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.

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.

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.

Despite the date, this is a completely genuine update. Act 28 is done! As is the reprint version, Act 31! Also, Acts 21-23 (23-26 in the reprints) have been revised and given separate scripts. And it all has comparisons, of course. With this, the gap between the old stuff and new stuff is now gone, and everything I’ve done so far has comparisons and separate scripts.

So from now on, it will be all Death Bastards all the time (at least until the arc is over). After a whole year of doing things once a month, I want to try bumping the pace up to two Acts per month. That would still include separate scripts and comparisons, of course. So that means 29-30 (reprint 32-33) is the goal for next month. But we’ll have to see how that works out in practice.

Also, I apologize if this update breaks the RSS feed. I’ve done my best to avoid it, but I’m currently setting up a new site-wide news system and changing stuff around. You can leave comments now!

March is here, and so is Act 27! And the reprint version, Act 30! This marks the actual halfway point of the main story, which is reflected better in the PGSM structure. As for the older stuff, I now have Acts 19-20 revised and page number’d, which is more than it sounds because that’s 20-22 in the reprints. Of course there are script comparisons for all of this stuff, too. The revision/comparison gap is nearly closed now, and then I can put more time into 100% new stuff.

You may or may not have noticed that I skipped Chibi Usa Picture Diary 1 this time. (It comes after Act 19 in the old tankoubon.) I wanted to get the main story re-done ASAP, so I’m leaving the book on my desk until after the Black Moon arc is fully revised. Maybe I’ll wait and do it at the same time as Picture Diary 2, which comes after Act 33 (end of the third arc) in the old tankoubon. The reprints group all the side stories together, after all.

I’m (sort of) halfway done now, because the script for Act 26 is done! Along with the reprint version, Act 29! I forgot to do the reprint script until last night, but luckily for me there were very few changes. Also, I have revised and compared Acts 15-18 (16-19 in the reprints), which means I’m finally done cleaning up the 2006-2007 stuff. So now it’s just a matter of getting comparisons done for the rest of the 2011 stuff.

New year, new month, and new script: Act 25! As well as the reprint version, Act 28! I’ve also finished revisions of Acts 12-14 (13-15 in the reprints), and of course comparisons for all of it. The Dark Kingdom arc is done again, and the rest of the old old stuff should also be done very soon.

The day is almost over, but I do have Act 24 ready! And its reprint counterpart, Act 27! Also revisions of Acts 10-11 (10-12 in the reprints), and comparisons for both the old and new stuff. (Farewell, Street Fighter and Terminator references…) It may not sound like it, but everything combined amounts to roughly the same amount of pages as I did last month, so I guess I’m still keeping a pretty consistent pace.

It’s only taken, what, four years? But the Black Moon arc is complete with this script for double length Act 23! At least I’m consistent now. And I’ve also revised Acts 6-9, with separate scripts for each version (and of course comparisons) and some much needed clean up work. One tankoubon a month is a lot slower than I expected for this sub-project, but I think it will speed up when I get to the stuff I did in 2011.

Speaking of the revisions, one thing I didn’t mention before is that things are more colorful now. If a character has colored manga art somewhere, their name is in color. But at the same time, attack names won’t be colored anymore, because I now think it’s a little obnoxious. And I’ve also been de-Wapanizing things a little further, like removing a lot of old quirks (“GC”) and reducing the amount of in-story translation notes. Names are now written in Western order (Usagi Tsukino, Mamoru Chiba, etc.), and certain honorifics (oniisan, senpai) are now translated. I remembered it’s a plot point that they don’t know Motoki’s name at first, so that’s something you definitely can’t omit or change to his name. You can find more details about this and other stuff on the notes page.

The next act is double length in both versions, so it would certainly be a fitting/annoying start for simultaneous double script releases.

October is a relatively big month. First, here is Act 22! This is the penultimate chapter of the Black Moon arc (at least in the older books), and I’ve already made a lot of progress on the final chapter (which is double length), so yay.

Second, I’ve finally started a related sub-project that I’ve always wanted to do: separate scripts for both versions of the manga! Here’s the indexes for the old books and the new books, and another page for comparisons between them. I acquired copies of the reprints a couple months ago, but I wanted to finish the Black Moon arc before I started on them. I’m close enough now that I decided to go ahead with it anyway, but so far I’ve only managed to do up to Act 5.

With those separate scripts also comes a lot of translation revisions I’ve been meaning to do for a while, which is part of why I haven’t gotten many separate scripts done yet. I’ve also been reformatting the pages to include page numbers from the corresponding books. Act 22 doesn’t have most of these changes, and neither does what I have done of 23, but ideally everything will be updated to have all the new changes before it’s time to start the Infinity arc.