Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Next Stop, The Twilight Zone!


We're always on the lookout for new series, and luckily for us, no one had picked this one up yet. This is the first chapter of Shimanami Tasogare (Shimanami Twilight) by Yuuki Kamatani of Nabari no Ou fame. It started serialization in Shogakukan's Hibana magazine last year, but even though that magazine is a monthly, this manga is serialized on a bimonthly schedule, so it only gets 6 chapters a year. That's why even though it started serialization about a year ago, it only has one volume right now (and currently, chapter 7 was released in February). The story is as follows:

After recently moving to Onomichi, Hiroshima, high school student Tasuku Kaname is thrown into despair at the possibility that he may have been outed for being gay. Convinced his life is over, his despair turns into shock when he sees a woman jump out of a window of a nearby house. Tasuku races to the house in a panic only to discover that it's a public meeting lounge owned by the woman he saw before. Tasuku comes face to face with the woman as she walks past him unharmed, but not before she implies that she had been watching him from afar. Confused, Tasuku follows her up to the top of a steep hill where she offers to briefly listen to what's on his mind. Although Tasuku doesn't go into too much detail, he later accepts her invitation to come to the lounge to meet others with similar troubles.

Also, as a note to the title, Shimanami refers to the Nishiseto Expressway, also called the Shimanami Expressway, which has an endpoint in Onomichi. Kamatani's stylistic approach and his attention to detail are definitely high points for this series. In some ways, it's similar to Akiko Higashimura's style, so please check it out if you're interested.

Shimanami Tasogare ch. 1: Mediafire, Dropbox

14 comments:

  1. Escalated fast into suicide attempt.. But it looks interesting and i'll keep an eye out for it :)

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  2. I'm really excited about this already!

    Thanks so much for translating!

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  3. Thanks for picking this up.

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  4. ahh oh my gosh thank you! looking forward to this series!

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  5. Thanks, really! It's way different than all the extremely similar and cliché manga with gay main characters.

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  6. Thanks for picking this up, it's always so nice to read queer manga by queer mangaka. I hope this gets an official English release someday, but chances seem slim.

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  7. It's nice everytime Hachimitsu picks up a new series. Thx a bunch

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  8. Interesting pick for a series! I can't wait until next chapter! :>

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  9. That was odd. I didn't dislike the chapter but something about it feels... off somehow. Like I'm missing something. I feel like I should be feeling something, but I'm not, and that's kind of bothering me.

    I'm not sure I can even form a meaningful opinion about this series with another chapter or two.

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  10. How the do you guys view the pictures? Do you use some sort of program or do you open then close each picture then move onto the next?

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    1. If you're talking when when reading a chapter, there are probably several programs available. One that's been around for a while is Mangariini at http://mangariini.skizzers.org

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  11. ah woah! i've been wanting to read this since i heard about it from a friend. great to see y'all pick it up.
    also for what it's worth kamatani is x-gender/Xジェンダー so it would probably be wisest to use "they/them" when talking about them

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  12. Will you continue "Shounen oujo" or no?

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    1. When the fifth volume comes out. It's just not worth doing it before that considering how much work each of the volumes takes.

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