Ritz recently made a very long blog post where she talks a bit about the Saki live-action and answers a ton of readers' questions. This is a summary (it has nearly all the questions though). Any text in italics is mine, usually to clarify something. Everything else is a summarized translation of what Ritz says. It's quite long so most of it will go after the break.
Ritz's blog post 16.12.27
Apologies
I've been busy lately. The volume corrections, additional pages, promo materials and the manuscript deadline all piled up. I had to give priority to the volume corrections and additional materials, so the serialized chapters suffered... I'm paying for my mistakes.
For the first time in a while, the next chapter will have the full number of pages and the screentone is there too but there's a part that could not be inked. Once again I'm sorry.
The Matsue City Individual Tournament and a hint about Sakane-sensei's true intentions. More on that on the chapter notes after the picture. Enjoy: Shinohayu ch40 (Mega) Shinohayu ch40 (Mediafire)
P.S: Ritz just made a huge blog post after several months of silence. I'll write a summary soon if someone is interested.
Chapter Notes
You might remember that in chapter 29 (page 29), Sakane-sensei mentioned Ondo Girls' in Hiroshima as the only middle school in the region to have a decent coach (an externally hired coach instead of just one of the school teachers). The bridge on the first panel of page 12 is the Ondo Bridge in the city of Kure in the prefecture of Hiroshima. Take a guess to which school Sakane-sensei went during her "vacation".
At the bottom of page 6, Wakana sort of apologizes after Kokoro says her future middle school (she's still in elementary school now) has a strict ban on cell phones. This is probably a hint that Kokoro will be going to the same middle school as Wakana. So what Wakana means is probably "well, excuse me for going to such a strict school".
This is a long chapter of 42 pages where Toki's fantasies reach a new level!
High quality scans as with previous chapters provided by a kind anon.
Enjoy: Toki ch06 (Mega) Toki ch06 (Mediafire)
In a blog post of September 2014, Ritz wrote that she wanted to draw about the "Teru of two years before" at some point. Well, it seems now is the time. This is a short chapter unfortunately but I guess Ritz was busy with the release of Saki volume 16 coming up soon. At least the color pages at the beginning are nice.
Longest chapter in a while. 42 pages. It begins as a slightly silly slice of life but it turns more serious later on. Enjoy: Shinohayu ch39 (Mega) v2 Shinohayu ch39 (Mediafire) v2
EDIT v2: To avoid any misunderstandings, I changed Shino's lines at the top of page 11. The original japanese version carried a double entendre that is now lost in translation but this is closer to what Shino really meant. Sorry for the confusion.
Two new releases.
Toki ch05: Endurance. The match against Nogami Youko continues.
With HQ scans provided by a kind anon: Toki ch05_v2 (Mega) Toki ch05_v2 (Mediafire)
v2: changed Youko's line in page 154 (crushing her>crushing you).
and
Saki Biyori ch60: Kazekoshi's Story 7. This time it's a single story centered on Mihoko. Biyori ch60 (Mega) Biyori ch60 (Mediafire)
As a curiosity, the town in the very first panel (picture below) is how Yumachi looks from the air. In real life it's called Tamayu-cho Yumachi. This is where Shino, Kanna and most of the main characters live. Hayari, however, lives in the city center of Matsue, a few km to the NE (30 min by public transport).
In the year 2000, Tamayu-cho had about 6,000 hab. but then in 2005 it was absorbed and became part of the city of Matsue (200,000 hab). At the time, many other towns and villages were also merged into Matsue. Today, the limits of Matsue-shi (Matsue City) cover a much larger area than just the urban area of Matsue. That's why the Yumachi girls but also Yue and Aina who live even farther away, they all participated in the Matsue City Tournament.
Double release!
Toki Chapter 4: Pressure. Toki's first real mahjong match begins!
This release has clean HQ scans provided by a kind anon as with previous chapters. Toki ch04 (Mega) Toki ch04 (Mediafire)
More plot development. Very interesting.
Enjoy: Saki ch166 (Mega) Saki ch166 (Mediafire)
I added a few translation notes after the picture (behind a spoiler box).
Translation notes
In page 8, Fujita-pro mentions something called "kesshou league". Kesshou means "Final" as in the Final of a tournament. I translated it simply as "Final League" but I guess something like "Super League" or "Champion's League" or "League of Winners" or something like that would also be appropriate. Most likely, it's a high level tournament of some sort.
In page 10, the old woman says the surname of Saki's grandmother is アークタンデ (aa-ku-ta-n-de). This is almost certainly in reference to the Norwegian surname Arctander so I translated it as such. However, keep in mind that until Ritz writes the name in romaji, there is no way to be completely sure. The same goes for the name of the pro player mentioned by the reporter Nishida: アークタンダー (aa-ku-ta-n-daa) which I translated as Arctandar.
"Tsumogiri" is when a
player draws a tile and discards it right away. I didn't put a note
because I thought most readers already know it or can look it up
easily.
This time, I decided to leave Yuuko's "nanoyo" as it is. It doesn't
mean anything, it's just her way of ending sentences. I guess we'll see
it often during the sergeant match.
There were a couple of obvious misprints in the original japanese version of this chapter which have already been fixed in this translation. Let me point them out just in case:
In page 7, when Ryuuka mentions the 6-sou, in the original she says "9-sou". The 9-sou has nothing to do with this hand, it's clearly the 6-sou that she meant.
In the scoreboard in page 14, the point gains/losses of each player were wrong for most of them.
I was going to release this together with Saki ch165 but the raws aren't out yet. Also, for Toki ch4, the provider of HQ scans was busy this month and didn't have time to clean them. I'd prefer to use the HQ scans if possible so I'll just wait until they're ready. If there was no other choice, then eventually I could use LQ raws. That's the status at the moment, just so you all know.
In a new blog post, Ritz talks about the new school introduced in this chapter: Komosawa Middle. Since the planning stages of this manga, the 7 members of this team have followed a tortuous path inside Ritz's head, but she can't wait to introduce the remaining 5 characters. Go to Ritz's blog to see their color scheme if you like. Regarding Chihiro, Ritz says: "I'm afraid she came out looking a bit like Ako..."
Last time, Toki challenged Youko to a mahjong match but, did she really think it all the way through?
As with previous chapters, clean high-quality scans were provided by a kind anon.
Enjoy: Toki ch03 (Mega) Toki ch03 (Mediafire)
In case someone's wondering, the raws for this chapter took a week longer than usual to come out, so that's why the translation took longer as well. Also, work on Toki chapter 3 is already under way. I think it should be ready in a week or so, depending on how busy I am with other stuff.
Ritz made a new blog post a few days ago. This time she answers quite a few readers' questions. This is a summary of what she says (it's a little long so I'll put it after the break):
It seems Kyouka will finally have a few chapters named after her. Two chapters at least, since this is number 1. At the beginning of the series, we had Shino, Kanna, Hayari and Yue. Now it's Kyouka's turn.
You will also notice that the scans for this chapter look different than usual. The resolution is practically the same but the image quality is much better. This month, Big Gangan started being released as ebook (in addition to the paper edition) and I suspect the raws are from there. So that's why.
Here it is, the first chapter of the new Saki spin-off centered on the lifes of Toki and Ryuuka. This release contains only chapter 1. The good news is that a kind anon provided very clean, high-quality scans.
Just so everyone knows, work on Toki has already started but it's 2
chapters, more than 80 pages in total, and it will take a few days
before it's ready for release. In the meantime, Saki Biyori. A double chapter of related stories, Senriyama and Himematsu. Enjoy:
Shizuku's surname before this chapter was written as のづ which is usually transcribed as Nozu. Depending on the romanization system used, it can also be written as Nodu or even Nodzu. These are all correct. I use Nozu because it's by far the most common way of transcribing it. However in this chapter it's written as のつNotsu, which I assume is a mistake.
Also, Shizuku has a verbal tic of sometimes adding the word なんて nante at the end of her sentences. It has no real meaning in this context and naturally there is more than one way of translating it but I used "or something" which I think is quite close to the intended meaning.
As you probably know, the new Toki manga begins publishing next week. Assuming it has a nice story and all, Akio Translations will provide a translation for it. However, since it gets published on the same day as Shinohayu and Saki Biyori, if the raws also appear on the same day, it will have to get in line. Right now I intend to keep giving priority to Shinohayu (and of course to Saki when it applies). For the others, I'll see as I go.
Anyway on other news Ritz made a new blog post but doesn't say much, mainly talks about her usual troubles with adding ink and screentone to all pages. The chapter is nearly complete though so she didn't do so bad this time. Enjoy:
- For a couple of extra panels with Himeko and Nodoka in the most recent Saki chapter, she didn't have time to draw clothes on them so they weren't included. She'll try to put them in the volume release.
EDIT: By the way, the Saki raws just came out, so expect the translation in a couple of days.
I wrote a little explanation/analysis for the very last hand of this chapter. I think it helps understand the words and actions of some of the characters and increases the enjoyment (hopefully). I'm putting it inside spoiler tags since it obviously contains spoilers for this chapter. Please read it if you like:
The last hand of Shino vs Aina vs Sakura vs Kano
Kano is actually pretty smart. She quickly estimates that Shino's hand can't be worth more than 4500 points, which wouldn't be enough for Shino to surpass Sakura if Shino were to ron Kano. Thus Kano correctly guesses that even if she discards Shino's waiting tile, she won't get ronned. Then Kano proceeds to discard a 9-sou (which is a dangerous tile) but, just as she assumed, Shino doesn't ron her.
This however has the side effect of giving Sakura the impression that the 9-sou is a safe tile. This is in part because Sakura thinks that Shino is ready to let her win the match in order to stop Manbara Middle from getting a second victory. So, from Sakura's point of view, if that 9-sou was Shino's waiting tile, then Shino would have ron it already.
Since Sakura is not very good at hiding her emotions, her reaction to the 9-sou is quickly spotted by Aina. Then, in a stroke of luck, Aina draws a 9-sou herself (this is not shown but we can guess it by Aina's words of "I was lucky to draw a 9-sou"). Here we can assume that Aina did the same reasoning as Kano and she knows that the 9-sou could very well be Shino's waiting tile.
It would be ok for Aina to discard the 9-sou (for the same reason as Kano) but she decides to change her wait, keep the 9-sou and discard a west wind tile. She's betting on the chance that somebody else (like Sakura) will later discard another 9-sou thinking that it's a safe tile, which is exactly what happens. Even if Shino is waiting for that same tile, she'll still get the upper hand thanks to the atama hane rule.
So that's why Aina, being modest, attributes her victory to "luck". Shino on the other hand realizes that it wasn't just luck, since it took some reasoning to keep that 9-sou. But then she also realizes that she should have tried to win at her first opportunity (just as Sakura expected) to stop Manbara Middle from getting their second win. It's a sad moment for Shino but she shouldn't worry too much because this sets the stage for Shizuku and Kyouka to save the day!
This is a nice chapter but unfortunately it's not much more than a draft for most of the pages. Ritz herself said this is the chapter that was "the farthest from completion". Let's hope the next one will have more ink in it.
On another note, someone asked me if I could provide a quick summary of Ritz's blog posts with chapter releases. Sure why not, Ritz reveals interesting things to her readers sometimes and her posts are rather infrequent anyway. There was a post just a few days ago so let's begin with that one after the break:
When writing character's names in romaji, Ritz uses the western order (surname last) and I use the eastern order (surname first). There are no rules about this so
both ways are correct.
I've always used the eastern order so far and
nobody has complained so I assume most of you are fine with this but let
me know otherwise. I like using the eastern order but I wouldn't mind
using the western one if the majority wanted it that way. The only issue
with using the eastern order is that sometimes there'll be chapters
like this one where the western order is used by the author and this
introduces some inconsistency in the naming.
Shino's first official match as a middle school student is against one of the strongest players in the region: Moriwaki Aina. I hope you enjoy it.
Links: Shinohayu ch32 (Mega) Shinohayu ch32 (Mediafire)
Here's a curious fact about this chapter: a character called 藤白七実 (Fujishiro Nanami) is briefly mentioned. This is the first time this name appears in the manga. However, in the Achiga-hen anime, episode 12, about 2 minutes into the episode Sera is scrolling through a list of names on a tablet. At the very top of the list, Senriyama's highest ranked player from 2 years ago is also Fujishiro Nanami. Her rating (2629) is much higher than the other players so she must have been Senriyama's super ace and still... well, you'll see if you read the chapter.
The title for this chapter (証果, "shouka") is a very specific, very obscure Buddhist term that means "to attain a state of enlightenment as a result of your training". It's a clear reference to Shizuno. I decided it was better to just leave it untranslated and put an explanatory note. This is a different term than the common way to say "enlightenment" in Buddhism, which is 菩提 "bodhi".
The flashback scene in this chapter was already shown (for the most part) in chapters 19 and 20 of Achiga-hen.
A triple release today. One Saki chapter and two Biyori chapters. Just like last month, there were two Biyori chapters in this issue of the magazine. In exchange, there won't be a chapter on the next issue. Translation for all 3 was completed almost at the same time so I decided to release them all together.
Mega links: Saki 154 Saki Biyori 47-48
Mediafire links: Saki 154 Saki Biyori 47-48
A very complete chapter with a little bit of everything, including lots of new info, which is normal since we're at the beginning of a new arc, I guess.
After reading the chapter, if you're looking for Shizuku's first
appearance, she's in chapter 2, page 19 (page 83 of the magazine) or
Volume 1, page 101. Having Shizuku appear in an early chapter was a nice
touch I think. I don't know if Ritz/Aguri had this planned all along or
if they just took a background girl and made her into a supporting
character but I liked it anyway.
What better way to start the year than with a new Saki chapter, huh? I hope I'll be able to keep translating Saki for another year at least and I hope you'll keep reading it.
On another note, the official English translation of volume 1 of Saki was released in digital format just a few days ago. If you like Saki, consider purchasing it to support the author. Or you could also purchase the japanese version of course.
Finally, the two Biyori chapters that were in the last issue of the magazine
(yeah, there were two) will be released together in a few days. It takes longer to translate two obviously so I skipped them and did
the Saki chapter first.
Enjoy:
