Many months late, here is Act 49! And its 2003 reprint equivalent, Act 57! Since I only did one chapter, I decided to go into even more detail with the comparisons between them. Namely I noted some things that I was too lazy to do before, like noses being added and text being moved around. Someday I want to go back and add those things to the earlier chapters, but this one has absolutely everything my eyes could find. (Assuming I didn’t forget to type it up or accidentally overwrite the entry, anyway.) Every single page but the last one has some sort of difference.

It’s only a matter of hours before I would have hit that thirteen month mark again. But I wanted to see how many other things I could get done first, so I only started on this a few days ago. Living on the edge, of course. I still don’t want to make any promises, but I’ll be shocked if there isn’t another update in five weeks or so.

Well, it turns out I’m still a deadbeat after all. But even when I’m lying in a gutter addicted to Star Trek or Pokemon, I still love Dragon Ball. And thus I bring you revisions of the remaining timeline pages. I was surprised to read that I stopped at 19 in the last update, because I only started at 22 this month. I must have done 20-21 last year. Either way, I plan to quickly go over the previous pages again to check for inconsistencies, because three years is a long time. But I wanted to get this online first, since I set a deadline of April 18th, and somehow I actually made it. Even in JST!

So I don’t want to make any big promises, but as I worked on this, I was simultaneously working on something else that you could call future-proofing. It will make more sense to explain it once I get to the character bio section again, so stay tuned, I guess.

In the more immediate future (all four of them), I have some images to edit, and/or some weak attempts at text alternatives to make. I may even do newer, slightly better scans, but it’s still the same scanner I used 7-8 years ago to do the first versions, and I’m not interested in replicating the book in pristine quality. Tackling this issue is the next thing on my agenda after some other site projects, but I can’t say how soon that will be. Definitely before 2018, at least.

It’s a year late, but here is Act 47 and Act 48 at last! And their reprint equivalents, Act 55 and Act 56! And just because the series is nearly over doesn’t mean there’s any shortage of differences between them. Many dialogue changes, and countless visual tweaks such as blurry Wiseman. Only four chapters (and three side stories) remain, and I can say with certainty the next update will be less than thirteen months from now.

But my site is not the only Sailor Moon-related thing to experience considerable delays. Instead of aizouban we got kanzenban reprints after all, and as of last week the entire series and its side stories have been re-re-released. I do have all 10 so far (what the hell will 11 and 12 be?), but I’ve put off going through them thoroughly until I finish the current comparison project. Though in skimming through the kanzenban version of this update’s two chapters, they seem to be identical to the 2003 version anyway.

Things should mostly be back to normal for me now, but I don’t want to make any promises about the update schedule just yet. Especially since other projects of mine have been backlogged for all this time too.

Rei and Minako’s Public School Battle: Act 45 and Act 46 are up! Along with their reprint equivalents, Act 52, Act 53, and Act 54! I’m sure they have the least interesting set of differences in the galaxy, including a very one-sided table row. But that was the final double length chapter in the tankoubon, and that also finished the second-to-last PGSM volume, so there’s a pretty clear course to the end.

On another note, I theorized in an update months ago about a third printing of the manga, and I later found out there is indeed a third version (aizouban!) in the works. They’ve been delayed at least once, and the actual release date is still a mystery. But in turn, Kodansha has given the PGSM volumes another print run, so if you’re interested in those grab them while you can. (They were getting expensive with second-hand sellers.) As for the aizouban books, I do hope to collect them and potentially compare them to the other two versions. The comparison page badly needs to be reformatted (and split up?) anyway.

Running late again, but here’s Act 44! And its PGSM counterpart, Act 51! Plus some comparisons, featuring many small art quirks and a typo correction. And apparently “Moon Eternal Make-Up” was a one-time thing. The next chapter is double length, so there was just no time to do that along with…

Side stories! We have Ami’s battle with MelCooleyus, in both old and new formats. And we have Minako’s battle with nuns, also in both old and new formats. Along with comparisons for both chapters, of course. And that finishes the exam stories, three books later.

2013 already. I don’t know where the time goes, but I hope I find it while I’m still young and ambitious.

Well, to start, I did just update the agenda page, which gives a brief summary of my current site goals. I’ve also been brainstorming the previously mentioned layout tweaks for months, though the only part I’ve actually gotten done so far is changing a few filenames (and thus Shinken Red and long-haired me are temporarily back). January is my site anniversary month (13 years!), so if nothing else I plan to at least update the banner by the end of the month.

As for actual content, I’ll expound upon the updates to the agenda page. Right now, the Sailor Moon scripts are the highest priority, since A) I’m getting pretty close to the end, B) roughly 100 pages of comic per month is a relatively easy goal to meet, and C) staying ahead of the official releases helps ease my guilty conscience. Resuming Dragon Ball guidebook translations is right behind it, but between the recent flood of Sailor Moon double chapters and side stories, and various poor life decisions, I ended up having to put it on hold again. However, I will resume it as soon as I get through my Moon backlog, which will likely be next month.

I believe that covers the bulk of the current content and goals. But I also want to give an update on my Japanese ability. There is definitely progress, but no matter how dedicated I might be, true fluency is not something that will come easily. As far as I know, I don’t have any particular disorders or anything, though I’ve had annoying issues with concentration and short term memory since my early teens. And throughout my adult life, I’ve never been able to do anything quickly or efficiently. There are only so many hours per day, and I can be really bad at managing time, but this is definitely an attainable goal… eventually. TLDR: It’ll be a long ride.

With the new year comes the end of an arc and the beginning of a new one: Act 42 and Act 43 are up! And their PGSM counterparts, Act 49 and Act 50! I also have some comparisons of the bushes at Juuban High. Speaking of which, I plan to finally finish those exam stories by next month, along with some more Stars of course.

I’m just plain late this time, but I do have plenty to show for it: Act 40 and Act 41! Which correspond to PGSM Act 46, Act 47, and Act 48! Not to mention comparisons, which are mostly art quirks this month. And now there’s only one more dream left before we wake up from our Eternal slumber.

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.

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.