My experience of scanlation thus far... what can I say other than that it was satisfying to see the final result. It was a quick and dirty product compared to the truly pro scanlations or even the ones I've done a decade ago with a group. But having a perfect scanlation wasn't the goal really. My goal was to scanlate as fast as possible because for me being a fan of manga myself, I get impatient sometimes waiting for the perfect scanlations to come out and I read the Chinese version and sometimes the Japanese raws too. English is still the language I'm most comfortable with so I prefer reading it in English. So one day I just had a thought of why wait, why not just make my own and see if others like to have it around the same time as when it comes out in raw or Chinese? I can't be the only one who would love to see it asap even if it is in a grittier form. I am nicknaming this my flash scans because my translations might have errors, it might not be pretty but it's meant to be fast. It was also great to work on my Japanese and Chinese, though Chinese is my other native language (in terms of speech), my reading and writing isn't too great so it's great practice. This was fun and I enjoyed it enough to do it again.I would like to add that I totally enjoy Tatsukida Blogspot because it's a great resource to check my translations against and it's so fast as well. But it definitely feels different to read summaries versus reading the actual manga for me. I also really like the pro scans like those done by Imperial Scans or SkipBeat1. I will try to be even faster and work on the quality piece next time around. I actually meant to try to do a whole chapter in 1-2 days but that was a bit ambitious when I was this rusty and life got in the way.
Spoilers ahead (if these images didn't do it already)
So this chapter was so great, it makes me want to reread from the beginning. I think the author might be finally building up to the big reveal with Kyoko realizing Ren is actually Corn. I think this is a definite turning point. My favorite "kyaaa" scenes are the ones above and to the left. Of course the cherry on top for this entire chapter was the look and no...way... speech of Kyoko and Ren's super sheepish look.
I also feel as though she's finally putting the love triangle back into the picture to really give more resolution between Shou and Kyoko or build it up to some crazy dramatic moments. I think the stuff with Kyoko's mom is interesting from a character development perspective where they're fleshing out Kyoko's history a little more but honestly I also find it a bit of a filler and a distraction from what I think everyone cares more about. I do like the President and Yashiro's interactions. I would like to see a few more surprising turns but I doubt she can really drag it out too much longer or try throwing any curb balls since it has been 13 years!?!
I didn't realize this was going on that long until I recently saw an image of how the artist's style has evolved and somewhere along the way someone commented on how long it's been. Also, I just saw this on Facebook so I'm not sure who or where to put credit to this image so let me know so I can give credit where it's due. I actually like how all the characters looked in Vol 16-20, but I especially like Kyoko and Ren in the recent volumes.
