Tuesday 5 June 2012

Battle Athletes Daiundoukai: Land Stage, Heat 1

At last we're underway. Would've come sooner, but real world troubles, as always. Anyway, I'm already really enjoying working on this. As some of our readers may know, we've done a lot more four-panel stuff than "regular" manga. That wasn't by design, it just sort of happened, and I have to say that it's wonderful to work on something with an actual plot and direction, instead of the typical random fritterings of Yonkoma.

The manga is divided into the "Land Stage" and "Satellite Stage". There are five chapters, or "heats", in the Land Stage comprising the first volume, and seventeen in the Satellite Stage, taking up the second through the fourth volumes. Here then is the first "heat", where Akari takes her first steps and makes some new friends.

As far as translation notes, here's a few things to know:

1. Ichino has a strong Osaka dialect. As innumerable bad localization attempts show, there's no good way of reflecting this in English. We've tried to give her dialogue the same casual, informal quality while moseyin' clear o' tha gol-durn nonsense some o' y'all might know 'bout.

2. Ling-Pha ends all of her phrases with "-aru", which in Japanese is a stereotypical way of denoting a Chinese accent or speech style.

3. Tanya's dialogue is both childish and rough. Short, simple phrases with a lot of "omae"s, "yatsu"s, and "zo" sentence enders.

Oh, and for those wondering about the raws, we've decided to release each of the four volumes as we complete them.

Enjoy, and remember - annoying as he may be, the coach is not a romantic threat. :P

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?2oo7h9x65rug7hg

13 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for making a dream come true! I look forward to all the "heats" and the yuri, of course :)

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  2. Thanks for the translation! I'm liking everything so far. :]

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  3. Thanks for this translation, bought the dvds ova and serries on DVD way back in 1999 loved the series but now the manga.
    I'm in heaven

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  4. Yay :) Many thanks! I know i'll love it before I even start since I like both the anime so much.

    Now, I must stop typing and start reading!

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  5. Congrats on completing the 1st chapter. Looking forward to the rest of the series when you have the time to work on it. Say hello to Lady Z on my behalf Crys.

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  6. Realy enjoyed reading this and seeing all the new stuff thats not in the animes :) Quality work- looking forward to the rest and seeing whats new and whats the same!

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  7. Just noticed this. On page four panel two, there is some text that I think reads "I'm the vice principal" but it's really heard to make that out, because the japanese underneath it wasn't erased.

    Also I hate the Instructor already. Not because he got into some "hilarious" ecchi misundstanding, but because a lot of what he's said is just awful. Like telling Akari that only losers get sad or lonely. Really? succesful amazing people can't feel sad or lonely, especially when they lose someone close, like a mother?

    Then he says that trying to help people is bad and you can't succeed if you do.

    Of course then he makes her run a race against one of the best runners in the school, without letting her stretch, practice or train at all, which of course ends with multiple people getting injured.

    Is this guy REALLY qualified to be an instructor?

    Love everything else so far, thanks for the release!

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  8. Ak, sorry, I forgot to remove that part. We'll add the page to chapter 2 once it's done.

    And yes, I hate the instructor, too. Ask Cryssoberyl how I name him in scripts. I never use instructor, his name can be anything from douchebag to GTFOMYMANGA.
    He's just...I don't know what he's thinking, but it sure isn't sane, or healthy. xD; Whoever taught him needs to be smacked.

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  9. uh, does the coach somehow get much more annoying later in the series? am I missing something? after reading the first chapter I can't help but judge him as a completely normal, standard-issue instructor character. in fact, I'm grateful for his inclusion, preventing this from being a nonsensical 'maiden's paradise' escapist fantasy on the same level as strawberry panic.

    it seems really very strange that an ultra-futuristic athletics-oriented culture would decide to focus exclusively on women, when men are statistically stronger, bigger, and faster.

    but hey as long as it has lesbians, I guess?

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    Replies
    1. Except it's not female-exclusive at all. The men have their own athletics programs and their own seperate University Satellite, as you'll (briefly) see later in the manga.

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    2. Anon, are you a teenager, by any chance? Your issues with women really make me think so.

      As for "maiden's paradise" - that you even write this shows that you really didn't think much before posting. Two things.

      I)Strawberry Panic is the dumbest example you could have picked. Strawberry Panic isn't a maiden's paradise, one female character is to be married to a man against her will. That you think *that* counts as "maiden's paradise" says more about you than about the manga.
      Indeed, Strawberry Panic isn't bad because it lacks male characters, it's bad because the writing is abyssmal.

      II)Stories without male characters are not inherently bad, and stories with them are not inherently good. Amber Teahouse is a good story, and would not be improved by adding a male character, sorry.

      Despite your belief, a penis present in a story doesn't automatically add value. Otherwise, my yaoi manga would be the best stories in the universe, especially the issues with hot manly orgies.

      There are several male characters in Battle Athletes that are pretty fun and add to the manga. Instructore (and, worse, Principal) are not among them.

      Thanks. And now I'll go back to watching Jormungand. Which has lots of guys. You wouldn't like it, though. You strke me as the type that'd whine that Valmet was too muscular.

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    3. I'd like to marry you for that reply Zefiris!
      That's exactley what I thought too, when I read anon's post!

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