Innocents Children Crusade v1

In honour of the 20th anniversary of the original release of Pokemon Red/Green in Japan, I bring you a manga about another fun fad children took part back in the 13th century: the Crusades! Yes, this is Furuya Usamaru's Innocents Children's Crusade! It wasn't a project I ever intended on shelving for so long since I'm a big Furuya-fan, but circumstances led me to do so when I found myself out of raws and I was busy with Tomorrow's Joe and Sangokushi. But with the help of the skilled editor Kennit, we quickly wrapped up the remaining 3 chapters in the first volume and will be bringing volumes 2 and 3 soon enough (current plan is to finish before May).

For those of you who haven't heard of this manga, this is a fantastic... Ero-guro tragedy. Now, I know that isn't exactly the most esteemed of genres in story-telling, but it's a great violent tragedy nonethless so do give it a try. If you've read and liked Furuya's Litchi Hikari Club, this will be right up your alley as LHC's influence on Innocents Children Crusade should be clear to all. I think a common complaint with LHC was that there was only one volume to get to know (and then say goodbye to) 9 boys, so the characterization, character growth, and plot development all had to fight for limited room, which didn't make for the best pacing. I think Furuya Usamaru himself may have felt this way about LHC, which is why he immediately afterwards decided to draw Innocents Children's Crusade, a spiritual successor of sorts. The 3 hefty volumes he dedicated to this series consequently makes for much better pacing, so you really do feel more attached to the characters as they're corrupted and meet their ends. As a fan of history and tragedies, this was a great read for me and I'm quite excited to continue its translation.

That's all I have to say for now so enjoy the opening act! The violence and tragedy will soon follow in v2...

Download:
Innocent Children's Crusade v1:   Mega

Conclusion at Chaeronea

Finally, a new chapter and an end to the Battle of Chaeronea. Loved the grizzled faces of the two screaming Macedonian veterans in this chapter. I don't know how Iwaaki does it, but they have this oddly glazed look that makes me think of them as men so broken in by war that they're only capable of killing.

Oh, and for those who think of Chaeronea as some last stand by the Greeks before centuries of domination at foreign hands, please keep in mind this was purely a battle where Thebes and Athens was trying to push back Macedonia's rising power. Freedom for the Greeks as a whole, was never really on anyone's agenda and the "Greek" identity was nowhere near as important as being a citizen of whatever city state you were born to, as the Social War or the Sacred Wars attest to.

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Historie c94:   Sendspace

Some Thoughts on an Adaptation: Sangokushi

Downloads
Sangokushi v60:   Mega;   Mediafire
All Previous Sangokushi volumes:   Mega;   Mediafire

IT. IS. D-O-N-E. 6⅓ YEARS. 438 CHAPTERS. 60 VOLUMES. ONE TRANSLATOR. YYYYYEEEEEESSSSSS!!!

With that burst of elation out of the way, I have to admit it's as sad as it is rewarding to finally hang this project on my completed-shelf. The 60 volume length was naturally daunting when I first decided to pick up this series, but as a labour of love, I enjoyed every moment of translating this series. But as they say, every end is a new beginning. While I'd be perfectly content to have this remain as my magnum opus (excuse my unwarranted self-importance here), there's still a whole world of great manga out there and I will most definitely be picking up a whole bunch of new manga so look forward to it!

For the curious, I'll begin work on the following projects this year:
Innocents Shounen Juujigen (no, I did not forget about this!)
Waga Na wa Nero
Zettai Anzen Kamisori
Dousei Jidai
Teito Monogatari

For Yokoyama fans looking for their next fix of Chinese history after Sangokushi, I will also start work on Shiji this year, though I'll be releasing it sporadically as it suits the nature of the work, being a collection of only loosely related stories taken from Sima Qian's Shiji (think of it like a collection of one shots).

Now on with my Some Thoughts on Sangokushi...

Sangokushi v59 (complete)

Chapters 426 and 427 are done, meaning ONE MORE VOLUME LEFT! I'll be releasing the last volume as a single release rather than by chapter, and it should be out in 2 weeks from now. I have to juggle trying to translate and writing up an appropriate post (fuck writer's block) to go along with the ending, like I did with Tomorrow's Joe.

Download:

Sangokushi c426:   Sendspace
Sangokushi c427:   Sendspace
Sangokushi v59:   Mega;   Mediafire

All Previous Sangokushi volumes:   Mega;   Mediafire

Sangokushi v58 (complete)

Another volume done.

Download

Sangokushi c417:   Sendspace
Sangokushi v58:   Mega;   Mediafire

All Previous Sangokushi volumes:   Mega;   Mediafire

Sangokushi v57 (complete)

Volume 57 is finally done, meaning just THREE MORE VOLUMES TO GO. 

*cue Final Countdown music*

Download

Sangokushi c409:   Sendspace
Sangokushi v57:   Mega;   Mediafire

All Previous Sangokushi volumes:   Mega;   Mediafire

Some Thoughts on Books I read in 2015 - Part 3

With 2015 coming to a close, it's time to wrap up my thoughts on the books I read this year. As one poster requested, I've made a goodreads account that has most of the books I've read in the past 2-3 years. I'm not gonna go back any further than that to add all the comic books and fiction I've read, as I'm planning on using it as a non-fiction shelf that I can refer to when my memory gets hazy. I don't really intend on writing out reviews there (though I will rate them), as I prefer making these Some Thoughts which gives me more room to post longer, sometimes meandering, posts on whatever came to my mind while reading.

P.S. Sorry to the folks who'd rather see me talk about manga than history. My next Some Thoughts post will be for Sangokushi, and I'll try to talk about it more of as a manga than for its historical aspects.

Merry KFC Day

Happy KFC day, everyone. Here's the new chapter of My-little-prince-can't-be-this-schizophrenic. I like the dual-panel Iwaaki uses to split Alexander's face to convey this point. If only he could release on a monthly basis...

Manga list: Click here

Also, a few days ago, a couple guys and I made a new 50 manga-list on /a/ for fun. As the title reads, its purpose is to highlight some attention to stuff that have gotten scanlated over the past few years and were never included in the much older charts. Excuse some of the more memetic taglines if you're not into that, but I wanted to make it stand out a little more than blandly listing genres. I haven't read all of them myself, so I can't personally vouch for their quality, but at the very least, they should be worth reading. I know shoujo and josei are extremely underrepresented on this list, so if you've read any good shoujo/josei manga that have only just started getting scanlations in the last couple years, please feel free to throw them out in this thread.

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Historie c93:   Sendspace
Manga list: Click here

Some Thoughts on Books I read in 2015 - Part 2

Political maps are deceiving. As a kid, when you look at political maps showing the neat little borders of powerful states in the past, you inevitably wonder why they couldn't expand in a certain direction, or how in the world they were defeated by another state so much smaller than them or sometimes by those who didn't even possess states! One of the reasons I like reading military history is that it helps me fill in these whys. But the military is just one, albeit important, aspect which influenced a state's fortunes. Strong governments and armies ultimately have to have some sort of economic backing, and I'm embarrassed to admit how late it was until I truly understood this. As a teen who was more interested in science than business or economics, I'd be satisfied by simple comments such as "trade flourished" or "economy was prosperous" in pop. history books. I never questioned the details of trade, how exactly governments collected revenue, or financed policies. I think the turning point was when I read a few books about the decline of the Spanish empire. Although there were cultural and demographic factors which also contributed to the empire's decline, Spain's poor economic policies which failed to improve its fiscal soundness and develop its economy unlike England or the Netherlands was what left the strongest impression on me. So now I'm slowly but steadily trying to get into economic history (hence the choice of books in this post) and it's fantastic because I'm starting to see a whole new way of viewing the past. If you're like me and ignored the interplay of economics and political history, I highly encourage you to do so as well.

Sangokushi v56 (complete)

v56 is finally done. Looks like it's gonna be a Feb 2016 finish for Sangokushi since there's still 4 volumes left. Enjoy!

Download

Sangokushi c400:   Sendspace
Sangokushi v56:   Mega;   Mediafire

All Previous Sangokushi volumes:   Mega;   Mediafire