Desert Punk 55

Tishare | 2shared | Batoto

Many thanks to Ikkyusan for providing French scans and proofreading, Machete for translating and shhryr for his amazing cleaning job. I would especially like to thank shhryr who has cleaned the chapters without receiving any guarantee that his work won't be in vain. If not for him this chapter wouldn't be released as soon as this.

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And here are previous volumes:

Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Vol. 3 | Vol. 4 | Vol. 5 | Vol. 6 | Vol. 7 | Vol. 8 | Vol. 9

Claymore 143 & Age of Decadence

Tishare | 2shared | Thank Gernot | Batoto

 

Sorry it took so long but as I've said several months ago I have much less free time than before and I don't have anyone to help me. That also means that chapter 145 will come out much later than usual (assuming Gernot will translate it of course). Age of Decadence coming out didn't help either since I've spent every minute of my free time playing this awesome game. It's a low-fantasy, post-apocalyptic cRPG that should appeal to anyone who liked (in my case: loved and loves) Fallout (or likes Desert Punk, characters here resemble the ones from Desert Punk).

And no, no one is paying me for this advertisement, in fact it's the opposite. I've pre-ordered it about a year ago (paying over 30 euro) because I've enjoyed demo more than any full game that came out in the last 9 years and I think it deserves to be noted (for the same reason I'm working on a Desert Punk, awesome manga that only few people heard about). So if like me, you appreciate good, intelligent writing, interesting plot twists and a challenge that requires you to use your brain I highly recommend this title. You can but it on Steam or better - via BMT micro which gives its developers more money and you still get a Steam key (once you post on their forums and request for it). Be advised though that it's an early access (about 2/3 of the game) but it's still about as long as Fallout New Vegas. To see all content though you need to play different classes and try different characters. To every quest there are multiple solutions and every guild has unique content. Believe it or not but with my previous playthroughs I've already spent over 100 hours on it and I'm still not bored.

Anyway, below you will find my opinion that I've posted on RPG Codex:

It is one of the best RPGs I've ever played and I'm enjoying it very much even on my crappy machine (which doesn't even meet the minimal requirements that are on Steam :D). Teron itself (so a free demo) is easily worth 25$ but with Maadoran it's a bargain. What I like the most in AoD:

    1) Story being presented from different perspectives and different POVs. I don't remember anything like it in any other game which raises its value even further. Something fresh for a change instead of another "chosen one rescuing the world and fighing the dragons". I think it would appeal to all A Song of Ice and Fire saga (hopefully someone will tweet it to them :P). Sadly, many people will probably rage quit before they even notice that (or might be too stupid to notice that).

    2) Combat. It actually is enjoyable and makes me want to fight instead of mindlessly left clicking on everything that moves (or sends something that moves). The challenge makes it rewarding once you win whereas in Fallout 1/2 you could have defeated almost anyone with shitty stats and quick-save->quick-load strategy since even with 0% chance of hitting you could have done a critical hit (on the other hand you could have missed a target from point blank range when using a machine gun and having 95% chance of success). In AoD there isn't a universal strategy for every fight. E.g. when fighting a fast and agile opponent that had very high dodge stats using a smaller but faster weapon was more wise (as it should be). You would never hit him with a big hammer but you would hit him with a small one and since he was so agile thanks to practically no armour it was enough to defeat him. The same goes for spears - for the most time they are a superb weapon because of it's unique properties but there are fights where you're at a disadvantage (closed spaces for example). There are ways to overcome this but it's not like you can have only one weapon (like turbo plasma rifle in Fallout) and defeat every opponent with that.
     
3) Replayability and  Choices and Consequences. They actually do matter and you can never do every quest in every possible way without replaying the game. And that is a good thing IMO. In Fallout New Vegas for example I did practically every quest there was, investing in speech at first since I knew that I could open safes or hack into computers later. For some reason no one would do it before me. Well, not in AoD. If you won't do quests in Teron someone else will and you can't go back for them. Which makes sense and which makes me want to replay the game. I don't want to replay F:NV though since I've done everything there was to be done and walking for hours was tedious (BTW, that's why I like teleporting, although I won't make a point about it).
    Anyway, it's really well written and it's not as unforgiving as some may think. In Maadoran for example I chose to be a stupid brute (read: mercenary) that worked for Thieves Guild. As it turned out [spoiler]because I've invested too many points in combat and not enough in lock picking/disguise and other thief skills (since I assumed I was a muscle for them, not Arsene Lupin) I couldn't do much at the end of Maadoran when Levir - the leader of the T guild there - asked me to. But that didn't ruin that much since I still had the option to go to Ganezzar. I expected to be executed or something like that but it wasn't the case (which again shows that writer actually thought what he was writing, trying to kill a killing machine wouldn't be the smartest move and in all honesty he had nothing to gain from that but a thing or two to lose).[/spoiler] I haven't tried all the options available yet so I might be able to see a different outcome but my point is: you don't have to repeat the game from the start to enjoy it. The game despite being difficult, still gives a player a certain margin of error, big enough to not be frustrating.

There are more pros (and I should write more on C&C) but I don't have the time right now to write about them. I prefer to play the game a few more times (read 10 at least :P). Once I do I'll write something more. As for cons, besides camera being a bit clunky I have none. And even that isn't that bad once you learn to use middle mouse button (which sometimes doesn't work for some reason and I have to use ctrl+mouse button).

Claymore 144

Tishare | Batoto | Thank Gernot

I don't have time right now. In case there will be any bigger mistakes I'll correct them later (~24 hours from now).

Desert Punk - chapter 54 (vol. 9 complete)

Tishare | 2shared | Batoto

 

Told you it would take long. And unfortunately next chapters may take even longer to scanlate (assuming they will be translated). So if you like this manga you could advertise it to other people and maybe you would find someone willing to spend some time on translating this awesome manga. There are some volunteers willing to typeset/clean but they will have no work to do without English text available to be put into bubbles. Also, if you live in France you could buy volumes 10-13 of the manga and maybe it would be easier to find someone who knows French (currently it is being translated from French, so it's a translation of a translation, hence some things are untranslated or there are distortions). I'm not sure how long it will take Ikkyusan to scanlate his volumes, I've asked him about it a long time ago and by the looks of it he doesn't have time to do so. BTW, this chapter ends 9th volume (which was much shorter than usual) but I won't make a batch file yet since there is a chance that bonus pages will be translated.

As for Claymore, since Waychanger is doing such a good job Gernot has decided to not translate it anymore (at least for now). And by the looks of it no one even cares, otherwise there would be some questions  either here or on Mangahelpers. He's made two corrections though which you can read here.

P.S.
If someone who knows French would be willing to translate 'bonus pages' (the ones with guns) and character summaries I could include them in volume 9. If anyone's interested I can send these pages to him/her.

Desert Punk - chapter 53

Tishare | 2shared | Batoto

The beginning of what seems to be a very interesting arc. Unfortunately chapters will come out less often from now, especially after volume 9 is finished. So if anyone would like to help with cleaning or typesetting you can contact me at mangahelpers. Japanese->English translator would be also great but the chances of our groups getting one (who would be interested in DP) are close to zero ;P.

Desert Punk - chapter 52

Tishare | 2shared | Batoto

Next chapter really good stuff begins so you have something to look forward to, believe me :]. This arc was so-so IMO since I didn't particularly like the revelation about Taro and such strange plot-twist. If not for the first chapter of Desert Punk and introduction of a similar case I would probably be upset even that something like this was added but all in all I liked it, not as much as previous chapters though. The most interesting part of this arc was getting some info about Kanta, other than that it was nothing special (for Desert Punk standards, it's still way better than even the best chapters of most manga I know).

Desert Punk - chapters 50-51

Chapter 50

Tishare | 2shared | Batoto

Chapter 51

Tishare | 2shared | Batoto

I will have much less time starting next month so I'm looking for volunteers willing to work on Desert Punk. If you're interested you can contact me or Ikkyusan. 

Claymore 142

Tishare | 2shared | Boxnet | Batoto | Thank Gernot

 

Translator: Gernot

Cleaner: SuppaiNoRingo (AKA RingoCygnus)

Typesetter: Goral 

Raw from Share 

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BTW, I will have much less time starting next month so I'm looking for volunteers willing to work on Desert Punk. If you're interested you can contact me or Ikkyusan.

Desert Punk - chapter 49

Boxnet | Tishare | 2shared | Batoto

 

UPDATE:

Thanks to anonymous user  I've corrected Suna08_198.png where I've copied the name of previous gun and updated volume 8 links. You can also download only this page if you already have a volume version.

Desert Punk - chapter 48 (vol. 8 complete)

Tishare | 2shared| Boxnet | Batoto

 

 Here's the last chapter of volume 8. Hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I did. BTW, "bonus pages" are included in a boxnet version or you can read them at Batoto. They're also included in a volume version (see below).

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Volume 8  
Boxnet | Tishare

Links  to previous volumes are here.

Edit:
Re-download  vol. 8 using links above or just this page (if you want to have correct name of a gun):
 
 

Claymore 141

Tishare | 2shared | Boxnet | Batoto | Thank Gernot

Translator: Gernot

Typesetter/Cleaner: Goral 

Raw from Share

This chapter was harder to work on than I initially thought. Many "biki" bubbles to erase (which is a pain to do) plus quite a few places to redraw/clone. Not to mention that in the Share raw many nostrils were lost (in MS version too, one of the reasons why TSS version is the best) and I had to use another raw to fix that. And even after all of this there are many places that could use some cleaning (one way or another) but I doubt I'll have the patience to do that. Volume version should fix this and if all goes well you will see a version 2 of much better quality (but in half a year or so).
Oh, one last thing. Box.net version has two pages 15 because I wanted to have literal translation in a pack. You can delete it if you don't like it or just download it from Tishare/2shared/Batoto.

And I recommend to read Desert Punk.

Desert Punk - chapter 47

2shared | Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto 

Also note that on page 143 there is no mistake. It's "him" not "her". TN: yes, they think she’s a he. At least that's how it's been translated in French. Furthermore, you might want to reread chapters 22-23 :). You can find previous volumes here or on Batoto.

Desert Punk - chapter 46

2shared | Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto 

Very ecchi chapter (for Sunabozu standards) ;P. I love this manga.

Desert Punk - chapter 45

2shared | Boxnet | Batoto | Droplr

7th time's the charm ;P. Here's another great chapter of superb manga. Don't get used to such frequent releases though :P. 

Desert Punk - chapter 44

Boxnet | 2Shared | Droplr | Batoto

Claymore 140

Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto | Thank Gernot

Translator: Gernot

Typesetter: Goral 

Raw from Share

Desert Punk - ch. 43 + vol.7

Chapter 43

Boxnet | Tishare | Batoto

Vol. 7

Boxnet (divided to chapters) | Tishare (loose pages) | Batoto

Only pages 83 and 153 (chapters 39 and 41) were changed but still the changes are rather significant so I recommend downloading this batch (unless you did so already from Happy Scans site).

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As for Claymore, I'm waiting on a Share raw. The one that came out has too many pieces missing.

Desert Punk - ch. 41 & 42 (+gun pages)

ch. 41

Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto

ch.42

Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto

42.5 (gun pages)

Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto

I'll probably make some corrections later and upload a whole volume but I don't want to delay the release any further. This arc was really good, especially when read from start to finish. I really enjoyed it and if not for Kanta's dreams (which start to annoy me a bit) it would have been perfect. Oh, and I love author's comment about Junko's tits at the end of the volume (gun pages).

Anyway, you can direct your thanks most of all to Ikkyusan from GWR who has translated this volume as well as French publisher (yes, it's being translated from French, hence not everything is translated and there are some mistakes). Without him we wouldn't be able to read this awesome manga. Thanks should also go to Happy Scans (I'm not sure who exactly though since I'm not dealing with them directly) who cleaned the bubbles. And me (I've also done some cleaning plus rotated crooked pages and typeset) ;P.

Also, if you're a translator or a typesetter/cleaner and would like to help you can contact me here :).

Desert Punk ch. 40

Boxnet | Tishare | Batoto 

I won't have time till June 19th so you can expect next chapter no earlier than in about 2-3 weeks. Unless there would be someone willing to do the typesetting of some chapters...

Chapter 139

Tishare | Batoto | Boxnet | Thank Gernot

Translator: Gernot

Cleaner: SuppaiNoRingo (AKA RingoCygnus)

Typesetter: Goral

Many thanks to SuppainNoRingo for cleaning a rather bad raw. We still had to use Share raw for double pages since there was too much material cut out to redraw in the one that appeared on Baidu.

Also, here's coloured page cleaned by SuppaiNoRingo without any subtitles:

Desert Punk - ch. 39

Batoto | Tishare | Boxnet | Imagebam (Online reading)

Chapter 138

Batoto | Tishare | Boxnet | Imagebam | Thank Gernot    

Translator: Gernot
Typesetter: Goral
Raw from Share

I've added Mediafire link since Tishare seems to be down at this time. Mediafire link will disappear shortly (and I'll probably be banned) so use it while you still can :].

FYI, page 9 is named as page 08v2.png since Share raw didn't have page 9 and I had to use a different raw (the same that Mangahead has but thankfully in higher resolution) and I was too lazy to rename pages 8+ (even by using Irfan View and batch renaming utility).

Edit:
Oh, and here's chapter 136 with a minor change - "one BY one" instead of "one ON one". That was mistake that Gernot has corrected.

https://www.box.com/s/bgm91wv6tr69fvrgkvj2

Edit 2: (12.05.2013 9:20 a.m. GMT+1)
I've swapped the links with the ones directing to a version 2 of the chapter. The changes are minor, on p. 2 it's now: It's not like I'm not making light of the influence of the mind on the body.
That's the only change in the translation. Besides that I've done some additional cloning getting rid of "lines" that were on scans. You probably won't notice any difference but it looks better, believe me.

Desert Punk - ch. 38

Boxnet | Tishare | Imagebam (online) | Batoto

As for Claymore, I'm waiting on a better raw mainly so it may take a while. The raw that's available right now is of such low quality that someone with my skills shouldn't even try using it.

Edit:
Gernot has published his translation (of chapter 138). Be sure to thank him. I (or SuppaiNoRingo) will do a scanlation once Share raw appears. And indeed, Claymore has been rather lame lately so I don't have as much of a motivation as I used to.

Desert Punk ch. 37

Tishare | Box.net | Batoto

You can find previous chapters by clicking on a "Sunabozu" label below.

Chapter 137

Batoto | Tishare | Boxnet | Imagebam | Thank Gernot    

Translator: Gernot
Typesetter: Goral
Raw from Share

Special thanks to Gene from TSS.

Desert Punk volume 6

Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto

 

Here's proofread volume 6 of Desert Punk. Previous version that you could have read on Batoto had many mistakes in later chapters so I recommend that you download this one (dialogues make more sense now). As for Sunabozu vs. Desert Punk, I went with a recommendation of our translator and because author himself uses it (look at the start of every volume, the title is in romanji). I might add pages with Desert Punk later on (although anyone who has Paint or Gimp can easily do it himself) but for now I don't have that much time (and I prefer to spend it on delivering new chapters rather than changing the existing ones just because someone doesn't like the Japanese name of my favourite protagonist in any manga ever) and soon new Claymore chapter will be out it takes precedence.

Chapter 136

Batoto (online) | Tishare | Boxnet | Imagebam | Thank Gernot

Translator: Gernot
Typesetter: Goral
Raw from Share

Special thanks to Gene from TSS.

Edit:
I've updated the links  since I've swapped page 2 with something less shitty. Had to redo this whole page using a different raw.

Desert Punk

So here's a 31st chapter of one of my favourite manga of all time (mainly thanks to Ikkyusan's translation from GWR group but also HappyScans) - Desert Punk - that I've typeset.

Chapter 31

Boxnet  | Mediafire | Batoto

Thank HappyScans | Thank GWR

Chapter 32
Mediafire | Boxnet | Batoto (Online)

And here are previous volumes scanlated by GWR group:

Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Vol. 3 | Vol. 4 | Vol. 5 | Vol. 6 | Vol. 7 | Vol. 8

Reasons why you should check it out:

- There are not many manga that depict reality so well, even though the setting is almost completely unknown to us
- Characters are made from flesh and blood and not ink and paper. It's very rare to find characters such as the ones in Desert Punk. Here motto "survival of the fittest" is a fact and not just an empty slogan, characters behave very logically in such conditions (something I loved Claymore for but now see less and less).
- The main (anti-)hero and most of other characters that have at least half a brain are pragmatists and/or opportunists. If there is a chance to screw someone over they don't miss it, if the opponent has an advantage they don't think twice about withdrawing. The latter action is something that most mangaka do not consider (again, one of the reasons I loved Claymore, recall the fight with Ophelia). Main hero would run?! That's ridiculous. He can't. He must stand firmly and fight with his foes and surely he will defeat them because of sheer fighting spirit... Well, not in Desert Punk.
- There is no honour here, no pardon, what matters are results and effectiveness. It reminds me of Fallout game and maybe that's why I've loved it so much. It also reminds me of Firefly (the best tv show ever) and I haven't found any cartoon/anime or other tv series that would get even close to it.

So if you're looking for a non-schematic, action manga, something that would allow you to relax and something you won't forget then this manga is for you. Manga and anime are unfortunately very under-appreciated. This title has disappeared in tons of sh*t that floats around and are considered as masterpieces when they can't even compare to Desert Punk.I highly recommend it.

Also if you would like to help with the typesetting/translation/proofreading/editing please let me know :).

Chapter 135

Boxnet | Batoto (online) | Tishare | Imagebam (online) | Thank Gernot

 

Translator: Gernot
Cleaner: SuppaiNoRingo (AKA RingoCygnus)
Typesetter: Goral 

We would have released it earlier but we needed to wait 12 hours after MS.

Chapter 131 - Version 2

Chapter 131 - Version 2

Tishare | Mediafire | Imagebam

discuss | Thank Gernot

Translator: Gernot
Editor: RingoCygnus
Raws: Share


Hope this clumsy copy of Goral's posts looks alright... (Don't have a boxnet account so I used mediafire and I can't update the batoto chapter, can only add new ones... I think)

- Here's chapter 131, The tankobon version.
No interesting changes unfortunately. However, the quality from the tankobon is far better- I will also probably clean other tankobon chapters once volume 24 comes out... (Don't have enough time to redo old ones at the moment)
It probably looks different from what you're used to as I also typeset it and I don't use the same fonts as Goral (with some exceptions). If anything really bothers you, do tell and I'll make a note of it.

Last thing I should probably mention is that they changed the title of the chapter in the tankobon.
Chapters 128 ~131 are all called "Symbol of a knight" (I, II, III and IV), which is nothing big but I thought I should mention it in case anyone gets confused over the title.

Chapter 130 - version 2

Chapter 130 version 2:
Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto | Imagebam
Discuss | Thank Gernot
Translator: Gernot
Cleaner: SuppaiNoRingo
Typesetter: Goral
Raw from Share

Many thanks to Gernot who has translated new pages which were added to tankobon version. Not only that, one page was removed and the scene completely changed.

Compare:


With:
 

Chapter 129 - version 2

Chapter 129:
Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto | Imagebam
Discuss | Thank Gernot

Translator: Gernot
Cleaner/Typesetter: Goral
Raw from Share

Compare:
 
with:
 

Chapter 134

Chapter 134:
Tishare | Boxnet | Batoto | Imagebam | Thank Gernot    
I was using this raw so there are some things that could be done better but after joining pages 12 and 13 I've lost motivation to do much more ;P. I can tell you from the get go that Mangastream has at least 3 4 mistakes (nothing major) so if you're not that concerned about quality I recommend MiB release ;). Although to be honest this time their scanlation is more blurry than usual (on th other hand they have awesome fanart so I recommend to check their version out).