Took me a while to get to writing (which may or may not be read), but I figured I’d give it a go and get something down for now.

Let’s start with the main event!

As you may have seen, we started two new series (and another may be in the works for release in a few weeks). We were super lucky to find a replacement translator for one of them!

Bukuro Kicks

One of the new series, Bukuro Kicks, was suggested by our translator Kabuto. Bukuro Kicks is about a young boy who is blind named Oyamada who (presumably, from the few chapters available) once played high-level football (non-American).

The female lead is Ji-hye, a Korean girl living in Japan with her father, a coach. Her father is recruiting members to challenge the Gyokutei Shinjuku team, a famous team which has declared a ¥10 M (roughly $69,600 USD/€ 62.400 ) reward to whomever can defeat them.

Haruka is Oyamada’s friend whom I speculate will function as a force of the comedic relief typical of sports genre series. I think he’ll be the one to help the team when they’re in a tight spot i.e. doing secret training with the coach (FL’s father) to ultimately help win the match.

I’ve only read the two chapters we’ve worked on and the previous one from SKT, but I look forward to reading future updates and plan to talk about the series more in my next post.

Series #2

And… now to discuss the series I’ve been aching to read and had me looking for a translator to tackle this series with for the past 6 years: *suspenseful drums* Gorillaman!!!

WE GOT SO LUCKY ON THIS SERIES!!!

We originally went to start this project with a newbie translator, but they went MIA after the first two chapters. We had no success contacting them again. I sent the first few chapters (or volumes, memory’s fuzzy) to Kabuto and asked if they would be down to translate Gorillaman.

Kabuto said they would take it on, but that they would let me know if a time came when their workload was too high to continue, or the series length became too much.

I really hope it doesn’t come down to that as we would need to find a new translator. However, this is a hobby, so if they lose interest in the series at some point or IRL needs to take priority, so be it. I’ll just hope for the best as always.

I don’t want to spoil too much of Gorillaman for you all (not that we’re that far in anyways), but the series is a delinquent manga where the ML is playing the part of narrator… sort of. It’s very interesting to see something different for the genre (though some of you may know of a similar story I’m unaware of).

Music Musings

Guess who’s back? Guess who’s back?... Abracadabra!

Haha, yeah. I couldn’t hold myself back from mentioning this godly album that EM dropped a few weeks back. I know that some of you were listening to EM’s songs as they came out on CD (or mp3… even vinyl, who knows). It has been a completely different experience for late-to-the-game listeners as we re-experience his lyrics again in Houdini.

When I first listened to the new “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace)” album I had only one thought: “Slim is back.” While I know it isn’t exactly 100% Slim Shady, Em added a pinch of SS flair in each track that made it something truly special.

I think EM channeled Slim Shady 100% in Habits feat. White Gold and used the song to handle all the heat from his previous album Kamikaze, as well as the past few years perfectly.

While I’m aware EM has always tried to push the envelope with his music, and it unsettles a lot of people the PC/cancel culture of this era just reflects intolerance. I can’t help but think that the doomscrolling aspect of media nowadays has taken away people’s critical thinking.

Societal Grumbles

…There are times that people don’t get each other, but I hope we can get back to a place where people can understand that other people may not think the same, understand their perspective, or simply be different without judgement.

At my new job I have a coworker who is goodhearted and a blast to talk with (as much as I can as we are mutually trying to learn each other’s native tongues). I’m quite fond of her as she treats me like a bonus child, despite how recently we met.

Yet, another coworker recently said something along the lines of “these [foreigners] aren’t easily deceived.” It was really out of pocket, and she did nothing to deserve such an insult.

Furthermore, I hate it when people blame me for something I literally didn’t do. A guy at work did this and mis-judged me as lazy, when in fact he was too lazy to actually see my efforts.

While I was throwing out the trash (yes, it’s common here for the workers to do that in some jobs) a man pulled up just to tell me that I didn’t properly break down the boxes for recycling and told me that I should do a better job.

In fact, I always put in the time and effort to do all of that properly because I don’t want anyone to tell me anything exactly like he just did or to put the owner into an uncomfortable situation. I’m pretty sure that I’m the only one who actually thinks and works like that though, even if we include his shop’s staff.

Another unfortunate event happened when I was driving home from work around a month ago. My bike ran out of gas and I was heading uphill on the highway of all places. It was a sweltering day at 43 c (or 109 F) but everyone just passed me by for almost three kilometers as I pushed my bike uphill searching for a gas station.

After three kilometres distance finally a group of people stopped and asked me if everything was okay and went on to help me find a gas station and then got me back to my bike so that neither it nor me would be stranded on the highway.

Anyhow, what I’m trying to get at is that all this unnecessary judging should stop, and we should help one another as much as possible. How else can we move forward to grow into better people day by day?

Moving on to a completely different topic (and most likely our last), I started reading The Fifth Angel by Tim Green and the book suits my taste well (Thanks Tohru!). I haven’t managed to finish it yet as I’m a bit busy with work and all, but I hope to complete it in a month or so as well… if all goes well.

I made something a while back and wanted to share with everyone so I will leave you with this:

P.S. Thank you Tohru for always taking the time to help me improve! 

P.S.S. Here’s the HD version of the image for anyone interested. 

TBC...