And another one.
Friday, 29 October 2021
Wednesday, 27 October 2021
Char to Amuro to Oi to: Yasuragi no Chihei e Ch. 5
And another one. Should really get this up on MangaDex too.
Saturday, 23 October 2021
Kendo Shitouden Cestvs Ch. 102-103
Now here's something we've not had in a while. The long delay has mostly been due to me focusing on The Moon, though Wazarai did miss an issue back in May. At the time it wasn't clear exactly why, although with hindsight it now seems likely that it was due to the unfortunate passing of Kentarou Miura (the pair had after all known one another since high school).
During that long break we did however have the pleasure of the Cestvs anime adaptation, which is something perhaps best forgotten. If nothing else I suppose I'm thankful that it seems to have been more or less ignored full stop, rather than ending up a meme like Ex-Arm. Exactly why they thought adapting 160~ odd chapters in 11 episodes was a good idea is anyone's guess, but it seems the staff behind the Muv-Luv Alternative anime didn't get the message either...
At any rate next chapter's out in half a month's time. All the chapters should also now be up on MangaDex too.
Sunday, 17 October 2021
Char to Amuro to Oi to: Yasuragi no Chihei e Ch. 4
The quoted line this time doesn't quite fit when applied directly in English, but it should be close enough.
Saturday, 16 October 2021
The Moon Ch. 6.4 [End]
And here we are, following some six months of work (and nearly 50 years after it's initial serialisation) we at last come to the all too tragic ending of The Moon.
The Moon was a series that I stumbled upon in passing from a brief mention online, and it's one I'm glad I did. While at times a weird read (the second arc especially feels like it could've been one of the wackier stories in Azarak) I think it it an amusing one nonetheless (at least when it's not killing off all its cast), mixing the wild, zaniness of the 70s with a slightly more introspective giant robot story.
As discussed in the included essay, the series came at a funny time for George Akiyama, coming after his more controversial shounen works, but before he moved primarily towards writing for seinen magazines. It also came at something of a funny spot for mecha as a genre, beginning six or some months before Mazinger Z its setup is much closer to the very old-school likes of Tetsujin, with the titular robot not being directly piloted (indeed, it's curious to think how it might've been if it had come a year or so later, as Mazinger's influence began to be felt).
Despite this it does in some senses pre-empt later developments in the genre (e.g. by having an extensive team controlling the robot, not just the one individual), and, while it'd be impossible to prove, I can't help but feel that even at this early stage Akiyama was poking fun at what would become certain mecha tropes, like for instance the Baron's inexplicable ability to conjure up a giant robot, his decision to entrust said robot to a group of random children for no clear reason, or even the need for the robot to require such a bizarrely large number of people to control it.
As ever thanks for the project go to my illustrious editor Nady, and to das for helping out with the raws. If you enjoyed the series you can pick it up digitally, or physically through one of the numerous reprints that it's had.
Going forward I do intend to do one final revision (minor spelling fixes etc.) before uploading it to MangaDex. In a perfect world I'd at some point redo the entire thing with scans from Fukkan's complete edition (which included colour pages and so on), but I doubt that'll ever come to fruition. Akiyama's earlier work Derorinman has at least some tie ins with The Moon so at some point I might look to doing that, although I'll otherwise not likely be working on anything else of his.
Monday, 11 October 2021
The Moon Ch. 6.3
Another week, another large release. With this we're now over halfway through the volume, so by all accounts The Moon should be done in a week or two. Good times. From the seems of it MangaDex is now functioning enough to actually accept new series, so I'll have to try and get the full volume releases up on it at some point too.
In unrelated news Mikamoto had an exhibition recently, and I picked up the (fairly expensive) artbook from it. While it doesn't contain anything too crazy, he did talk about how volume one of Iron Ghost simply didn't sell well enough to continue, so that clarifies that (his comments in fact about everything to do with series were fairly negative, and I'm curious if his current extended break has anything to do with not wanting to repeat, what he at least views as, the same mistakes).
Sunday, 3 October 2021
The Moon Ch. 6.2
Had a fairly productive time for once, so here's a fairly large chunk of The Moon.
In more unfortunate news it was announced this week that Takao Saito had passed away, may he rest in peace.
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