Posts Tagged ‘Original Series’
Incoming news! Devil-chan, Doujinshi, and Moar – oh my!
Hey everyone!
Ziggy here, and I’m long overdue for this post, but I’ve been finding it extremely difficult to sit down and put my thoughts together while having a lot of due dates and a lot of changes going on in my life.
I’m here with the announcement of a lot of different things, so bear with me if I get a little lengthy!
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Gaiakitan Chapter 6
Mystery! Dark arts! Action! Vengeance! All this and more in the sixth chapter of Gaiakitan, the final chapter of Volume 1. And, though I’m sure this news will be greeted with much gnashing of teeth, it will be the last chapter that we’ll release. Read on for a little more info.
In our recent announcement about Velvet Kiss licensing, I mentioned that we need to change what we do if we aim to try and do this stuff professionally. If we want a bunch of different publishers to try and work with us, we can’t tell them “we’ll keep putting out your stuff for free until you hire us.” I know this is not exactly the most receptive audience to make this point to, but speaking personally, I’d rather work to blend scanlation into the official licensed world if the opportunity seems at all feasible (more on this in a few days). As with many of the other projects I’ve worked on, I’d be happy to pick it up again if it gets licensed.
It’s sad to see it go, of course, as there’s more of the story to be told. But I thought it would be better to be firm as to whether we were working on it or not rather than string readers along for a long time by staying uncertain. If another group does try to pick this project up, my advice would be that you’re going to need an extremely good translator. In order to do this series correctly, you have to be able to understand the archaic form of Japanese it’s written in, and then adapt it using tone-appropriate English dialog, which is something that’s pretty rare to see in writers that work for free. Personally, I feel like I didn’t really do it justice – not because the original dialog is some sort of Shakespearean masterwork, but because producing solid medieval-sounding dialog is pretty challenging for someone of my age and background. It’s very easy to identify and parody bad examples of this style, but certainly not easy to do it well.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling on my part. We hope you’ve enjoyed volume 1, and we hope that in the future we’ll be able to bring you more series like this in a way that will have the support of the authors. Take care!
Gaiakitan Chapter 5
Swords a’swingin’ and ninjas locked in deadly contention in this latest chapter of Gaiakitan. Something goes bump in the night…
The series is a bit of a slow burn, but hopefully at this point the characters and setting are established enough to make it a bit more compelling to the reader. As always, the dialog is a much different style than I’m used to working in, and some lines I’m proud of while others feel like they’re just the least bad option I can think of. I haven’t gotten very far in chapter 6′s translation yet, so it may be a little bit before I can get to it. We’ll see you for the volume 1 finale next time!
Koimoku Chapter 13
Okay, as you’ve probably heard by now, Koimoku is going bye-bye. Click through to read a little more of why, as well as a summary of chapter 14.
Gaiakitan Chapter 4
We’re back at last with Gaiakitan! Sorry for the delay on this one, as we had to bring it in-house after a lengthy delay in editing. Big thanks to voo, whose usual stellar editing skills enabled us to get this release out the door at last.
Chapter 4: Direct Download | PDF
I’m starting to regret that bit in the foreword where I said historical knowledge wouldn’t be necessary for this series. A reader without knowledge of the setting is likely to miss a lot of important background info. Take today’s history lesson:
Hōkō-ji is a temple in Kyoto that dates back to this particular era of Japanese history, the Warring States period. One of our competing warlords, Toyotomi, sponsored the casting of a great bell at the temple. Four years later, the bell is completed, with countless Buddhist sutras engraved into its surface. Two particular spots stood out, though. First, “国家安康”, “Peace and Prosperity to the Nation”, contains the kanji for Tokuagawa Ieyasu’s name (家康), but with a kanji in between them which was taken as an aggressive slight. The other, “君臣豊楽” contained Toyotomi’s name, but unbroken. Whether this was an intentional dig or just coincidence seems unclear. But Tokugawa Ieyasu, no pacifist himself, seemed happy to use it as an excuse to try and smash Toyotomi once and for all.
I try not to clutter up the pages with translation notes for stuff like this, but for this series especially I feel like there’s a lot of context missing once you take it outside of Japan. Between the setting research, the generally old language, and phrasing challenges, this is by far the most time-consuming project I work on. We’ll see you next time!
Hana no Iro – Series complete!
It’s long overdue, but here we are at last with the final chapter of Hana no Iro, along with a bonus! The extra chapter is a shorter magazine chapter to promote the release of the volume. Thanks go to Nikon for being able to step in and get the bonus chapter edited so we could get the full volume ready.
Chapter 10: Direct Download | PDF
Bonus Chapter: Direct Download | PDF
Complete Volume: Direct Download | PDF
Thanks to anyone who stuck around through the whole thing. I wanted to have this out a lot sooner but there were some issues behind the scenes that kept hanging it up. In any case, there aren’t any sequels so it’s now complete. The series as a whole has sort of a light-hearted tone that seemed a bit unusual given the artist’s other works. I get the impression it was a bit of a departure from their usual efforts. We hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the world of the Film Club and we’ll see you all next time!
Koimoku Chapter 12
We’ve got a double release tonight! Now, who might this mysterious gentleman caller be?! Is he here on business most sinister? How will Inamine bravely confront this most recent crisis? All this and more in the latest chapter of our collaboration with FTH Scans…
Direct Download | Mediafire | PDF
Quite a text-heavy chapter this time around. Believe it or not, the script for this was only a few pages shorter than the script for Chapter 1, which was was 64 (manga) pages. I’ve noticed that I seem to be a little wordy lately, so maybe that has something to do with it. More to come!
The Secret Devil-chan Chapter 8
When we last left our stalwart yet dimwitted hero and his extraplanar companion, they were plunging ever deeper into the so-called Love Labyrinth. Will our couple surrender to the irresistible pull of romance? Just who is this mysterious figure pulling the strings? What about the pious Seira and brash Kazushi? Read on, and discover!
This chapter is a bit of a departure from the norm, as I performed the translation duties for the first time. I always thought this series was a lot of fun because it’s very well made and goes beyond just a simple kink. Fundamentally it’s sort of a mirror held up to human behavior that shows how silly we are about gender issues through the use of a non-human character that doesn’t play by human gender rules. Or I guess that’s my interpretation of it, anyway. I hope that me taking over hasn’t amounted to any sort of jarring stylistic transition in the dialog. This is the beginning of what will eventually be volume 2, so it’s as good a time as any for a change, I suppose.
Since the series runs in a quarterly magazine, it’ll be another three months until the next chapter. Also, the site has a new banner, courtesy of betrayal-and-wisdom. We hope you like it!
Koimoku Chapter 11
Inamine’s journey through the manga industry continues in this, the latest chapter in our ongoing collaboration with FTH-Scans. We begin to see a certain pattern emerge when he meets someone new. Swimmin’ with the sharks, that lad is…
Speaking of Koimoku, I stumbled across kind of an interesting article on Comic Valkyrie’s twitter the other day. I may pop up a translation here in the next few days.
Also, apparently Im Dal-Young started a new series in another magazine to replace Re:Birth. I haven’t read it yet but it’s a little funny to think of all the keyboards that are surely buckling under furious mashing as the English-speaking internet explodes in righteous indignation. Especially the poor “!” key, that guy is gonna get a workout. If only there were a manga about an author that made lots of manga…
Ring x Mama Round 37
Ring x Mama returns with the first chapter of Volume 5! Ryoma has taken on some new responsibilities on top of his management duties, and there’s hardly a free moment in the day as he attends to all his charges. But as they say, work hard, play hard…
There’s even another cameo in the chapter for the keen observer. Apart from our mysterious masked visitor, that is. We’ll see you for the next round!
ryo 
Dunny 
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