Viz Media has Licensed "Baraou no Souretsu"

Viz Media has licensed "Baraou no Souretsu".  The licensed announcement isn't official, but the first volume is listed for sale on Book Depository (LINK). This is most excellent news! And per our policy, we will stop working on the series and remove the downloads from our servers. The first volume is scheduled to release on March 10th 2015 (Haha! Omari's birthday! How fitting for Omari's Sister!). Let's all support this wonderful series and Aya Kanno by purchasing the licensed version!

Volume 1 is available in Japanese.

Purchase: Amazon JP / Yes Asia

The series runs in Princess Magazine if you want to follow the series in real time.

"Baraou no Souretsu" Chapter 6

It's been about two weeks since our last release. The slow pace is because we've begun working on projects for our 5th-year anniversary. I'm not sure whether we'll begin on June 1st or start on June 26th, the actually day of our anniversary.  Either way, it will be a month long event. Until then, our regular series will be a little slow. We need typesetters/letterers for the next 3 months. If you are an experience letterer and would like to help, please send me (Kuroneko003) an email via the link in the upper right hand corner of this blog. Also, we need anniversary banners for the blog. Requirements:

width: 1250-px
height: 150 - 350-px

If you are using art from a fan artist, be sure to ask their permission and tell them what the art will be used for.

And now onto the current release. I don't want to say much about this chapter because if I do, it will lose its impact. Needless to say, I felt many emotions while translating it and I am now convinced that this is the best shoujo series I've read in a very long time.

And now on to the release!

"Baraou no Souretsu" Chapter 5

This was a particularly difficult chapter for me to translate because I'm very softhearted. This chapter is rather daring for shoujo, and I'm glad Kanno is not shying away from the reality of the time period.

I feel at this point I should remind readers that this is a shoujo re-imagining of Shakespeare's Henry VI and Richard III tetrad. The flow of the series follows Shakespeare's play and European history, but the details of this story are different. Kanno says in her Twitter feed that she's having fun with the original story, so please keep this in mind as you read.  I wouldn't quote anything from this series as historical or Shakespearean fact. One of the things that the proofreaders brought up is that Richard the Duke of York had more children than 3 sons. Another difference is in the Shakespeare play, a child named "Rutland" is the youngest of Papa-Richard's children.  Richard is 12th of 13 total children. Obviously, the change was made for dramatic effect.  Anyhow, I'm sure by now Shakespeare and War of the Roses nerds have rage-quit this series. Oh well. I love this series for what it is, so you'll hear no complaints about the changes from me.

Another note for those of you shipping Richard and Henry: according to history, their age gap is 31 years. Sooooo... you might want to reconsider the nature of your ship.  I'm going with protege, because otherwise, Henry is figuratively offering candy to get Richard to go into the windowless van.

Enough of my rambling. Let's get on with the release!

"Baraou no Sourestu" Chapter 4

First a bit of business:

RECRUITMENT!!!

Redraw Artists -- We need skilled Photoshop redraw artists to backfill when our regular redraw artists are in a pinch. No previous scanlation experience is needed. You just need the drawing skill in Photoshop to work with manga.

Proofreaders/QCers:  -- We need proofreaders/QCers who have a good grasp of the English language, including grammar and punctuation.  Attention to detail is a must.  If you are applying for this position, please make sure your email doesn't have any errors.  Applicants with error-filled e-mails will be automatically rejected.

We are also accepting cleaners, typesetters, and translators, though these are not urgently needed for the group at this moment.

If you are interested in volunteering short-term or long-term at Crimson Flower, please contact me, Kuroneko003 via the contact me link at the top right corner of the blog.

Baraou no Souretsu Volume 1 is available for purchase!!!
ISBN: 4253271812
Amazon JP / Yes Asia
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And now on to the topic at hand!

Thanks to everyone for patiently waiting for this release. Both chapters 4 and 5 were much more challenging than the first three chapters. The redraws were numerous, difficult, and time consuming. I'm glad to have this chapter out of the way. I feel like I've been working on it FOREVER.

This chapter... T_T... Richard... We see a lot about Richard's relationship with his father, who I now affectionately call "Papa-Richard" (*sniff*). Their relationship is so special and lovely. Papa-Richard is also a great father to Edward and George.  We also see something interesting with Cecily. Poor Richard finally gets his cuddle...???  Speaking of Cecily, it's interesting comparing her to Queen Margaret. Their takes on their status and duty are very different. I'm sure somebody could write pages and pages about feminism with these two as the subjects.  And the end of the chapter... well, I have good news. You won't be waiting on the cliff for long. We should be done with chapter 5 by Friday. Though, most likely it will come sooner.

And now onto the release!

"Baraou no Souretsu" Chapter 3

Finally, wrapping up this month's releases, we have the third chapter of "Baraou no Souretsu". This series gets better and better to me. I love it! I've been reading up on the history of Richard III and the War of the Roses, so I'm excited to see how Kanno-sensei will reinterpret was little is know about that time.  What I do know is that it was a brutal time. Lots of people, nobles and peasants, were killed, and there was treachery within the royal family and nobility.

The story is still at a place before Shakespeare's play about Richard III play begins.  It just occurred to me that perhaps I should go read the "Henry VI" trilogy. Hmm... Speaking of that, after looking online at various synopsis of the Henry VI plays, I made a little change from what Kanno wrote.  In the Japanese, Margaret refers to someone named "Pole". This is supposed to be her lover William de la Pole.  However, in English it would read laughably for Margaret to longing for her beloved "Pole"... uh... so I changed it to "William". Anyhow, it seems that these early chapters are pulling from the "Henry VI" trilogy, and this chapter takes place toward the end of Part 2.

Richard and Henry... sigh... I love this pairing, but we already know how Shakespeare ends this relationship. *Spiral of Tears*. But I'm eager to see how Kanno-sensei gets us to this conclusion, and will she stick with Shakespeare's bias that Richard is the height of villainy, or will she bake in other accounts that say Richard was brutal but fair, and ultimately a good ruler within the confines of the times. More importantly, by which means will she choose Henry death? I can't wait!!!

Okay. Now onto the release!

"Baraou no Souretsu" Chapter 2

Real life is dominating this week, so instead of three releases, I think we'll only have this one.  I'm cooking a small Thanksgiving for three this year and baking some mini-pies to give to folks.  I'm also leaving the house to do fun things with my husband and friends... so whee! Manga will have to wait until next week when the Thanksgiving holiday is over.  Honestly, I was itching to get out Lip Smoke and our new Toyota Yuu series because they are so good.  I have a lot Lip Smoke feelings to express.

Anyhow, here's the second chapter of "Baraou no  Souretsu". I had the chance to watch the 1950's Sir Lauren Olivier version of "Richard III" on Netflix. The production was pretty bad, though Olivier was fun to watch. Anyhow, the events in the manga now take place before the events in the play. Just as the play is, a lot of this is fictionalized for dramatization -- obviously, since Richard is gender bent. But still there are some historical facts that underlie the events in this chapter.

And now onto the release!

New Series: "Baraou no Souretsu" ("The Rose King's Funeral Procession") by Aya Kanno

Update 11/3/2013:  Please download the latest version. There were a bunch of typos in the first version. We apologize for the errors.

I happened to see this advertised while browsing the Princess magazine website last month.  I thought to myself "my Dark Prince!", and then I read the short preview. That was when I knew we had to take this series on as a project!

This is Aya Kanno's latest series, and it's based on William Shakespeare's play "Richard III".  So if you want spoilers, go read the play or watch one of the many versions of the play on Netflix, Amazon, or what ever streaming service is available to you.  Many of you know of Aya Kanno from "Otomen".   Baraou is more like the other Kanno series, while "Otomen" is outlier -- albeit it a very successful outlier.  Personally, I prefer the darker works ("Blank Slate" is quite good.)

For those of you worried about the impending hole in your life that will be left by the premature ending of "Magnolia", fear not! This should fill all of your gender confusion and messed up family drama needs.  Needless to say, I'm looking forward to translating this series.

A big thanks goes out to Ichigo Stars for cleaning up the title page spread.  And a big thanks to Lucy for helping me clean and redraw this first chapter.

And now that I've rambled and rambled, let's get on with the release!