Bernd County

Another new project. We might be starting too many at once but all in all it's all about the staff and their availability and if we can do this then... why not.

This project has been cooking for a long time, the raws were bought almost an entire year ago, we even have a new translator for it now, R4physics. Specials thanks to Gyoshi for translating the first chapter and helping us make a smooth transition.

Akira Oze is pretty well known in Japan, not a huge name but not obscure either. Also, mandela effect, I actually thought he had one series fully translated in english but I was wrong... the thing that popped in my mind as I was trying to remember which series I was thinking of was the vol1 cover for Hitoshi Iwaaki's Fuuko in the Cafe which, apart from not being by Akira Oze, is also not fully translated (ongoing active scanlation though... I think). Oh well. This manga is based on real life events, the "Sanrizuka Struggle". If you want, there's a real good article on it which you can read now or you can go into this mango blind and read it later or you can read it after you finish reading the manga if you want to avoid spoilers (I'll repost it then). Anywho, here it is.

There are two Oze mango that are being scanlated right now by other groups Natsuko's Sake (Natsuko no Sake) and Ryuu. So check em out if you want some more of his stuff. All three look very different from one another though.

The Story of My Village ch. 1-2

Lost... like tears in the rain...

Deathco ch. 21

Homemade weapons against the unseen innumerable forces of the government. Don Quixote had an easier fight. Another great rec from the mangaka.

Unlucky Young Men ch. 21

Stolen youth

A memory of things that were...

Unlucky Young Men ch. 20

Manga can teach you bad things.

Tokyo Girls Bravo ch. 4
 

Salted Love

Before the weekly dose of salt, I will remind everyone that Ciguatera vol 1 is coming out this month (next week). They're doing 2-in-1 volumes so this will collect half of the series and the second volume will finish it off.

And now some more torture and the hard life

Tokyo Girls Bravo ch. 3

And a little communism

Unlucky Young Men ch. 19

And now here we are, the last grains of salt... This actually ended up being my second favorite Minoru Furuya work after Himizu. I don't like ranking things in general and I can't really do it for Minoru's mango either, I just know that I liked Himizu best ( and that's cause it's actually among my very favorite, equaled by few, topped by none) and because I finished Saruchinesu a few months ago this is not a gut reaction, I can safely say that it is my favorite manga of his if we were to exclude Himizu. But enough about that, here are the goodies.

Saruchinesu ch. 44

Saltiness Vol. 1

Saltiness Vol. 2

Saltiness Vol. 3

Saltiness Vol. 4

And as for my thoughts, if you care about reading them (after you grabbed the last chapter and read it, of course) well, here it is: I think Saltiness is Minoru Furuya perfecting that formula he started sometime in the mid 00s, he does not skip a beat in this manga and I can't say there's a weak chapter in the entire 44 chapter run, everything builds towards the ending, it's very focused. Looking at his bibliography, I have to say that he is incapable of writing a bad ending, all his manga ends the way it's supposed to, driving home the themes and ideas he sets out to, I know back in the day when Ciguatera was kinda popular a lot of people hated the ending but that was really the perfect ending for that series and Wanitokagegisu has a bit of a fizzled out ending but, again, that's what the story needed, it's fitting. I think it's wrong to look at endings as "sad endings" and "good endings", it's just so... limiting, it's like still being obsessed with black white/white hat, after a certain point you need to evolve past it, look beyond genres, cliches and archetypes, most things have been done already as an idea, it's how you develop and execute that idea that counts, that's what makes it "original", the "idea" itself is nothing, it's just putty waiting to be shaped. I also never liked the "fanfiction way" of inserting your own vision upon someone else's work "here's what I think the ending should've been like", just immerse yourself in the world and start believing that the characters have their own voices... you can't do that with cookie cutter crap, of course, but you owe it to the good creators to at least give them this much.

Speaking of... Saltiness had an uncharacteristically optimistic ending for a Minoru Furuya manga, but it just worked, it was well earned and it was simply the perfect ending for this manga. Seeing numbnuts(Takehiko) go from this ultimate NEET to someone that can trust people, to someone that can joke with people, to someone that helps people... to someone that actually wants to live instead of just kill time on this earth... it's soothing, it's... it's nice. And that little page we added at the end is just the fundamental truth about this manga, every character numbnuts came in contact with saw their lives change for the better: he helped the little one to get out of that panty stealing business and helped him talk and eventually confess to the girl he liked, he helped the mentalist and inspired him to turn his life around, he helped the suicidal Tomoki Tonobe and pulled her from that dark place, and he helped his boss and his nephew, and he helped his sister and the guy from the gas station get together (remember, he was going to return to Tokyo and without him pushing them like that they would've never dated) and of course, he helped Piggy, It's ironic that in chapter 17 he says that "people around me were always happy, I was the exception" because the same was true for numbnuts throughout this manga and I guess they canceled each other out and Piggy went from homeless to a working man... a respectable man. It was a beautiful journey, and seeing him in chapter 41 regaining his "right to die" but simply rejecting it... was just really well done, his sister was set at that point but.. he didn't want to die anymore, he wanted to live... an alien concept for him, but it happened naturally and slowly over the course of the series. I loved how dark it got there near the end in the 4th volume, and I really like that despite how dark it all seemed... sunrise was just a few hours away.

"People are nice" - Takehiko Nakamaru

His journey is a testament to everyone out there that it's never too late, no matter how strained your relationships may be, no matter how depressed you might be, no matter how much of a weird outsider you might be... there's hope, if you try, you can turn your life around. Even this caricaturized weirdo loser can find happiness and so can you. Do not drift through life, the destination is not a prize, just enjoy the journey. Nothing ever ends.