Act 39 (44-45)

November 2nd, 2012

Saturn Ready: Act 39 is up! Along with its reprint counterparts, Act 44 and Act 45! And some comparisons, of course, which don’t include fixing the mirror name error. I was hoping to do the next chapter too, but that didn’t happen. Double length or not, I didn’t want to get stuck at an odd number again, so I’ll have to find a way to rectify it.

I did upload all of this yesterday, for the usual first of the month, but I didn’t get a chance to write up the news post until now. Mainly because I wanted to summarize this Takeuchi anecdote, which doesn’t really fit on the comparisons page. Basically: the first half of BSSM 39/PGSM 44 was a lot different when it ran Nakayoshi. Her editor complained that it didn’t include Usagi or resolve the Minako situation, so she added those things at the expense of Haruka, et al. But come the tankoubon release, she took the opportunity to expand the chapter and make it closer to her original vision. It’s not exactly clear what was added or changed, other than a different, less relevant Yeats poem (“Symbols”…?) being used in the Nakayoshi version. But whatever they were, most of these changes apparently persist in the PGSM reprints, since there aren’t any drastic differences from the old tankoubon.

Acts 37-38 (42-43), Exam 1

October 1st, 2012

Jupiter Ready: Act 37 and Act 38 are up! And their reprint versions, Act 42 and Act 43! Plus some comparisons, with far more dialogue changes than I ever expected to find this late in the series.

And you can have a little more Makoto with the first Exam War chapter! With its reprint version, of course, and some comparisons. I did the bulk of this last month, but didn’t quite make the deadline. And I don’t know when I’ll get to do the other exams, since there are a lot of double-length chapters coming up. I guess I’ll be spending the next couple months having my own introspective battle against time monsters.

Daizenshuu 7 Poster Revised

September 15th, 2012

I had planned on using that headline as a joke, but then things happened, and getting even the poster done seemed questionable. But it has indeed been revised, along with Toriyama’s message, the table of contents, and the first few pages of the timeline. The last revised page is 19, as conveniently marked by the last horizontal ruler on the webpage. I kept falling asleep working on page 18, probably because the official companies have made me grow tired of Saiyan history.

As far as Dragon Ball webmasters go, I feel like a deadbeat dad. But I’m trying to clean myself up, and I’ve gone back to work now. Even if it’s only a few pages a month, I’ll give you kids as much support as I can. Odds are I’ll at least finish the timeline and re-do some of the images next month, but I’m still trying to get back on my feet and re-discover the best way to hold this giant book at my desk.

Act 36 (41), Casablanca, Chibi Usa 2

September 1st, 2012

Mars Ready: Act 36 is up! Along with its PGSM version, Act 41, and the differences between them.

But if that’s not enough Rei for you, I’ve also got a script for Casablanca Memory! This is a side story that takes place during the first arc, but was published during the second arc, compiled into a tankoubon between the third and fourth arcs, and of course the PGSM version was released after the fifth arc. And here’s looking at some comparisons.

Also, the second Chibi Usa Picture Diary! And its PGSM counterpart, though I think this might be the first chapter I’ve done with no real dialogue changes. And this finishes up old books 10, 11, and 12. Next month will probably include at least some of the side stories from 13, but not at the expense of doing two normal chapters.

DB 21-29, Shen Long Newswire 7

August 15th, 2012

At long last, I bring you the anime version of the 21st Budoukai. One of the main reasons for the delay is that I was timing myself, in the hopes of figuring out a reasonable pace to update regularly. And while I did figure out what a reasonable pace would be, I also realized I can’t justify the time required for it right now.

As you may have read elsewhere on the site, one of my biggest priorities right now is improving my Japanese. While reading and watching raw Dragon Ball is helpful toward that goal, all the writing and analyzing in English I do on the summary pages kind of eclipses all that. This doesn’t mean the project is dead; it just remains on the backburner. Which brings me to the other half of this update.

After all of the above happened, I realized it’s finally time to resume my guidebook translation project. Starting with something new to the site: Shen Long Newswire #7. I actually had the bulk of this done in 2008, but editing images for it (which I didn’t even use now) was extremely tedious, and then the whole guidebook project fell into the cracks before I ever got back to it. Although I’m still not perfect, I have improved considerably since 2008, so this is much better than anything you would’ve gotten back then anyway. I ended up revising and/or correcting pretty much every line (aside from the interview, which I revised last year, so I barely touched it this time).

On that note, before I start on any new pages or sections, I really, really, really need to re-do the stuff I did before. I have no idea how long that will take, but the rough plan is to update monthly with however much I can. So this time I’ll be timing myself more publicly, and we can figure out a reasonable pace together, I guess. So expect something or other (“Daizenshuu 7 Poster Revised!”) around September 15th.

And with this update, I can finally implement the new site news blog into the Dragon Ball section, so you can leave comments and whatnot. If not for the semi-urgency of getting that implemented, I probably would’ve waited until I had all my old guidebook stuff revised.

Act 35 (40), Princess Kaguya

August 1st, 2012

Time for some Fish Eye fun with Act 35! And its reprint counterpart, Act 40! With comparisons between them, of course. But I only had time for one main story act because I also did a really, really long side story. Next month I’ll probably even it out with 36 and some shorter side stories, and then go back to normal.

That really, really long side story is of course Princess Kaguya’s Lover! And its reprint version. Plus comparisons, too, full of many minor art changes, and yet the disguise pen incantation was left alone (!?). After last month, I’m stuck going slightly out of order with the old tankoubon, and these 130 or so wordy pages (science! medicine!) were one of the biggest hurdles to fixing that.

Also, how about that new anime? I’ve noticed the PGSM books seem to be going out of print in Japan, and the same thing happened a decade ago with the original tankoubon. But then we got new cover reprints as a tie-in with the live-action series, so maybe we’ll get a third version as a tie-in with the new anime. I sure wouldn’t mind a kanzenban style release, with better paper and ALL the color pages.

Acts 33-34 (36-39)

July 1st, 2012

Let’s bring the third arc to a close with Act 33! And its reprint counterparts, Act 36, Act 37 and Act 38! Plus comparisons for all that infinitely infinite stuff.

I had wanted to do some more side stories before starting the Dream arc, but I got a big surprise as I was doing comparisons. That is, PGSM 38 had a bunch of extra pages about eclipses and stuff. Which kind of forced me to do Act 34, too! And reprint Act 39 to correspond to the remaining pages. So now we’re in the fourth arc a little sooner than I expected, but I guess that beats being stuck in the second arc for 4 years.

Acts 31-32 (34-35), Chibi Usa 1 Revised

June 1st, 2012

Busters Ready Go! This month we have both labyrinth chapters (but no Bowie): Act 31 and Act 32! Plus their 21st Century counterparts, Act 34 and Act 35! And some comparisons between all of them, of course, with much less atashi/watashi nonsense this time.

Also! I’ve finally revised, compared, and PGSM-ized Chibi Usa Picture Diary 1! Now the revision project is really REALLY complete. But it turns out redoing 25 pages on a whim at the last minute is a bad idea, because every problem will happen.

Anyway… The old tankoubon are still my primary source, which means there’s only one Infinity chapter left. It’s triple size, but I do plan to do the whole thing in one go. I guess it will be a warm-up for potentially doing both a double size and normal act in the same month, or the super long Kaguya side story.

Acts 29-30 (32-33)

May 1st, 2012

First attempt at a double is a success, because both Act 29 and Act 30 are up! Also their reprint versions, Act 32 and Act 33! I guess it’s not a huge surprise, because I’ve done double-length chapters before, but time is a precious commodity. And there are comparisons for both of them, but there are surprisingly few changes considering the amount of exposition in these two chapters. There were a lot of minor atashi/watashi changes, but not nearly as many as there could have been.

I did break one minor thing with the RSS feed last month, and fixing it might cause a double post, so apologies if so. This should be the last of all that.

General Foolishness

April 21st, 2012

On April Fools (Fool’s? Fools’?) Day, people usually like to play pranks on others. But I prefer to just poke fun at myself. So the joke this year was that I didn’t have any jokes ready in time. Yeah, let’s go with that.

Actually, I did have the usual Sailor Moon update on the 1st, and with it came the subtle debut of the new on-site news blog. That’s something I’ve been meaning to do for months, but I put off setting it up for various foolish reasons. This means that you can now comment on Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon updates, and the general status updates can be commented on locally. But the journal will still serve as an off-site mirror for news, in case of potential problems. I’ll likely do the same with other, more relevant social sites in the near future. I think the site Twitter is going fairly well, but does anyone have any particular requests for other social sites I should use?

This hasn’t been directly implemented into the Dragon Ball section yet, mostly because I wanted to save it for the next update, since it also involves redoing RSS stuff. And the next update might be a while, because there’s something I want to try. If it works, it will be super awesome.

But as for general stuff, I really want to tweak the layout, partly because everyone has fancy little phones with internet now. And along with that, I’d like to make the banner look a little more professional. But that’s all low priority while I focus on content. On that note, I think the agenda page is way out of date, so I should fix that soon.

Oh, and if you’re curious about the Japanese thing: it’s going well, but I still have a lot of work to do. Ideally, I’ll have something nice to show for it in the next few months.