Nanjun Campaign

With c160 out, that brings v27 to a close. Though I feel sorry for Zhou Yu, a part of me wonders if his failures were due less to Zhuge Liang and more to his possible lack of experience in siege warfare, considering he was noted more for being a great admiral. Also, I should modify the statement I made in my earlier post about Jingzhou having 7 commanderies because on p184, Lu Su asks for 9 commanderies. Basically, what happened was that parts of Nanjun and Nanyang were sectioned off by Cao Cao to create two additional commanderies (Xiangyang and Nanxiang) when he previously conquered Jingzhou's lands. That's all I have to say for now, enjoy the volume folks.

Download:
Sangokushi c160:   Mediafire
Sangokushi v27:   Mediafire

Tomorrow's Joe v09 (last updated May 22)

Sorry for the short delay in between finishing v8 and starting v9. This volume's a transitional one between parts 1&2, and though it doesn't have any real fights, it's got some real special moments that really make Tomorrow's Joe stand so far apart from your average shounen manga.

And so ends part 1.

Those reporters never cease to annoy me.

American Rikiishi.

For a minor character, Gondou's quite memorable. Something about that character design.

Download:
Tomorrow's Joe v09-1:   Mediafire
Tomorrow's Joe v09-2:   Mediafire
Tomorrow's Joe v09-3:   Mediafire
Tomorrow's Joe v09-4:   Mediafire
Tomorrow's Joe v09-5:   Mediafire

Sangokushi v27 (last updated April 23)

Time to start up another volume of Sangokushi. For the next couple volumes, the story will focus entirely on Liu Bei and Zhou Yu's efforts to take Jingzhou for themselves. Just for clarification, as the -suffix "zhou" implies, Jingzhou is a province/prefecture, and it's composed of 7 commanderies: Nanyang, Nanjun, Jiangxia, Lingling, Wuling, Guiyan, and Changsha.

Cao Ren. Not the flashiest character in the story, but still a highly competent and reliable general.

Those with good memories will notice that Cao Hong looks a lot differently than he did back in volume 6. Not sure if Yokoyama just forgot or if he wanted to change his face. My guess is the latter, because his previous appearance made him look comparatively older than Cao Cao, even though Cao Hong is the younger cousin.

This brings up a point I'm quite curious about: Military uniforms in ancient warfare, especially for civil wars. It's known that the armies of Han Dynasty had standardized uniform/armour according to rank and basic unit-types like cavalry/infantry. But once the empire fractured, each warlord would have needed to make new uniforms to separate his own troops from enemies. Complicating matters is limited clothing-colours simply due to how expensive or rare certain dyes would be in an age before synthetic dyes. It couldn't have been a good cost-effective decision to have distinctively-coloured cotton/wool clothing worn for your average conscript, especially when the armies are tens of thousands-large. So in my mind, it seems that most of the soldiers would've probably worn some drab-coloured clothes that would be nigh-impossible to distinguish in the midst of a chaotic battle. In such a scenario, the direction someone faced was probably the only way to tell from friend or foe. Maybe that's another reason why formations were so useful, to keep guys facing one way only. Who knows, maybe the richer warlords like Cao Cao had the funds to equip his troops with some fab-looking clothes that made them the effective fighting forces they were? I'm obviously being facetious on this last point, but my point about the problems soldiers would've had in distinguishing allies from enemies during civil war still stands.

That's some eyesight he's got.

Jesus Christ, you might want to get that finger checked out, Cao Ren.

This doctor always makes me laugh because of he doesn't look like he cares one bit about anything.

Download:
Sangokushi c153:   Mediafire
Sangokushi c154:   Mediafire
Sangokushi c155:   Mediafire
Sangokushi c156:   Mediafire
Sangokushi c157:   Mediafire
Sangokushi c158:   Mediafire
Sangokushi c159:   Mediafire

Jesus Christ, How Horrifying

Chapter 25's finally done so we're caught up to Japan once again. Not for long, however, since the next volume is set to come out some time on May 17. Hope you guys enjoyed the volume and its ending as much as I did.

Download:
Gyanki-Hen c25:   Mediafire
Gyanki-Hen v03:   Mediafire

Gyanki-Hen Volume 3 (last updated Apr.4)

After 3 months, it's time for some more Zero and there's some great chapters coming up ahead. The 100-card poker game wraps up nicely all in this volume so you won't have to worry about being left in a cliff-hanger this time.

Aww, it's dreaming.

Doushio, Zero-chan?

Well now you know!

Sakura's such a better sidekick than Zero's lame-ass friends in part 1.

She really could've made this a lot less inconspicuous.

Download:
Gyanki-Hen c017:   Mediafire
Gyanki-Hen c018:   Mediafire
Gyanki-Hen c019:   Mediafire
Gyanki-Hen c020:   Mediafire
Gyanki-Hen c021:   Mediafire
Gyanki-Hen c022:   Mediafire
Gyanki-Hen c023:   Mediafire
Gyanki-Hen c024:   Mediafire

Joe vs Rikiishi

I know it must have seemed like forever for some of you, but hopefully the climactic fight between Joe and Rikiishi is enough to make up for it. I won't make any further comments on the volume for now in case I accidentally spoil anyone so I'll just shut up here and give you the link.

Download:
Tomorrow's Joe v08 (batch volume):   Mediafire
Tomorrow's Joe v08-7 (last chapter in the volume):   Mediafire

Q.E.D.

At last, Mathematical Girls v2 is fully scanlated, meaning that I can add another one to my completed projects list. Although I initially picked this on a whim after being inspired by the graphic novel, Logicomix, I'm glad I did as I've become more familiar with Japanese mathematics terminology as a result. Although the second volume was a little lacking in the delicious mathematical double entendres that made the first volume so enjoyable, I felt it was nonetheless a good conclusion, especially with the unique-prime-factorization theorem encountered in v1 being used to prove the infinitude of primes.

Now I've been informed that this manga has been licensed by Bento Books, the same publisher who released the English-translation of the Math Girls novel by Yuuki Hiroshi (which I haven't bought yet but am planning to). So not to sound like an ad or anything, this is a great chance to show companies that niche stuff can sell as well so I hope some of you will go and buy the book and/or the manga when it's released. I'm not sure if they have plans for releasing the sequel manga-adaptations (each done by a different mangaka) but if not, perhaps I'll get to it in the distant future. For now, I've got other project that require my immediate attention.

Oh, some minor translation notes I should mention. I couldn't really think of anything better so I ended up going with "partition" for the slightly slang-word for divide that the protagonist uses in the original Japanese. I still think its meaning in the last chapter more or less gets across but the pun involving the chicken on page 163 doesn't. Also, I'm pretty sure Milka calls Euler her master in reference to Laplace's quote, "Read Euler, read Euler. He is the master of us all."

Download:
Mathematical Girls v1:   Mediafire
Mathematical Girls v2:   Mediafire
Mathematical Girls c14:   Mediafire

Mathematical Girls Volume 2

Well, after over a month of my intended promise to finish this manga, it's time I get off my ass and actually finish it (hopefully before the end of next week). The math in this volume will mostly be sequence/series stuff so I hope you enjoy it.

Some other minor status updates:
Zero v3 is set to come out in Japan Mar. 16 so raws should be out shortly after that. As for Joe, I just finished translating the rest of v8 so the full volume should probably be out before the end of next week, I think. Lastly, I'll get working on the next Sangokushi once Math Girls is done.

Chapter 9 is now out. By the way, you can see an alternative geometric proof of the relationship between arithmetic and geometric means of two numbers here. 

Wouldn't such a statement have to assume that space is finite? Or could space be infinite but the number of stars finite?

Can you spot the mistaken assumption with the protag's line of logic?

Forgive me for this lame pun.

Download:
Mathematics Girls c008:   Mediafire
Mathematics Girls c009:   Mediafire
Mathematics Girls c010:   Mediafire
Mathematics Girls c011-012:   Mediafire
Mathematics Girls c013:   Mediafire

Historie c74

What, the triremes aren't mere sketches!? Damn, I guess Iwaaki's really getting fired u-
>no chapter next month

Oh well, at least this arc's a lot of fun to read. Makes me want to wish for Rome 2 TW already so I can have fun ramming triremes too. On the matter of Vinland Saga, there's no chapter this month. Something about his family catching the flu I think according to his twitter.

*Note: I've accidentally titled the historie chapter as Siege of Two Cities part 5, when it should be part 6. It's too minor of a mistake for me to care and fix it so bear with it.

Download:
Historie c74:   Mediafire

Farewell, Franken Fran

Here they are, chapters 60 and 61 of Franken Fran. I wanted to get this out by yesterday to coincide with my 3rd-year anniversary as a scanlator, but real life unfortunately got in the way. As I said before, chapter 61 is unfortunately the last chapter of Franken Fran. I'll withhold myself from spoiling anything, but I will say that like the ending of Black Jack, it lacks a certain oomph that episodic series ought to have in their end. In any case, Franken Fran v8 is set to come out in Japan on the 20th of this month, so hopefully it won't be too long until I can get scans to translate the little extra that Kigitsu puts at the end. We probably won't get an actual omake chapter, since I would assume the space for that is taken by the 2nd Phase20 oneshot but one can always hope.

In other news, Kigitsu isn't going to be slacking around as she's getting right into her next new series titled "Hasami-Onna" (Scissors-woman) which'll start in next- No wait, actually I think it's this month's issue of Champion Red. Perhaps that in itself might imply Kigitsu put an end to Franken Fran as she had other ideas she wanted to try but not have it constrained by the usual format of Franken Fran. But I can't say anything for certain until I see what her new manga will be like.

Oh, and to those who want to ask me if I'll pick up her new manga, my answer is no (for the time being) since I want to give additional focus to finishing up Joe. So if you're a translator and you like Kigitsu, hopefully you'll take the initiative. If not, I'll probably come back to it once I finish Joe.

Note: Apparently, I'm a fucking retard who never bothered to check up his sources because Kigitsu is actually a man (like everyone thought before being told otherwise). I don't know where I initially heard this from and even mangaupdates (though I guess that's not a very reliable database at all) had his gender listed as female. In any case, I've learned my lesson to always check sources first.

Download:
Franken Fran c60:   Mediafire
Franken Fran c61:   Mediafire