Discommunication Seireihen chapter 17 (draft)

Seireihen is done... kinda. I would rather not do this, but given that I don't have a whole lot of time on my hands, I'm releasing an incomplete version. Incomplete by my standards, that is — no translated scribbles, no notes, no omake/preview. If you're dying to know how the story turns out (which isn't really the point here, as it's been one long MacGuffin chase) this is the denouement you've been looking for.

The full treatment will be coming sometime in the future, along with probably some v2's.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 16

Whew, it's the penultimate chapter. This chapter is relatively light on trippy imagery, but it manages to be disturbing in other ways...

In other news, Maigo has picked up Yume Tsukai. I am slightly disappointed that they did not touch the scribbles, though.

I will wrap Seireihen up by the end of May. I am also planning a re-spin of chapter 1, which is mostly finished. Besides that, I want to go through and perhaps change some wordings, turn quotation marks into bolding, etc. Also, let me know about typos, and broken links in the Notes. And though I doubt anybody is checking my translation, please let me know if I've made any mistakes in that department.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 15

Last one for a while.

Edit: As pointed out in the comments, I made a mistake on the title page. You can get the updated title page here, and I'm in the process of updating files. Funny thing is, today I started reading Andrew MacGregor Marshall's Cablegate-based writings on Thailand, Thailand's Moment of Truth, and lo and behold there's a brief bit on the microcosmos/macrocosmos business.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 14

I had expected this volume to be more action-oriented, but aside from this chapter it's words words words.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 13

We're finally at the last volume... Right now all I can think is how much a pain in the ass the inside cover was.

I was originally going to try for 3 chapters. You're getting just one, but the next two are 90% done, so hang tight for a week or two.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 12

Hokay, done with volume two, finally. Writing those notes always takes longer than I anticipate.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 11

It might seem like this is the end of the background material, but nope.

Obligatory.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 10

Well, just one chapter this time. I found it mildly unsettling, if not disturbing; that's Ueshiba's stock in trade, really.

I'm going to be busy for the next month or so. Have a happy Festivus and we'll continue this next year.

Discommunication Seireihen chapters 4-9

I'd forgotten how long it takes to compile those notes. It's a fairly straightforward task, but somehow all that copy/pasting URLs and ahref-ing gets old real fast. But it was fun tracking down references, watching weird commercials, and learning more about the tokusatsu shows the author is so fond of. Ueshiba is not shy about letting his influences show, and as a Westerner, establishing this series' place in the wider schema of Modern Visual Culture is a fascinating exercise. While youtube is an easy place to start, so far I've tracked down the DVD of the Teito Monotagari anime (Doomed Megalopolis) and I'm looking forward to getting Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Summer of the Ubume.

This is the first summer in a while where I've been completely free; no obligations, no job, no nothing. While I haven't gotten as much done as I would like, I guess I've managed to make some progress. The semester is approaching, though, and I need to get ready for it. I can't keep up this pace forever, but I have managed to streamline my process somewhat, so this project will get wrapped up sooner or later.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 3

It feels like I've been working on this chapter for a long, long time. And indeed, it's been over half a year since chapter 2 was released.

I discovered that the burn/dodge tool is really good at getting rid of JPEG noise. Now, when I started this gig, image quality wasn't my highest priority, but I'm the sort of guy who has the bad habit of wanting to do the best job he possibly can. Even with the right tools, cleaning still takes a considerable amount of time, though, which is why I need to suppress the unhealthy urge to make things as perfect as possible. For this release I used 4-bit PNG, which cuts down the filesize quite a bit. If you have a good monitor you may see some unevenness in the blacks; that's the sort of thing that I've decided I don't have the time to spend fixing. And though the internet's tubes are getting wider every day, going from 20 MB to 8 MB is a big difference.

The other thing is, I've been trying to make this less of a procrastination activity and more of a leisure-time activity. Thanks to /sci/ and /lit/, I've already fallen behind this semester. In a few weeks, though, I should be caught up. KnI and a few other interesting things are in the pipeline.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 1

Too tired at the moment to write anything meaningful. Will try again tomorrow.

(edit)

It took forever, but it's finally here: the first chapter of Discommunication Seireihen. I've been curious about Riichi Ueshiba's works ever since reading the mind-blowingness of Yume Tsukai, and where better to start than the preceding series? I was originally going to say more here, but writing the notes depleted my word supply, so I'll just opine that Seireihen is plenty crazy, but not quite as disturbing as the first arc of Yume Tsukai.

It's kinda ridiculous, but it's been nearly a year to the day I started this effort. Several things got in the way. The biggest obstacle: learning enough Japanese. Smaller things: distractions. Somehow I ended up deciding to scanlate a chapter of Railgun, which was a rather painful adventure with WWWJDIC. (WWWJDIC > sliced bread.) And then I spent a lot of time on a chapter of Sing Yesterday For Me -- got it to around 75% done at the beginning of February, but then I had to go on a business trip. When I got back, NCIS had beaten me to the punch. Sigh. But they're a good group and they'll release faster than I ever could. Anyway, real life has been kicking my ass since February, and it's only recently that I've been able to use my free time effectively.

Chapter 2 will be along in a few weeks, unless I decide to work on another distraction.