Nana-Chan Scrambles! + Death Pie Volume Release

All right, this is it, we're absolutely 100% done with Death Pie now. There were a few parts of the translation that I got mixed up, so I had Kazuhiko go back and do them over again. I'll detail those changes in a bit, but first, we have for you a fun little Oneshot by Shimamoto that was included in the same volume as Death Pie! I really thought it was quite funny, though like Death Pie it left a lot of questions unanswered. A nice little short to whet your whistle while you're waiting for more Tetsuya or Akagi or whatever it is you want.

So yeah, as I said, I thought this was a funny little short, and you can find it on the mediafire separated out from the other chapters of Death Pie. It does involve some of the same elements, like a Yakuza group that has mahjong rep players, but it's clearly not a manga to be taken very seriously. Nana-Chan is looking for her father, who was taken away by some Yakuza, so she goes to a mahjong parlor to gather clues using the last piece of evidence she has, a black mahjong tile. The Yakuza there refuse to tell her up front, so she challenges them to a Mahjong match.

There were many moments in the short that made me crack up, such as how Nana gasped when the Yakuza guy riichi'd, only to show a moment later that it was because she'd won. Also, the yakuza smiling and having a good time simply because Nana had been having so much luck by doing it was really hilarious. Also, if you're going to go for one yaku and one yaku only in mahjong, it seems that Niko-Niko (Chii Toitsu) is the way to go, as it's good at both offense and defense, though still quite lacking in the defense department.

So, there were a lot of questions that were asked and never answered, like why Nana's dad was taken away, who the detective was, stuff like that. My theory is that Shimamoto left it open like that in case people wanted more, but unfortunately it didn't get popular enough to warrant any more chapters. A shame. I would've liked to see more of Nana-Chan the genki girl owning souls with her Niko-Niko.

Below the cut are the changes made in the volume release of Death Pie.

Tetsuya 6 + Volume 1 Batch

http://www.mediafire.com/?sxvxa90cfazacsr
And here we have the end of Tetsuya volume 1. It's good. The last two chapters really made this manga worth it, even if the first couple were a tad questionable.

-Spoilers-

What luck. Or not, because he gets shot in the head 2 pages later. ;_;
Ultimately, this chapters forms a clear cut ending of the arc with no real cliff hangers. Tetsuya and Kondou part ways, and the gambling parlor is closed, What next, you ask? Spoilers: nothing you haven't already seen in the anime. Hate to disappoint, but from Volume 2 onward, the manga seems to follow the anime very closely, at least for a few volumes.

Speaking of the next few volumes, if I keep going at this current pace it will take me 20 years to complete the entire manga. So I better hurry up. For all we know, apocalypse happens in December of 2012 and then we'll never get to read the whole thing!

As always, Crump and Kazu have done wonderfully, even with their busy schedules. Kazu in particular does like a million other series at the same time and often does hundreds of pages per day. Now that's dedication.

Tetsuya 5

I present to you Tetsuya chapter 5. It is now on Mediafire. Also, Here's a Batoto link

Cleaned and typeset by Crump and Kazu, respectively.

Death Pie: The Finale

Here we are, at last... the last chapter of Death Pie, and boy, is it a doozy. Explosions, Fist fighting, Sacrifice, and of course a little bit of Mahjong. This chapter is why this manga is the most action-packed, hardcore mahjong manga; what other series could blend Mahjong and Action Sequences together so seamlessly. It's been fantastic working on this, and I'm glad to have helped another mahjong manga see the light of day.

Oh, and we're not done, yet! There's still the bonus one-shot chapter (Nana-Chan the Scramble Girl) that was shoehorned into the volume, and we intend to re-release the entire volume with it, enhancing Death Pie with better translations! Thanks to our friends at HappyScans! for a great addition to the Mahjong and Shimamoto libraries!

Well, this chapter certainly did its job. Most of the plot threads got wrapped up, Tobioka accomplished his mission, and it even managed to pack a punch to the entire procedure. God Facer was in charge of the Dog Facer Foundation, which sought to sell illegal, harmful drugs to all corners of the world for massive profit. That's what Tobioka was doing with Heroin in the first chapter; it was his reward for winning the life-or-death Mahjong game, and he could have probably sold it for massive profit, as well. But Tobioka is a good guy; even though he's just a former cop, he put his life on the line to stop the Dog Facer Foundation. It was also explained that Takikawa died trying to do exactly what Tobioka succeeded in doing, but not before leaving bomb after bomb after bomb on the premises to aid the next attempt. Finally, it was explained that the mahjong tournament on the island was in fact for ownership of those acres and acres of poppy flowers, which is why so many people fought and died to get a chance at becoming as wealthy as God Facer. But the big man knew that no one could ever defeat him as long as he had them hypnotized... except Tobioka, who would have won on the very next discard if not for Matsudai and Kathy blowing the island to kingdom come. Matsudai assumes Tobioka died in the avalanche of debris, but the bloody riichi stick on Takikawa's grave might suggest otherwise...!

So while this chapter did explain a ton, there's still a lot of plot threads left hanging. How do Matsudai and Kathy know each other? Why was Kathy on the island to begin with? Who were those people in chapter 6 that explained what was going on on the island, and who was the guy who shot them up? I'm sure if this manga was a volume, or maybe even a chapter longer, we'd get all of these plot points explained. But alas, my one qualm with the series is that it simply isn't long enough. Oh well.