Feb 16, 2015

My Updated thoughts on Scanlation

I wrote a new blog power on Lovely Manga in response to a question about whether "Kanojo ni Naru Hi" and the spinoff are popular enough in scanlation to get licensed. The short answer is scanlation and manga licensing are unrelated. To read more of my perspective on the matter, here's a link to the blog post on Lovely Manga.

I do have an account on Ask.fm now, so if you wish to ask me a question, you can go here: http://ask.fm/KuronekoOO3 or use the Ask.fm widget on the right hand side of this blog.

Feb 15, 2015

2014 Series and Oneshot Stats Summary

I'll keep this simple by displaying two charts. I don't want to give exact numbers, so I normalized the data.

There are no surprises about the top series. "Risou no Kareshitachi" was surprisingly the hit oneshot of last year. While being the most popular, this is also the oneshot that I received the most email expressing displeasure about. The least read oneshots were all of the ones released for Halloween, with "The Doll Friend" stories filling the bottom.  I'm not sure what to make of this given the popularity of "Risou Kareshitachi".

I think the only influence that this data will have on me will be our Halloween selections. With the exception of "Drive" and "Mimi no Kieta Hi", the group was "meh" on the oneshots I selected. It was slim pickings last year, but I think if I can't find stuff at least the group is enthusiastic about, then we won't do it. Unless there are some focused horror efforts from the Japanese shoujo and josei publishers in 2015, we'll definitely have a scaled down Halloween oneshot party.

Feb 14, 2015

Valentine's Day Oneshot #2: "Joifo" ("Joyful") by Haru Kudo

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone on this side of the world! This is our first project from The Margaret. For years I avoided Shueisha and Shogokugan manga and josei, but last year I gave the publishers' magazines a chance and fell in love with The Margaret. I highly recommend this magazine if you love high school romance shoujo oneshots that have a more depth and maturity than the usual stuff from Margaret/Betsuma.

"Joifo" is one of the oneshots I live Tweeted months ago. The response on Twitter was quite favorable, so I decided to translate it for Valentine's Day. Folks with strict parents and folks who know what it's like to restrain your true self should resonate with this oneshot. And for everyone else, it's about cosplay! I hope you like this oneshot!

And now on to the release!

Feb 2, 2015

Crimson Flower is Recruiting

Seems that we lost some members after our long break. Boo... Therefore we need new blood. Crimson Flower is recruiting! We are in immediate need of experienced typesetters and redraws artists. All other position are open too. Please read our recruitment page before e-mailing me (Kuroneko003).  The link is here: http://crimson-flower.blogspot.com/p/recruitment.html