Past and Present - 02/2018 (last updated Feb. 1)

You may not like it but this is what peak best-girl looks like.

Like with my scanlation activity, Past and Present was shoved way back into my list of priorities, but here I go again. To be honest, at the moment, I'm reading more academic papers than I am following current events so don't expect me to comment on a lot of the big news stories.

Once again, just a warning about possible uneducated/unqualified opinions. Don't take me as some super trustworthy commentator, because I'm not.

Some Thoughts on Creating Modernity from Antiquity

"Ancient Wisdom." It's a term that really only gets taken seriously in areas related to new age medicine, spiritual health, diets, or other hippie-ish shit that I disdain. But from a wider historical perspective, it is a bit sad to see how little we care for ancient wisdom or antiquity in general. That's not to say I'm some luddite or nostalgiafag, but I am fascinated by how much "Antiquity" occupied the minds of past peoples. There was once a time — a time long before it was considered normal to buy a new smartphone after just paying off your last phone's payment plans — when "Antiquity" meant legitimacy, truth, and wisdom. I write antiquity here as "Antiquity" because in an age before sophisticated archaeological and historiographical analyses, popular conceptions of antiquity were more imagined than real. Such imagined constructions of "Antiquity" allowed for new interpretations and ideas, while called a revival at the time, would actually inch society closer to modernity. And it's on this point I just wanted to share some fun examples today.

Wombs v5 (complete)

Final volume of Wombs. I plan to get it done before March and have a Some Thoughts post to accompany the ending.

Another eventful chapter. Things will get increasingly intense from hereon until the end.

I guess this answers why the Seconds haven't been able to unlock the transfer-tech.

Good to see the gang back together again.

Oh shit!

F.

Of all the twists possible, I definitely didn't expect this one.

Just two chapters and the epilogue left!

The last chapter and the epilogue will be released together, maybe a week from now, possibly a little later. Released here.

Download:
Wombs c33:   Mega
Wombs c34:   Mega
Wombs c35:   Mega
Wombs c36:   Mega
Wombs c37:   Mega
Wombs c38:   Mega
Wombs c39:   Mega
Wombs c40:   Mega
Wombs c41:   Mega
Wombs c42+Epilogue:   Mega
Wombs v5:   Mega
All previous volumes:   Mega

End of Year Status Update

Since I've received a few emails regarding my status, this post is just to let people know that I'm fine and have not dropped out from the scanlation scene. Considering it's an 8 year-old hobby that I've grown quite fond of, I honestly think I'll be scanlating manga until I develop arthiritis or some shit that would make it very painful to do so. That being said, the latter half of 2017 has been rather hectic for me, hence the severe lack of releases. There were quite a few history-related book posts I also intended to do, but those got shelved too due to lack of time.

On the upside, I should have more free time in the first half of 2018 to make up for it (most likely, 2 releases for most weeks). So with that, I'll wish people happy holidays since this will be my final post for 2017 (that means I'll be doing the chapters for Historie and a certain other manga in the beginning of January).

Historie c101

I swear I'm still busy but I managed to find enough time to squeeze out a chapter. Enjoy.

Download:
Historie c101:   Mega

Some Thoughts on Hyougemono and Kōraimono

"A month and a half and still no manga release, Hox?" Sorry, I swear I'm busy so the drought will continue probably for the remainder of this month. In the meantime, I offer this post on manga and history (though it's more about history) as an appeasement. The topic today will be about Kōraimono (高麗物) in Hyougemono.

Some Thoughts on Herodotus and Thucydides

Sigh. September has come and gone and I only made one manga release. I've been too busy to even keep up with the news and make a current events post, which is a real pity because the whole Kurdistan issue really does demand attention. Maybe this post to start off October will make me feel that I haven't been neglecting this blog too much. I honestly wasn't expecting to write this, but I just had an amusing thought the other day when I was re-reading parts of Herodotus' The Histories, so I thought I should write it down before I forget it.

Some Explanations on Soil

And Soil v11 is done at last, making this another formerly dead scanlation project successfully revived and finished! It's weird realizing that it's been 12 fucking years since I first read Kotonoha's initial release back in 2005. Time sure flies by, though I'm sure for many fans of Soil, the waiting inbetween releases was a much more painful experience. Please do thank my editor Kennit for his job on the series. It's not exactly a secret that I'm no stickler for releasing scans with super high resolution, amazing cleaning, and professional typesetting. I usually just work as a one-man team, and since my main focus is on translation, I don't care about the "technical" side to scanlation. So it was a great stroke of luck that Kennit offered to help on Soil, leading to really good-looking releases. Unfortunately, this'll be his last project with me so if there's any skilled editor who wants to help me out with Planet of Sutakola PLEASE do contact me.

In any case, as I promised before, I'll give a basic explanation for the mysteries in Soil. I might be repeating obvious information for many readers, but I'm explaining it for those who found it hard to keep track of plot points, especially due to the sporadic releases. Lots of spoilers ahead, so read the entire series first.

Download:
Soil v11 c89:   Mega
Soil v11:   Mega
All previous Soil volumes:   Mega

Some Thoughts About Modernity

I'll have what he's having.

If academics love anything, it's to squabble over definition of terms, whether it's because it's too general, teleological, materialist, theoretical, anthropocentric, or just plain "problematic." Even something like the term "species" which the average person learns in middle school how to define turns out to be hella difficult to define. And among these wars of definition, modernity stands out as one of the most nebulous terms. As each discipline has its own internal debate on whatever the hell it really means, trying to find a consensus definition a little more precise than "something not ancient" (and let's define ancient as something not modern!) seems futile. I personally don't care too much about these debates; rather than being real issues, they seem more like problems we inadvertently created for ourselves because our brains desire specific ways of subjective categorization which the universe just laughs at and refuses to play along. That being said, I couldn't help but think about one way to look at modernity when I recently read Seeing Like a State. So in this post, which isn't meant to be a review of the book in any way, I'll touch upon the book's idea of high modernism as I ponder about modernity in general.

Historie Chapter 100

New Historie chapter. For some reason, it seems Iwaaki made Leonnatus' father Anteas hail from Orestis, even though the historical records say he was a royal noble of the Lynkestis kingdom that was annexed by Macedonia as can be seen in the above picture. If he wanted another famous historical figure, he could have instead chose Seleucus, since the records say his father was from Orestis. Who knows, maybe the change will have some significance later on.

Download:
Historie c100:   Mega