Chou Kadou Girl 1/6 ch45 (end)

DL

I'm done! I'm done! And I actually managed to finish ahead of the anime! I'm gonna let y'all just read and enjoy for now, and if you really want to read my sappy thoughts, they'll be after the jump. Peace!



Man, it's hard to believe that it hasn't even been 3 months since I picked up this series. It all started when I was looking at the then-upcoming spring anime season. I barely watch anime these days, but felt newly motivated to watch more after deciding to only watch original series, since I'd rather read the manga first when it comes to an adaptation. However, I realized that some of the series' source material wasn't translated, so I thought I'd check them out just for fun. The first one I read was actually Nobunaga no Osanazuma (coincidentally airing in the same "Futabanime" block), which didn't appeal to me at all. And then I read Chou Kadou Girl 1/6. The first two volumes were interesting enough that I went and bought the other volumes, but funnily enough it wasn't until the "what's netorare" line in chapter 30 when I was like "I want to share this with people." At that point, I'd barely done any scanlating at all after giving up on my "daily releases for a year" thing, and I figured that trying to always stay ahead of the anime would be a kind of a "fun" challenge that would also give enough urgency to stop me from procrastinating. The fact that it was all but guaranteed to be more popular than anything I'd translated up to that point was the cherry on top.

I never thought the anime would go so freaking fast though! Even with multiple double releases and even a triple release, I still just barely stayed ahead at the very end. I had a lot of beef with how much the anime cut (specifically important character development for Vernois, Kusabi, and Kanmuri, but also a lot of my favorite little moments), but after the last couple episodes were honestly pretty well done, it made me realize that the staff were given the impossible task of cramming the whole series into about 2 hours, and simply did the best they could. They could've done a whole lot better smoothing out where content was cut though (ex: Kusabi was still wearing the sheep costume even though they weren't in New Zealand).

In any case, this was quite an experience for me. There were lots of times where I felt like I was going to burn out, but luckily I never did. I think that having clear goals of what I would release when, as well as compartmentalizing the scanlation process into smaller parts made the difference. I was also able to challenge myself in new ways with this series too. I distinctly remember seeing the glow effect in chapters 34 and 35 and thinking "There's no way I can do this. I'll have to ask someone to do it for me." And yet, when it came time to grapple with it, it honestly wasn't that bad. Constantly looking up otaku references and trying to localize them was also a challenge, but a fun one that I will always embrace. There were so many references that it makes me feel fulfilled knowing that I could put my passion (researching esoteric things) to use, and also relieved that it wasn't left to less capable hands.

As for the manga itself, you might be surprised to find out that I'm not actually a huge fan of this series. It's mostly the shift into harem territory that leaves me out in the cold a bit (I honestly thought that Subaru wouldn't be a love interest until the very end of the quiz arc). However, as an anonymous commenter said a while back, the series exudes "a love for its subject matter." This manga is made by otaku, for otaku, and Öyster clearly is passionate about everything that appears in the series. If you check his Twitter account, he's always explaining little details and references that show up, and even if it's ultimately a harem rom-com, that passion always shines through. And one thing I can say is that I'm invested as hell after essentially thoroughly rereading the series in order to properly translate it. Slowing things down and catching things that I'd missed made me appreciate the series that much more.

Okay, let's wrap this up. Now that this series is over, what's next? Many of you already know that there is in fact an ongoing sequel series called Chou Kadou Girls. Interestingly, this series didn't start until about 2 years after the original series ended, which explains the sense of finality in the last chapter and afterword. I am not going to immediately start this series for a number of reasons. First, I am kinda burnt out from the kind of grueling schedule, and want to focus on something else. Second, I want to reproduce that 2 year wait to some degree, even on a small scale. Last, I want to slow things down so that we won't immediately catch up to what's been released. I kind of loathe the idea of translating magazine scans, and I want to put off the question of whether or not I will do so as far as possible. I figure I'll get to it in early to mid-July. In the meantime, there are also many other works written by Öyster, some of which are related to Chou Kadou Girl. The kind of crossover with Baron von Headmaster mentioned in the afterword of volume 1 is much more extensive than I thought, so that'll be a must-translate (even though it's all the way in volume 5). I also noticed some Tezuka-esque Star System shenanigans in the sequel involving other series which I won't spoil. Finally, there's Shinkon no Iroha-san, which doesn't really have to do with anything, but is all but guaranteed to become a mega hit since it's fluff about a married couple so I have no choice but to consider it, haha. Basically, there's a lot to look forward to in the future.

Thanks to everyone who read this, and I'd like to give another huge shout-out to Geese1 for always commenting here. It means a lot to me.