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.

Okay, so if some of you got confused on what was happening over the course of the manga, I messed up a little bit on the translations, so hopefully the re-release will clarify some plot details. First, one of the unanswered questions I mentioned last time was in fact answered: Kathy was one of Takikawa's allies, that's how she knew where the bombs were planted. This was answered in a bit of dialogue in Chapter 5. As for the others, here's a list of them in order:

Chapters 2-7: Dog Facer was mentioned quite a lot, and apparently the final antagonist is actually Dog Facer, not God Facer. God Facer was just what Ron used, perhaps as a sign of respect towards his boss. But Wright and I thought God Facer was a much better name for a final antagonist, so for this release we went with God Facer every time he was mentioned. We still missed one in Chapter 2, but it wasn't really worth re-uploading the volume for.

Chapters 4 & 5: Matsudai and Ruriko call each other Brother and Sister, which led to a bit of confusion considering how Ruriko was actually Takikawa's sister, meaning that she would have to have 2 brothers or something. But after some research, I feel confident that the intention was actually to have them referring to each other as Aniki and Aneki, which are terms that Yakuza members use out of respect. They're not blood related, just part of the same Yakuza group. I believe this is also the implication for Kathy's relation to Takikawa, though she of course is not a Yakuza but a Cop. Takikawa was also a cop, so it would make sense that they would also use Aniki and Aneki to refer to each other if they were the same level of employment.

Chapter 5: God Facer is referring to all the gamblers that are coming to the island, not just Tobioka. Japanese doesn't have plurals, forgive me.

Chapter 6: I changed Opium to Opiates, since Heroin is an opiate and that's what Tobioka won back in chapter 1. Makes more sense that way.

Chapter 7: Tobioka doesn't see Juuyou as his greatest opponent, it's the other way around. Whoops. Another error not worth fixing here: Kazu spelled Juuyou with 2 J's.

Hope this re-release cleared up some doubts you may have had about the manga. Glad to have made another mahjong manga available to the english-speaking world!