Donki Kourin (Aug. 24)

So this is a rather random release I wasn't planning on at all. I was basically browsing through some of the raws on deadscanlations, when I stumbled on Furuya Usamaru's Donki Kourin. I actually bought this manga all the way back in the summer of 2009, shortly after I had started translating. I remember quite liking it, but I decided against doing it since half of the manga is basically a wall of text (short letters/essays from readers). When I looked through the raws again, I thought it was kind of a shame that nobody will probably ever translate this, since the comic parts basically feel like a sequel to Palepoli which I also worked on. So I just decided to bite the bullet and chip away at it throughout this year as I work on other projects. I'll release just 2 or 3 chapters at a time, which isn't a lot since each chapter is just 2 pages long. So don't expect the whole volume to be quickly finished.

P.S. The comics are slightly more amusing if you actually bother to read the short letter preceding it.

                                         

Not sure if this new typesetting that makes a continuous line interrupted by the middle box makes it look better or harder to read. Let me know if you want me to revert to the format I used in c1-3.

Download:

Donki Kourin c01-03:   Mega

Donki Kourin c04-06:   Mega

Not Dead Yet (Status Update)

Things are pretty crazy in the world right now, but I'm definitely not dead yet as either a person or a manga translator. I intended to return to translating back in June, but... better late than never? Much thanks to those were worried enough about me to email and ask if I was doing alright. I definitely didn't have corona or anything serious like that. I was just busy with work and moving (stayed in 3 separate countries in the past 2 months, including some self-quarantine time). In any case, I'm back in action and here are my immediate plans for the foreseeable future. I plan to translate 2-3 chapters per week, but that may not always correlate to 2-3 releases per week because some projects I merely do the translation scripts for, while for others, I do everything. I'll be rotating across the following projects:

Ad Astra (just released a chapter, check the post below)

Donki Kourin

Kamui-Den

Planet of Sutakola

Shiji (I just finished v4, check the post below this)

In addition, I managed to get another copy (because I didn't want to rip up my original ones) of Debonair Drive which I talked a little about many years ago, and once I scan the raws for that, I'm going to put that into rotation as well. Hopefully I can get some chapters of it done by December of this year.

If you have any other questions about any of my projects and plans, please feel free to ask in the comment section below.

Ad Astra v10 (complete)

Finally, a release after so long! Much thanks go out to my typesetter/editor Nixbrod for putting up with my hiatus.

Download:

Ad Astra v10:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c58:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c59:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c60:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c61:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c62:   Mega

Ad Astra v10 c63:   Mega

Shiji v04 (complete)

Alright, it's summer and I have some more time to devote to translating again. Gonna quickly get Shiji v04 done and then move to doing both v02 of Planet Sutakola and continue Kamui-Den.

Well, a little over a year since I translated chapter 2 of this volume, I'm back with chapter 3 to actually wrap up this volume! An interesting note about Lord Mengchang, the subject of chapter 3, is that in Yokoyama's manga adaptation, he's clearly portrayed in a highly positive manner. However, the actual Shiji had a slightly more negative portrayal. For instance, after Lord Mengchang successfully escapes Qin, he crosses through Zhao to return to Qi. However, some Zhao commoners who came out to see what the great Lord Mengchang looked like as he passed through their town, they burst into laughter because his physical appearance was that of a small and unimposing man. Lord Mengchang was enraged by this, and his guests drew their swords and killed several hundreds of people to destroy an entire county. This incident somewhat goes along with the fact that there were more than a few ruffians among Lord Mengchang's many guests. 

In fact, Sima Qian even concludes his biographical chapter on Lord Mengchang by saying he personally visited Xue and found that its customs were rough and there were many violent youngsters, quite unlike the hometowns of Confucius and Mencius. Sima Qian asked a Xue resident why there were so many rough men, and the resident replied it was because Lord Mengchang had invited both stalwart and despicable people to the point that Xue had grown by 60,000 households during his rule. Thus Sima Qian remarks that Lord Mengchang being fond of receiving guests was at least one rumour about him that wasn't baseless. Overall, Sima Qian seems to view Lord Mengchang's generous reception of shi as mostly positive, but was more critical towards his lack of discretion and judgment towards those shi. Given Confucianism's central emphasis on cultivating morals in oneself and others, it's not too surprising that other writers echoed similar criticisms. The famous Song dynasty Confucian bureaucrats Wang Anshi and Sima Guang may have been bitter political rivals, but both negatively viewed Lord Mengchang, with Wang Anshi calling him a leader of ruffians, and the Sima Guang calling him a hero for villains.

Download:

Shiji v04: Mega
Shiji v04 c1: Mega
Shiji v04 c2: Mega

Shiji v04 c3: Mega

Historie Status Update

Line should actually read: "Some say that after Olympias came into conflict with King Philip, 
she returned home and instigated her younger brother, the King of Epirus, to attack Macedonia..."

Some of you might have seen that the group known as Project Vinland has translated this month's release for Historie just 2 days ago. Personally, I was surprised to see this, given that Historie isn't exactly the most popular series, I've been more or less punctual with putting out translations for it since 2009 (it was the first manga I translated), and I've had difficulty finding anyone to even help out with the tankoban releases for it. Although such actions in the scanlation-community might be considered "poaching/sniping" and lead to DRAMA, I don't think this really calls for any of that. I simply contacted their translator, told him I was cool with it, especially since I've been pretty busy these days (though I plan to return to a more active status from this May). I also requested that if his group was going to pick up Historie, then they should not ignore the tankoban releases, since Iwaaki fixes up a lot of the background art and sometimes even adds a few more pages, and thankfully, they agreed to do so. This is great news since the tankoban volume 11 came out last summer and I've been too busy to get around to it.

Lines should actually read: "Aegae is alright, but..." and "In the East, our forces attacking Persia is, well...
Parmenion and Attalus are struggling considerably."

The chapter they did put out had a few translation errors such as above but I kindly pointed out all the translation errors and they should put out a fixed version 2 soon. So to sum up, for the time being, I'm not going to work on Historie BUT I will keep an eye on the raws/translations so that I can point out any major translation errors. And if it ever comes to pass that Project Vinland doesn't work on Historie, I'll simply pick it back up.

So don't worry folks, and as I said, I plan to start putting out new chapters for all my projects from mid-May-ish. Thanks for being patient with me.

Historie 109

New chapter. I hope the flashback is short and we can return to the assassination plot.

Download:
Historie c109:   Mega

Historie c108

New Historie chapter, finally. And yeah I know, I've hardly released anything aside from a few Futago no Teikoku chapters in the past few months, and the few extra chapters of an alternative version of The Distant Dawn that I did with Illuminati-Manga (I didn't update that on my blog here so go see here or the mangadex page). I still haven't even gotten around to finishing off the last chapter of Shiji v04! Ugh...

What can I say other than when you're busy, you're busy? Don't worry though, I'm still planning to translate for the rest of my life so my various projects will eventually get done. I'm here for the long haul...

Download:
Historie c108:   Mega

Futago no Teikoku v4 (last updated Jan. 13)

Although Futago no Teikoku started back in 2015, it only has 3 released volumes and a total of 23 (?) chapters so far. And that's because Kitou Mohiro was suffering from spinal stenosis and had to undergo back surgery (source: http://evening.moae.jp/news/4486), which naturally caused the series to go on a break last year while he focuses on rehabilitation. Since there are magazine-raws floating around up to chapter 23 on the internet, MangadexScans and I will do it up to there and hopefully it won't be too long before Kitou's health recovers well enough to return to work.

*Update: Just gonna put all the individual chapter releases that will probably be included in the as yet unreleased volume 4 under this post for now.

Download:
Futago no Teikoku c19:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c20:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c21:   Mega
Futago no Teikoku c22:   Mega

Ad Astra v09 (complete)

Time to start volume 9 with my editor Nixbrod.

*Update: Volume 9 is now finished. Unfortunately, no new chapters until late fall, around Oct/Nov.

Download:
Ad Astra v09:   Mega

Ad Astra v09 c52:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c53:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c54:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c55:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c56:   Mega
Ad Astra v09 c57:   Mega

Discourses on Salt and Iron - Part 2, Chapters 55 and 56

I'll probably talk about the inaccuracies behind labels like Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism in part 3.

This is part two of my post on the Discourses on Salt and Iron, which I'm planning on making into a 3-parter. The two chapters I've translated here mostly debate the true purpose and meaning of law and how to actually promote an orderly society. It's a little redundant in the sense that each side essentially makes the same point over and over again, but it's pretty funny how each time, they try to turn around the analogy or expression their opponent just used against them. Also, there's nothing quite like reading expressions in different languages that are purely the product of differing cultural references.

The upcoming third and final part won't have any translations but will be just my thoughts on the rhetoric and historical background regarding the debate points I've translated. For the translation, I'd say I tried to be 80% literal so I could preserve a lot of the colourful expressions, parallelisms, and syntax. The quotations from the Book of Odes are from James Legges' translation but everything else is my translation which means that there may/will be some errors since I'm no expert in classical Chinese.