(If this was a child, it’d be in third grade. Unless it was a problem child, but whatever.)
Hallo, ladies and gentlemen!
Welcome to our annual anniversary release. We are now 9 years old.
Seriously, nine years old. I’m not totally sure how we were able to last so damn long, but we did somehow. It’s been kind of a slow year because of a bunch of our staff retiring from scanlations. But alas, you have to keep moving on and hoping for the best. Our goal for the year won’t be reached for the first time since we’ve started making end of the year goals, but oh well.
(If you want to apply, I won’t be stopping you. Japanese to English translator, picture editors, experienced typesetters. PM me on IRC or email me gaminggodp at gmail dots com)
Since I’m the only one who ever posts, some of the other staff members have a few words about the group’s anniversary:
laika: Happy anniversary! Watch out for Emi-chan (Garden), it’s pretty dark. It’s close to a decade for me personally too, so I’m glad to still be able to work on stuff that I find not only interesting but also fun and share it with people who might think the same. I hope I am helping to continue the legacy of groups like MS and Kotonoha whose translations of stories were incredibly influential to me and passing on the same sense of discovery. Thanks for everyone that has helped out and been involved and if you enjoy the stories, please support the authors and buy their books! There may not be an English market for a lot of them, but you can still support the author by purchasing a hard copy from a Japanese bookstore or a digital ebook. It’ll make us happy to know that you enjoyed the release enough to do so, and you’ll be helping the author as well, a win-win! Enjoy the comics and hope to have some more stuff to show again soon.
Nitouryu: (He actually tried to write something, but it was just drunk rambling. I still <3 you, Ni3.) Bear Slayer day AAAAAAAAARRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH
illiteracy: i did nothing
tim: my other group does xmas, new years and anniv releases, and the’re all like a week apart… i did a bunch of last-min typesetting for them last year but a lot of it was porn, and i was home for the holidays so i had to keep watching out for my parents
sotirod: Yo there’s a thing and it’s released. Read the thing…. how’s that
(Powerful a moving comments, everyone!)
Ashizuri (!Ashizuri) – A collection of short stories by panpanya, a new, up & coming author with a very particular style. Our translator, laika, has a man crush on him and is currently building a shrine for him. :p The chapters are very cute and a very light read.
Dokuro v02 (!Dokuro02) – Second volume of Dokuro, a joint project with Hokuto no Gun. Go visit their site and give them your thanks. Another volume of ass kicking and Saruwatari style violence.
Garden (!Garden07) – This is the final chapter of the Garden series that Kotonoha started a while back. This chapter is dedicated to extreme feminists. You’re welcome. (Warning, do not read while eating. Very graphic chapter.)
I Am A Hero v15 (!IAAH15) – The latest volume of I Am A Hero. A big thank you to emuesu for translating. We’ve now caught up to the tankobons and the next volume goes for sale on December 26th. So expect the next volume around early Febuary or so.
Inherit The Stars 9-10 (!Stars09 !Stars10) – A big, big thank you to my main girl Elkin for translating these because just reading the lines while typesetting them was giving me a headache. Some very interesting stuff in these two chapters.
There’s Nothing Wrong With Me (!TNWWM) – Another short story collection, this time by Miyazaki Natsujikei. We’ll be doing more of her work in the coming months. Another bunch of very good short stories with a very particular art. Give it a shot, yo.
And finally, a big, big thank you to laika, sotirod, tim & Nitouryu for all of their help on these releases. They put in a lot of time to get these out and if it wasn’t for them, our anni release would be patheticly bad.
Now, time to make some edits so that this post can look a little more pwetty.
Thanks a lot for all the releases. Literally all of them. Happy anniversary.
(Warning, do not read while eating. Very graphic chapter.)
Is that a challenge?
Happy birthay, and congratulations on an already long life (for a scanlation group that is)!
Funny thing you started scanlating as I astarted reading mangas on the internet…
Happy birthday and thank you very much for your fantastic new projects 🙂
Wohoo. Congratulations.
Finally some new Inherit The Stars, too.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!
Wow! Happy birthday! That’s a really impressive life span for a scanlation group. Thanks so much for all your hard work over the years!!
Happy birthday! Man you guys have been going strong after all this time! Thanks for the all the hard work and effort and can’t wait to catch up on Dokuro!
A heartfelt thank you and congratulations for nine years of quality scanlations!
I had a pleasure of dealing with both GGpX and Laika and they were super nice and helpful. As I buy all my online reading in a book form as well, not just to support the artists , but to experience the actual quality and production value of the physical book, I tend to over buy, and get books that just simply look good and promising.
So a few of these ” chance” books ( like DOLL) have ended up on this site because of the good folks of Illuminati , like Laika, and GGpX , who gave a chance to manga that was recommended by fans.
Now that is awesome!
Happy Birthday!
Congrats on making it to nine years, here’s hoping you keep going strong into the tenth! And thanks for finishing Garden, that was sadly left unfinished for far too long.
Watch out for Emi-chan (Garden), it’s pretty dark.
To expand on this, here’s some more info on the chapter, courtesy of Adam Stephanides:
In the book, the story is divided into groups of approximately sixteen pages apiece, each of which is sealed shut on the outside, making it impossible to browse the story casually, even after you’ve removed the plastic wrap. Preceding the story is a page on “How to read ‘Emi-chan,’” advising readers to take an exacto knife (lacking one, I found a penknife to produce an acceptable if ragged result) and cut open the first group of sixteen pages: if these pages are too upsetting don’t read any further; if not, then repeat the procedure with the second group, and so on.
The recommendation of using an X-Acto knife is probably intended to give the reader an uncomfortable, tactile empathy with the “teacher” from the story, making the reading experience even more unsettling.
@arpad hey, what’s up. hope you’re doin well.
@hahhah42 Yeah, that page was in the raw, but it didn’t make so much sense to translate the instructions considering that the reader wouldn’t know that the pages were printed with the edges sealed and there were no physical pages to cut open. I think this was also the case for the first part of Emi that Kotonoha did? Also, it was a good excuse not to do a page. :B
@laika Yeah, Kotonoha didn’t mention it either when they released the first part. Anyways, I wasn’t intending to highlight the missing page but rather the fact that the book instructs the reader to use the same sort of knife the serial killer uses.
@hahhah42 i may have repressed that connection myself! i did get a stomach ache after working on it.