Enjoy!

• Girlfriend V4 Ch17
• Kiichi!! V1 Ch3
• Milk Closet V4 Ch20 (End)
• Shigurui V1 Ch4
• SWWEEET V1 Bonus
• What a Wonderful World V2 Ch10-11

Update: Thanks for everybody who applied. We have all three projects covered and hope to have the first releases out soon.

Kotonoha is looking for Japanese-English translators to help us revive some of our stalled projects. They were previously translated by me until I became too busy to handle everything (scanning, translating, editing) at once. Instead of keeping fans of these series waiting any longer, I thought I should try to find someone who could take one or two projects off my hands. Those are great manga with a built-in audience so you are guaranteed to win some fans who will appreciate your work.

The projects in question are:

• Flower Cookies by Hisae Iwaoka
• The Hour of the Mice by Kei Tōme
• Soil by Atsushi Kaneko

Since those are seinen manga, they contain no furigana. BUT we have text transcripts for all of them so you really don’t need to worry about not knowing enough kanji. Nevertheless, we would prefer someone with above-average Japanese skill.

To apply for the translator’s position, please send a mail to kotonoha@gmx.net. If possible, please include the following information:

+ Your nickname
+ Your contact info (E-Mail, IRC, AIM, ICQ etc.)
+ How proficient you are
+ Which series you are interested in
+ How much time you can spend on translating each week (we don’t have any strict deadline, but it’d be great if you could at least translate one chapter per month)

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I have been swamped with work and didn’t feel like writing up anything meaningful. But that doesn’t mean everybody at Kotonoha has only been sitting around doing nothing, as today’s releases should prove.

• Hourou Musuko Volume 3 Chapter 18-19
  I know some of you have been anticipating this. And you shall not be disappointed. The third volume of Hourou Musuko is another step up from the previous one, offering great plot and character development and some of the most moving scenes in the entire series. There’ll be drama. There’ll be tears. There’ll be new interesting characters popping up left and right. More importantly, we’re committed to release this project more regularly than we did in the past, so HM fans just sit back and enjoy the story.
• Chokotto Sister Volume 5 Chapter 41
  Not only does the final chapter of volume 5 wrap up the “Mew Mew Dance” story arc nicely, it also gives us interesting (and surprising) insights into Makoto’s character.
• SWWEEET Volume 1 Chapter 6
  Poor Susumu. He ends up in bed with Sakura again. But who’s the new character that pops up at the end of the chapter? Could he be the one with the key to unlock the mystery surrounding Tsutomu’s disappearance?

Finally, in case you haven’t done it yet, I urge you to check out our two latest projects: Ressentiment (Joint with Mangascreener) and Kiichi!! The latter one had been on our To-Do list for so long that I’m really glad we managed to pull it off. I don’t want to go on a rant about how awesome this manga is just yet, as it’ll take at least one and a half volumes to show you why Kiichi!! is one of the smartest and most innovative titles in Kotonoha’s line-up. For now, just believe me when I say this is a book that will leave nobody cold.

P.S. The official site for the upcoming Shigurui TV anime series just released a new trailer with scenes from the first episode. Check it out. The series will premier on July 19th. Hopefully we’ll have finished the first volume by then.

Inio Asano once said in an interview: “The world is not wonderful, but we have to think it is.” I agree with him. After all, what other choice do we have?

With this in mind, we’d like to offer you the final chapter of What a Wonderful World volume 1 and a new chapter of Chokotto Sister to help cheer you up. Swing by our IRC channel and get them from our lovely bot Chokotto (who’s looking for a friend in case anyone’s interested in donating one).

Update: Both files are now available on BT and HTTP.

And that should be enough Inio Asano for a while. Next time, get ready for more Shigurui, Chokotto Sister and the long overdue final chapter of Milk Closet.

Believe it or not, but according to the database of Manganews, today’s release is our 400th one. That may not seem much, but for a small group like Kotonoha that basically started out with nothing, I think it’s a reason to celebrate. I would like to thank all our hard-working staff members and everybody who has supported us (directly and indirectly) so far. There are still tons of fascinating and unique manga out there that remain unscanlated. I hope we’ll be here long enough to introduce you to a few more of them (one candidate is waiting just around the corner). In the meantime, enjoy the 8th chapter of What a Wonderful World.