all of my Some Thoughts posts on this site, let me know.

7 October 2015

Sangokushi v53 (complete)

And v53 is now complete. One minor change I'd like to point out is that in the novel, Cao Zhen is willing to give Jiang Wei the benefit of the doubt out of simple eagerness and confidence. In Yoshikawa Eiji's version, and consequently this manga, it's Jiang Wei's famous filial piety that convinces Cao Zhen to give him the benefit of his doubt. If I had to pick, I certainly like this change better as it makes Cao Zhen seem a little less incompetent (historically, he was quite capable and can claim much credit in the first two Northern campaigns). However, this change is only possible because it omits a brief but very clear mention in the original novel that Kongming specifically moved Jiang Wei's mother to Hanzhong during the general withdrawal in the first Northern campaign in the aftermath of the defeat at Jieting.
from v52
As you can see here, both the manga and novel mentions that Kongming evacuated the people of Tianshui, Nanan, and Anding to Hanzhong. So although Yoshikawa eliminated the reference to the relocation of Jiang Wei's mother to set up a more convincing reason as to Cao Zhen's behaviour at the end of v53, the careful reader might then wonder why Kongming was careless enough to leave Jiang Wei's mother behind in soon-to-be Wei territory, even though he relocated many of the other civilians. So B+ for the effort, Yoshikawa Eiji, but not quite good enough, I'd say.

P.S. I'm aware that I'm probably the only English-speaking person who cares about this incredibly minor change between the two versions.

Download
Sangokushi c372:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c373:   Sendspace
Sangokushi v53:   Mega;   Mediafire
All Previous Sangokushi volumes:   Mega;   Mediafire