2022 Status Update

Hello, fellow manga readers. I feel a little awkward doing a status update post since I've been inactive for so long. I also feel a little guilty, since I wrote a post back in 2018 saying that I view scanlation as a hobby I'll continue until I die... I still do truly believe that. I love manga, I love translating, and I love sharing manga with the internet. If that's the case, then why have I gone awol for most of the last 2 years? 

A part of me wishes to divulge everything that I've gone through these past few years. I was in a rut for most of my young adult life, but then I finally decided to step outside my comfort zone. The universe, perhaps bemused by my desperation, tossed a coin my way, and I've since experienced things I never expected to experience. I find myself relating a good deal with Lenin's quote above these days, though to be a little less dramatic, it's more the case that after a stagnant decade, I'm finally living through a dynamic decade that I know will determine almost everything important in my life. And that's why I just can't seem to find the time and energy to translate or make posts these days. It's not that these things aren't important to me. If anything, it's the opposite. It's precisely because translating manga is important to me that I can't do it when my time and energy is too divided these days.

But I know what I'm going through right now won't last. This is not a statement of pessimism. We all go through urgent and less urgent phases in our lives. It's inevitable that I'll transition into a less urgent life, and I can return to translating and sharing niche manga with others with similar tastes as me. Until then, I'll still maintain this blog, delete spam comments, and respond to any inquiries.

P.S. In case it's not obvious from this post, I did not quit manga because of what happened to Vinland Saga. That was simply a coincidence with the life-changing events of my life.

Atoll (Sea of Fallen Beasts)

I should have posted this a few days ago but here's a Hoshino Yukinobu oneshot. Why? Well, as GGpX of Illuminati-Manga stated on his site:

So here’s the thing. Hoshino Yukinobu has a lot manga that has been published, but a lot of them have been done in multiple publishers. That’s the case for Horobishi, Distand Dawn, Legend of Giants, etc. So, the result? Multiple covers, more color pages and from time to time, more chapters. You know why Distant Dawn was almost 500 pages? 4 different volumes with a bunch of different stories. Such was the case with Horobishi. I bought a different edition only to find out there was another chapter in there that we didn’t do… because it wasn’t in the volume we scanned. 

This was a special release I helped put out for Illuminati-Manga's 15th anniversary, so go thank them on their site here for all they've done for the manga scanlation community. If you just want to read the new chapter, you can find it on mangadex here. If you want the full updated Sea of Fallen Beasts volume with the new chapter, use the download link below.

Download:
Sea of Fallen Beasts: Mega

Ad Astra v13 (complete)

It's done, folks! Battle of Zama and the final volume. Ad Astra is now completely translated in English. I think this manga was already licensed and translated into French and Italian (?) so I'm kind of surprised that its translation status in English went through long periods of being dead-in-the-water. I remember when Ad Astra first started its serialization and I read just the first 3 chapters of it. I'll admit that I wasn't really drawn in by the art or character design, and I had my doubts on just how much the rookie mangaka Kagano Mihachi would adapt the gruelling long Second Punic War. So it really wasn't until much later in 2016 that I gave Ad Astra another look. To my pleasant surprise, I saw that Kagano was doing a pretty good job, but to my dismay, I noticed that English readers had been cockblocked right in the middle of the Battle of Cannae. And so I was convinced to pick it up with some nudging by a few readers. Looking back on it, I'm kind of surprised that I did pick it up because I had a lot of other series that I was working (or planning to work) on, and there were still 8 whole volumes to go. Fortunately, it was a pretty easy to translate series, as it wasn't text-dense and had a lot of straightforward dialogue. Honestly, I should have just finished it all last year, considering it only took me and Nixbrod only a little over 2 months to finish these last 4 volumes. Speaking of my editor Nixbrod, much thanks goes out to him. I really couldn't have blitzed through these volumes were it not for his help. 

Regarding the actual series itself, I think people well familiar with the Second Punic War were a little disappointed to see these last 4 volumes rush through some events too quickly and even drop some. One missing event which I wish Kagano had covered was the revolt of the Roman troops and some local Iberians led by the brothers Andobales and Mandonius (who did at least make a cameo) during the Spanish campaign. I think it would have brought some more diversity in drama to the story, given that a mutiny among actual Roman troops had not been seen in the manga before, and it would have tested the new commander Scipio in different ways than simply bashing Carthaginians. Still, on the whole, Ad Astra is the best adaptation of the Second Punic War I've seen, and I'm sure many others enjoyed reading the whole series. Now if only someone were to do full justice to the Peloponnesian War...

Download:

Ad Astra v13:   Mega

Previous Ad Astra volumes:   Mega

Ad Astra v12 (complete)

At this rate, I think the final 13th volume can be completed before even winter.

Download:

Ad Astra v12:   Mega
Ad Astra c70:   Mega
Ad Astra c71:   Mega

Ad Astra c72:   Mega

Ad Astra c73:   Mega

Ad Astra c74:   Mega

Ad Astra c75:   Mega

Ad Astra v11 (complete)

I am translating things other than Ad Astra at the moment. It's just that the scripts for v11 are already done and my typesetter/cleaner Nixbrod works through them quickly.

Download:

Ad Astra v11:   Mega

Ad Astra c64:   Mega
Ad Astra c65:   Mega

Ad Astra c66:   Mega

Ad Astra c67:   Mega

Ad Astra c68:   Mega

Ad Astra c69:   Mega

Donki Kourin (Aug. 24)

So this is a rather random release I wasn't planning on at all. I was basically browsing through some of the raws on deadscanlations, when I stumbled on Furuya Usamaru's Donki Kourin. I actually bought this manga all the way back in the summer of 2009, shortly after I had started translating. I remember quite liking it, but I decided against doing it since half of the manga is basically a wall of text (short letters/essays from readers). When I looked through the raws again, I thought it was kind of a shame that nobody will probably ever translate this, since the comic parts basically feel like a sequel to Palepoli which I also worked on. So I just decided to bite the bullet and chip away at it throughout this year as I work on other projects. I'll release just 2 or 3 chapters at a time, which isn't a lot since each chapter is just 2 pages long. So don't expect the whole volume to be quickly finished.

P.S. The comics are slightly more amusing if you actually bother to read the short letter preceding it.

                                         

Not sure if this new typesetting that makes a continuous line interrupted by the middle box makes it look better or harder to read. Let me know if you want me to revert to the format I used in c1-3.

Download:

Donki Kourin c01-03:   Mega

Donki Kourin c04-06:   Mega

Not Dead Yet (Status Update)

Things are pretty crazy in the world right now, but I'm definitely not dead yet as either a person or a manga translator. I intended to return to translating back in June, but... better late than never? Much thanks to those were worried enough about me to email and ask if I was doing alright. I definitely didn't have corona or anything serious like that. I was just busy with work and moving (stayed in 3 separate countries in the past 2 months, including some self-quarantine time). In any case, I'm back in action and here are my immediate plans for the foreseeable future. I plan to translate 2-3 chapters per week, but that may not always correlate to 2-3 releases per week because some projects I merely do the translation scripts for, while for others, I do everything. I'll be rotating across the following projects:

Ad Astra (just released a chapter, check the post below)

Donki Kourin

Kamui-Den

Planet of Sutakola

Shiji (I just finished v4, check the post below this)

In addition, I managed to get another copy (because I didn't want to rip up my original ones) of Debonair Drive which I talked a little about many years ago, and once I scan the raws for that, I'm going to put that into rotation as well. Hopefully I can get some chapters of it done by December of this year.

If you have any other questions about any of my projects and plans, please feel free to ask in the comment section below.

Ad Astra v10 (complete)

Finally, a release after so long! Much thanks go out to my typesetter/editor Nixbrod for putting up with my hiatus.

Download:

Ad Astra v10:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c58:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c59:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c60:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c61:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c62:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c63:   Mega

Shiji v04 (complete)

Alright, it's summer and I have some more time to devote to translating again. Gonna quickly get Shiji v04 done and then move to doing both v02 of Planet Sutakola and continue Kamui-Den.

Well, a little over a year since I translated chapter 2 of this volume, I'm back with chapter 3 to actually wrap up this volume! An interesting note about Lord Mengchang, the subject of chapter 3, is that in Yokoyama's manga adaptation, he's clearly portrayed in a highly positive manner. However, the actual Shiji had a slightly more negative portrayal. For instance, after Lord Mengchang successfully escapes Qin, he crosses through Zhao to return to Qi. However, some Zhao commoners who came out to see what the great Lord Mengchang looked like as he passed through their town, they burst into laughter because his physical appearance was that of a small and unimposing man. Lord Mengchang was enraged by this, and his guests drew their swords and killed several hundreds of people to destroy an entire county. This incident somewhat goes along with the fact that there were more than a few ruffians among Lord Mengchang's many guests. 

In fact, Sima Qian even concludes his biographical chapter on Lord Mengchang by saying he personally visited Xue and found that its customs were rough and there were many violent youngsters, quite unlike the hometowns of Confucius and Mencius. Sima Qian asked a Xue resident why there were so many rough men, and the resident replied it was because Lord Mengchang had invited both stalwart and despicable people to the point that Xue had grown by 60,000 households during his rule. Thus Sima Qian remarks that Lord Mengchang being fond of receiving guests was at least one rumour about him that wasn't baseless. Overall, Sima Qian seems to view Lord Mengchang's generous reception of shi as mostly positive, but was more critical towards his lack of discretion and judgment towards those shi. Given Confucianism's central emphasis on cultivating morals in oneself and others, it's not too surprising that other writers echoed similar criticisms. The famous Song dynasty Confucian bureaucrats Wang Anshi and Sima Guang may have been bitter political rivals, but both negatively viewed Lord Mengchang, with Wang Anshi calling him a leader of ruffians, and the Sima Guang calling him a hero for villains.

Download:

Shiji v04: Mega
Shiji v04 c1: Mega
Shiji v04 c2: Mega

Shiji v04 c3: Mega

Historie Status Update

Line should actually read: "Some say that after Olympias came into conflict with King Philip, 
she returned home and instigated her younger brother, the King of Epirus, to attack Macedonia..."

Some of you might have seen that the group known as Project Vinland has translated this month's release for Historie just 2 days ago. Personally, I was surprised to see this, given that Historie isn't exactly the most popular series, I've been more or less punctual with putting out translations for it since 2009 (it was the first manga I translated), and I've had difficulty finding anyone to even help out with the tankoban releases for it. Although such actions in the scanlation-community might be considered "poaching/sniping" and lead to DRAMA, I don't think this really calls for any of that. I simply contacted their translator, told him I was cool with it, especially since I've been pretty busy these days (though I plan to return to a more active status from this May). I also requested that if his group was going to pick up Historie, then they should not ignore the tankoban releases, since Iwaaki fixes up a lot of the background art and sometimes even adds a few more pages, and thankfully, they agreed to do so. This is great news since the tankoban volume 11 came out last summer and I've been too busy to get around to it.

Lines should actually read: "Aegae is alright, but..." and "In the East, our forces attacking Persia is, well...
Parmenion and Attalus are struggling considerably."

The chapter they did put out had a few translation errors such as above but I kindly pointed out all the translation errors and they should put out a fixed version 2 soon. So to sum up, for the time being, I'm not going to work on Historie BUT I will keep an eye on the raws/translations so that I can point out any major translation errors. And if it ever comes to pass that Project Vinland doesn't work on Historie, I'll simply pick it back up.

So don't worry folks, and as I said, I plan to start putting out new chapters for all my projects from mid-May-ish. Thanks for being patient with me.

Historie 109

New chapter. I hope the flashback is short and we can return to the assassination plot.

Download:
Historie c109:   Mega

Historie c108

New Historie chapter, finally. And yeah I know, I've hardly released anything aside from a few Futago no Teikoku chapters in the past few months, and the few extra chapters of an alternative version of The Distant Dawn that I did with Illuminati-Manga (I didn't update that on my blog here so go see here or the mangadex page). I still haven't even gotten around to finishing off the last chapter of Shiji v04! Ugh...

What can I say other than when you're busy, you're busy? Don't worry though, I'm still planning to translate for the rest of my life so my various projects will eventually get done. I'm here for the long haul...

Download:
Historie c108:   Mega

Futago no Teikoku v4 (last updated Jan. 13)

Although Futago no Teikoku started back in 2015, it only has 3 released volumes and a total of 23 (?) chapters so far. And that's because Kitou Mohiro was suffering from spinal stenosis and had to undergo back surgery (source: http://evening.moae.jp/news/4486), which naturally caused the series to go on a break last year while he focuses on rehabilitation. Since there are magazine-raws floating around up to chapter 23 on the internet, MangadexScans and I will do it up to there and hopefully it won't be too long before Kitou's health recovers well enough to return to work.

*Update: Just gonna put all the individual chapter releases that will probably be included in the as yet unreleased volume 4 under this post for now.

Download:
Futago no Teikoku c19:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c20:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c21:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c22:   Mega

Ad Astra v09 (complete)

Time to start volume 9 with my editor Nixbrod.

*Update: Volume 9 is now finished. Unfortunately, no new chapters until late fall, around Oct/Nov.

Download:
Ad Astra v09:   Mega

Ad Astra v09 c52:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c53:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c54:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c55:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c56:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c57:   Mega

Discourses on Salt and Iron - Part 2, Chapters 55 and 56

I'll probably talk about the inaccuracies behind labels like Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism in part 3.

This is part two of my post on the Discourses on Salt and Iron, which I'm planning on making into a 3-parter. The two chapters I've translated here mostly debate the true purpose and meaning of law and how to actually promote an orderly society. It's a little redundant in the sense that each side essentially makes the same point over and over again, but it's pretty funny how each time, they try to turn around the analogy or expression their opponent just used against them. Also, there's nothing quite like reading expressions in different languages that are purely the product of differing cultural references.

The upcoming third and final part won't have any translations but will be just my thoughts on the rhetoric and historical background regarding the debate points I've translated. For the translation, I'd say I tried to be 80% literal so I could preserve a lot of the colourful expressions, parallelisms, and syntax. The quotations from the Book of Odes are from James Legges' translation but everything else is my translation which means that there may/will be some errors since I'm no expert in classical Chinese.

Futago no Teikoku v3 (complete)

Let's move right onto volume 3! Hopefully, Breading Bad and I can finish this volume before August. Also, don't attach that much importance to how I romanize a lot of the character names. Most of the characters are clearly not meant to have Japanese names, and the limited number of vowels/consonants in Japanese is making it difficult to know what English spelling I should give from the Japanese spelling. Even Fa is technically written as "Fua" in Japanese, but I decided to spell it as Fa to make it consistent to the vol. 1 translations and to make it easier on the eyes of English-speakers.

*Update: Yay, volume 3 is finally done! Sorry this took so long and much thanks to Furakutarou and Zephyrus from mangadex for helping me out. Volume 4 tankoban ran into delays in Japan and still isn't out yet, but we're gonna go ahead and do some of the chapters that we have magazine scans for in the near future.

Download:
Futago no Teikoku v03:   Mega

Futago no Teikoku c13:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c14:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c15:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c16:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c17:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c18:   Mega

Discourses on Salt and Iron - Part 1, Chapter 34: De-prioritizing Punishments

These are pictures of a Ming-era percussive deep well drill used to extract brine. On the right, you can see bamboo tubes that feed natural gases to the stoves where the brine is evaporated for salt. What's particularly surprising that the two essential aspects of the brining operation, percussive drilling rigs and gas stoves, as seen above were all developed by the time of the Han dynasty (206BC-220AD), and later centuries simply improved on the process to construct better rigs that could dig deeper and deeper. For a better idea of how this all worked, you can take a look at this page and watch the video below:

 

I bring this up to point to the sophistication of the salt industry in Han China, which monopolized it along with the iron industry to fund its vigorous foreign policy, primarily against the Xiongnu steppe nomads to the North. Although a topic of great interest for historians of science and industry today, the salt and iron monopolies was a pivotal issue in imperial China that for thousands of years, shaped the ideas of emperors, scholars, and officials on what the ideal role of a state should be, what the ideal type of governance should be, and what the ideal relationship between a state and its economy should be. This was possible because the famous debate between those who advocated the monopolies and those who decried it were immortalized by the government official Huan Kuan in Discourses on Salt and Iron (Yan Tie Lun 鹽鐵論). A somewhat rough analogy for the American would be the influence that the Federalist papers have had on American thought on the nature of their republic. It is a rough analogy, of course, because whereas the Discourses on Salt and Iron gives equal weight to both sides to show how the dialectic between Legalist and Confucian thought played out in shaping government policy, the anti-Federalist papers had been, I think, much less read and influential.

The Distant Dawn

Illuminati-Manga and I bring you something that we planned a long time ago but only finally got around to: A Distant Dawn by Hoshino Yukinobu. If you've been following me for a while, you'll know that I've done a few other stuff by Hoshino before (Stardust Memories, Sea of Fallen Beasts, Legend of Giants) and clearly have a soft spot for him. The same applies for Illuminati-Manga, who's done some more Hoshino manga. But this collection of short stories is particularly special because it contains his debut oneshot (The Steel Queen) as well as the oneshot The Distant Dawn, which won the Tezuka Award all the way back in 1975 and helped launch his mangaka career. In fact, half of this nearly 500 page-long collection is dedicated to his earliest works in the late 70s! So if you like Hoshino Yukinobu at all, I'd highly urge you to read this to get a better understanding of his development.

2019 Status Update

Happy 2019, folks. Just a quick status update since I've been dead for so long. The truth is that the first half of 2019 is gonna be pretty slow on releases. I just have a lot on my real world plate right now and I'm really trying to give it much higher priority over the manga-stuff. It's not that I've lost interest but I have much less left-over energy to attend to scanlation at the moment. But it should get back much more normal from about July or so.

The only positive news I can give right now is about Futago no Teikoku. My previous scanner/cleaner/typesetter went missing on me for half a year, and hence the hiatus. No hard feelings on him, it happens to everyone, just like how I'm basically being inactive right now. That being said, some mangadex volunteers wanted to help out, so that we can pump out some chapters. I've already had the rest of v3 translated, so it shouldn't take long before we get the remainders fully released, which would actually more or less catch us up with Japan since tankoban for v4 is still not out.

That's all I really have to say. Sorry again for being inactive but you know, that's life. Here's a famous Li Bai poem for how I'm more or less feeling (click link for translation).

床前看月光

疑是地上霜

舉頭望山月

低頭思故郷

*PS. It honestly seems like heresy to me that a later Qing-dynasty editor would change 看 (see) to 明 (bright), and a Ming-dynasty editor would change 山 (mountain) to 明. That being said, I think the 看 to 明 is actually pretty good because it then neatly makes the first two lines of the poem intransitive verbal descriptions about the poet's surroundings while the last two lines are transitive verbal statements on what the poet Li Bai does. Maybe it's just me?

Ad Astra v08 (complete)

Time to start up the new volume. Shenanigans in Syracuse this volume.

Download:
Ad Astra v08:   Mega

Ad Astra c46:   Mega
Ad Astra c47:   Mega
Ad Astra c48:   Mega
Ad Astra c49:   Mega
Ad Astra c50:   Mega
Ad Astra c51:   Mega