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Okay, well, here we are at the end of this series. I covered most of the saga that was getting this series scanlated in that earlier post where we released 10 volumes at once (https://hiwamatanoboru.com/2013/10/31/doubutsu-no-kuni-volumes-3-12/). Scanlating this volume went pretty well, we got it done from start to finish in about a month and a half.

This series is seriously awesome. There was an interview at the end of the last chapter that we also included in this release. That’s between Raiku-sensei, the author of this manga, and Isayama Hajime, author of another series running in Bessatsu Shounen Magazine, Shingeki no Kyojin (Insert your choice of Engrish translation of the title here). And it really makes you realize what a great philosophical work this is. It felt like there was a real arc to the story, it didn’t drag, and explored every theme it tackled very well. I’ve been working on it since it started in 2009, despite the fact that we went on a hiatus for a few years due to not having staff to work on it, and I honestly enjoyed every bit of it (And I collected all the color pages from the magazine, as you might’ve noticed). Spread the word! Let other people know about this series, and check out Konjiki no Gash!! if you haven’t. Raiku-sensei’s works are what got me into anime and manga in the first place. There’s a spirit to them that no other works really capture. I hope you all enjoy them. And support Raiku-sensei by buying official copies if they’re available to you! You can also thank him directly if you want: https://twitter.com/raikumakoto

I’d really like to work on Raiku-sensei’s next work if I’m able given whatever sort of situation my life is in when it starts. There was about a year and a half between when Konjiki no Gash!! ended and Doubutsu no Kuni started. Maybe this time we won’t fall 3 years behind.

Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 14 (Chapters 50-53) (End)
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Firey explosions coupled with a love story.

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This one on the other hand, went a lot more smoothly. This is the 2nd to last volume. The final volume comes out in March. Not much to say about this other than it might be my favorite volume of the series so far. Lots of action, lots of interesting plot points, and great emotion. Hope you all enjoy, everybody.

Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 13
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Okay, story time. So I’ve been working on this shit for about… 3 years. I actually made a google doc to keep track of the progress on every step of this has been. I translated volume 3 back in July of 2010. The reason this stuff took so long was a long list of reasons. Primarily, I was originally going to be working on this series as it came out in Bessatsu Shounen Magazine. But at the time we didn’t have dedicated cleaners or typesetters and I had no way of getting any, and no one volunteered so the project had to be put on hold. So I had translated up to the 2nd to last chapter of volume 4 in 2010, but then I didn’t work on it again until around when released volume 2, back in September of 2012. After that point I had a couple people that had volunteered to help, so I started putting a higher priority on getting through this series. But the problem was a lot of the time I could get like one job done but not another. The number of people who worked on this 10 volume batch is something like… 11 between just cleaning and typesetting. The reason we’re now releasing 10 volumes at once is because nothing ever got to the “completed” stage up until like… 2 and a half months ago. And at that point I decided to just say fuck it and wait to release everything at once. Because basically finding dedicated typesetters a very long time, and usually people would work on one volume or half a volume and then not come back to do more. And I’d end up waiting for weeks or months for them to finish only for them to fall out of contact with me or reply saying they were too busy to do it anymore. I was luckily enough to get a very dedicated cleaner, high8sky, who did 8 entire volumes on her own. I was looking for people to do extensive checking/editing, too, but in the end I just had one check per volume and then checked them all myself for a final run through, because that was becoming too frustrating. And I only had time for scanning and translating, which are pretty quick for this series in general. I could do a volume in a couple of days. And I’m constantly low on sleep every day, every week, trying to get weekly projects done I barely have any time to work on long-term stuff like this, so I couldn’t do typesetting or cleaning on top of that. So basically I spent a lot of time trying to find people and manage everything, then I started checking through and finalizing everything when we were getting close to the last volume being typeset, which was also a pretty rigorous process to do for 10 volumes. Buuuuuut we eventually, finally, managed to get it all done. I’m really proud we finally managed to do it, even if it took three years, we’re all caught up with the volumes of this series that’s out in Japan. This series is seriously awesome, if you haven’t read the beginning yet. And it’s by one of my favorite authors, Makoto Raiku, creator of Konjiki no Gash!!. It also won the Koudansha Manga Award this year, which is a pretty big award. The story really gets better and better as it goes along. There’s great plot about morality, personal strength and weakness, and fighting to change the ways of the world. And the characters grow and mature as it goes on.

I also hope you guys will buy official releases of this to support the author if it’s available to purchase in your region.

The manga is nearing it’s close now, and volume 13 comes out November 8th. We’ll try to do that not too long after it comes out.
I just wanna list here, thanking all the people that worked on it:

Kewl0210 – Scanning, translating, checking/finalizing
high8sky – Cleaning
zircom22 – Typesetting
Radar – Cleaning, typesetting
jagman1x3 – Typesetting
RPG_Gamer – Editing
Anonymous – Editing
Maar – Typesetting
Triggerology – Typesetting

Thanks a lot, everyone who helped out. It was really hard for me to keep going on this because I kept running into so many roadblocks and it became really frustrating at times. I’m glad we finally made it this far. And I hope everybody enjoys reading it.
I’d also like to point out, we have a donate button on the sidebar on the right. I usually don’t mention that, but I did have to buy and debind all these volumes, so that cost a bit of money. We generally get very little in donations, I’m hoping maybe I can at least get enough donations to cover the cost of that. I’ll personally thank anybody who donates. (I just noticed the donate button had disappeared at some point and I had to re-add it…)

Go read it it’s good.
It’d take a very long time to upload each individual chapter so I’m just doing volumes and I’ll make more mirrors later, it’s like midnight at the moment and doing this for entire volumes will take a while.

Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 3 (Chapter 8-10 + Ep 0)
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Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 4 (Chapter 11-14)
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Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 5 (Chapter 15-18)
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Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 6 (Chapter 19-21 + Gaiden)
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Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 7 (Chapter 22-25)
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Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 8 (Chapter 26-29)
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Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 9 (Chapter 30-33)
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Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 10 (Chapter 34-37)
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Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 11 (Chapter 38-41)
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Doubutsu no Kuni Volume 12 (Chapter 42-45)
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You can read them all online here.