Saturday, October 28, 2017

Shinohayu ch50 & Ritz's blog update

Shinohayu reaches 50 chapters! as Hayari's vice-captain match continues. Also, Ritz has updated her blog. You'll find a translation below.
Shinohayu ch50 (Mega)
Shinohayu ch50 (Mediafire)
This is a spoiler for the end of the chapter and the beginning of the next, probably.
The match's winner
The chapter doesn't really reveal the winner but it should be Sachiko. In the last panel, Hayari gets her winning tile so she should win the round. She has closed tsumo, riichi, tanyao, pinfu and sanshoku. That's haneman tsumo, 6000/3000 points (Bonkohara is dealer). Enough to stop Komosawa from obtaining a 3rd victory but not enough for Hayari to win the match herself. The final score should be: Agou 36100, Mizuhara 35900, Bonkohara 35500, Aoto 12500 but let's wait on the next chapter for confirmation.
Here's a translation of Ritz's latest blog update. I skipped a few irrelevant bits, it's already long as it is.

Ritz-sensei's blog update 17.10.27
As in previous updates, words in italics are my own (Akio's) comments/clarifications.

Achiga-hen live-action
- I was shown the script but it was good, as usual, so I had almost nothing to say.

- I asked in advance to strengthen certain descriptions (of characters, events...?) that were lacking in the original work. They've also strengthened points I hadn't asked so it seems they would have done it without me asking anyway.
This probably means the beginning will not be as rushed as in the manga/anime. The main reason the early parts of the manga were a bit rushed is because of the very tight deadline for the anime adaptation. In my opinion, that was the fault of the anime production committee and not the author's.

- I'm glad they added more detail to the uniforms (embroidery, plaid...). In the manga, I had to give up on those to reduce the workload.

Answers to reader's questions
- I will write about the mother of the Matsumi sisters (her name is Tsuyuko) at some point. Currently, the sisters live with their grandmother.

- The S in the pro-mahjong cards means "special" but it doesn't mean that those players are especially strong. It's a collection of special cards of players that were popular at the time. They are all strong.

- The confrontation between Kainou-pro and Teru happened at the individual tournament.

- Officially, the Toki manga is not supposed to take place in an alternate universe but then I feel that could end up taking some freedom away from Mekimeki.
I think this means we shouldn't worry too much about some slight differences between Toki's backstory in Achiga-hen and her life in the Toki manga. For the sake of allowing Mekimeki to create a more entertaining story, some small liberties can be taken.

- Shirouzu Mairu was club president at Uryuugari middle school since her 2nd year. After she entered Shindouji but before she became club president there, Himeko still called her buchou when they were alone. At other times, she simply called her senpai or sometimes Shirouzu-senpai.

- There are regions (in Japan) where the qualification limit for the individual tournament is not 3 people.

- At the Rinkai's dormitory, meals are served at the dining hall but during holidays it's eating out or cook it yourself. At the school's main building, there is a cafeteria that's open even on weekends.

- In the Saki main story, Yaji Kanon (the Shinohayu pro who was defeated by Chihiro) has retired as a pro but she has become a member of the coaching staff at a certain school.

- Suehara Kyouko's collar ribbon is made of two connected pieces, one of them she received as a present.

Several answers about gathering data 
Here Ritz mainly talks about locations in Japan that have inspired some of the settings in her works.

Back then when my only job was drawing doujins and illustrations, I used to wander around here and there. Two places where I comfortably settled down for more than a couple of months were Naha and Matsue.
So I guess that's why Shinohayu takes place in (or near) Matsue.

I often enjoyed going on a trip to my grandfather's house in Haramura near Mount Yatsugatake in Nagano. Riding on my grandfather's Suzuki Jimny, we went shopping to the Agricultural University's market or the A-COOP.
Mura means village in Japanese so that's in fact Hara village she's talking about, but clearly that's also the origin of Nodoka's surname.

I knew about Yoshinoyama for their famous sakura trees but my first visit there was 10 years ago when I was a driver of sorts to a couple of professors that I was acquainted with. As the two professors headed to Asuka village pretending to do some fieldwork, I was left all alone at the inn. I went on a leisure stroll and I started thinking: "What if those two old lady professors get involved in some sort of strange situation like Shiori and Shimiko and are barely able to make it back alive..." I was absorbed in such cruel delusions and yet the feeling of isolation between Yoshinoyama and the foot of the mountain made me feel very comfortable. In winter, as the snow keeps falling in Yoshino...
Yoshinoyama is the village where Achiga Girls' is based. 
Shiori and Shimiko is a horror manga aimed primarily at girls.

How do I say it... I was very taken by the fact that there is a town up there at the top of the ropeway after the terminal railway station. It is something like Rondalkia. You can't appreciate that from the car, but while I was strolling around talking to the local people, all kinds of juices were flowing in my brain.
Rondalkia is a place in the Dragon Quest II videogame. In English, it's called Rhone and to reach it you have to go through the Cave to Rhone, an extremely tough dungeon, so it's a very isolated place of sorts.

If I can take break at some point, I'll try writing more answers.

END

12 comments:

  1. Why does Mizuki seem to think that she could win by declaring riichi and scoring a direct hit on Komosawa? Isn’t her hand worth only 40 fu 4 fan at most (closed sanshoku + dora + riichi)—unless she gets uradora or ippatsu, and I forget whether this tournament even has them—which is worth 8000 points, plus Hayari’s riichi stick, leading Komosawa to end the game with 33,500 points while Mizuki herself has only 24,500?

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    1. Mizuki doesn't mean to win the match, only to win this round and knock Bonkohara down from 1st place. In order to do that with a tsumo, she would need haneman or higher, which she doesn't have. So her only choice is to score a direct hit on Komosawa for more than 2400 points (the point difference between Bonkohara and Agou).

      Sorry, I should have made that clearer in the translation. I will change it now.

      Delete
    2. Done. I simply added "this round" to "I can't win this round unless I score a direct hit on Komosawa".

      The original doesn't say any more than this and leaves it up to the reader to figure it out. But the intended meaning is "I can't knock Komosawa down to 2nd place unless I score a direct hit on her therefore it's pointless for me to win this round in any other way."

      Delete
    3. It's "I can't win this hand", not "I can't win this game". She needs to hit Komosawa for 2600+ to knock her to 2nd place. A sanshoku dora1 will do, with or without riichi.

      Declaring riichi would allow her to get a direct hit with the 1p for riichi dora1 only, but she chose to bet on a damaten win with 47p instead.

      Delete
    4. That kind of vagueness is pretty common in Igarashi's mahjong scenes. For example, in the final hand of Achiga, Awai says something like

      "I can win with a tsumo either way, but riichi would let me get an ippatsu or win off of Senriyama".

      What's missing is the fact that she's waiting on 36s for chun dora2 takame ittsuu. The takame and yasume are part of that calculation. So with all the information, the line should be

      "I can tsumo the 6s either way, but if I riichi I can ippatsu tsumo the 3s, or ron the 6s from Senriyama.

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    5. I see, thanks.

      But isn’t simply knocking Komosawa off first place completely meaningless for Mizuki? Komosawa already has two wins, so for Mizuki’s school (which currently has zero wins) to advance, she needs to win this game and the last player from her school needs to win her game as well. Or am I misremembering how this team tournament works?

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    6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    7. No problem. This is how it works:
      If none of the schools have 3 wins, the school with the highest overall score is the winner (regardless of the number of wins).

      At the end of the vice-captain match, the overall scores should be:
      Komosawa 187400
      Yumachi 175000
      Himebara 62500 < Mizuki's school
      Hirefuri 55100

      Mizuki's school have it very tough but they could still win.

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  2. Thanks! Tanoshii~

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  3. tks for this wonderful translation!
    And i think that maybe Hayari can win this if she get 2-man for ura tiles (that makes her 3-man pair doras), so it would be riichi tsumo tanyao pinfu sanshoku 2 dora worth 8 han for a baiman.
    of course this one is very hard to get 'cause there are only 2 2-man left (one 2-man in the pond when Hayari declare riichi and one in Aoto's hand) but maybe...

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  4. Too bad this tournament doesn't have Ura Dora.

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