The Age of Jellyfish Will Never End!

With the release of Kuragehime chapter 84, the series now comes to an end, which also includes Akiko Higashimura's final afterword with her last comments for the series. The chapter title may not be a reference to anything, since it's just the series' English title, but it could be a reference to the 2011 Japanese movie Princess Toyotomi, although there's no way to know for sure.

Seven years ago, when we picked up a little-known series called Kuragehime as one of our initial projects, we really didn't know much about scanlating, and our earliest releases back then certainly show our inexperience. For that reason, we're very thankful that Kodansha USA ultimately licensed the series and gave the series a proper release, which as of now is 3 volumes away from completion. At the time the manga was licensed in mid-2015, we had already completed 15 volumes, and since we knew at the time that the series was very close to ending anyway, we made the decision to continue it all the way to the end. However, we still would suggest buying the official volumes if you can, as they are much better quality than anything we did back then. In addition, the last volume slated for June 2018 will contain over 100 pages of additional content, so that is a must-buy for any Kuragehime fan.

Kuragehime is very much a modern classic that I feel will continue to be read and re-read for generations of manga fans, as it is a manga that is very relatable to a lot of people, even if you don't have a particular interest in the fashion industry or even gender bender manga. It's popularity in recent years is certainly a testament to that (which Higashimura even comments on in the afterword of this volume), and we hope that its staying power will continue for years to come.

Kuragehime wasn't always a particularly easy series to work on, but over time, it actually got easier as we got more experienced. There were a lot of things we loved about the series, and of course a few things that were kind of annoying, but the uniqueness of the characters, art and storytelling made it one of the best projects we worked on. Back when we picked it up, there were only 5 volumes out, with the sixth volume coming out only a month later while the anime was still airing. We really could never have imagined at the time that the series would eventually balloon to 17 volumes totaling 2,919 pages, but it was worth it buying all 17 volumes. So Kuragehime had a really good run, and even though we would have loved to have seen what happens after the final chapter, we're glad that we got a chance to see it all the way to the end.

Like Higashimura says at the end, Kuragehime went by in a flash, but it will always be a series we think back on, re-read, and overall feel grateful to Higashimura for creating it in the first place, and we hope you feel the same way. There may never be another series quite like Kuragehime, but we look forward to see what Higashimura does in the future, especially since she hasn't started a new manga in a couple of years, so we're thinking she'll probably do a new series next year now that Kuraghime (and her other manga Tokyo Tarareba Musume) is now finished.

Farewell Kuragehime! We'll never forget you!

Kuragehime ch. 84: Mediafire, Dropbox