Black Museum Springald

As I hinted in my previous post, the new 1-volume project between Happyscans and me is done, and it's called Black Museum Springald. If you're French or Italian and am disappointed that I've translated yet another manga already available in your native language, then fuck you, go translate some shit for us Anglophones. In any case, it's a Fujita Kazuhiro (Ushio & Tora, Karakuri Circus)  manga about Spring-Heeled Jack. I am a fan of Fujita and I've been meaning to translate something by him for quite a while now. Moonlight Act was ruled out since it was too long and still an ongoing series while I didn't care for the way Karakauri Circus' story developed, so I originally planned to do Wicked Eyes Fly to the Full Moon, but just a week before I started, Evil Genius beat me to the punch. Fortunately, a kind anonymous linked me to the raws for Springald shortly after, which I had been then unaware of, all the way back when I still had my fluffypress site for releases. It's just taken me many years to actually get around to translating it. 

Now, I quite like Fujita's art for mainly two reasons. The deliciously insane expressions and his rough linework in key "impact scenes," which gives a great raw feeling. Very stylish. It's similar to why I like Hirano Kouta's art, though he has smoother linework and makes more use of high-contrast shading. Now I mention Hirano because there is one panel in Springald (shown below) where Fujita's art very much resembles his. 

Oh, what I would give for Fujita to do more scenes in that high-contrast style with thick, bold lines. But oh well, I still enjoy his stuff even without it. Enjoy the manga, folks!

As for Punpun, the poll seems to be pretty clear. Full volume on January 31. Don't bother me until then about it.

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Snow White and other Grimm-Like Fairy Tales

I intended to have this done by New Year's but oh well, at least it's finally done! I hope you enjoyed your first taste of Morohoshi Daijirou. Feel free to tell me which stories you've particularly enjoyed. His other works Personal Illustrated Reference of Fish and Birds which I mentioned before here, contain a similar range of sci-fi, comedy, mystery, fantasy oneshots along the same line as this book, so I eventually intend to get around to those in due time as well (assuming no one else beats me to it). That's it for now. Expect another new 1-volume project to be out in late-January (hopefully).

Also, based Illuminati-manga said they'd pick up Umibe so everyone can now (hopefully) shut the fuck up about it.

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Your Attention Please

Because I'm frustrated with the constant requests I get for Umibe no Onnanoko, I'm making this post. STOP ASKING ME TO TRANSLATE UMIBE, GO ASK SOMEONE ELSE. It's not because I hate it or anything, I just plain don't want to translate it because there are a ton of other manga I would rather translate. I've made my stance on this issue clear on my about/faq page now so hopefully people will stop asking. If there are any other translators out there, PLEASE DO ME A FAVOUR AND TRANSLATE THE LAST VOLUME OF UMIBE NO ONNANOKO.

And while we're on the subject of Asano Inio works, I want to talk about the last volume of Punpun. As most of you know, there are scanlations of the last volume already available. For the few who've willingly/luckily avoided all the spoilers, I think making a live-typesetting thread as I've done for some of the past volumes will be counter-productive to your efforts since there's bound to be spoilers posted all over in it. So my question to you, do you still want me to do a live-typesetting thread? Vote on the poll at the top right bar on this page. I don't really care either way. That's all for now.

Historie c83

It's that time of the month every 2 months. Sorry for the rather low quality scans but they're just magazine scans so bear with them.

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Pacification of Hanzhong

Chapter 232 and v36 is done! It's kind of odd that Pang De didn't go to Shu as soon as he heard his former master Ma Chao had turned over to Liu Bei. I suppose the two weren't really all that tight in real life. A shame, but it definitely does lead to some pretty memorable battles a few volumes from now.

Also, in unrelated news, I got tired of dropbox's terribly small filespace and it constantly suspending my files for a few days every time it got a little bit of traffic, so I decided to switch over to mega. I'm not gonna upload a certain viking manga because I don't want it to die like what happened to my mediafire hoxbox (RIP) so hopefully this can last a good amount of time. Click this for the link. I haven't put up biomega, Joe, and a few other series yet but most things I've done are on there.

And as usual, if you just want Sangokushi, I have my mediafire.com/sangokushi

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Sangokushi c232:   Sendspace
Sangokushi v36:   Sendspace;   Mediafire

Sneewittchen (last updated Dec. 30)

So I've talked about Morohoshi Daijirou in my Some Thoughts #6 post and I mentioned being quite impressed with his take on the Little Mermaid fairy tale. That's why when I saw he had a 1-volume collection of his take on Grimm's Fairy Tales, I knew I had to translate it. The un-neutered original version of Grimm's Fairy Tales, as you probably know, include very bizarre and grotesque stories, which makes it a perfect fit with Morohoshi's style. The highlight of the volume is definitely his spin on Snow White and Rapunzel, but there're other interesting chapters. Some are relatively straight adaptations while others have a sci-fi, horror, mystery, or even a comedy-twist.

One more thing to mention, since I'm releasing this chapter by chapter, I thought it would be nice to include the author's commentary section immediately after each chapter instead of saving them for the end of the volume. This section includes a short summary of the original fairy tale as well as the author's thoughts, so I encourage you to not gloss them over like most people do with these kinds of stuff.

Die wunderlische Gasterei. Translated either as "The Strange Feast" or  "The Strange Inn" in English, while titled as "The Strange Invitation" in Japanese. A very strange story only found in the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales and Morohoshi does a wonderful job in making the story even more bizarre.

Although Morohoshi "says" he didn't tamper too much with the original story, it seems to me his subtle changes to "The Fisherman and his Wife" had quite a drastic effect on the whole. You can hardly call this a story about greed anymore.

"If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in this frame." That sounds like one hell of a creepy-looking kid. Glad to see Morohoshi picked up on it and subverted the story in a way that fits so well.

Oh dem Germans and their weird stories about sausages.

From the commentary at the end, it seems Morohoshi isn't too proud of this one. Still, I personally really enjoyed it, and I have to say it's tied as my favourite of this collection along with Snow White. I should go look for his other mentioned manga and the alternate version of Rapunzel eventually.

Oh man, do I ever love Morohoshi's take on this bizarre fairy tale. Hilarious stuff.

This chapter was the most entertaining to translate so far. Quite humorous.

It's rather odd that I never actually knew the original story of Puss in Boots before reading this manga.

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Sneewittchen c02:   Sendspace
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Sneewittchen c05:   Sendspace
Sneewittchen c06:   Sendspace
Sneewittchen c07:   Sendspace
Sneewittchen c08:   Sendspace
Sneewittchen c09:   Sendspace

Men und Panzer (last updated Dec. 29)

So this is a short 1-volume project that a guy asked me to do and I said yes because it's quite different from the stuff I usually translate. It's an action manga about a German panzer company on the Eastern Front in WWII after the German offensive has crumbled and the Soviets are about to start pushing them back. This isn't a story about character drama, politics, morals, or the tragedies of war. This is a dry, straight-to-the-point tank action story with nice art by Kobayashi Motofumi, the mangaka who drew Cat Shit One (aka Apocalypse Meow). If you like looking at tanks fighting other tanks, this is for you. If you need your weapons of destruction to be driven by little boys or girls, that's what anime is for.

I'll be releasing this chapter by chapter. There'll be 16 chapters for the main story, one chapter for tank data and misc info, and one extra-story at the end.

Panzer vor!

>tfw you hit an enemy tank 4 times while he kills you in one hit in WoT

What a badass. Appropriating panthers without giving one single fuck.

No matter the side nor the causes wars are fought for, the experiences of individual soldiers are so grimly fascinating.

I have no idea if "Porosech" is the correct romanization. My Russian skills are sadly non-existant.


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Black Knight Story c06:   Sendspace
Black Knight Story c07:   Sendspace
Black Knight Story c08:   Sendspace

Busy December

As promised, it's December so it's time to get started on Sangokushi again! December's a good month for me, and I'm going to try to translate at least one chapter per day for various projects. So look forward to the month even if you don't read Sangokushi!

Also, Punpun won't be out until January (since the volume only goes on sale from Dec. 27) so please stop asking.

Absent from the manga is Xun You's opposition to Cao Cao's desire for the title "King of Wei," his subsequent falling-out and death.

How many times has Xu Chu saved Cao Cao's by now?

This is why you shouldn't be so quick to order your general's heads to be cut off, Cao Cao. Didn't you learn anything from that earlier time with Cao Hong?

Motherfucking Jia Xu, coming up with strategies left and right as usual.

In case you don't remember, Yang Song is the guy who also was bribed by Liu Bei in order to turn Ma Chao to his side.

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Sangokushi c228:   Sendspace
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Sangokushi c231:   Sendspace

Ekrano (Oneshot)

So this is a short Kitou Mohiro oneshot called Ekrano (published in May 2012) that someone requested me to translate long ago and my lazy ass finally got around to translating. At first, I thought it was some odd spin-off of Bokurano purely because of the title similarity, but as the author's note reveals on the final page, the title comes from the Soviet Ekranoplanes, which are extremely low-altitude planes that almost skims the water in flight. In any case, the oneshot is nothing spectacular, but I have to say I did like the mech designs and the setting. Seems like a waste to use on such a short oneshot. It'd be nice if he could do at least a 1-volume story using it. Oh well.

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Ekrano:   Sendspace;   Dropbox

Historie c82

Can't wait for the tankoban version of the Acropolis.

Sorry for taking so long with this chapter, but I didn't really feel the need to rush to translate it right away since Historie is a bimonthly series now. But like the page above says, the next chapter will be in December. Also, for those curious about Iwaaki's comments in this chapter, he basically says he's been working on a story he's had cooking for like 10 years now. While working on Historie, he's used his spare time to work out the details of it, and he has a book full of notes concerning the plot and how it should be told. He's then be redoing that entire notebook so it's actually legible for other people so he can (presumably) have some other artist help him with it. In any case, the point is that once he does begin working on this series, it won't interfere with Historie's pace at all since his share of the work will be all done.

Also, for those wondering about Joe, I'm actually translating volume 14 already. It's just that my typesetter Arles is busy with his Kendo international tournaments at the moment so he won't be back home until late November. I hope you guys can understand and wish him luck.

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