Woo! Ok we’re back again with volume 12. This is a big one. A bunch of some of the most impactful events of the series happen in this one, so I hope you enjoy it. This one gets a lot more into the nature of the economics of Japan and the Philippines back in 1990-1991 and the perspectives people had at the time. And some characters that we’ll keep seeing for a long time are introduced in this volume as well. And much like the last one it can get pretty dark at times. We’re now well into the latter half of Section Chief now and we’re going to start heading towards the endgame (of part 1) from here. And then we’ll probably start on part 2, I guess.

There’s a good chance this is the last volume of Shima we end up releasing for 2022 unless I go really fast on volume 13 which I’m probably not gonna spend my whole holidays working on. So in case we don’t, I hope you all enjoyed all the Shima we’ve brought to you this year, along with all the other manga we’ve released this year which has been quite a lot. Have a safe, happy holidays, ya’ll.

Check out my summary here of what this series is about if you haven’t seen it yet.

Also, we have a new Discord! Come hang out and talk about manga. https://discord.gg/Nw45rfJYZF

Section Chief Shima Kо̄saku Volume 12 (Ch110-120)
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Hey everybody, we’re back with volume 11. This volume took a bit longer than the last couple because we did uh… Three 3-Gatsu no Lion chapters, an Ikoku Nikki chapter, and a whole volume of DRCL in between. Which really took a lot out of me to be honest, that DRCL volume. Compared to that, translating this volume where we there’s long sections about consulting companies and foreign aid and inter-company deal making around building factories was downright easy. Anyhow I’m glad to be back on doing this series and I’m thankful to all those that helped out. A lot of these projects are mainly just me doing all or most of the jobs so it can be a bit exhausting. Like I mentioned in some of the other posts here about Shima, I dunno how long a lot of these volumes will end up taking me since there’s no limit to how fast we could potentially do these since the series is already out in Japanese. I basically need to find my own personal equilibrium where I’m making progress on this but not going so overboard that I get burnt out or I’m neglecting some other part of my life. It can be tricky at times.

I should give a warning that this story does get a bit dark at times and one of the darker events happens in this volume, so be warned. This volume also takes place entirely in the Philippines, and has a lot more story talking about what it was like there in the early 90’s and Japan’s relationship with them. Anyhow, enjoy, everyone! Tell other folks about this series if you like it, I think it’s really something unique and unlike anything else I’ve ever read. I hope we can grow the English-speaking fandom somewhat.

Check out my summary here of what this series is about if you haven’t seen it yet.

Also, we have a new Discord! Come hang out and talk about manga. https://discord.gg/Nw45rfJYZF

Section Chief Shima Kо̄saku Volume 11 (Ch99-109)
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Whew, we finally make it to the double digits. Here is Shima volume 10, everyone. After now over a year of work we’re at volume 10 of the 17 volumes of this part. Really I’m quite proud of this, it’s been tons and ton of work translating this and getting the project constantly moving. When you’re doing a big project like this where it can potentially take years and years if you don’t keep up a decent pace it can be hard to be motivated. It’s such a long journey to try to do a series this long and you need to work on it pretty regularly if you want to get it each release finished and in a releasable state at a quality level you’re proud of. And we got this done on top of Gishi Sanjinden and Ikoku Nikki this month which was a huge challenge (Go check those out if you haven’t yet, they’re great). For this I had to basically finish one task and immediately start on another for the past several weeks. It’s been exhausting.

But all that considered, we’ve finally made it to the Philippines. The Philippines arc in Section Chief goes for a pretty long time and it’s an interesting look at a totally different country with a different culture and different economic standards. This arc goes for a while and a lot happens, so I hope you all enjoy it. I feel like I keep saying “A lot happens” in every one of these posts but I guess when you release a whole volume at once that’s always the case. And generally I want people to get an idea of the story from reading it rather than me summarizing things and spoiling them too much in these posts.

And we’re now far past the mid-way point of Section Chief Shima Kōsaku, though we’re like… about an 8th of the way through the series as a whole or something. Like I said I’m not making any concrete plans about doing the whole series because that would take thousands of hours and several years but at least reaching the end of “Section Chief” is getting closer and closer and that feels pretty good after so much work, as that’s the story I really wanted to focus on getting out there. Though so long as I pace myself and don’t get burned out I’ll be okay with doing more past that point.

There’s a new 3-Gatsu no Lion chapter coming out later this week for the first time in a while, so won’t be long until then. Look forward to that. Anyhow, enjoy everyone!

Check out my summary here of what this series is about if you haven’t seen it yet.

Also, we have a new Discord! Come hang out and talk about manga. https://discord.gg/Nw45rfJYZF

Section Chief Shima Kо̄saku Volume 10 (Ch87-98)
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