Kunieda Saika

Happy Valentines Day!

And so we come to the end of another manga… Saika Kunieda’s Like As the Time Will Come When It Will Rain. You can download the last chapter and the extra here.

I actually translated this entire manga in about six weeks, but, as you can see, a lot more goes into producing a scanlation than mere translating. It’s weird to see my old translations again. Every one of them is associated with a certain time and, sometimes, a certain person. This one brings back the time that I first discovered Saika Kunieda, and I dropped everything to devour every one of her readily available works like a starving animal. Maybe it’s appropriate that this manga is finishing on Valentine’s Day because that period of time was very much like the initial stage of falling in love; that time when everything about another person just seems unbelievably fascinating and perfect. Strangely, I’m still madly in love with her work… just a little more comfortable, if that makes sense.

The last chapter, “Single Futon,” is a little confusing because the one of the characters is named “You.” This is easily confused with the pronoun “you.” So you may need to take a little extra care reading. They sound different, spoken, but that distinction is unfortunately lost on paper. Sorry.

The extra, “The Curse,” is a sequel to the oneshot “Summertime.” If you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend that you do. You don’t really need any background to understand the extra. It’s just a good story. It’s been scanlated in English already.

Thank you, Txilar!

I’ll upload a complete manga version soon. Just not tonight. ^__^

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful 2009.

Today’s release, “The Sleeping Man,” is a New Year story. Please visit this page for downloads.

Wow! I translated this oneshot over a year ago, I think. I can’t remember exactly how long it’s been. It’s strange to see it again. ^__^ Anyway, I should probably mention that the beginning of the 21st Century was January 1st, 2001. If you’re like me, though, you probably celebrated this event at midnight, January 1st, 2000. The dates in this story are a little confusing if you don’t distinguish Turn of the Century celebrations from the actual Turn of the Century.

Thanks to GB for editing! I know this was a tough one (which is why I couldn’t get anyone to work on it for so long…) I really appreciate your accepting the challenge.

And for Cornered Mouse fans:

I’ve had a few people leave comments or contact me privately about the new chapter that was released in December. I thought I’d post my answer here so everyone can see it. To answer the main question… yes, there is a sequel to The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese. “Melancholy Butterfly” is Chapter Five, “Owl” is Chapter Six, and “A Carp on the Chopping Block Jumps Twice” is Chapter Seven. [She added a short chapter to the manga version of Cornered Mouse which is why the English version has five chapters instead of four. Technically, "The Black Cat, Looking at the Moon" is an "extra," not a chapter. I've corrected it on the web page, but the downloads will still be labeled chapters One through Five... just to confuse you. ^__^] The problem is, except for “Melancholy Butterfly,” the other two chapters have been released in sections via mobile phone. The most recent one (she says it’s 160 pages) started on 12/20 and will probably finish sometime in the Spring. The bad news is, you have to be in Japan and have a Japanese phone to read these chapters. Someone kindly sent the files to me, but, unfortunately, I can’t open them. They are encrypted so they can only be read by the device that purchased them. My hope is, once the last chapter has been fully released, we will see a paper version. However, last time I checked, I didn’t see any indication that a paper manga is forthcoming. It may well be that there will never be one. At this point, we can only keep our fingers crossed.

If I hear any new information, I’ll post it here so everyone can stay informed.

The Sleeping Man | Kunieda Saika

Genre: Comedy, Drama Length: Oneshot Level: Yaoi (light) In high school, Tatsuya and Naoki made a promise to greet the new century together. But Naoki, a chronic over-sleeper, can never make it anywhere on time. Is he too late once again?

Download: Direct | Badongo