Chapter 44 is now out, on BitTorrent as well as the 4shared directory for direct downloads. This chapter completes the Yoriko's Wedding arc of the story. Next chapter up is a little less stressful -- Masahiko and Shion are stuck alone in the dark. That could have been good for Giba, but when I said "alone" I meant alone with the assistants. Not so good, hey?

( Chapter 44 synopsis )

Twenty pages complete in Chapter 44, ten to go. The true evilness of Shion's super secret plan is about to be revealed heh heh heh. Poor old Grandfather Kikuchi, he didn't know what is going to hit him until... but that would be telling, wouldn't it?

 ETA for release of chapter 44 is this weekend, maybe Sunday 17th February. I need to finish the edits, convert the images from Corel native format (.CPT) into JPG then let the whole thing sit for a day before I do a QA pass to check on spelling, layout, graphics etc. I also want to see if the word choices I've made flow properly. I have the added problem in this chapter of dialect speech here and there, making it as consistent as I can. Grandfather Kikuchi was a schoolteacher and he does try to keep his speech regular but under stress it breaks a bit, and during this chapter he's under a lot of stress...

Eleven pages lettered, about twenty or so to go. More country dialect stuff getting in the way and making things difficult but my cross-checking of the Japanese text is paying dividends -- the French word "sérieux" doesn't exactly match the Japanese word for "nervous" but that's what the original translator had decided to insert in a speech bubble.

 Later -- an interesting bit of dialect cross-translation deduction... "はて" (romaji "hate") said by Grandfather Kikuchi as he sees someone in the crowd. The French translation is "mais" which converts into the English word "but". But...

 It doesn't fit the flow of the story, quite. What would fit quite neatly into the dialogue (or rather Pops' monologue) would be "まて" (romaji "mate") as in "chotto mate" which means "hold on" or "wait". I'm betting "はて" is actually country dialect for "まて" so I'm going with "hold on a mo'" in this case to give it a dialect flavour.

 As of this evening that's nearly 15 pages complete. Back to the coal-mines for me.

Finished cleaning Chapter 44, started translating and lettering. No ETA because I always get that wrong.

*** Update *** If you are downloading releases of Family Compo from my 4shared account via your Web browser, please note that the URL link has changed and is now this.

Sorry about that.

Working on cleaning up chapter 44 raws in preparation to start punching in the English-language translations. I've got about two-thirds of the chapter done.

 I'm running into problems with these chapters set out in the countryside as the locals (like Sora's father and mother, and Kenji) speak a dialect which isn't easy to translate from the original Japanese. The available dictionary tools and my limited personal knowledge of Japanese are Tokyo-ben, a rather formal "textbook" version of Nihongo. I'm relying more than I really want to on the French translation for these chapters and I suspect the original translators didn't do too good a job. Luckily the storyline is pretty clear in this chapter even though there are a few large expository lumps of speech here and there.

 Another problem I have (in all chapters, not just these ones) is editing out kanji sound effects (background noise, laughter, door slams etc.). In this chapter particularly there are several scenes where the sound effects (SFX) cover large sections of background detail which I'm not confident of repairing properly after I erase the SFX kanji text. In these cases, as usual, I don't even bother to try to remove them. Instead I simply tag them with an English-language explanation in the margin. In other cases where removal of the SFX and repair is feasible I do go ahead and edit them out. This part of the cleaning process is probably the fiddliest bit to do well.

 This is a fun chapter, following on pretty directly from the melodramatic ending of chapter 43. Papa Kikuchi is going to find he isn't the only one in the family who can play dirty when needs must...

Day 043, the first chapter of volume 07 is now on release via BitTorrent, and through HTTP download via my 4shared account. Check the website for further details as I get everything sorted out.

So what's going on in this chapter, and why did it take me so long to finish it and ship it? Well, laziness was a major factor in the delay, plus real life and a requirement to earn money by working getting in the way of me applying myself to photo editing and translating. Mostly it was laziness though.

 Welcome to the blog of Nojay Scanlations, the one-man band (most of the time) who is currently scanlating the Japanese manga "Family Compo" by the mangaka Tsukasa Hojo.

 This blog is meant to keep people interested in the series updated on how I'm getting along with the translation, editing and releases of this series. It also allows you to comment and discuss my progress (or lack of it), the story of the Wakanaes and Giba and their friends (and enemies -- let's not forget Mister Tatsumi, shall we?) and other stuff like where to get hold of original copies of the work and why there hasn't been an anime series made from this manga (well, OK, there are some... aspects of the storyline which wouldn't exactly be safe for your Granny to watch but even so...)

 Right now I've just finished translating and editing page 11 of Day 43, the first chapter of volume 7. For those of you who don't know, Family Compo was completed by the manga artist and writer, Tsukasa Hojo in 2001 after 101 chapters (called Days) plus an epilogue and collected into 14 volumes. It was quickly translated into French by Editions Tonkam but it has never had a licenced English-language release. A couple of other scanlation groups (Omanga and Anime Empire Nisei) released the first three volumes (Days 1 through 21) and then nothing happened for a while. I took up the challenge, working from the French editions which I could get hold of via second-hand Internet sources. Later I got access to scans of the Japanese originals and finally this year after a trip to Japan I got hold of most of the Japanese Seuisha tankos which gives me the chance to practice my meagre Japanese skills while cross-checking the French texts which in some cases are a bit "off".

 My scanlations back-catalogue (currently volumes 4, 5 and 6) can be downloaded via Bittorrent or from a Web storage site via links at my home Webpages at www.nojay.org.

 More later. I hope to hear from people soon. Cheers.