Kunieda Saika

Hi everyone,

I’m back from my vacation. I had a great time, but more about that later. Today, we are releasing a oneshot called “Stories.” That’s “stories” like the floors of a building, not “stories” like a tale.

This comes from the Gankutsuou Comic Anthology. Gankutsuou, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is an anime based on Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It takes place in the future, and some people find the visual effects odd, but the story is very intense and depressing. I absolutely loved it. It’s one of the few anime that I will watch again when I have the emotional fortitude to handle it. I was very pleased to discover that Kunieda Saika had done this little piece. Her artwork work captures the feeling of the anime very well, I think. Of course, I’m prejudiced in her favor. ^__^

Anyway, please go here to download if you are interested.

I want to thank Kokiden and Abscondite from Moon in a Box for helping me with this. I translated this years ago (I think it was almost two years ago) but I couldn’t find an editor to do the graphic work. So they very kindly offered to help out. I appreciate their generosity tremendously. Please visit their site if you are looking for more good things to read. I highly recommend it, too.

So, about my vacation, I actually had a chance to meet Kokiden from Moon in a Box in person. In this business, we are all over the globe, so it’s rare, unless you attend a convention of some kind, to meet people in real life. Kokiden is just as awesome in person as she seems online. I wish we’d had more time to talk, but, alas, I had to leave. This release is dedicated to her, since she loved The Count of Monte Cristo (which she read in the original French, I believe! She’s very talented with language) and Gankutsuou, too. ^__^

Here are a couple photographs relating to my trip:

Lunch. Yum! I love eel.

Here are some purchases I made. A teacup with kitties. Inside, there are paw prints. It’s so cute! And I got two volumes of this series, Shitsuren Chocolatier (or Un Chocolatier de l’Amour Perdu,) by Setona Mizushiro. The artwork looks great and parts of it are in French. ^__^ I will be reading this for fun. I believe someone is planning to scanlate so those of you who like josei will be able to read it, too, eventually.

Stories | Kunieda Saika

Genre: Drama Length: Oneshot Saika Kunieda’s chapter from the Gankutsuou Comic Anthology.

Download: Mediafire | Megaupload

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.