Bloody Mary Chapter 16 + Epilogue (END)

Here it is, the conclusion of the Bloody Mary saga. And what a saga it was.

It all started when we completed the beautiful beautiful Tsubame (give it a read, it's only one thin volume of pure art), and started searching for some other color manga to do. I mean, our group name says it all, right? Well, unfortunately, color mangas with publicly available raws are few and far between, but we found the first two volumes of Bloody Mary without too many problems. The art and the story seemed nice, and although the proofreader objected, in the end the project was picked up.

The sailing was smooth for the first two volumes, but then we realized that the manga has four volumes, and no raws for v3 and v4 were too be found on the internet. Then we also realized what we paid no attention to in the beginning: this manga was long out of print, thus we could not realistically expect that someone would decide to scan it for the public all of a sudden. So that meant a) we needed someone to order and scan the raws; b) we needed someone to buy the raws (incidentally, color manga is quite a bit more expensive than regular black and white one, even though color volumes have about half the page count). The first problem resolved itself quite nicely through various connections in other groups, and we decided to solve the second one through a donation drive among the fans (some of you might remember it). To our surprise, the response was very positive and we secured the funds, at which point the scanner went to order the used volumes and... oops, no used Japanese bookseller would ship to a foreign address. Wherever we tried, the story was the same: the booksellers that had the manga in stock wouldn't ship outside the country, and the ones that would didn't have it in stock. And no, I don't know any scanners residing in Japan. What a bummer. The donations were returned and the idea was given up on.

Months passed... But the little completeness freak in the back of my head wouldn't let me mark this project as dropped. I kept complaining about this to anyone who would listen. And one day another scanner tells me that he sees used volume 4 in stock at a bookseller site he usually buys from. Of course, he can buy and scan it, but then there's the question of payment... That brought up two problems at once: 1) What the hell do I need volume 4 without volume 3 for? But if I don't get it and it disappears, and then volume 3 turns up in stock, we'll be right where we started, with no raws. The longer we wait, the less of a chance that we'll ever be able to buy volume 3 even used. 2) How do I pay? Paying in order to scanlate is a bit absurd, and PayPal wasn't an option to begin with... I can't ask fans for donations anymore, because there's no way to reach them without releases, and besides, it would look stupid to ask for donations after we already did so in the past volume. But the little completeness freak wouldn't quit, and the following deal was reached: the scanner would order volume 4 and with no money, I would have to pay for it with my body. Yes, the world of scanlation is cruel like that. Alright, I'm being a little facetious: in compensation I would translate a volume of a manga the scanner picked (which I am still doing to this day, I may add, since the release rate is somewhat slow).

After volume 4 was secured, it made the lack of volume 3 raws even more glaring. That's where I pulled out the final trump card: there is a certain site in Japan that buys whatever you need there and ships it to you for the cost + exorbitant markup and commission. And that's what we used in the end with yet another scanner to acquire volume 3. I don't even want to think about how much that one book ended up costing. Needless to say, I paid with my body yet again. So in order to bring the second half of Bloody Mary to you, my dear readers, a lot of other random manga got scanlated.

So there I was, with volumes 3 and 4, covered in scanlation debts. But I was optimistically looking forward to finally getting this project released. At that exact moment, the editor of this project (and also, the only editor in the whole group), decided to retire from scanlation. And there I was again, with volumes 3 and 4 I went through so much trouble to secure, indebted to scanners, and no editor, facing the grim prospect of looking for a new one. Why was the prospect grim? Remember, we had no editors left in the group. So we couldn't recruit a noob since there was no one to train him. The project isn't popular or well known, so it's not like experienced editors would be applying in droves. Even if someone applies, this is a color manga that requires different skills, so it's not clear they'd be able to handle it. But more importantly, as anyone in scanlation knows, the odds of an applicant staying to finish the job are quite low. Probably only one in five applicants ever do any significant amount of work. The rest quietly disappear after wasting a lot of your time. If that happened to me, then I'd be back to square one. Running around offering this project to other groups is also an iffy proposition, and it would be nice to finish it in the group it was started in. That's when I had a flash of inspiration: I remembered that there was a certain Russian group retranslating our releases. Their translator had actually left comments on our releases and that's how I tracked them down. We struck a deal: I would provide raws and translations to English, they would provide everything else including English typeset and, of course, they keep all that for their own releases. That's how our very successful partnership with Shinra Tensei Manga Team was born, which now extends beyond just Bloody Mary. This is the way a translator-only group makes releases happen. :)

Finally, I got the release archive from our partners, and was about to make the exciting announcement of the project's relaunch when I found out that there was no place where to make that announcement left: while all this was going on, the group's founder got bored with scanlation and also forgot to pay for our site and domain. The entire site was wiped out, the domain was lost, but the worst thing of all, all our old releases that were hosted on it were gone as well. Oh the annoyance... It was all the more annoying because I didn't know if it was a momentary or a permanent lapse, since the guy was off in some god-forsaken land and not responding. That's when I decided to start this blog as a replacement. Since I'm still posting on this blog, you can deduce that the lapse turned out to be quite permanent. Although I'm still too lazy to do anything in terms of design; function over form, right?

So yes, it was a long road filled with obstacles, but we're here nevertheless. The final chapter. Only the second project this group ever completed. Despite everything, this was a fun ride. I repackaged all our releases into volume bundles, so you can more conveniently download the whole manga. Or if you just want the latest chapter, it is here as well:

Bloody Mary Chapter 15

Now that the number of comments for Bloody Mary corresponds to its popularity relative to our other projects, everything is right in the world and we can release the penultimate chapter of this manga without much delay. Yes, the end is nigh.

EDIT: No one even told me I had the manga name misspelled in the post title...

Get Shibuya Wars: Episode XV - Attack of the Clones here:

Bloody Mary Chapter 14

Damn, Bloody Mary is our most popular project by download stats, but it gets so few comments... Are we being taken for granted here? Come on, let's pretend we're a community of manga fans.

Anyway, the airplane scene (the very first content page of the chapter) is probably my most favorite page in the whole manga. I don't know why, I just find it hilarious. No pathos there, no emotion, just plain old carnage.

Grab the chapter here:

Bloody Mary Chapter 13

Can Bloody Mary be considered guro? Hmm...

Anyway, we're finally... FINALLY... in the last volume of this series. Corpses keep piling up. But that's not what we like about this manga, is it?

Get your chapter here:

Bloody Mary Chapter 12

Well, I hope you haven't forgotten about Mariko. 'Cause here's another chapter, wrapping up volume 3. Four more chapters left in volume 4, and they're already translated, so it's just a matter of time. Although it might take a while if editors keep disappearing like this...

And WTF, no one cares about the Mariko video from last release? Why do you leechers insist on disappointing me?

Fine, just go ahead and leech the next chapter:

Bloody Mary Chapter 11 (plus a bonus video)

The story of the demon Mariko keeps developing, as more of Mariko's past emerges.

This seems like a good opportunity to release a song about Mariko translated and subbed by yours truly (and thanks to Masa, Ri-nee and mikkih for figuring out lines that weren't intelligible to me; thanks to Curser and Cross for advice on timing and typesetting; and thanks to georgi for proofing). Let's note that this is the first time I've subbed a video. If you don't like the lack of karaoke effect (personally, I hate karaoke), fonts, colors, animated subs, the fact that I chose to hard sub, or anything else for that matter, I can give you my .ASS file and you can do it yourself.

Also, I don't really know where to release videos like these, so I'll just give a mediafire dl link (it's only 66 MB). Feel free to upload to torrents or streaming video sites. If you do, leave a link here and I'll add it to the release post.

So, without further ado, a song about Mariko! Note: mediafire now streams video as well, but don't try to watch it online, you'll have no audio in their player.

Ah, and the chapter itself is below:

Bloody Mary Chapter 10

The bloodthirsty succubus Mary is back. But now I'm wondering, when was the last time she had a meal? Does she have to go through all this violence on an empty stomach... Hmm, now that I think about it, it's something else that gets empty for a succubus... But anyway, where does she get all that strength?

This manga as well is brought to you with the help from our international partners Shinra Tensei.

Anyway, give them hell, Mary!

Bloody Mary Chapter 9

I bet you didn't expect this one. It's been so long, right? Well, lucky for the fans of Bloody Mary, I don't like to leave the work half done. After a lot of time and hustling that involved a significant number of fellow scanlators, the pain of getting raws and finding editors, I can finally present you with the continuation of the story of Mariko, a succubus with a penchant for extreme violence.

The Near Death Experience of Colourful Abyss

So what happened here? As is customary in this scene, someone forgot to pay for the domain and our old site is now lost. I don't know if it will ever come back, so I don't really know if this blog will be only temporary for the upcoming releases, or if it will become a new permanent home for the group.  In any case, I'm not going to invest any effort into making it look nice and "professional" for now (or ever, for that matter).

To prepare for the upcoming releases, I'm going to post links for some of our recent releases (and this should give you a hint about what releases you can expect in the future).