(Group Update) 13th anniversary and 3,000th chapter released

(As I’m writing this, tim pointed out that we screwed up on a page. All that’s old is new again!)
Been a while, hasn’t it? It’s kind of the theme to this anniversary release. A big release with a lot of titles we hadn’t released in a while.

It has been a while. There are a few things we wanted to release today that couldn’t get finished on time (redraws mostly), but we’re hoping to release them soon-ish. That seems to always be the case, doesn’t it? 60% of the titles we released today are things we’ve been working on (on & off) for 2 or more years.

So, are we back? I mean, in a way we are and in another we’re not. In the sense that we’re active and working on series, yeah, we are. In the sense that we’re back in 2013 and released over 500 chapters in a full calendar year? Nah, those days are long gone. It’ll never be back to those days.

We’ve always been a small group. If you check the credit pages of our recent (or even from the past 2-3 years) releases, excluding the translators, it’s always the same 2 to 4 people. GGpX scanned and typeset, Nitouryu cleaned, dh85 QCed, tim does the sfx. Most of the translators we work with do one specific project and then do another, either with us or another group. Now, we’re all older and have jobs, among other responsibilities. Dedicating so much time to scanlations like we have in previous years isn’t an option to any of us anymore. We’re not kidding anybody, we’re closer towards the end of the road than we are the beginning. It’s one thing to be optimistic, but I don’t think any of us are going to be around 13 years from now talking about the latest Hoshino Yukinobu and/or Saruwatari Tetsuya series we just released.

I’ve tried recruiting people over the years, but they basically don’t apply anymore. I simply don’t have the time to try to train new people without any guarantee that they’ll be dedicated enough to work long-term with us. So if people apply, great. If they don’t, great.

So what’s the future got in store? Well, at the rate we’re going now, we’re going to finish Alice in Hell by the end of the year (wink wink). We also have a few projects we’re going to either complete or wrap up the work we’ve done before dropping them. There’s one series in particular that we’ve got about a volume & a half of work done and… there’s 19 or so volumes afterwards to be done. We’re never going to finish the series, even if we put all of our manpower behind it. For other projects, A Diffusion Disease is going well and I’m hopeful we can finish the first volume by the end of November and who knows for volume 2. Dog Soldier I’m hoping to get to work on that again. Inherit The Stars with the current chapter released, we officially ran out of translations and I don’t think we’re going to be getting any from Elkin, so if we don’t get a new t/l, we’re done. Manyuuki all depends on whether laika feels like translating it or not. Me And The Devil Blues my hopes are to release the final three chapters of the volume by the end of the year. Mephisto & Odyssey no translator. REAL still in exodus from the author. Sasori & The Hard in time. Shamo I plan on finishing this eventually. I shit out better scanlations than Wild Fang Project could ever imagine of doing, those shameless scam artists. A guesslator with a cockamamie simpleton who runs it and they want money out of people to get their pathetic excuse of what they call a scanlations. Not to mention there’s a volume in the middle of the series I’m going to re-do because they skipped a few chapters to make the story confusing.

And most importantly, in my mind anyway, Koukou Tekken-den Tough. I still fully intend to finish scanlating this series. This is my magnum opus, if you would permit me, as a scanlator. I’ve bought all 42 volumes, have scanned 30 of them. I’ve translated and typeset most of what we’ve done, and I will be translating and typesetting every page for the rest of the series. Who knows how soon/late that will be, but that’s how it’s going to go.

I don’t suppose this is an announcement of any kind to those I talk with on IRC, but since there are less and less people who idle there, here’s the truth: I will not retire from scanlations until Koukou Tekken-den Tough is completed. Also, the second it is done is probably the day I’m done for good. There might be a few things here and there that I’ll continue to work on, because while I still tremendously enjoy scanlating with Nitouryu, laika, dh85 and tim, I’m still here because Koukou Tekken-den Tough isn’t completed. I don’t care if another group picks it up and continues it. If you think for a second I scanlate for download/view numbers, you couldn’t be more clueless. That last reason I ever do scanlations is to satisfy the readers, most of whom wouldn’t even blink an eye if we disappeared overnight.

A Diffusion Disease 2 (!ADD02) – Completes chapter 1 before moving on to other things.

Alice in Hell 32 (!AIH32) – It’s not quite Monday yet, but, well…

Chibiki no Iwa (!Chibiki) – I scanned Chibiki no Iwa on April 1st 2013. Five years, 6 months and 11 days later, it’s finally out. I never, ever would have thought that it would have taken this long to put out, but alas, here we are. A big thank you to HappyScans! for providing the translation, otherwise it’d be on my HDD waiting for something to happen, just like every other Hoshino volume I’ve scanned so far.

Inherit The Stars (!ITS13) – Thanks for the run, Elkin. Now, on to finding a new translator.

The Dragon’s School is On The Top of The Mountain (!Dragon) – Scanned on June 6th 2014. Nearly four and a half years later, it’s finally released. At long last. A big thank you to arstval, where ever he might be, for translating it. A big thank you to tim for the sfx typesetting, to Nitouryu and Phaedris (where ever you may be) for the cleaning and to laika for the QC.

9 Thoughts to “(Group Update) 13th anniversary and 3,000th chapter released”

  1. leonearmato

    Happy anniversary, Illuminati. And thanks for all those chapters released.

  2. shikinokurai

    Happy 13th anniversary. As a longtime avid reader of your releases it pains me to see that the time when you guys hang up the gloves is nigh, whenever that is, but all good things come to an end eventually, and I’m thankful for all of it.

  3. G

    Thanks. The amount of manga you’ve done over the years has been impressive. Glad to see some more Kui Ryoko here.

  4. kn

    Happy anniversary and thanks for your persistence in still chugging along!

  5. killiz

    Hi guys, just one question about those 19 volumes or so…
    I thought you were talking about tough which is the
    longest manga I know you are working on sinds like
    forever…about 42 volumes damn..
    So which other series are you meaning?

  6. killiz

    “We’re never going to finish the series, even if we put all of our manpower behind it” is what I am talking about by the way..

  7. Nitouryu

    He was reffering to Shonan Junai Gumi.

  8. killiz

    Thanks for the clear up, I really forgot about that one..

  9. Pandaman284

    I’m really glad that your going to do the rest of Tough, as a diehard Baki fan, I have already had to put up with the Wild Fang Project far more then I would like.

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