Fundraiser Successful - Thank You

UPDATE: The fundraiser was successful and is now over. Thanks to those who donated for helping out. I really appreciate it. Any further donations will go toward April expenses. Thanks again.

As most of you know, I don't usually beg for money. I leave the donation button up and hope I get a little bit of help every now and then, but usually I'm able to take care of things by myself all right. Cash is short, though, and this month's expenses are higher than normal. That is why I would like to hold the first ever Scans of the Dead fundraiser.

I'm going to set a target amount, which is the month's expenses for this blog and nothing more. If you like this site and want to help, you should consider donating to help me reach the goal. Just click on the "Donate" button on the top right. You don't have to give a lot. If enough people just gave $1 each, we would reach the goal. I won't stop you giving more, though.

Here is a breakdown of the monthly costs, and what you get out of each one. All amounts are in USD and rounded to the nearest dollar.

Monthly Dragon Age April - $43 (with shipping) - Monthly update with news and information (possibly on HOTD) followed by monthly raws of Triage X and Maken-Ki! (MK raws eventually used for the scanlation).

HOTD Full Color Edition 7 - $21 - At the very least, I'll scan the covers again. If there are any new illustrations, I'll share those as well. Not sure if I'll do a chapter yet.

DDL Hosting - $9 - Continue to see DDL links on all downloads. Also, be able to download large files like volumes in one part.

Total - $73

Funds Collected - $73

Goal reached! Thank you to those who helped.

Jorge, you are awesome! Thank you! Almost there!


If donations go over that amount, the extra funds will first go to buying Maken-Ki! Volume 10 for future scanlation ($12). Any further funding will roll over to April's expenses.

The Future of Maken-Ki!

I thought you guys deserved to know what's going on right now since the scanlation of this series has been plagued with a lack of information in the past. Imperial Scans, a group that is in the process of shutting down, had been apparently working on Maken-Ki! chapters up to Chapter 53. Kiss Scans decided to let them use their translations and take over the scanlation of the series until they release all chapters they have been working on.

Imperial released the next new chapter, Chapter 48, yesterday. You can read it on their site.

I can't really say I fully approve of this. Imperial doesn't give the option to download [apparently I need to get my vision checked], and their site and online reader are full of ads. Not to mention their releases are sized to fit a reader, meaning the quality is low. Another thing that makes me nervous is the time between releases. There were nearly two months between their last two releases. Yes, the last one was a double release, but they pretty much had to do that since we had already released Chapter 47. If they are about to disband, what motivation do they have to get through all the chapters at all? Let alone getting them done in a timely manner.

I'm going to continue my collaboration with Oppai Scans to release high quality volume scanlations. DeathsUncleBob actually bought and scanned Volume 9 himself, so the quality will be much much higher than any of his previous releases or Imperial's releases. At the very least, we will put chapters out a short time after Imperial, giving readers a high quality option. If Imperial lags and the translations are made available to us, we may just release before them. As much as I would hate to "steal" another group's project, I think you guys deserve to read new chapters as often as possible. After all, there is a long way to go still to catch up to the Japanese releases.

For now, we'll wait and see if Imperial Scans is really serious.

Maken-Ki! Volume 8

Volume 8 is here. It's mostly the chapters we've been releasing over the past few weeks, but it also has Chapter 44 and the two side chapters that came out to celebrate the anime, including one in full color that I released previously, and the covers and extra pages.

It was really great working with Oppai Scans on this. I hope you all enjoy it.

Mediafire DDL

We probably won't start on Volume 9 until all chapters have been scanlated. Speaking of, the next release with Kiss Scans should be coming soon. Stay close.

Maken-Ki! Volume 8 Chapter 43

The next Maken-Ki! chapter with Oppai Scans is here. I think there's one more Volume 8 chapter, after which you will get the full volume with the covers and stuff included.

Mediafire DDL

The next newly scanlated chapters with Kiss Scans will be out soon. Stay close.

FCE Volume 5 and 6 Covers

As promised, here are some scans of the FCE covers. Included are the front covers of both volumes (the inside covers that don't have titles covering the good parts) and a single joined image of the back covers. If you remember the back covers of the first four volumes, it's basically the same thing except instead of Rei and Say it has Shizuka and Saeko. If you want to see the full image (and believe me, you do) you'll have to wait for Volume 7 to come out next month to complete the picture.

http://www.mediafire.com/?cmvkv0xf4dvmo2c

There really isn't anything worth scanning inside the volumes or in the booklet that came with this month's Dragon Age, which is not surprising considering how much Shouji Sato is working on right now. Just to give you a better idea of what exactly is in the booklet, there is the interview with Daisuke Sato, a brief, illustrated recap of the series through Chapter 28 called Odyssey, Chapter 29 in full color, an advertisement for the FCEs and a page announcing HOTD's return like the one in the magazine.

I decided I will continue with my monthly updates, along with all the other stuff we do here. I like doing it too much to stop at this point. Thank you to those of you who left words of encouragement.

Monthly Raws - Triage X c34 & Maken-Ki! c57

Looks like we'll have to wait another month to see if Hitsugi will pull through.

Triage X Chapter 34 raw

To those of you asking about when the next Triage X scanlation will be out, I don't have an answer for you. I can't even give an estimate at this point. I'll let you know, though, as soon as I start on my part of the work.

Takeru is a super saiya-jin.

Maken-Ki! Chapter 57 raw

Oh and since I forgot to say it earlier, Maken-Ki! Volume 10 comes out March 9. For reference, the last scanlated chapter was about midway through Volume 9.

I'm going back to DDL links for a while. If I run out of bandwidth, I might just go back to regular links rather than buying more.

I'll try to put something together in the next day or two with some scans from the HOTD booklet and FCEs. See you then.

Monthly Dragon Age - March (2/9/2013)

There really isn't much to report that we don't already know about the return of Highschool of the Dead. The long Daisuke Sato interview, which is printed in its entirety in the booklet that came with this issue and in two parts in the two new Full Color Editions (if that is the same interview), could contain some nuggets of information, but I don't believe there is any specific date. If there was, I'm sure it would appear on the announcement page we already saw that simply says it will return this spring.

By the way, here is a better scan of that page:

There is at least some news for HOTD in this issue. Full Color Edition Volume 7 will be out next month on the 9th. The announcement is in the extra booklet, which, other than the interview, has a recap of the story (a good sign that the story will pick up where it left off) and Chapter 29 in full color. I probably won't bother scanning it. If I really wanted to, I might as well wait until next month when I can use higher quality scans. Anyway, I was disappointed to find that there were no new illustrations in the booklet or the FCEs (other than cover art). So there's really nothing worth scanning for you at the moment.

Other than that, this was an uneventful issue. I'm actually considering not doing these monthly updates anymore since there will soon be no hiatus to keep you updated on. After all, the hiatus is what prompted these monthly updates; they only turned into more general news when HOTD info ran dry. I'll leave it up to you. If you want me to continue these monthly updates of whatever I find interesting and scans of the covers, let me know in the comments below. Otherwise, I may just post whenever there is big news about one of the series we are directly involved with here.

I'll try to have your monthly raws later today.

Maken-Ki! Volume 8 Chapter 42

The next chapter with Oppai Scans is done.

http://www.mediafire.com/?q7nd3h3upn88puw

DeathsUncleBob recently got the raws for Volume 9 posted, so you can go pick those up from the Oppai Scans site. He's also starting two new projects, so you can go see if either of them interest you.

Monthly Dragon Age update (and possibly raws) will be out later today.

More on the Return of the Dead

I hate to post a new update for every little bit of new information that comes out, but I have been limited to speculation for the past two years. It's exciting to finally have something to report on.

As you will see in this picture, Highschool of the Dead is set to return from hiatus in the spring of 2013.

A specific date would be more comforting considering how soon this is. I guess we can be sure it won't return next month since there is no date. I think we can probably expect it to return in April or May, with an official announcement coming next month. If they delayed it until June, though, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. Perhaps I will have more information when I get this month's Dragon Age, which is on it's way to me. It should be here on Monday.

Highschool of the Dead Returning

I had planned to wait until I had more information to post about this, but I guess I might as well deliver the news since everyone else is.

It seems Highschool of the Dead is finally returning from its hiatus, which began in March 2011 after the release of Chapter 29. Both the cover of the Full Color Edition Volume 5 (below) and this month's Monthly Dragon Age announce a "restart" or "reboot" of the series. No date has been made apparent yet, so we will have to wait until the FCEs and magazines are released on the 9th to see if there is a date given.

Here is the FCE cover:

What makes me a bit nervous is the three large kanji on the band. HOTDcups tells me they translate to something like "reboot," and Google says they mean "restart." In either case, there seems to be a possibility that the series is not returning by continuing the main story, but rather with a new story or a retelling of the original. This would be a major disappointment considering where the story left off.

I personally think the series will make a full return to the original story, but we'll have to wait for more information to be certain. Hopefully I'll have something definite for you within the next few days. Stay close!

Maken-Ki! Volume 8 c41

Another chapter with Oppai Scans.

http://www.mediafire.com/?0e8i2yar97t5t5a

Now that you will be seeing three different types of releases for this series here (eventually three different versions of a single chapter), you should note the title of the posts to avoid confusion. These releases with Oppai will be titled with the volume and chapter (Volume 8 c41), whereas the new scanlations with Kiss will only have a chapter (c47). The raws will obviously have "Raw" in the title as they always have.

Some of you may have heard that news of a possible HOTD return is imminent. We'll have to wait a few days for information on the "restart" of the series. Because of the weekend, I won't get my FCEs or this month's Dragon Age until Monday or Tuesday, but I may very well have news before then. See you soon.