More Iwaaki Goodness

As mentioned a few posts ago, Iwaaki's Snow Ridge, Sword Dance is now out. Much thanks go out to Illuminati-Manga for scanning, cleaning, typesetting and QC'ing. This 300-page volume is just two long oneshots joined together. Here's a short synopsis I wrote for illuminati-manga (my apologies beforehand if it sounds more pretentious than it needs to be):

The closing stages of Sengoku (Warring States) Japan. A setting commonly explored in Japanese manga through vivid scenes of gory battles, samurai, and feats of bravery, honour, and loyalty. Iwaaki Hitoshi dares to go against the popular grain by not focusing on the 3 famous unifiers, but by depicting stories of a society in transition. Rapidly changing cultural norms and class expectations pit the old versus the young, the war-weary versus the war-mongers, and the parochial versus the foward-thinking. The first story, "Snow Ridge," explores the changing role of samurai and provinces while the second story, "Sword Dance," deals with kendo's early evolution from warfare to art.

I personally preferred the first story, but both are quite good as Iwaaki nicely reinforces the themes of both stories consistently through the various character and plot conflicts.

In addition, last month's chapter of Historie is now finally out as well. The next chapter will come in August. I also included the untranslated the two page coverage of the upcoming live-action film of Iwaaki's Parasyte, just in case there's anyone interested and can read Japanese.

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Historie c86:   Sendspace
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Chinggis Khan v1

Chinggis, Genghis, Dschingis, Чингисm, 成吉思汗, チンギス... However you spell it, unless you're historically clueless or have never played a Civilization game in your life, you know who Chinggis Khan is. And if I were to ask you who he was, you'd probably answer somewhere along the lines, "The Mongolian dude who created a huge-ass empire and killed a bunch of people." Sadly, very few know any more than that. It's rather unfortunate that for a guy so important in world history, people don't seem to know anything about him other than the extent of land that he and his Mongols conquered, and the number of inhabitants of those very lands they killed. 

In fact, when you take a look at the image above showing the Mongolian Empire at the deaths of Chinggis Khan and his grandson, Khubilai Khan, you'll realize that the bulk of the Empire was actually expanded by his successors. By dwarfing all empires before it, the Mongolian Empire seems to have paradoxically dwarfed the true story of Chinggis Khan. His rise from poverty to become the supreme khan of the Mongolian steppe. 

This is why Happyscans and I bring you the first of five volumes in Mitsuteru Yokoyama's biographical manga of Chinggis Khan. Not only is it mostly faithful to the account as given by The Secret History of the Mongols, but 4 of its 5 volumes are dedicated to his struggle to become the Khan. So if you're looking for a story about how the Mongols terrorized the world, then you're out of luck. This is the timeless account of a man fighting against the circumstances he was born under, to achieve more than world ever expected him to.

P.S. Progress will be one volume per month, so it should be done by the end of the year. If you're looking for actual books to read on the subject, as I mentioned in the translator's foreword, I recommend Ratchnevsky's "Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy" and Onon's translation of "The Secret History of the Mongols." You can find an online copy of the latter here.

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Hox's Mega Manga Folder

Zhang Fei's Cunning

Volume 38 is finally done and uploaded, with the missing pages 17 and 52 added in. I gotta really pay attention to those mistakes... I know things are really heating up in the story, but I'm gonna be alternating Sangokushi with a new project I'm starting this month, the first volume of which should be out in 2 weeks or so. So expect v39 in August.

P.S. There was a Historie chapter for June. I just haven't gotten to it yet. I will this week though.

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Sangokushi v38:   Mediafire;   Mega;   Sendspace
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Sangokushi v38 (last updated July 3)

Time for v38. You're in for one entertaining volume full of Wei-Shu clashes.

It's nice to see Cao Hong learning from his past blunders, but it is odd to see Zhange He being so reckless. There was a brief clash between him and Ma Chao (after he took shelter with Zhang Lu of Hanzhong) in which he defeated Ma Chao so perhaps his overconfidence stemmed from that event.

Liu Bei might seem foolish for doubting his own brother, but I certainly think it's understandable. He's been burned  by Zhang Fei's drinking habits before and it never hurts to be too cautious.

Honestly, the most impressive thing about this battle isn't Zhang Fei's strategy but how easily Wei Yan was able to locate and ambush the ambushers, without tipping off Zhang He.

Like they have any choice in the matter... Still, these were the few opportunities that smart peasants throughout history could exploit to rise through the ranks, like with the local shepherd who became a noble for his help to the Christian Iberians at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.

Classic Kongming.

The question is... If the flames engulfed the mountain, how did Huang Zhong and Yan Yan manage to not get fucked over? And how did they manage to actually capture the base and make use of its supplies, rather than having it all get burnt to a crisp?

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Sangokushi c243:   Sendspace (fixed version with missing page 52)
Sangokushi c244:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c245:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c246:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c247:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c248:   Sendspace

Historie v08

I haven't been inactive for the past two weeks for no reason. Yuki no Touge is translated and just waiting to be typeset by Illuminati-manga, and Historie v08 is done! As I've mentioned before, the volume chapters don't correspond in number to the magazine chapters because some of the shorter ones get merged into one, but volume 8 covers the magazine chapters 71-80. Much thanks go out to AMS for cleaning the volume and joining the double pages for me. I'm just sorry it took me half a year to actually get around to typesetting this volume. Well, enjoy Iwaaki-fans!

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Black Knight Story

Well, I took about a whole week and a half longer than planned, but here's the full volume of Black Knight Story. I really apologize for the untranslated extra bits containing info on Tiger and M4 Sherman variations as well as sexy Nazi uniforms, but it really was far more work than I was willing to put into (I kept having to google every term to see what they were actually called in English so I said to hell with this). But honestly, if you're interested in that, you're far better off picking up an actual book on the subject than reading some poor translations of a guy who can't even distinguish between a Panther and a Tiger. In any case, I hope this is enough to satisfy that original guy who requested this project. Finally, I can start working on Yuki no Touge...

P.S. Page 125 (which technically should be p123 in my filename order) is missing from the raws. It's not that I forgot to include it.

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Black Knight Story c13-epilogue:   Sendspace

Clash Between Wei and Wu

Chapters 240-241 are done, bringing this volume to a close. Despite the volume's title, Cao Cao's invasion this time fizzled out rather anticlimactically, which is rather odd since the book listed his force at 400,000. Of course, the numbers are probably much exaggerated but even if they were half or even a quarter of that, the lack of will to push forward strongly seems rather odd. As I noted before, Cao Cao didn't even seem to make any plans on countering Wu's navy this time, which is their true strength and must be dealt with for any successful Southern invasion, something that the founder of the Sui dynasty understood very well. In any case, fans of war needn't be disappointed since Liu Bei's Hanzhong-campaign which starts next volume will be quite entertaining. On a side note, Jin Yi's ancestor Jin Midi, mentioned briefly in chapter 241 is a rather interesting character, as he was the son of a Xiongnu prince, who became a Han servant after his father was killed during the great Han-Xiongnu war. Despite his Xiongnu origins, he was fiercely loyal to the emperor, even killing his own son for flirting with one of the emperor's lady-in-waiting. Also interesting is that Jin Midi was claimed to be ancestor of the ruling Kim dynasty of Silla, a southeastern Korean kingdom. This link is controversial at best, though there definitely are linguistic and cultural similarities between early Mongolian/Tungusic and Koreans (not that any of these categories had distinct boundaries back then). Nonetheless, it is significant that the kings of Silla deliberately wanted themselves linked to Jin Midi, in the same way kings and emperors throughout history forged/faked dynastic links for legitimacy or some other political implication.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, Sima Yi finally makes his entrance in the story! Hurray ...though he won't reappear for quite some time after this. Oh well, at least he got one line in, though unfortunately disregarded by Cao Cao.

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Sangokushi c240-241:   Sendspace
All previous volumes:   Mediafire;   Mega

Die Schwarzen Ritter (last updated May 20)

Time to continue this where I left off at. I have to say, I quite like how this manga is told. Brief narrative that never explains more than what's absolutely necessary, quick plot progression, and an overall dry-approach to war that, despite having its thrills and tragedies, is never hung up on them. Kind of reminds me of the very technical approach of Miyazaki's Otto Carius that also focused less on sentimental human drama.

>my first time playing WoT

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Black Knight Story c9:   Sendspace
Black Knight Story c10:   Sendspace
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Sangokushi v37 (last updated May 23)

Balls of Steel. My apologies for the inaccurate translation of Gan Ning's line in p24. I just couldn't resist the opportunity. Also, the original book never explicitly mentioned Gan Ning was the first to scale the walls, and this may be another element of Japanese Sengoku-warfare showing up in Yokoyama's manga. The distinction of "first-to-scale-the-walls (ichiban-nori)" was an important honour that samurai fiercely competed over, though such distinctions weren't uncommon in other parts of the world.

Honestly, this line is so unnecessary, since we've seen such instances happen numerous times in this manga alone.

I made a mistake regarding c235's title in the table of contents at the start of the volume. It'll be fixed for the volume release.

A little bit unsure on the translation of this title. I think the simplified Chinese for "General who Oppresses the Enemy with Ferocity" is "Shechong Jiangjun (折冲将军), and Gan Ning was only awarded this title later on in the story. The original book nor SGZ never mentions Gan Ning gaining some other title after this raid with 100 soldiers. However, in this manga, he's given the title Heiryo Shogun (平慮將軍), which I suppose you could loosely translate to the former but it's not really the same thing. Agh, whatever. It doesn't really matter too much, I suppose.

It's interesting to note how Cao Cao didn't even try (or at least, the book makes no mention of it) to build a navy of his own for his Wu campaign this time.

The wonders of taoist sexual practices.

As weird as this incident is, Zuo Ci isn't a fictional character as he's also noted to be an eccentric taoist master in other historical sources. It's interesting to speculate what the real-life Zuo Ci might have actually done.

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Sangokushi c234:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c235:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c236:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c237:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c238:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c239:   Sendspace

Historie and Plans for the Summer

I know it's been a long wait, what with me being pre-occupied with Joe for so long, but here's two chapters of Historie, bringing us back up to the latest release. Next chapter comes out in July (ugh). Still, fellow Iwaaki have something else to look forwards to, since I'll be releasing the tankoban version of v8 this summer and collaborating with illuminati-manga on Yuki no Touge, Tsurugi no Mai.

Stand aside, Koihime Musou

But for the immediate future, as in next week, I'll be starting up Sangokushi as well as finishing Black Knight Story, alternating releases for them. After I've gone through 2 volumes of Sangokushi, I'll finally be starting up some new projects now that I'm done with Joe, hurray! Though then again, working on Joe hasn't exactly stopped me from taking on new projects to the disappointment of many Joe-fans, I'm sure. Still, I've been holding back quite a bit. So from now on, expect me to alternate between 2 volumes of Sangokushi and a new project (1-3 volumes long). It'll be a while before I pick up another long series (by that I mean, ~20 volumes). Probably not until I finish Sangokushi. Not that that's a problem, since many excellent manga with tight stories are short.

On an unrelated note, I finally got around to reading Habibi. If you haven't read it yet, go do so. It's worth it for the art alone (love the panelling), whether or not you like the story.

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Historie c84-85:   Sendspace