[Locked] [Manga] Shoujo Material

Raze · 2008-07-20T16:50:39+00:00

The first whole-tankoubon project our team will undertake, Shoujo Material by Naruko Hanaharu! Shoujo Material is a bestselling eromanga tankoubon by renowned ero-artist Naruko Hanaharu. It is a collection of several unrelated stories, and is perhaps unique in the sense that the focus of the stories included in the tanko is not only sex, but usually also involves a twist or plot. Translator: Raze, Kylaran Editor: Nikon, Conak, Conan, Mike Chapter 1: Two-Quarters A nice and short full-color chapter, involving two contrasting girls and guys in a swimsuit orgy. Doesn't make too much sense I suppose until you get to the end, but even then the twist is still rather subtle. Nikon and I released this under the pseudonym group name "Suteki", and I think only one person realized it was by us. Oh well. Chapter 2: Two-Quarters Continued Expands and concludes the previous chapter, involving the same characters. Chiaki's sexual orientation is made clear during this chapter. Takashi introduces Eri and Kazuhiko as being in a è…�ã‚Œç¸�, which is basically a relationship that has burnt itself out but is unbreakable due to necessity. Due to the limited space, I translated it as “inseparable”. Chapter 3: Forehead This is Naruko-sensei's debut ero-manga chapter. I interpreted Fujiki's obsession with foreheads and his desire to mark them with a scalpel as a metaphoric comparison to a girl's virginity. His comparison of the unmarked forehead to an undisturbed snowfield and the pleasure of leaving his mark is a twisted projection of forever leaving a mark in a girl by taking her virginity (which he did to Naoko before attempting to scar the girl’s forehead). As for the ending, I'll leave it open to interpretation. Chapter 4: Red Water The pervading theme of this chapter is that through dialysis, the blood that flows in Aya's and Kuno's bodies are one and the same, and that this blood connection allows the two to share their feelings and emotions. So Kuno, who’s unable to give Aya pleasure because he’s impotent, basically hands Aya’s first experience on a dish to the Doc (who, apparently, also happens to be in love with Aya) so that he could experience Aya's feelings of sexual pleasure through blood for the last time. Doesn’t quite click for me, but there you go. Neither do I know whether there is any real biological grounds for the conveyance of emotions through blood dialysis. Chapter 5: The Leaping Ferris Wheel The "leaping" part of the name refers to how the boyfriend can reach various gondolas instantly through that special door. è¸Šã‚‹ normally means "to dance", but under this context it assumes the meaning of èº�ã‚‹ (to leap). According to Naruko-sensei, the impetus for this chapter was the lyrics of a song by the Japanese band "the pillows". It's about a ferris wheel rumored to always cause couples who ride it to break up. Note that right after the boyfriend gets the correct gondola, he instantly forgot everything that had happened. Not quite sure about the significance of that glove at the end though; if all of this was just an illusion, what is that glove doing there in the girlfriend's gondola? Chapter 6: Scrambled Egg This one starts off weird, but is really quite touching. This chapter plays on a traditional Japanese folk tale, é¶´ã�®æ�©è¿”ã�— (Tsuru no Ongaeshi). I've briefly summarized the tale in the following spoiler box: Spoiler:One day, a poor old man finds a crane injured by an arrow on his doorstep. He takes it in and nurses it back to health, and upon recovery, the crane flies away. Soon afterwards, a beautiful young woman shows up and asks the man if she could stay for a while. After discussing it with his wife, the man agrees to let her stay. The beautiful woman took it upon herself to look after the couple in every way, doing all the housework, such as cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. The elderly couple grew to love the young woman like their daughter. Seeing how poor the elderly couple were, the young woman offers to weave for them wonderful fabric called "The Crane's Weaving" that the man can sell at the market for lots of money, on the condition that they are not to watch her weave it. The couple agree, and the woman secludes herself in a room for several days weaving the fabric, even during the night. Soon, the woman emerges with the completed fabric. The old man takes the fabric to sell at the market the next day, and gets a ton of money for it. He tells his wife about it, and the wife becomes interested in finding out why the fabric is so desirable and suggests that the husband take a peek to see how the woman weaves. The husband agrees. He peeks into where the woman should be, and instead finds a crane plucking its feathers from its body and using it to weave the fabric. Because he broke the promise, that night, the crane leaves the house and flies away, never to return. The next day, the elderly couple wake to find a letter in the woman's room saying that she was the crane the old man had saved on his doorstep, and that she could no longer stay with them anymore now that they know her true form. Kou keeps talking about how Noriko seems to constantly try to repay him for a previous debt (which is what ongaeshi means), mentioning it to her once (the fact he goes on to suggest that Noriko probably starts weaving fabric in the middle of the night is a dead giveaway). Regardless, an interesting role reversal occurs, and the chapter ends on a very emotional note. "“Kou", the guy’s name, is a pun on a Japanese word commonly used by small children meaning “rooster” (ã‚³ãƒƒã‚³). Chapter 7: U.F.O. The Japanese Crested Ibis (or "Toki") is a severely endangered species, currently subject to extensive breeding projects by China and Japan in an effort to prevent their extinction. Naruko-sensei demonstrates rather ingeniously in this chapter what it must be like for those poor ibises in the breeding programs, who are basically forced, behaviourally and biologically, to breed over and over again. Apparently, some news about Japanese Ibises came up while Naruko-sensei was drawing this chapter, and it made a deep impression on him. He also says that he chose to use the "Honneamise" language for the alien dialogue, and thus is decipherable... or should be. Chapter 8: Say Hello to Me Tomorrow This chapter is something Naruko-sensei always wanted to draw after watching “Memento” (which is a great film I highly recommend to everyone). Like the protagonist in “Memento”, Natsuko here suffers from anterograde amnesia, where all memories after a traumatic event are lost. The very nature of anterograde amnesia lends itself to some awesome plots (and really has been used quite a few times, even in anime; Kimi ga Nozomu Eien and e.f. come to mind), and this one is no exception. Chapter 9: Kura Part 1 Kura here meaning “warehouse”. I’m of the opinion that Kayoko orchestrated the bus driving off the cliff, thus extending Kousuke’s stay. Chapter 10: Kura Part 2 And so it is revealed that we have an incestuous family where the men have enormous libidos, and all the women (and lolis) in the household have been violated by the horny old geezer. Mike and I both agreed that Kayoko was pretty darn hot. To quote what I wrote in the original credits page: “Kayoko is hot. Kyouko is a loli. Harue is a slut. And Eisuke is a fag.” A pretty apt summary in my opinion. Kayoko refers to Eisuke as “Ojii-san” which is typically understood to refer to old men (as in grandfather-type old), though it can also mean uncle (older brother of one’s father). The confusing thing is, Kousuke reveals towards the end that Kayoko and Kyouko are his younger half-sisters born from a different mother (è…¹é�•ã�„ã�®å¦¹), but Kayoko and Kyouko have a niece/uncle relationship with Eisuke, AND their mother is Eisuke’s sister… you get my point. This is why incest is bad. Chapter 11: To The Coast So all you need to do to get laid with a cute big-breasted virgin girl in Japan is pretend to travel the whole of Japan by bike, get your bike broken in front of her house, comment that it looks like she’s stroking a guy’s dick when she’s milking her cows, and then offer her your dick to stroke. That, and the fact that the guy basically comes inside her one frame after he puts it in. I understand that you’re short of pages Naruko-sensei, but… less udders and more sex plox? Oh well, it was still a pretty nice chapter. Short Full Color Omake Nikon and I decided that we’d fix the Engrish on the bottom. Basically we sort of worked backwards and figured out the Japanese line the Engrish was derived from, and then translated it into English. In other words, Engrish to Japanese to English. Neither of us had any idea what “It’s cover’s” meant, so we dropped it.

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Raze

16 years ago

I'm so sorry it's been so long since anything happened to this tankoubon, but I'd just like to give you guys a status update. I've translated the next two chapters (four and five), and am halfway through chapter 6. If things go well, the whole tankoubon should be done by the end of this month. Having such a long delay on my part really is quite inexcusable considering my responsibilities, but I have been really busy outside of FAKKU.

ZeroOBK

16 years ago

No worries, no worries. But thanks for the status update!

Nikon FAKKU Old Guard

16 years ago

Raze wrote...

Life comes first. FAKKU comes later.

Badtz

16 years ago

Thank you, Raze, for all of your hard work with translating!
Thank you, Nikon, for your fantastic editing!

Shoujo material is full of win, marvelous selection for FAKKU!

serpentura

16 years ago