Bartender Chapter 18 – The Visage of a Bar (Part 3)

All right, here’s the last part to this story.  Wanted to get this out before the weekend so you guys won’t be left hanging.

Update: Weird… can’t upload png files from my home computer.  But whatever, got it up as a jpeg

Links:

MangaHelpers

OneManga

MangaFox

Megaupload

Drink of the Day:

Moulin Rouge

  • 3 Dashes of Grenadine
  • 1/4 Apricot Brandy
  • 1/2 Lemon Juice
  • 1/4 Gordon’s Orange Gin

Thoughts (Spoiler Alert):

So the whole story is now revealed.  Minegishi is broke, but he is so mesmerized by his past that he wishes to live the same way even though he can’t financially do it.  He should be applauded for not going down any wrong paths and sticking to it to achieve his goals.  And once again, Sasakura is shown to be less-than-perfect, since his service for Minegishi was not all that suitable.  But I have to say in his defense that he was unaware of Minegishi’s condition.  If Minegishi didn’t have an illness, it would have been right to live for the future instead of dwelling on the past.  The past is sweet, no doubt, but everyone needs to let go sometime.  Saito did not tell Sasakura the whole picture, so it makes sense that Sasakura would give such a service.  Perhaps Saito intentionally hid that piece of information to teach Sasakura a lesson; to show him the reason why bartenders should not interfere.  Sasakura also commented that he may never reach the level that Saito is at, but I think he may have surpassed him already in some ways.  The moral of this chapter is two-fold.  One, we shouldn’t dwell on the past, since everyone have a future to live for.  Two, we shouldn’t throw away our past, since it signifies who we are and what we have been through.

Bartender Chapter 17 – The Visage of a Bar (Part 2)

I want to thank Dhalia for providing me with the Japanese raws for this chapter.  I was missing page 10, and it just wouldn’t be the same if I released the scanlations with a missing page.

Update: Changed Gin Tonic -> Gin & Tonic

Links:

MangaHelpers

OneManga

MangaFox

Megaupload

Drink of the Day:

Gin & Tonic

  • Lemons or Lime
  • 2 or 3 cubes of ice
  • 45 ml of Gin
  • Tonic Water

Thoughts (Spoiler Alert):

This chapter reveals the other sides of Minegishi-san and Kanako-san.  Minegishi-san appears to be a wealthy person, but is actually broke.  Kanako-san, who seems to be gorgeous and elegant, have to constantly deal with the stress she gets from her customers.  Sasakura understands the primary role of the bar and how to treat customers, as we have seen in previous chapters.  He is also very skilled at observing customers and understanding how they feel.  So I was a bit surprised that he did not see through Minegishi-san and Kanako-san.  I guess that’s why he is still going to different bars to learn, and even though he is a master at making cocktail, there are other things that can only come with experience.

The moral of this story thus far is that we can’t always judge a book by its cover.   There are many aspects of a person, or even a bar, that others do not normally see.  Sasakura provided the service of a bartender in terms of mixing and serving the drink in a manner that would have been considered excellent in most cases.  But he made the mistake of taking the customers at face value.

Need Help: Need ch.17, p.10 of Bartender

Does anyone know of  sites that have Bartender raws? I’m currently scanlating chapter 17, but as I was doing so, I found out that the Chinese scans I downloaded does not contain page 10 (p.36 of vol.3).  I’ve been to several other Chinese manga sites, and ALL of them do not have that page.  I can only assume there is only one source.

Luckily that page really isn’t all that important, but for the sake of completeness, I really really really want to find that page.  Please let me know if you have any sources or any ways of getting a scan of page 10.

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for All the Feedback on Bartender!!

I just wanted to quickly say thanks to everyone who’s supporting me on my decision to scanlate Bartender.  Initially I was worried that this manga was too mature and different for most people to accept, but I guess every manga have it’s niche.   And I also want to say sorry to those who expected me to scanlate One Outs.  It is a great manga, but I personally like Bartender more, and that’s why I wanted to scanlate it so others can enjoy it as well.  One Outs is also a great manga, so I hope I will have the chance to scanlate that once I’m all caught up with Bartender.

Again, thanks for all the support!

Bartender Chapter 16 – The Visage of a Bar (Part 1)

This is my first Bartender release.  It was a very different experience than scanlating Liar Game.  For one, the raws for Bartender were near perfect so I didn’t have to perform any clean up whatsoever (that’s why I got this chapter out so fast).  There are fewer words in general to translate so that makes things even easier.  But I noticed that it uses a lot of courteous phrases that are more common to Asian countries, which is always hard to translate to English.  Also, there were plenty of onomatopoeia, and I’m not too sure if I grasped it correctly.

Since this manga is not as popular as Liar Game, I’m not sure if OneManga, MangaFox, and other manga sites will automatically upload them or not.  Currently, it is only available on MangaHelpers.

MangaHelpers

OneManga

MangaFox

Update: I guess OneManga did add me. hahaha

Update2: and so did MangaFox :D

Psychological Manga List

In my Bartender post, Jeffry asked me what other psychological mangas are good reads.  And as I was typing a response, I soon find that this might be better as a post of it’s own, since I’m also interested in hearing some suggestions myself.  But here are some that I have read before.

1. One Outs – Many people have already mentioned this one.  It’s by the same author as Liar Games.  It focuses on the psychological aspects of baseball (although it does use tricks in other places too).  It’s a bit too exaggerated, and baseball mangas were never that interesting to me.  But it was a good read nevertheless.

2. Kurosagi - Another one that many have mentioned.  It’s a manga that focuses on cons and laws.  It’s a bit difficult to read since it involves alot of legal terms and sometimes it is hard to get the full picture.  It’s definitely not for everyone, but I can see a niche for this manga.

3. Monster - Perhaps one of the best psychological mangas out there.  Unfortunately, it was a bit too confusing for me to grasp the whole story.  The story starts with a doctor saving a child who he shouldn’t have saved, and then it involves Nazis.  Yes, it’s weird like that, but if you’re into psychological stuff, this is a must-read.

4. 20th Century Boys – By the same author as Monster.  It’s not “that” psychological; it’s more like a suspense manga.  But I have to recommend this since it’s one of my all-time favorites.  The story is engaging and interseting, albeit it gets a bit lame towards the end (felt like the story got out of hand and it became too hard to tie up all the loose ends).

5. Gamble Fish – Relatively new manga.  It’s about gambling different games, and it emphasizes how “gambling” changes the way a game is played.  It’s not that great, and the story’s wacked, but it’s interesting in it’s own way.  I don’t highly recommend this, but some may like it.

6. Doubt – A relatively short manga.  A group of kids plays a cellphone game called “Rabbit Doubt”.  In the game, there’s a wolf, who kills other players (rabbits) one by one, and the rabbits have to figure out who the wolf is (kinda like Mafia).  To no surprise, people really starts dying.

7.  Lost+Brain (thanks jimjim)– kinda like deathnote where the protagonist tries to take over the world. this time tho, through hypnotism.

8. Suicide Island (thanks jimjim) – very psychological. everyone who fails committing suicide is taken to an island where they can attempt to commit suicide over again.

9. Ikigami (thank – Raysen_ht) People are injected with a time bomb when they are born, and are randomly chosen to die. The governament knows who will be the next dead person a couple of days before, and they send an Ikigami (a note) to him/her/family saying that that person has 24h to live. Its about the choices one can make when they learn they are going to die.

That’s about all the ones I can think of off-hand that is related to psychology.  Please feel free to recommend them in the comments and I will add them to this list when I see it.

Thanks!!

Next Project: Bartender

Starting next week, I will begin to scanlate Bartender, a manga which talks about… well, bartenders and drinks.  I know some people will be disappointed that I did not go with One Outs or Kurosagi, but I have my reasons.

One Outs is a great manga, I actually already read through the whole thing in Chinese, but compared to Liar Game, it really feels unpolished and honestly baseball isn’t my forte.  Furthermore, I want to scanlate a manga that’s still on-going.

Kurosagi is also an interesting read, and it is also very psychological like Liar Game.  However, it concentrates on laws and regulations which are extremely difficult to translate.  I do not believe I have enough expertise in terms of language to do a good job.

Other considerations include Fist of the North Star (You’re already dead!) and GodHand Teru.

But in the end, I chose Bartender because it is a relaxing read.  Though the story is sometimes dramatic, and the subject is quite serious, it doesn’t take too much brainpower to understand everything.  I’ve heard comments that the author did not consult experts in the fields of bartending or alcohol, but most of the cocktails are real, and some are great to try (I tried Black Velvet and it taste pretty darn good).  It is also an on-going manga, which is a plus for me.

And to those who worry that the original scanlator will be infuriated that I took their series, I’ve already did my homework.  I went to DATS’s blog, and they are officially “dead, dead, dead”.  So this is an abandoned project, which I will pick up.

Liar Game Scanlated by Another Group

I just noticed that Watercrown scanlated chapter 98 already.  I’m not insistent on keeping this project, so if he continues to release new scans regularly, then I won’t compete.

In the meantime, I think I’ll look for another manga that interests me to scan.

Another ScanlW

Liar Game Chapter 97 – Trust

Excuse of the week: been busy at work.  Sorry for the slow release, I don’t know if I can ever get back to the same pace I had before seeing that I’m getting lazier and lazier.  I’m just hoping to stay with it at this point.

Links:

MangaHelpers

OneManga

MangaFox

MangaHut

Thoughts:

Not much happened this chapter.  Four Eyes told his side of the story, and the author tried to get us all to cry like Nao.  But no, that ain’t happening.  What we want is story development.  Thankfully, this intermission is shorter than most other mangas (e.g. One Piece).  It only lasted for about 7 pages, and we can all get back to Liar Game.  The only “logic” to discuss this chapter is Akiyama’s assessment that Four Eyes is Normal.  And I agree with what he said.  I believe the chances of him being Normal is definitely a lot higher than that of Infected, but it’s not 100%.  Also, it’s nice to know that Nao is conscientious enough to understand she’s not someone worth helping out.  I’m still hoping she will become more clever as the manga continues.  For example, in one of the later rounds, she’s the only one who can see through a certain trick because she is so innocent, etc. etc.  But it’ll be a while before that’s even possible.

So now the only question is, what can Akiyama do at this point to pull more allies?  It seems simple enough to me since they have 4 in their group now so anyone who decides to join them can instantly win.  The only reason why they would hesitate is whether Akiyama and friends are willing to do that.

Liar Game Chapter 96 – Intent

Hi Everyone, it’s been a while since my last release.  Winter break was awesome.  Took a week off, and last week no one was in office.  Went on a day trip to Vegas.  Had a great time.  Anyways, I’m back and here’s chapter 96.

Links:

MangaHelpers

OneManga

MangaFox

Thoughts:

This chapter was a pretty good read.  It was surprising to see how Yokoya used his disadvantage as an advantage.  Although the whole thing is getting so complicated that I just FEEL there must be some flaws in the logic.  But I don’t intend on looking into it.  It’s also nice to see that the author threw in some “luck” factors.  Four eyes not joining Yokoya was an event outside of what “logically” should occur.  There hasn’t been much of that lately, and it’s nice to see a few unexpected events occurring to keep things real.  All in all, I find this chapter to be more enjoyable than the others.