The Road Ahead
Well, it looks like Kotonoha has survived another year. Looking back, I still can’t believe we managed to pull ourselves out of hiatus and actually got a few things done. Once again, I would like to thank everyone who lent us a helping hand during those trying days. Kotonoha would not be where it is today without your help and support. While I can’t promise that we will maintain a weekly release schedule throughout 2010, I will do my best to keep us from slipping into another long hiatus again. After all, there’s still a lot of work to be done. Our short-term goal remains unchanged: to finish our shorter projects (Hanashippanashi, Happiness, Happy-Go-Lucky Days, Ressentiment, SWWEEET, The Hour of the Mice, The Music of Marie) in a reasonable time frame and to keep making steady progress on a few of our longer ones (All-Rounder Meguru, Owari to Hajimari no Miles, Soil). Regrettably, some of our older projects will have to remain on hiatus, at least until there are more free slots in my work queue. But note this: unless a project is officially dropped we will resume work on it eventually.
As for long-term strategy, the biggest challenge for me in the upcoming months will be transforming Kotonoha’s line-up to make it even more diverse, while placing more emphasis on the “less ordinary” part. Expect a surge in titles by talented but little known artists whose works have never been translated into English before (legally or otherwise). Hirosuke Kizaki was the first of the pack and we have some more amazing artists lined up that will give Kaneko, Asano, Furuya, Kitoh and Tōme a good run for their money.
With that out of the way, let’s get down to business, by which I mean, releases. In addition to the familiar faces, we have a newcomer today: Garden by Usamaru Furuya. It’s a collection of his “indie” shorts that were published in Comic Cue, Manga Erotics and GARO respectively. The title is obviously a reference to Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, with the first story being a homage to said painting. The other stories range from absurd comedies to fantasy to horror. It’s a very eclectic mixture, but make no mistake: artistically, Garden might just be Furuya’s most accomplished work after The Music of Marie. There are simply no words to describe stories like “The Book of the Moon” and “Emi,” the former having been hailed as “one of the best comics of any kind I’ve ever read” by Adam Stephanides. Sadly, it’s also a reminder that Furuya will never be able to draw something like this again. Those of you who think Furuya has become tame in his recent projects and who yearn for the days when the guy still had some genuine “indie cred” will find Garden a treasure trove of comic gems.
Finally, since there’s no easy way to announce this, I’m going to give it to you straight: we are dropping Chokotto Sister and Hourou Musuko, for the same reason we dropped Historie. Both projects were picked up by other groups while we were on hiatus and they have been continued to the point where it no longer makes sense for us to bother with either of them again.
P.S. Yes, I know the website still needs some fixing.
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About Kotonoha
Since the group's inception in 2004, Kotonoha has established itself as the premier source of off-beat, sophisticated manga scanlations aimed at both the seinen and josei demographics. Among our most influential titles are Soil by Atsushi Kaneko, The Hour of the Mice by Kei Tōme, The Music of Marie by Usamaru Furuya, and the works from Inio Asano.
Contact: kotonoha (at) gmx (dot) net
Latest Releases
- All-Rounder Meguru v2 ch14
- The Music of Marie v2 ch12
- All-Rounder Meguru v2 ch11-13
- All-Rounder Meguru v2 ch9-10
- Garden ch1
- Soil v5 ch37-40
- The Music of Marie v2 ch11
- Memories of Emanon (complete)
- All-Rounder Meguru v1
- Soil v5 ch36
- Soil v5 ch36
- The Music of Marie v2 ch10
- The Hour of the Mice v3
- Soil v5 ch35
- Shoujo Nemu (complete)
- Soil v5 ch34
- Before Dawn and the End of the World (complete)
- Soil v5 ch33
- Owari to Hajimari no Miles ch11
- The Music of Marie v2 ch9
- Owari to Hajimari no Miles ch10
- Kaikisen (complete)
Thanks. It’s nice to see you guys up and running again.
Wow.
That’s an impressive batch of releases, and the Furuya looks mighty interesting to boot. These unknown talents you plan on bringing us have me drooling a little bit. It’s wonderful to know you continue striving to bring us original works of the highest quality.
I’m glad to hear your dropping those other projects instead of wasting your precious time on them. Thanks
Did you see that Hox did ch 8-9 of Happiness?
Yes, but we will finish this project nonetheless.
Hox real man, but quality of translations is less
Well, then, now I’ll have to check out the other groups’ releases of Hourou Musuko. This was pretty much the kinds of news I was waiting for. Hopefully they will be of acceptable quality.
I do think dropping those series to focus on projects not already extensively scanlated was the correct decision, as much as I liked your releases of Hourou Musuko. I’m really looking forward to your continuing and new projects–I love almost all of the projects you do.
My sincere thanks, you guys really did an awesome job.
great work as always, thanks
so glad you did two chapters of meguru, if you’d of left it just with chapter 9, i wouldnt of been able to contain my excitement!
Fantastic releases! Thanks for Garden especially; I recently read some more recent Furuya, and was a little disappointed with the shift away from his crazy world-building and bizarre short stories.
this is all wonderful! the new design rather pretty, though i at first i got confused by the many ways to find a project… which i’m excitedly waiting for, as i don’t do torrents. so praise on the projects has to wait until you post the http links ;P
Hey guys, I’ve just come back to your website because I didn’t think you would come back from your hiatus ^^
Great to see you back on track though! And what a delight to see new chapters released so frequently! I wish I would help you to anything, too bad uni’s getting in the way..
Anyway, best of luck to you all, it’s nice to be able to check back on this website frequently
Can’t wait until the release of the last part of Ressentiment. Never thought that story related to online game can be soooo good and amusing.
Hello, I recently discovered your group and am enjoying your eclectic releases. I was wondering if there are other similar groups. I tried googling but didn’t have much luck.
Hey I just wanted to let you know, in case this was somehow accidental or false… but after unzipping one of your releases (Nomad Soul the short story collection) my antivirus detected a backdoor trojan.
Kotonoha, I am disappointed.
When you start slinging around “indie cred”, you start sounding like a gigantic tosser. Not appreciating an artist’s recent efforts as much is fine, but when you say they lost their “cred”, what does that mean? That they’ve fallen out of your little circle of accpeted good art, and are now condemned to eternal badness? And you even go so far as “Furuya will never be able to draw something like this again.” Who the hell are you even to say that?
When you subscribe to this kind of selective mentality, you’re not open-minded at all, you’re really no different from the kids who only read the latest release from Tokyopop.
People ought to be less literal about life and more easy-going. Hey, it’s ok to be serious and firm now and again, but if one starts taking every word and analyzing the crap out of it, I doubt an “open mind” will be able to develop much further.
And to Kotonoha as a whole; you’re all doing such great work guys! I rarely have anything useful to say, but I quietly enjoy your scanlations each time I read them.
Is there any chance you guys will pick up where you left seizon life? I love that title and can’t believe you guys left us with such a cliffhanger for such a long time. I was also part of various groups so I know how it works with life and hobbies clashing together, it’s just such a good story.
Hox (or was it spore?) finished Seizon Life, if you are curious how the story ends.
Thank you! I’ll check it out. I really like Kotonoha’s releases though.
We are planning to finish “Seizon-Life,” but only after we are done with “SWWEEET” and “The Hour of the Mice.”
Thank you for the heads up, I love those stories too so I’ll have something to look forward to while waiting for Seizon.
Moar Meguru please.
There will be more this weekend.
that is good news, very good news indeed.
Keep on truckin’ my friends.
Thank you for the release
Thanks for your work
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D