Futago fans, please do not freak out.

Chapter 15 did not and will not make tonight’s cut because I belatedly realized that the script has not even been PR’ed yet! Our next release date is 5/14/2012. We’ll double it up with Ch.16 to make up for the delay. It’s a cliffhanger chapter, and would probably feel more like a complete release when partnered up with the next chapter, than if we were to put it out alone.

*kowtows for forgiveness*

Today’s releases are as follows:

Balancing Toy Volume 1, Ch.1: Lint, your wish is our command. This is definitely NOT another Usagi Drop. I’m going to karate chop anyone who says otherwise. (Don’t think I won’t!) Haru and Seiji are the epitome of cute. Great for those shoujo/father-daughter-relationships lovers and haters, alike.
Download/ Read Online

Sekine’s Love Volume 2, Ch.8-9: Two – that’s right, two – big doses of Sekine, laced with Doujima’s (the new guy’s) intercranial snark, comin’ right up! Get your heart meds ready. Those crocheted bears are way too cute!
Download/ Read Online

What Revolves Around Al and Neri Ch.2: While there’s no “OMG! What the hell just happened?” / “Was he raped by a bear?!” gay sex in this chapter, there’s plenty of exposure for Neri and Carraro’s secretary. No, I don’t mean physically. Get your mind out of the gutter, yaoi freaks! :p
Download/ Read Online

After a disastrous April, we (read: Me/Mimi/not Heels staff) have finally pulled ourselves together. I was a big mess, and the stress factor went up to my eyeballs, but thank you & much love to Lint, Shinkeikaku, Lilly,fionajude, Cathy, heehee, xlilim, ageha_chan, patapi and maedaa, and, of course, my gals & guys at Heels, for the “collective group hug”. Normally, I’d be like, “This is too cheesy! I’m outta here!” But this time it was much appreciated. Keri, hope you found yourself a good home remedy to cure that hangover.

I’m just waiting for a few pages of a few chapters from a few of our editors. Next week’s release will include these chapters, as promised:

Futago Ch.15-16 /end volume
Heartbroken Chocolatier Ch.1-3 /end volume
Nina My Love Ch.7 & Omake /end volume
Sakamichi no Apollo Ch.6

There may be more, *cough*Tokyo Alice*cough* but I’m afraid to make any promises (in case plans blows up in my face again).

RL > everything else

Apparently RL can be just as unforgiving as Cats. The nightmares that I had assumed would never happen came rearing its ugly head. It seemed like life had a dealt me a card titled: “IN ‘YO FACE!”

“IN ‘YO FACE!” Event No.1

In order to avoid a tl; dr post, let me just say that our so-called attorney for my hit-and-run accident back in May 2011, screwed us over. We never signed any paperwork, except for a rental car agreement. Everytime we asked about the car, she told us it was “evidence for the trial” and that it “was in a safe place.” After the towing company hit us with a Notice of Lien Sale, she told us to fax over the information, and she would take care of it.

Oh sure, she took care of it all right! Now I have, flapping limply in my hand, a letter stating that I owe $1462.52 in towing and storage fees for a car that, once May 26 hits, will no longer belong to me.

“IN ‘YO FACE!” Event No. 2

My dad had a bad fall at work the other day, where he cut and bruised his knee, cracked his front teeth, and formed a bulbous, horn-like lump on his forehead that had to be rubbed down with a poached egg. I was unaware of all this when I called him up and threw a tantrum over the phone about the collection notice, and only found out when I received a stern call from my mom saying, “Ha’chan, I know that you have your fair share of problems, but how can you trouble your father when he’s recovering from a fall?”

The news totally gutted and fileted me. I felt like a complete jerk.

“IN ‘YO FACE!” Event No. 3

I went “scissor”-happy last night and attacked my over-grown bangs. It was crappy-looking at night, but I figured it would look better once I woke up the next morning, like it usually does.

…Apparently, that wasn’t the case here.

“IN ‘YO FACE!” Event No. 4

There are only 4 releases today, instead of 9 promised to our staff. (Sorry guys, I just couldn’t stay awake to finish them.)

& (and) Volume 1, Ch.3 – A very, very, very short chapter that doesn’t even showcase Shinkeikaku’s beloved Yagai-sensei. (Oh, wait, was that his hand I saw?) Sincerely Yours, A Shiro-chan Fan.
Download/ Read Online

Kiyoku Yawaku (Joint w/ PI) Volume 1, Ch.4 – I love the sassy dialogue in this chapter, especially with Asami.
DDL Ch.4/ Read Online

Principal Volume 1, Ch.3 – The amount of SFX in this chapter alone is equivalent to the amount of paint-ball pellets needed to take down a grown, male bear.
Download/ Read Online

Sakamichi no Apollon Volume 1, Extra – Absolutely NOT canon. (We know.)
Download/ Read Online

However, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. In this case, two. Our new typesetter, amatsu, helped us pull through for Kiyoku Yawaku, and will continue typesetting for Principal, so that Principal’s original TS’er Lypiphera can help us finish ts’ing Volume 3 of Bitou Lollipop.

What’s getting pushed back this week, will show up next week, and it will be a really nice batch to close the month. The following are in typesetting or QC process:

Balancing Toy Volume 1, Ch.1
Futago Volume 1, Ch.15-16 /end volume
Heartbroken Chocolatier Volume 1, Ch.1-3 /end volume
Junai Rosen Ch.1
Nina My Love Volume 1, Ch.7 & Omake /end volume
Tokyo Alice Volume 2, Ch.7~8

And if staff has the extra time, we’ll throw in Sakamichi no Apollon Ch.6 , Toribako House Ch.3 and What Revolves Around Al and Neri Ch.2. If not, these will show up in our earliest May 2012 batch.

And in case anybody thinks we don’t read their comments, we want to assure you, Mako, that we are now fully aware that it is Art Blakey (not Blake-LY) & The Messengers’, Moanin’ (not Moaning). Talk about embarrassment. I had a chance to listen to the live performance on youtube with my punk-star-wannabe-22-year-old brother (aka Canon in D), who has now been converted to jazz.

And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

If only I had a "Sara" there to stop me.

So being the stingy person that I am, I decided to bully the new, 21-year-old male, Taiwanese Administrative Assistant. He, being the culprit behind my missing pho and pudding three Fridays ago, seemed oblivious to it all, which was the perfect set-up for revenge. I chose the best time and place for cornering a sly, conniving, pho-and-pudding-thrower-outter: Our monthly smaller branch office visit at the moment he and another employee were headed toward the men’s bathroom (with only one stall) at the same time.

Mimi waves AA over to her desk.
AA points finger at self and squiggles brows into a quizzical shape that is meant to be read as: Me?
Mimi beckons him over, mouthing: Come, come.
AA trots over, while other employee traipses into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him.
AA has a look of mild horror and disbelief on his face.
Exit Mimi, mentally snickering.

But just when I think that I had got even with the guy, I find a turkey and cheese croissant and 3 Refugiado guava & cheese pastries from Porto’s nestled comfortably on a plate on my desk after a god-awfully-boring meeting with some bigwigs.

Female Co-worker/(Tea) Drinking Buddy (handing Mimi a file on retrofit lamps): Oh, yeah, [Male Taiwanese AA] drove down to Glendale and lined up to get those for us while you were in a meeting.
Mimi: [Male Taiwanese AA]?
Female Co-worker/Drinking Buddy: Yeah, the new guy who’s filling in as AA during Angie’s pregnant leave.

Exit Mimi, stuffing guava & cheese pastries into face and barely able to contain her guilt.

The Releases:
Principal Volume 1, Ch.2 – Shima is cajoled into acting as a Good Samaritan, and the results are disastrous.

Sakamichi no Apollon Volume 1, Ch.4 ~ 5 – Kaoru struggles with puberty. (Only kidding.)

Sekine’s Love Volume 2, Ch.7 – Sara is soooo cute! >

What Revolves Around Al and Neri (Basso) Story 1 - O.M.G.

Download/ Read Online

The Bad News: No Chocolatier/Kiyoku Yawaku/Toribako House until next week; No Mani Mani until I finish up some translations for Nightswan at Hotcakes (who probably wants to use me as a punching bag by now.) (Haha, just kidding.)

The Good News: When “zanac” buzzed us in our chatbox with news that Natsuyuki Rendezvous was going to be animated in July and Hazuki’s VA is Yuichi Nakamura (Tomoya from Clannad), and Lilly did the same simultaneously at our blog, I was prepared to throw off all my clothes and run across the company sprinklers screaming, “Yahooooooo!” But of course, mental health kicked in to prevent me from making a fool out of myself/getting arrested/giving the new AA another reason to think I’m crazy.

Thank you, zanac, for providing the link to the first teaser clip, which you can find at the Natsuyuki anime webpage

Sakamichi no Apollon is also being animated and will air on April 12.

Oh, and speaking of Sakamichi no Apollon, thanks to awys for the input on Art Blakely & the Jazz Messengers. The song mentioned by Ritsuko’s father in Ch.3 was, indeed, “Moaning” and not “Morning”. That felt like a total D’OH moment. Anyway, Chapter 4 mentioned Bags’ Groove, which is I believe was composed and named by/after Milt Jackson. But correct me if I’m wrong.

Once in a while, I want to gush over manga, too.

Today’s releases will bring to a close the first volumes of 3 AM Dangerous Zone and Natsuyuki Rendezvous and Volume 2 of Bitou Lollipop. *Insert angelic “Ahhh” here* This means progress right? Right?

While the first two stories are almost polar opposites of each other, in everything from art style to story-telling, they do have one thing in common: A solid first volume ending on a high note.

With 3 AM Dangerous Volume 1, we followed our aspiring illustrator Momoko, as she struggles at her new job in a pachinko designing office; recuperates from the sight of a co-worker’s hairy buttocks; goes through a weird break-up/make-up sort of deal with her ex-boyfriend who is “tool” enough to say, “You only come here for my bed!” but not enough to keep it a secret forever until they have little tool babies and he goes through some sort of mid-life crisis… *runs out of breath*

Chapter 4 left off with her cutting tool-of-an-ex Tamotsu out of the picture and rushing off to make dinner plans with cute-like-a-teddy-bear-but-not-your-average-hairless-bishie Tagaya-san. Bravo, Momoko! Bravo! We understand that sharing a table with a bowl of oyakodon isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but at least now he knows you’re available!

Download Ch.5/ Read Ch.5 Online

As for Natsuyuki Rendezvous, well, what can I say? I get so emotional whenever I think about how much Shimao is suffering having to watch his wife being chased after by another man, especially one as emotionally vulnerable as my beloved Hazuki. When Rokka first kissed Hazuki, I was a bag of mixed emotions. Always, always, the question that pops up in the back of my mind is: What about Shimao?

Shimao in the "could have taken advantage of her but too honest to do it" position.

Being a much older woman, there’s a lot at stake for Rokka, and after all the times she’s fought off Hazuki’s advances, we know it can’t just be horniness. (Or is it?) (No, no, no.) I really do think she’s starting to fall in love with him. Maybe if I was a few years younger, I’d be really grossed out by the 8 year age gap…but, hey, people mature physically, emotionally, and sexually at different ages, and the naive prejudice I had against older women/younger men relationships seems to have been blurred by the onset of old age.

Our last chapter left off just when Rokka and Hazuki were about to get down n’ dirty. However, the ever-present Shimao decides complicate matters by going ape shit, Poltergeist-style.

Download

Ch.5/ Read Ch.5 Online

And last but not least, we have Bitou Lollipop. While I’m an ardent Iketani fan, I can’t say I’m really invested in the Madoka x Tomoyo pairing. Oh, sure, it’s cute, but that’s not why I read this manga.

I read it because of this guy:

Come on now, you crazy Tomoyo fangirls. I know you’re angry at Ono for fooling around with Tomoyo’s mother, but can’t you see he’s in love with the woman? If sex with Rumiko-san was just to satiate his overly active teenage hormones, then why does he keep calling her after they’ve broken up? Why does he get angry whenever Madoka mentions his feelings for her?

DDL Ch.9 here./ Read Ch.9 Online

Message to our Readers:

Lypi: Best pho ever has to contain ox tail & knuckles stewed for hours. I was a major ramen fan for the past 25 years of my life, but now, at 26, I have been converted.

Lilly: Hahaha. You’re so damn evil. I actually think it feels so much better when the person they’re intended for can’t understand what you’re saying. BTW How would you say, “You eat goats!” in Cantonese? Oh, but I do have a story to tell about our new Administrative Assistant…but that will have to wait until our 3/30 release. I swear it’s not because I want to keep everyone in suspense, but if I blurt it out now, I might not have anything interesting to tell next week!

chili: Haha. You have a knack for saying the most awkward things and giving me moments of suspended disbelief as I try to collect myself to reply. But at the end of the day, we (me and Stilletto) pulled lots to see whether we really wanted to have you belly-dance for us while we were sipping coffee, and the answer is, “Heck yes!” And don’t worry about being a rude leecher. (You aren’t.) I was really surprised that it took two years to put out Teke Teke Rendezvous, but it has come, and more will be following it shortly. Just you wait!

xlilim: Good luck on midterms! Don’t forget to tell us how it went!