Valentine's Day Banners Needed

Valentine's Day is coming up and it would be wonderful if you all could make some banners to celebrate the day.  Banner must be 1200-pixel wide and no more than 350 pixel high.  I prefer PSD, but JPG and PNG are fine as long as you send a version with lettering and an version without lettering.  Please send your banners via the contact link in the right hand column of this blog.  If you need a specific piece of artwork for your creation, let me know. 

Buy Ojousama no Untenshu Volume One

If you liked the first chapter of "Ojousama no Untenshu", please purchase a copy of the series in Japanese and support the mangaka.  Here are some purchase links:

Yes Asia
Amazon JP
HMV Japan

If you live in the US or Canada and want to piggy back on my monthly purchase, contact me via e-mail.

The second and final volume of this series will be released in Japan on March 5th.

Oh, a reminder!  I have enough interested to make a large enough purchase for AnS Volume 7 and the compilation of Akidzuki Sorata's one-shot.  If you would like you're own copy, they can be purchased for $8.50 each + postage (~$2.50/book US, $3.50/book Canada). These books will also release in Japan on March 5th.  If you are interested in purchasing your own copies, please contact me via e-mail.

New Series: "Ojousama no Untenshu" ("The Young Lady's Chauffeur") Chapter 1

At long last, we get started on this series.  Again, this is another casualty of "Kuro Lala" and "Shiro Lala".  Hopefully, though, now that we are started, we can put out a chapter every month or two.  This is another series with CRAZY redraws, so I can't guarantee monthly releases, but we'll do our best.  We are doing this series in conjunction with Heart Crusade.  Heart Crusade will be helping out with some of horrendous redraws.

Make a Banner for "Ojou-sama no Untenshu's" Debut!

Make a banner for the series debut of "Ojousama no Untenshu" on Omari's Sister.  To help you out, here are some images from the tankoubon. Right click on the images to download the full size images.

The chapter 1 will most likely release on Thursday the 26th.   E-mail your banner creations to me, Kuroneko003, using the contact link on the right hand column on this blog.  I prefer PSD, but if you create a jpeg or png, then please send a version with lettering and a version without lettering.

Banner Dimensions:  Width 1200-px, Height:  less than 300-px

I look forward to seeing some lovely results :).

Update: Valentine's Special One-Shots

This year's theme will be "Delinquent Love Story"!  Considering the bunch of highly anticipated one-shots by our favorite mangaka that are going to be released in February, I've decided that we will only do one special Valentine's Day one-shot. And so our Valentine's Day one-shot will be "Heart Assassin" by Kakeru Sora.  The other two one-shots are begun, but we will not be able to finish them by Valentines Day because of:

• "Ojou-sama no Untenshu" Chapter 1
• "Magnolia" Chp 18 and Lily Chp 3
• The 60 page Bisco Hatori one-shot
• "Akagami no Shirayukihime" Chp 31
• The Akane Ogura One-shot

"Ore to Atashi no Kareshi-sama" Chapter 1

We finally get this series started.  Phew! There were a lot of complicated redraws.  Thanks to Ichi and Kumiko for the great redraw work and thanks to Suzume for cleaning.

This series turns out to be a lot sweeter than I anticipated.  I'm happy about that because I always like stories with some underlying heart.  In this chapter we get some good incite into the twins' mind.  Chouko is a typical shallow female high school student and Hayate is her wiser over-protective brother. Peeking at the two chapters that are currently out, this is really a story about friendship, perhaps something the twins have never really had outside of themselves, and dealing with going out with the most popular guy in school.   There's also some interesting story development from Tsukiyono's (the love interest) side as he tries to figure out why Chouko changes so drastically.  Tsukiyono in chapter 2 looks adorable as he doki-dokis over Chouko.

Mega Uploads Shut Down

I imagine some of you are raging about the Mega Uploads Shutdown.  I imagine many scanlation groups lost all of their content links as a result of the Mega Uploads Shutdown.  I think, though, before you go off raging, you should understand the full extent of Mega Upload's activities.  This is more about criminal conspiracy and racketeering than anything.  Please read the statement from the US Justice Department on the matter of Mega Upload's shutdown.

Link

My opinion: 

• Mega Uploads was sketchy.  Once I got wise a few years back, I quit downloading anything from that website for fear of viruses and opening my computer up to being hacked.
• This is proof that SOPA and PIPA aren't needed to combat online piracy.

Basic SOPA and PIPA Legislation Information

I didn't want to take down this blog on strike day because I'm not sure I could properly restore it.  But, I felt that you all, as folks who depend on the Internet, should know some basic information about SOPA and PIPA, pending legislation in the US that is intended protect US intellectual property from online piracy.

I think the best jumping off point for more information is Wikipedia:

• SOPA information
• PIPA information
• Google Statement
• The Obama Administration Press Release

If I'm not mistaken, SOPA has been pulled, but a vote on PIPA is expected soon.

My opinion:  We already have laws and processes to address the kind of online piracy these bills are meant to cover.  I also don't support any laws like this that do not allow for due process.  There is a process for rights holders to exercise their copyrights and companies should use that process.

I also believe that copyright laws written at the turn of the 20th century are not applicable to now.  Much has changed and companies have to accept the reality of the Internet.  I would rather see companies come up with new business models and innovate rather than litigate and lobby politicians.

December 2011 Manga Purchases

I meant to do this post earlier, but I hadn't made the time until now.  I'm taking a little break from translating before my brain completely melts.  "Ore to Atashi no Kareshi-sama" is turning out sweeter than I thought it would be.  I'm glad we are picking it up :).

Here's a list of manga I bought last December.

English Paperback:

• "Kamisama Kiss" Volume 6 -- cute and wonderful as usual
• "Natsume's Book of Friends" Volume 9 & 10 -- little a mini-vacation
• "Dawn of Arcana" Volume1 -- A new favorite

Japanese Paperback:

• "Soredemo Sekai was Utsukushii" Volume 1 (by Shiina Dai) -- prepping to translate after we finish "Fushigi no Maria-kun"
• "Yukarism" Volume 2
• "Rex Fabula" Volume 1
• "Magnolia" Volume 3 + Drama CD
• "The Devil's Puzzle" -- Me likey!  Hopefully, we can translate this the second half of 2012

Ipad

• "Ai Ore" Volume 3 -- couldn't finish.  I'm done with this series.

Reminder: We Do have an Upload Policy

We do have an upload policy and it is as stated:

DO NOT UPLOAD OMARI'S SISTER'S PROJECTS OR RELEASES TO ANY MANGA AGGREGATION WEBSITES.  NO EXCEPTIONS.

YOU MAY, HOWEVER, LINK BACK TO THE ENTRIES ON THIS BLOG. 

Any further comments asking me to upload something to a manga aggregation website will be deleted and the commenter banned from making further comments on this blog.

"Akagami no Shirayukihime" Chapter 29

Before we get to the nitty-gritty of releasing this chapter, there are a few things that I feel I need to say.

1. We are not dropping "Akagami no Shirayukihime".  The past 3 chapters have been quite good and I personally want to go forward.

More Winter Banners Needed!

I need more winter banners.  I prefer PSD files so I can make adjustments if needed, but jpeg and png are fine also (two versions -- with and without text).  The banners have to be 1200-pixel wide and between 150 - 300-pixels high.  Use the contact link at the top of the right column in this blog to send them to me.

Don't leave this poor blog bannerless.  If you do, I fear Tiki and Lily will hijack the space for themselves T_T.

Akagami Update -- Situation Resolved

Update:
I have been contacted by the scanlator who did the Mangafox version and we are talking about having her help with AnS as a member of OS.  Hopefully, this will all work out. Anyhow...so here's the plan moving forward.  We will make AnS an active project again.  We will release our own version of chapter 29.  I'm debating whether to do chapter 29 this month or skip it and move onto chapter 30 and swing back around to chapter 29 when the tankoubon comes out.  

Anyhow, thank you are for your support.  Hopefully, we'll be able to work things out such that we have the best situation for AnS (short of it finally getting licensed -- dear Lord, please let a US publisher license this series!!!  UGH!!!!)

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January 2012 at Omari's Sister

Recruitment:  WE NEED REDRAW ARTISTS!!!!

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and are now ready to attack a new year.

I'm happy to have 2011 over with.  It's not that it was a bad year, it's more like I hope 2012 is a better year. Mostly, I would like the economy to come back so it will be easier to find a job.  I've pretty much accepted that I'm not going to get an engineering job like the one I used to have, but I'm still hopeful.  I would really like to get back into doing R&D for consumer electronics.

That said, let's get on to the business of January.  For the past 3 months we've been blowing out one-shots, so now it's time to catch up on our series.  We still have a few one-shots that are closed to being done, so we will release those as they are ready.  Here's what we have planned:

December 2011 Stats

I'll make this a short post since the 2011 overview was so long.

Top 10 Visiting Countries

1. US (CA, NY, TX, MA, FL)
2. Canada
3. Philippines
4. France
5. Indonesia
6. Germany
7. Australia
8. UK
9. Malaysia
10. Singapore

Nice seeing more countries in Africa come online.  Just a few months ago the only country that lit up was South Africa.  Welcome new friends from the African continent, in particular Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt!

Top 5 Releases

1. One-shot:  "Kachuu no Ou"
2. Magnolia Chp 17
3. One-shot:  "The Witch and the Beast"
4. One-shot:  "Seimei desu ga nani ka?"
5. One-shot:  "The Wizard and the Love Potion"

One-shots ruled! I'm glad you all enjoyed them.  I like them all too :).