Page 1 and right off the bat we've already got an untranslatable pun.

The joke here is that namerareru means "to be underestimated" or "to get messed with".
The emphasis here is on the name which is also the first part of the word namekuji which means "slug".

The final panel was originally "Name!", a combination of "namekuji" (slug) and "dame" (no!).
I figured "Sluck!" sounded like a combination of "slug" and "yuck!".

Also, exciting news.
Back when the Mato-chan thread was ongoing in early 2009, this comic, Chiro-chan was mentioned.
I decided to go on Share and try to find it, and luckily downloaded a copy. Noting that it came out in 2008, around 1-2 years after Mato-chan, I figured it was also just a stand alone book.

Just today when I began translating, I suddenly noticed the giant "1" on the cover. I realized that this is actually an ongoing series, with book 2 being released in 2009 (only a few months after I had downloaded book 1 and assumed the series was finished) and book 3 being released just 2 months ago in June, 2010.

I'm currently looking on Share to try and find books 2 and 3, but this title is obscure enough that I'm not sure how much luck I'll have...

Wow, she's the anti-Mato! Looking forward for more of this.

>>2
She's like Nega-Mato. White hair, red eyes... (wait, is she albino?)
On the inside cover of Mato-chan, she's described (in English) as "The Insect Girl."
On the inside cover of Chiro-chan, she's described (again in English) as "The Insectphobia Girl."

Here we have "Sluck" again. Not quite as clever as "Name~" but the best I could come up with.

On a personal note, those swirly background things are the absolute hardest to edit for sound effects...

Mato-chan's got mad skillz.

The image quality on these scans is really quite nice. On Mato-chan I had to color balance and rotate all the pages to get them to look nice, but these seem to have all that work done already.

This is a Mato-chan.
It is made of Glasses and Bugs.

>>3 From my experience, the colour pages tend to be the worst when it comes to editing. Just hang in there, you're doing a great job.

Also I'm pleasantly surprised at how big Mato-chan's role in this appears to be. I just expected a cameo or a minor support character. Neato.

Bug Pope

Instead of "Soft Side" what Chiro actually says is that she has no "Dere-time." Meaning the specific occasions when a tsundere character shows their soft side and acts affectionately.

The connotation seems a bit more nerdy that what I'm conveying here, but I'm not sure what a better translation would be.

Vote Yachimata '08.

>>6

I was also pleasantly surprised by how prominent Mato-chan seems to be here. Is she like the 2nd most major character in Chiro-chan?

This page took me a very, very long time.

The reason is that the name of the bug prohibition act is used in some jokes further on, and I had a difficult time finding something in English that would also work with those jokes.

I originally wanted to go with "Bug Prohibition" before I realized the name was going to be involved with puns.

TreAct sounds a little weird, but the original Japanese abbreviation was equally weird (the act was called mushi mochikomi kinshi or "bug possession ban" and was abbreviated as muchi-kin ).

Oh god this is adorable.

>>10
It seems like Chiro is the primary character, but Mato, Hisa, Uzu, and the rest are all still major players (Mato especially due to the conflict that her love of bugs provides to the story)

I desperately want to believe that I translated this wrong...

The first panel is apparently an obscure reference to a joke in a manga series called 'Kyukyoku Chojin R' where a stuffed rabbit says "I'm Bunny. Dad is a Colonel in Libya. It doesn't mean anything though."
I have no idea what it means (and neither do a lot of the websites I found referencing it) but apparently it was funny for some reason.

>>13

Oh God, Pedobear's found a clever disguise!

>>9

Seems more like Chiro-chan's a future mob boss to me. Which is awesome.

I just couldn't resist a "Respect My Authoritah" joke.

I've been at 90% downloaded on Chiro-chan Vol. 2 for almost a week now...

>>19

Ah, good old nightmare fuel. This series keeps delivering.

Ahahahaha

What if she has to go to the bathroom?

And I still want to know what the face shield is made of...

Thank you for translating!

Never mind 26, I tweaked some dialogue to make it sound better.

Also, I want to know which god Chiro is praying to. This guy delivers.

Weekend at Mato's?

>>27 Chiro-chan is Kira?

Uzu's concern is heartwarming.

Zombie Mato

The title on the right is apparently a reference to Hell Girl.

Uzu will grow up to make an excellent frat boy.

Loving this storyline, it's like an Edger Allan Poe plot with more moe and whacky hinincks.

>>33 So now she's a silent, stumbling, eerie abonomation. Hard to tell the difference from usual Mato-chan.

>>28 Is it just me, or is Yachiho more... stacked than before? From what I gather, it seems Shinichi is something as paradoxal as a tits-man who draw loli-centric manga. Not that I mind, of course.

Also liking that she turned out to be a redhead.

>>34

>silent, stumbling, eerie abonomation

Actually I don't think that describes Mato very well at all (except maybe in winter, which is when this is anyway).

Maybe more like "Now she's an unholy bug infested nightmare that sends people fleeing in terror at the sight of her."

>>35

>Is it just me, or is Yachiho more... stacked than before?

I definitely noticed that too. When they introduced "Mega Balls Nara" in Mato-chan I remember thinking it didn't seem like her breasts were that large at all. Average looking really. But then flipping back through the previous pages I noticed there actually hadn't been much opportunity to show them off. In most pages she was wearing something loose, or in a position where they were mostly concealed. In the pages where she was wearing something tighter, they still looked smaller. It wasn't until http://secchan.net/4koma/kareha.pl/1229725342/249 that I really started to notice.
In fact, looking at that page again, in the second panel, her teacher form still looks much less buxom than her princess form.

>>32
I just noticed, Mato has ladybug earmuffs.

Poor girl...
First Mato-chan gets stood up, and then has her body used against her will...

Could this be the start of a beautiful new friendship?

...probably not.

>>11
Riki-chan makes his humiliating return (with some fanservice for some of the shota fans out there. I know you're out there. It's okay, I won't judge).

So now we're up to the page(s) that have the joke that caused me to butcher what should have been a relatively simple translation of "Bug Prohibition" into "Treason for Bug Possession Act" or "TreAct."

As I mentioned, the original is "Mushi Mochikomi Kinshi" (Bug Possession Ban) or "Muchi-Kin" for short (which is already kind of a stretch as an abbreviation).
In this strip, Uzu switches two of the syllables and says "Muki-Chin" which basically means "peeled/exposed penis."
Her exact words are "Here's a REAL Muki-Chin"

What was that about this being a family friendly manga Bug Pope?

>>38 Isn't the bombadier beetle's spray extremely hot? 100 °C (212 °F) according to Wikipedia, which is the boiling point of water. Ouch, that's gotta hurt.

>>40 This is my new favorite page yet. Sometimes it's necessary to butcher a pun to make it work, and as long as you replace it with something hilarious it's perfectly fine (see the whole Simon Cowell part of Insect Juda's Mato-chan translation). And damn, that last line made me laugh until I cried. Retractable indeed.

>>41 I said almost, at least when compared to you-know-what. Apart from the bukkake jokes, this is fairly family friendly. Thing is, there just happen to be quite a lot of them for some disturbing reason...

>>42
Yeah, I wondered about that with the bombardier beetle too. It almost makes me think it should have been a stink bug instead, except the name of the bug here is totally different from the name for stink bugs that has been used in past strips (Also, I just noticed that I misspelled 'bombardier' in that strip, so I've fixed that for the final release).

I'm glad you enjoyed the joke. Although the obscured word is actually supposed to be "Retracted" (you can see part of the 'D' at the end), not "Retractable." I could have even taken it a step further I guess and had Chiro ask if he wants to be TreAct-ed (drafted into TreAct?).

>>40
>>41
>>44

This series just keeps getting better

Hm, I thought I posted this like 2 hours ago, but I just came back to see a "wrong verification code entered" error.

Aww, Riki is adorable.

This is the page that made translating the pun the hardest.
If it had just been >>40, it would have been easier to make a generic dick joke out of something, but having Chiro misspeak the name of the bug ban here made it a lot harder to find something that fit both situations.

Uzu says basically the same thing here as in >>40, but I changed it up a little because I think this makes it work better (although I'm open to opinions). I changed the page in >>40 to make it match as well.

>>45
It gets even worse than that in the next few pages

what

This manga tends to focus a lot on Riki-chan's junk, doesn't it? Poor guy.

>>47 I'm confused; if they're talking about testicles, aren't they supposed to drop rather than retract during puberty? Or are the implying he's having an erection? And why the hell am I thinking about this? Damn you, minor storyline revolving around underage genitals!

>>51
They're talking about his foreskin.
Usually the foreskin is fused to the glans and can't be retracted until a boy gets close to puberty.

>>51
Also, the testicals actually descend during the first year after birth, not during puberty.

As for the other thing, does this visual aid help any?

Spoon worms (a type of aquatic worm) are apparently pretty popular as seafood in east Asia.

Here's a short .gif of one being cut open.
Seriously not for the faint of heart.
http://www.picasion.com/pic12/4639b4cf21385d91fd83a5ef0e755fb9.gif

>>53
testicles
I can't spell.

Or maybe I'm still reeling from the spoon worm.

I don't usually envy the positions Riki-chan finds himself in, but I sure wouldn't mind being in his shoes right about now.

>>48
Seeing Mato like that (the last panel of right strip) makes me uncomfortable for some reason

>>53
hahahahaHAHAHAHAHA

>>56
It looks like it made Chiro-chan a little uncomfortable too.

Special guest appearances by Sonome and Ashita.

I was having trouble understanding how people thinking that collecting bugs was dirty was related to Chiro feeling a lack of respect, but I think it's because whereas she used to be seen as sort of noble, now she's viewed as a kind of janitor/trash collector.

>>53 And then Chiro-chan was a lesbian.
Nah, just kidding. That gif actually made me cringe and cross my legs, though. I forsee that when he grow up, Riki will either

A. become a nervous, lonely wreck

B. somehow blossom into a lady's man

C. date Mato-chan, and eventually get devoured alive.

Did I hear someone say lesbian? Insect Judas here. Really enjoying this.

>>60

I like option C the best, although option A is the most likely to actually happen.

Keep up the good work, translator person.

>>61

Mention Riki-chan's penis and lesbians, and Insect Judas is there.

Bug Pope

No new strips makes my heart cry

>>64
Don't worry, I'm still around. I may not update every day though.

The new chapters for Yotsuba and Ichigo Mashimaro came online Monday, so obviously those took precedence over Chiro-chan.

This one requires a bit of context (although the visuals speak for themselves).
Watching this video first should help (Mori Shinichi singing the song "My Dear Mother" (Ofukuro-san)).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbmkWegId9Q

It's on now.

>>60
Option B is starting to look a little more promising.

>>68

He actually is seeming more confident and mature. gasp could it be...character development?!

Remembering the dream sequence in Mato-Chan where they were all teenagers, I want to see what a teen Riki will look like.

>>66 Great Scott, Riki's turned her into a Barasui character! As if the pedo-bunny wasn't enough. Run while you still can, Chiro-chan!

>>68 Nobody deserved that more than Riki. I have a feeling he's going to be that kind of kid who suddenly blooms after puberty. If he can stay alive that long.

Who's this?
A new character?
(30% chance it's Riki-chan in drag for some ridiculous reason).

>>71
Nah, she doesn't look as terrified and miserable as Riki.

>>73 I don't really get the last one. Why would the treact officers help her restrain, and since when to Mato restrain when it comes to bugs?

>>74
I'm assuming the ban on bug possession is helping keep her bug lust in check.
She certainly hasn't held back when it comes to collecting, but at least the risk of a biohazard is decreased now...

Another impenetrable Muchi-Kin pun in 5... 4...

3... 2... 1...

Phew, actually dodged a bullet on this one. I hadn't looked this far ahead so I wasn't prepared for this one, but luckily it turned out to be pretty easy to adapt.

The original joke is that Kushina is giggling because the name of the bug ban is shortened to Muchi-Kin, even though it's for Mushi (bugs).

I'm liking this new character. I want to see how she interacts with Mato.

>>73

Is my memory crap, or is this the first time we've ever seen a male student other than Riki in this school, even counting the previous books like Mato-chan and Watashi no Oniichan. Pardon the expression, but this school is kind of a taco-fest.

>>76

... okaaaay. I have no idea what the hell is going on with this newcomer, and that intrigues me.

Huh? Why did Kushi-chan knock herself out?

>>66

That...smile...I had no idea Chiro-chan could be even scarier than Mato-chan. I'll be seeing THAT in my nightmares now.

Man, Kushi-chan is so cute.

>>77
Your answer comes surprisingly soon.

>>78
Well one instance from Watashi no Oniichan springs to mind. In issue 3 (the Lunch issue) when they're playing rock paper scissors over the extra orange, there were quite a few boys. I don't know if there were any other appearances without looking back though.

>>79
She just got so carried away with laughing that she fell into the tree.
Also, a nice coincidence with the "Tree Act" and the fact that there's a tree right there. The tree's presence may have subconsciously affected my translation though.

On this page, I'm not sure that there's really a pun here, as much as Kushina is just combining words in ways that sound funny. What she literally says is "Heiwa" (peace), "Muchi-Kin" (TreAct), "Hei-Chin" (Pee Act?)
As far as I can tell, Hei-Chin doesn't mean anything.

Kushi-chan has gone from adorable to terrifying in an instant (much like most of the girls in this series).

I think she may have taken the wrong message away from her interview with Chiro-chan...

Also, holy crap that girl is strong.

Translator's note: Currently translating in God Mode (while drunk).

>>81
So far, I haven't found Chiro to be particularly terrifying. Mato-Chan is scary in her emotional detachment and seeming disregard for life.

>>82
It's official, Riki exists for the amusement of other. God created him with no other purpose.

>>80 "one of those people that carries bugs"? Last time I checked, Mato-chan had monopoly on bugs in this school. Seems like Chiro-chan is creating imaginary strawmen to back up her cause. She will definitely make a good politician one day.

>>82 Poor Riki, he has absolutely no dignity at all.
But yeah, Chiro-chan is really more putting up a strong and aggressive front and try to boss people around as sort of defense mechanism. That's more sad than scary. Mato-chan however shows psychotic tendencies and has absolutely no respect for life, and that makes her horrifying. And awesome.

>>80
I haven't lol'd this much in a long time. This shit is good.

Not sure what to make of this one...

"Gray Zone" and "Fuzzy" are in phonetic English in the original.

>>84

>"one of those people that carries bugs"?

Well, Japanese is usually ambiguous when it comes to plural versus singular, so it could also have been interpreted as "The one who carries bugs" (or some other word that doesn't sound as awkward as "carries")

This little girl is getting stranger and stranger all the time...

I don't know whether to go "Awww, such a vivid imagination" or
"Okay, I'm backing away slowly now..."

(considering her first reaction to hearing Mato-chan was a rule breaker was to try and bash her head in with a rock, I'm leaning towards the latter).

>>88
Reposting this page because I just realized what she's doing.
The word that she spells out after each win begins with the same letter as whatever she won with.

Rather than try to come up with some English adaptation (especially since the word's she's spelling out are already in English) I decided to use the original names for the different choices.
It's more cultural that way!

For some reason, I think of "Bug Style" as something Mato is going to do on her wedding night...

Also, Mato-chan didn't just make up this version. Slug Frog Snake is a legitimate Japanese variation on Rock Paper Scissors. I have no idea why slug beats snake though.

On to the translation notes:
Mato just had to ruin everything and use a word that wasn't English.
She actually says "Nana-hoshi-kin-kame-mushi" which is literally 'seven spotted jewel stink beetle' (so I kept the same name but changed the number of spots to make it start with the right letter). This word is worth a whopping 10 steps.

In case you were wondering, the phonetic nature of the Japanese language makes words very easy to break into syllables, but when foreign words are converted it comes out a little more strangely. That's why I have such odd hyphen placements in some of these words.
For instance, Ha-ze-l-n-u-t-s (which I kept at 7 syllables to match what Chiro says) with Japanese phonetics would be he-i-ze-ru-na-t-tsu or Gn-o-s-i-s would be Gu-no-o-shi-su

>>89
Hehe, that's girl clearly not all there. That's kinda cu...
>>90
... I'm going to hide under my bed now, and I don't know if I'll ever come out.

>>90
Mato-Chan getting married...

Nope, can't see it.

>>92
Based on her teenaged appearance in the series Mato-chan, I could easily see boys flocking to her.

Notes on this one:
I kind of got the impression from the end of >>89 that Chiro was cutting Kushina off before she could say what the word that began with 'cho' was (for when she wins with 'choki'). There are so many words that begin with 'cho' though, that I can't think of any one in particular that might be implied here.

I also found out that this particular variation of rock paper scissors actually exists, although it doesn't seem to be very widespread in Japan (I found out about it from an exchange on a Japanese message board where someone was asking if anyone else ever played it as a kid, since everyone his own age said they had never heard of it).
The idea is that two people play rock paper scissors, then whoever wins each round moves a certain number of steps foreward based on the syllables in a word that begins with the same letter as whatever they used to win.
The example I found on the message board was "Gu" = Glico (gu-ri-ko), "Choki" = Chocolate (cho-ko-re-e-to), and "Pa" = Pineapple (pa-i-na-p-pu-ru).
I presume the object is to see who can progress the furthest (like to the top of a flight of stairs, or to a finish line or something would be my guess).

>>94
Oops, I posted the wrong page (I posted one I hadn't translated yet).

>>94
While puberty will be kind to Mato-chan, I get flashbacks to the last page of chapter 2 of Franken Fran when I read "bug style". NIGHTMARE FUEL END.

There's a fine line between "kind of quirky and weird in an oddly lovable way" and "batshit insane". Himeda has not only crossed the line, she's already five thousand miles within Crazy Land.

>>94
Oh, boys would flock all right (I know I would) but I can't see Mato-Chan interested in any serious relationships. I can see her going out with someone for some sort of ulterior motive involving bugs, though. Besides, most boys would probably be scared off.

Also, Himeda is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters.

Good old Snake... nothin' beats that.

Chiro-chan is starting to show her dere side.

This marks the approximate halfway point for volume 1 of Chiro-chan.
The good news is that there are 3 volumes total (with possibly more on the way, I don't know if the series is still published monthly, but volume 3 was released very recently).
The bad news is that after several weeks now, I still haven't gotten any further than about 95% downloading volume 2 off Share (and volume 3 is nowhere to be seen, although considering how recently it was released, that's not too surprising).

There are two Japanese idioms involving brackets here (in this sense, "brackets" being large metal fasteners that resemble giant staples).

The first one is literally "Children are brackets" meaning that children can be a binding force in a relationship (specifically between husband and wife.)

The second is "A bracket in tofu" meaning to do the impossible (since tofu is too soft for a bracket to hold it to anything, similar to the English expression "Nailing Jell-O to the wall").

The third one is Mato combining the two with the visual aid of her fingers being the two points of a bracket.

>>99 Once again, the punchline in the first strip is confusing the crap out of me. Maybe I'm just slow, but why is Mato-chan reacting like that? It feels like the text is contradicting the artwork. Or maybe it's supposed to be confusing?

>>99

Nice Simpsons reference.

>>102
Did you mean >>99, or >>100?
The first strip in >>99 seems fairly obvious to me. Back at the beginning of the series (in >>8) Chiro-chan said she had no soft side. Now here she is being nice to this first grader (but trying desperately to hide it).

If you mean >100, then the first strip might be a little more confusing, but I interpreted it as Mato-chan showing disgust/confusion at Chiro's lack of consistency (she hates bugs, but loves to eat shrimp).

And if you happened to mean >>101, the first strip there confused me too. I'm pretty sure I translated it all right, but I might still be missing something.

Whenever they say "soft side" I just replace it with "dere time" in my head because it works better.

Also, Mato-Chan's face in >>100 is the most expressive face I've ever seen from her.

>>104 Sorry, I meant >>100. Just had a brief episode of sever retard-ness. Still don't really get that strip, though, but maybe it was just a weird joke to begin with.

>>106
Still not really sure what it is you're not getting.
Mato is confused because Chiro can't stand bugs, but loves things like shrimp. Hence the title "Where do you draw the line?"

>>105
Yeah, "Dere-time" is more accurate since that's what they're actually saying, but I'm trying to avoid the use of slang or terminology that would require additional notes or explanation.

The rainy season, or "Tsuyu" is actually called that because it coincides with the time of year when plums ripen.

"American Joke" is apparently a term used to refer to any sort of foreign joke where a lack of local knowledge makes the joke difficult to understand.

Action movie Chiro.

>>107 I dunno, I guess I really should stop trying to read manga while drunk.

>>109 Such as about 70% of all jokes in manga? Makes sense that they'd feel the same way about gaijin humour.

This first one references a popular Japanese superstition that says if you whistle at night, a snake will appear.

Why does she want to call a snake anyway though? Do snakes eat slugs? In that rock paper scissors game, slug beat snake.

Nice to see Miss Yachiho is so concerned about her students' well being.

It's nice to see Mato-chan showing some genuine concern for Chiro these past few pages.

>>109 That coat and hood makes Mato even more creepy than usual, if such a thing is possible.

Maybe it's the fact just played it like 5 minutes ago, but somehow my brain is mixing together Mato-chan and Bioshock 2 (partly because of the butterfly theme of that game and all the talk about little girls eating slugs makes me think of ADAM). The result is absolutely terrifying, I hate my brain sometimes.

It was kinda nice to have a few pages of only Chiro-chan, she was almost starting to feel like a support character in her own series, or the Straight Man to Mato-chan and the rest.

Whoa, this is awesome. Thanks for translating!

It's at least good to know that Uzu doesn't subject Riki to anything she's not willing to endure herself.

On that note, I know about these towel things they use to change under, but I still would have expected the boys and girls to do it separately...

Daimon Pool Monster?

>>120 Our first fan service!

>>121 Mega Balls looks kinda shoddily drawn in that first panel

Keep it up, buddy!

Miss Yachiho is well groomed.

>>124 A pubic hair joke? We really went there? This manga keeps blowing my mind, in a good way.

I read >>124 earlier this morning, so I wasn't fully awake. Re-reading it, it's obviously a pube joke. This morning, I though it was a hermaphrodite joke (I never read the titles above the individual strips, and I though she said "someTHING sticking out" instead of "some sticking out.")

>>126
I typically save the titles for last too, since getting a fitting translation usually requires knowing the context of the strip first (especially since the titles are all written phonetically, and Japanese is full of homophones. This one was a particularly bad offender since the title was simply け ke ).

So before reading the title I thought this was a boob joke, but I couldn't figure out why boobs would be traumatizing for a young male. (Also, Mato-chan is checking out the wrong hemisphere for boob spillage).

The hardest part was the sound effect at the end. "Wham" isn't really a good fit, but it's the best I could come up with. The actual sound effect was Mu-Wa which, according to the search results in Google, is the sound of a (usually pleasant) smell hitting your nostrils. It could also possibly be the sound of something (non-liquid) spilling out.

It seems even Mato-chan has her limits.

Again, I don't know whether to envy Riki or feel sorry for him.

The original title on the right was very hard not to make a done-to-death joke with, but ultimately I went for accuracy rather than literalness.

The original was "Sparta," which carries the implication of very difficult training in Japanese.

>>129
Sparta/Spartan still holds that "to the extreme" meaning even in the west.

300's THIS IS SPARTA is pretty memorable ;)

>>129 It's a bit like karma. Riki's life is so miserable that he universe compensate him by letting him touch Yachiho's boobs every now and then.

>>129
Can you feel both?

>>131
This is an epic post

>>132

It is written "Blessed be the miserable, humiliated little boys, for they will recieve squishy flotation devices and will thus be saved."

Trust me, I'm the pope. I know this stuff.

Man boobs. An insight to Riki as a teenager?

Kushi-chan is back with her infectious giggling.

The water strider method is also easier if your eyes take up a full third of your face.

>>134
Oh, SNAP!

>>139

Holy shit that dog's awesome. And that comes from someone who normally hates dogs. Hands down the cutest/dumbest dog I've seen in manga yet.

For the record, the best way to get away from a bear once it's spotted you is to slowly and calmly slip away without agitating it (and the part about being noisy as you walk to keep them from getting too close in the first place is true too). Most of the time they won't even be interested or perceive you as a threat.

Not really much else to say about this one...

>>142
... I really shouldn't be surprised anymore. And here I thought the Mato-chan manga could be somewhat crude and dark sometimes.

Who is it?
Who could it be!?
The suspense is killing me!

Wow.
Shocker.
I totally didn't see this coming.

Translation note: I'm not sure if this is important enough to put in the notes file with the final release, but since the Japanese word for 'bear' is kuma the bug mentioned here is kumanbachi which is a carpenter bee.
I just randomly selected a type of bug that had the word "bear" in the name to make the joke work.

If "mwf" seems strange, it's because I'm not really sure what kind of sound fog makes.

The Broken Spectre is actually a pretty cool effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocken_spectre

>>147 See, this is one of the reasons why I like this manga; you learn neat stuff. Between all the nightmare fuel and humiliation of children (which is enjoyable too, of course).

I knew it was Mato-Chan all the time!

Excuse me while I go take 10 consecutive showers.

Make that 20.

>>150
Corrected a dumb grammatical mistake on this one (not that the corrected version is any more palatable).

>>151

More rape jokes. You know, because this manga really needed more of those.

>>152 Not sure what verse means, but that bunny has definitely crossed the border between "humoristic pervert" (found in too many manga to list, but Kimura-sensei is an example) and "horrifying sexual predator".

All joking aside, my personal taste in humour is so dark that I don't really mind that this manga seems to be so much more in the gutter than before, but it's interesting how suddenly it got that way. Earlier, there was just the occacional bukakke reference or maybe a dick joke every now and then. I'm curious to see how far the mangaka is ready to go. You're a brave man, Ralen. Keep up the good work.

>>153
I don't know if it counts as rape since he seems to be enjoying it...

"Verse" (or maybe "Vers") in this case is short for 'versatile.' It's a sexual term meaning that one isn't strictly a top or a bottom, but can go both ways.
In this case Bunny (ugh... I had a favorite stuffed animal named 'Bunny' when I was little...)
Anyway, in this case he's saying that he can either be dominant or submissive (since he wants Mato-chan to beat him up, but also has sadistict thoughts about Riki).

Alright, let's have some Chiro in spandex to wash out that unpleasant flavor.

Also, Billy Blanks.

For those not accustomed to the metric system, 37°C is normal body temperature (98.6°F).
39.5° is about 103°F.

CERO WHAT'S GOING ON

>>156
OH CRAP, CHIRO-CHAN'S TRAPPED IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Some days translating flows really smoothly, and it's easy to intuit what's being said.
Other days I get bogged down in the details and can spend a half hour or more on some tiny little piece of dialogue trying to figure out the nuances.
Today is more like the former case, thankfully.

Momo-Yan is a restaurant (if you couldn't already guess that) that seems to be primarily a chicken place, just from looking at their menu.
http://momo-yan.com/

Anyone else ever think Mato has Asperger's, or something similar? I've thought along those lines ever since I started translating Mato-chan.
Things like the last panel on the left make me feel that way. She isn't rude/horrifying on purpose, she just genuinely doesn't understand the effect she has on people, but when it's explained to her that not everyone feels the way she does, she makes an effort to tone it down.

I don't know if it's coming across very well in the translations, but Kushi-chan seems to know some unusual words for a girl her age.

My brother's cat once did this to their sliding back door, only in that case, the cat locked my brother out.

Translation note for the one on the right.
As far as I know, there's no such thing as a "Key Worm."
The actual bug that Mato names is the Velvet Worm (which is pretty cool looking actually, like a really long fuzzy slug with legs).
Anyway, the Japanese name for the Velvet Worm is Kagi-Mushi.
This is a play on words, because 'kagi' can also mean "key."

>>158 Extreme obsession over one single subject, deadpan expression, tends to say things at inappropriate moments, apparant lack of empathy... yeah, Mato's kinda autistic. And not in the self-diagnosed "I want a fancy escuse for being slightly socially awkward" way. I spent several annoying years in a "special class", you start developing some sort of asperger-dar after that.

>>160 With a protector like Cero, who needs enemies?

>>160 Oddly enough this pun would work in Swedish, if you replaced velvet worm with nyckelpiga, which means ladybug but also literary translates as "key maid".

Oh god, Uzu!
Put that thing down!

>>161
Yeah, those are pretty much exactly the same traits I was picking up on too. Of course it could also just be the normal lack of developed social skills that comes with adolescence (since she seems to be growing out of it somewhat).

So, the name of this school changes once again (it's not really changing, I just keep mistranslating it).

In http://secchan.net/4koma/kareha.pl/1229725342/207
I explained how when I translated Watashi no Oniichan, I interpreted 大文寺西 as a person's name 大文(Hirofumi) 寺西(Teranishi).

In Mato-chan, they had the Daimon Ranger (actually they had it in Watashi no Oniichan too, but I didn't make the connection at the time), so since Daimon Ranger was directly connected to the school, and the characters 大文 can also be read "Daimon", I changed it to "Daimon Teranishi."

Now to make things more complex, in this strip, the banner reads 大文字西.
Well 字 and 寺 can both be pronounced 'Ji' (in fact, when it's part of a compound, 寺 is usually pronounced 'Ji' instead of 'Tera'), and 大文字 is unmistakably "Daimonji" (it literally means 'the symbol 大'), so now it becomes 大文字(Daimonji) 西 (West).
This makes sense in retrospect too, since 'Daimon-ger' (Daimonjaa) would be a more subtle variation on 'Daimonji', and it also explains the repetition of the word "West" in the Daimon Ranger theme song.

Re-editing the relevant page(s) of Mato-chan as we speak...

So, to recap-

Mato-chan: Autistic
Kushi-chan: Schizophrenic
Chiro-chan: Confidence issues?

I suspect this series might end with everyone in a mental hospital.

>>165
Don't forget Yachiho's childhood trauma.

So in this strip the name of the school is once again written　大文字西 (the way it was in >>164) instead of 大文寺西 (the way it was in Watashi no Oniichan and in Mato-chan).
And it even has a pronunciation key this time! Why couldn't they have done that the first time the name showed up!?

I'm not sure why the writing of the name changed though. Maybe it was confusing readers.

Kushina sure tells a good ghost story.

In the strip on the right, Mato is doing another little play on words that's hard to translate.
Since the word for "big problem" is Daimondai, she casually switches the topic by saying 'Instead of a Daimonjaa I'll tell you about a Daimondai I had yesterday."

Also, what Mato says about trying to encase a cicada in resin is exactly what a note by the author said on the inside of the front cover of this book (along with a photo of his failed attempt). I'll include the cover pages, etc. when I finish the whole book and upload a complete .rar file.

I've been deneid access to this site for saveral days, so I have much commenting to do!

>>155
Yay, fanservice! And in color!

>>161
I've got Asperger's myself, and I can absolutely see her having it as well. Whether the author intended it or not, I'm going with it now.

>>168
Further examples of Mato's ninja skills.

I wanted to comment on >>151 but I can't really think of anything to say.

>>170 So Chiro-chan is Japan's answer to Mythbusters?

Page 100!
And nearing dangerously close to the end...
And still no closer to having volume 2 downloaded.

'Daimonji' in this instance is referring specifically to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gozan_no_Okuribi

My google skills tell me that 'Colasour' is a reference to the character Patrick Colasour from the series Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (which aired from late 2007 until early 2009, which would fit in with the time slot when these strips were created).

Eldran, a franchise of giant transforming robot anime series from the early 90s centered on a group of elementary school students. Their school itself was able to transform into a command center.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettai_Muteki_Raijin-Oh

Cocytus, the 9th circle of Hell from Dante's inferno, and composed of 4 sections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocytus

Those are some... snug pants.

I like how the first time the trash chute was introduced, the tape was stuck to the wall, but every time it's been shown since Uzu jumped down it, the tape has been hanging loose.

>>174
Chiro's face in the last panel of the first strip frightens me

>>176
Ain't nuthin' wrong with snug pants! (I'm sure Bunny didn't mind either)

>>178
I think it's kind of cute. It's about as close to a smile as we get to see out of Chiro.
>>67 notwithstanding.

You know, I think it would be awesome if while they're at the zoo, Mato encounters some animal she's terrified of.

So hooray for arguing semantics in a foreign language on this first strip.
The Japanese name for a zoo is doubutsu-en which literally translates to "Animal park." doubutsu (animal) itself is written with the characters for "motion" and "thing."
In the first panel Chiro first uses the Japanese word doubutsu-en. Then she uses the English word "Zoo," followed by the English words "Animal Park."
"Insect Park" is also in English.

In the second panel, she doesn't really say "bugs have hair" but instead says "Animals" (again, the she uses the English word here) are kemono. kemono basically means "Animal" as well (or sometimes "beast" if used in a negative context), but it has the connotation of a large land creature (as opposed to say bugs, birds, or fish). It doesn't really have a good translation in English that has the same nuance.
For the record, kemono is also the Japanese word for "Furry" (as in the fandom). So it seemed appropriate to interpret it as things that have hair, especially since Mato's response is that furry caterpillars qualify.

I've actually been shocked the number of times I've encountered people in real life who don't think that fish, bugs, etc. are animals. I guess they missed high school biology.

I can only imagine what goes on in that Takahara home to cause Mato's dad to have to scrub out the inside of his mouth so vigorously.

Here we have that "mu-wa" sound effect again (like in >>124).
I guess it's not always used for a pleasant smell after all.

>>180
His wife may or may not be an isopod. It's best to not think about their private life too much.

So apparently at some zoos in Japan, they've installed vending machines in the chimp exhibits and taught them how to purchase drinks with money.

Here's a website with some pictures:
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/yfwns299/29760776.html
The word bubbles from top to bottom
Put in the money
Joosh ish good
Gulp-gulp
Gotta throw away the empties
Money~
I wonder what kind I'll get next time

Even the animals are messing with Riki-chan.

So it took me over an hour to figure out what on earth Miss Yachiho was talking about in this one.
I was just about to post saying I had given up trying to figure it out when I suddenly found a clue that led me to the answer.
Apparently this is an obscure reference to a Japanese song from the 70s called 'Wanted'.
Here's one of the original performances (there are more recent videos with better sound, but their English pronunciation wasn't as good in the older ones, so it sounds more like they're saying 'Wombat' than 'Wanted' back then).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7bgWkJ3QC0
Also, here are the lyrics if anyone's interested. The title of the strip on the left is taken from the second line of the song.
http://www.kiwi-musume.com/lyrics/pinklady/wanted.html

>>183

See, this is concrete evidence that the entire universe is out to get him. poor guy.

Fun fact: Did you know the wombat's rear is so hard that it defends itself by blocking the entrance to its' lair with it? Buns of cartilage, literary. And if that's not enough to keep an intruder away, the wombat will allow it to get closer, and then try to crush it's head against the cave cieling. Death by wombat ass. What a way to go.

George and friends are so moe. I'd read their spin-off series.

Sorry for the delay in new strips everyone.
This has been a hellacious week at work. I've been working 12+ hours each day.

I'm back, but with saddening news. This volume of Chiro-chan is almost over (just a few more pages in this chapter, and then a bonus chapter).
I also finally finished downloading that Volume 2 file I had been stuck at 90% on for the past month or so, only to find out it had been a junk file all along.

It just seems like this series isn't that popular. I might be willing to buy the next to volumes and try to scan them myself, but the only website I've found that sells it so far is amazon.co.jp, and they don't ship overseas.

I had to futz around with the name of the bug on the left a little.
Uzu actually says the English name "Mealworm" for the larvae, but then the Japanese name for the adult beetle. The Japanese name literally translates to something like "brown rice trash beetle" (emphasis on the 'trash' part). In English they're called flour beetles.

http://www.bk1.jp/product/03151087

Insect Judas here to make you lose money. Bk1 offers many shipping options.

>>188
Thanks, I'll definitely look into that.
Although now I have to ponder whether doing so would make me an active party to piracy (more than I already am that is). Although as long as I don't post the raws anywhere, I don't know if it's that different.
Also, the idea of having to destroy the books to scan them almost makes me want to get two copies.

Related to this strip, here's a cool David Attenborough video of glowworms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBIEmjaoE5w

When danger threatens, there's only one person to call...

Our hero springs into action

I said "Our hero springs into action."

That's more like it.

>>188
http://benippon.com/en/chiro-chan-3

There is also this one, but alas, they only had volume 3. I have bought from them four times and all four orders have arrived safely to Sweden.

Darn, messed up and posted three identical comments.

Keep up the good work!!

Di-Amon is a reference to a character from the manga BASTARD!!

Reference picture.
blog-imgs-40.fc2.com/i/k/e/ikesanfromfrneore/20070801005431.jpg

>>178
Looks like you were right.

>>199
womp...

Afterword

Final bonus strip.
I'm not sure I understand what Kushina is saying about the studio. Or maybe I do understand, and she just says some really weird things.

>>204
Forgot my link.
"Nue"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nue

And I assume that most people here are familiar with 'moe' at this point.

Bug Pope here. If it would help the cause, I might be able to pitch in some money for getting the next volume. I'm really enjoying it, and I figure I owe the mangaka anyway.

Is is just me, or is Cero oddly similar to another fictional dog with almost the same name? http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Zero-nightmare-before-christmas-226972_719_434.jpg
Coincidence? I think not. Chiro-chan is actually a prequel.

>>192
Oh shush, pudding takes priority over heroism. Always.

>>206
The money isn't an issue at all, it's more the morality of scanning something myself (as opposed to downloading scans off of Share, which is different... how?)
Even if I weren't planning to upload translations I think I would want to buy volumes 2 and 3 at this point anyway, just so I could keep reading (and volume 1 too I suppose, even though I'd probably never read the physical copy).
But I also don't like the idea of having to destroy the books to get them to scan. But since I just said I'd probably never even look at the physical copy, I don't know why that should matter either.
I just kind of like the idea of having hard copies on my bookshelf.

Anyway, short version, I'm almost definitely going to buy volumes 2 and 3, but beyond that, I haven't decided yet.

>>207
Holy crap, you're right!
I thought Cero looked kind of familiar.
It's got to be intentional. Especially when you consider that Zero is written ゼロ and Cero is written セロ.

>>208
I'm starting to think I might be able to use my digital camera to "scan" the pages without destroying the book. It's got a pretty good resolution, and that's how professionals scan old books without having to destroy them (of course they have multi-thousand dollar equipment, but I think my point-and-shoot would work for the purposes of manga). I would have to set up some sort of rig to get the camera distance consistently right and hold the pages in place though (with sheets of glass or plastic). That may take some doing, but it's definitely worth it to me if I can preserve the books.
This may work...

Whatever happens and whoever does it in whatever way, I just wanna read more (That sounds kinda greedy, but dammit, I love this series!)

Well, I just ordered Volumes 1 - 3 on BK1 (thanks Insect Judas) but I made a retarded mistake and only entered my street address (and country) for the shipping address.
I left out the state and city.
I went back and changed it in my profile, and sent a help inquiry through the customer service desk (their FAQ said to contact customer service about changing overseas orders) so hopefully they'll get to my ticket and correct it before it ships.
I'm hoping that in the worst case, if it doesn't get fixed, they'll realize they don't have enough information and cancel my order, but I'm worried they may not realize they don't have enough information and try to ship it to nowhere only to have the US Postal service send it back as undeliverable and have them charge me the return fees.

>>209 And it's not as if "blanket" is a very typical canine shape.

So good news, I checked my BK1 order (I can't say that without thinking of Burger King) last night and saw my shipping address had been updated, and then I had an e-mail waiting for me this morning from customer service confirming it had been fixed. It also looks like the order shipped as of a few minutes ago. It should take about a week or two to get here.

As for volume 1, I've made a final pass through everything, tweaked some of the dialogue where I thought it was appropriate (for instance, in >>189 I replaced 'bug repellent' with 'mothballs' since it seemed more suited to conjuring up images of an old chest and preserving old things) and I also fixed any mistakes or typos I made (how come no one mentioned the obvious mistake in >>21 ?).
I've also finished proofreading my translation notes text file and put it all in a .rar which includes pages not posted here like the cover scans and some bonus art (spoilers: Chiro grows up to be a pettanko )

Here's the "media" "fire" (one word) link that's been butchered to get through the spam filter.
/file/nz2ritfu0br8z36/Chiro-chan_Volume%2001_English.rar

>>213 I've said it before, but you're the fastest translator I know. Well done! Now all we have to do is survive without Chiro-chan a few weeks...

Slight update.
Now the order has shipped.
When I said it had shipped previously, I was basing that off the fact that the order status had changed, without actually bothering to see what the new order status was. After I never received a shipping confirmation e-mail, I realized they were still putting my order together (Volume 3 was ready almost immediately, but it took several days for them to get volumes 1 and 2 in stock).
I just received the real shipping confirmation about an hour ago.

They're here!
It'll still be little longer before I can get some cleaned up image files ready for translating though.

Right now I'm practicing de-binding/re-binding with a complimentary local city guide I picked up at the grocery store.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Chiro-chan.

Fall is in the air, and something is a little different...

So not everything is different...

I don't get it either.

Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

Hooray, Ralen and Chiro-chan are back!
At first I thought it was a matter of sudden hormones, but it turns out the universe is just being an ass to poor Miss Machiho...

>>221
*Yachiho

I wonder why she's single, anyway. I mean, she has certain qualities, you know. A pair of them.

On a semi-related note, my older brother married a girl from Hokkaido recently, and her nephew looks pretty much exactly like a real life Riki-chan, just a little younger. Fortunately for him his life doesn't suck as much, though.

Anyway, your devotion to this project is admirable, Ralen. Keep on trucking.

Bug Pope

Ah, there's my Chiro-chan fix! Thank you, Ralen.

Chiro is so adorable when she's at home (see also >>12 and >>16).

Cultural lesson of the day:
This type of card game (called Karuta from the Portuguese carte meaning card) involves a person reading a verse from a set of reading cards, then two players will try as quickly as possible to grab the corresponding card from the ground (usually with an image matching the verse, as well as the first letter of the verse being read).

The harder version involves more familiarity with poetry, where the reading card has only the first three lines of a verse, and the matching card on the ground has the last two lines.

I do the same thing when someone rings my doorbell.

At least Cero didn't open the door for the prowler this time.

I don't know, the current chapter makes me kinda sad. Where are Chiro's parents? I can understand if they're not there on a weekday as in earlier chapters, but on major holidays too? Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but there seems to be a connection between Chiro-chan's parents never being around and her deep fear of being seen as weak or submissive.

Mato-chan, on the other hand, is just plain old crazy.

>>228 Okay, read through them more properly now, apparently they're just "out". Still seems pretty cold to me.

VC: baw. The vertification code is overreacting, though.

>>228
I don't really think it's anything more than the standard "never see anyone's parents" comic/cartoon trope. Even when we do see their parents, their faces are obscured.

The person in Kushina's head is starting to concern me more and more...

The strip on the right is a reference to the late 60's adventure TV series "Red Shadow" (or Akakage) which was set in feudal Japan.
White Shadow (Shirokage) was one of Red Shadow's sidekicks who would apparently fly into battle riding a giant kite.
Check out this clip to see him in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ECRy_rTGbk#t=01m10s
This series kind of strikes me as Japan's answer to the Lone Ranger.

Hanetsuki is a traditional New Year's game that's basically identical to badminton, but it's played with special decoratively painted paddles and brightly colored shuttlecocks, so it seemed distinct enough to warrant using the original name (especially since they have actual badminton in Japan).

>>230
Kushi-chan often seems a little depressed looking (except when she's smiling or giggling, which is most of the time).
It's probably the gentle curve at the top of her eyes.

>>231 Sort of nitpicking here, but "crap" feels a bit out of character. I know it's just a tiny detail, and not as weird as some translation choices I've seen (like the baccano sub where the old immortal antagonist kept using "guy" instead of just "man". In the 1930's. That was just distracting), but I'd personally pick "darn" or something. Just my two cents.

>>232
I don't know, I thought it seemed like a suitably mild swear word. And she's said worse before.

You know my first thought when I saw the kite in >>231 was that the segments resembled a certain classic arcade game.

Awww
This makes my heart as warm as Mato's core body temperature.

This one was a little tricky.
I had some trouble interpreting it at first, and then on top of that it had an untranslatable pun that I had to re-write.

In the original joke (If I'm interpreting it correctly, which I think I am now) Mato says it's almost time for Valentines chuu to start going around. Chuu is written with the symbol for 'Bug' , but chuu can also mean 'kiss'.
So in the last panel Mato says she said 'bugs' as chuu to make it sound like a romantic gift.

The sheer level of Mato's adorableness in the last three pages alone has made my entire day better.

>>235
Okay, I finally looked the next page and this makes more sense now. (sometimes reading ahead pays, like with the whole TreAct thing; I would have been completely screwed if I hadn't read ahead and seen that one coming).

Here's this page updated to make more sense. The meaning is also closer to the original I believe. The pun remains the same though.

It may seem like Mato is getting all lovey dovey, but I think she just likes talking about bugs.

Also, the thing about the chocolate beetle larva is true.
http://www.popgadget.net/2008/01/beetle_larva_ch.php

Ant Chocolate: also a real thing.
http://www.cybercandy.co.uk/aaasmt/index.php/url_indprod?xlc=443

>>240 Chiro-chan is a yuri-magnet, eh?

Also, the idea that Mato-chan browses the internet is terrifying. I'm not sure what you'd find if you searched for japanese sites about bugs, but sooner or later she'd stumble upon stuff that's... well, you get the idea.

>>241
Well don't forget that in Mato-chan she found a discarded adult magazine, and didn't seem too fazed by it.

Ayurveda is a type of ancient medicine from India. It's thousands of years old and involved some of the first surgical techniques, including the removal of cataracts.

So Kushi-chan isn't crazy, she's just... possessed?

I'm not sure if that makes me feel any better.

Although after I die, I wouldn't mind inhabiting the mind of a grade school girl and befriending her.

Finally this guy has a name.
I was just thinking about how he hadn't been named yet.

Congratulations Mato, you've invented the Cadbury Creme Egg.

Does anyone else think the cross section drawing with the cream spilling out looks like a fish puking from a giant mouth?

This one was a huge pain to edit.

Well I guess it all worked out in the end.

So the actual word Chiro uses is odoroki-yaku which is literally something like "Amazed Role."

It's a Japanese name for a character type who's always amazed at what's going on in the story so that he has an excuse to ask questions that the other characters can then answer as an explanation for the reader.

Translated from a Japanese site I found:
A complement to Mr. Exposition, a supporting role that enables him to give explanations. When a new rival or ability is shown, they ask "What is that!?" in surprise, and upon hearing that, Mr. Exposition will deliver the explanation "Oh, that's (etc.)"

I did some browsing on tvtropes.org and found this article that seems to match almost perfectly.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWatson
The Watson is the character whose job it is to ask the same questions the audience must be asking and let other characters explain what's going on.

>>250 I always thought of her as the straight man, myself. The "token normal" whose job is to be contrast to the various weirdos. But I suppose she's the watson as well.

Also, I'm glad the mangaka uses her rather sparingly. Otherwise there's the risk of turning out like Bobobo Bobobob-bo (I won't even bother spelling that correctly), where every single action made by the wacky main characters is followed by someone screaming about how weird that is, and/or narrating what just happened in the same panel. It gets very, very annoying after a few times, and some manga feel that it's necessary to do this all the time or the audience won't understand that it's supposed to be a joke.

Okay, sorry for that rant, it's a pet peeve of mine. See it as my way to saying that Chiro-chan is good stuff as it doesn't try to shove the jokes down my throat.

>>246

According to Pink Tentacle, the "jellybeans" is really the juicy squid filling. Because someone apparently thought grub-shaped chocolate wasn't gross enough. I mean, squid is good and all, but in chocolate? Ignorance is bliss, Riki-chan.

>>251
I think she is the straight man too (and so does she, and possibly Riki as well) but Chiro thinks that's her job, so she won't allow that to stand.

>>252
The Pink Tentacle article says dried squid is only used for the legs (which doesn't sound all that bad to me). The filling is solid milk chocolate and corn flakes, with candied orange peel for the mouth.
http://pinktentacle.com/2008/01/larva-chocolate-looks-sick-tastes-sweet/

My interpretation was that Mato-chan made her own though, using jellybeans covered in white chocolate.

>>253 You're assuming Mato-chan would actually make a candy that just looks like a bug. I'm not so sure...

>>251

>every single action made by the wacky main characters is followed by someone screaming about how weird that is, and/or narrating what just happened in the same panel

Shinichi Yuhki seems to have the same opinion of those types of manga.

I'm thinking I should probably change the translation of 'Watson' in >>250 to something more like 'Spaz'.

'Spaz' it is.

>>255 Wow, it's as if I'm really reading any overrated shounen manga from the leisure of my own home! Mr Shinichi Yuhki is good people.

This isn't breaking the 4th wall as much as smashing it down with repetive blows, and then putting the pieces back together again with gum. And I swear, that sentense made perfect sense in my head.

The Innsmouth Look:
A reference to H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" in which the Innsmouth residents were described as having a very particular look: "queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, stary eyes" (in short, they looked like fish people).

One of the only times Mato gets excited over something, and Chiro has to shoot her down so harshly...

So...nyaru-san....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyarlathotep him?

or do you prefers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1_8M6oW8l4 ?

.- . either way, heh

>>258

I is for Innsmouth, a curious town
Where the people wear gold
And are quite hard to drown

Paraphrased from Baby's First Mythos.

>>259
Himeda sure has some unusual reading material (Lovecraft, The Divine Comedy...)

Chiro has angered the Daimon Ranger...

......

Okay, on to the notes:
In case you didn't already know (you guys seem to be more familiar with Lovecraft than I am), "SAN Check" stands for Sanity Check in tabletop gaming, originating from Call of Cthulu.

>>262 As a life-long tabletop gaming nerd, seeing a reference to one of the most classic tabletop rpgs ever in my favorite 4koma manga fills me with geeky love.

From what I've heard, the Call of Cthulhu game is actually pretty popular in Japan. And it's not the first time I've seen a japanese reference to the infamous SAN check. Just plain awesome.

Bug Pope

Ah, meta humor.
You'll get this if you read Watashi no Oniichan.

It's hard to believe Mato-chan herself was only in 2nd grade when the series began. (I knew the image of Kushina standing like that looked familiar)

Unfortunately, no Mato-chan figure was ever included in Watashi no Oniichan...

>>256
I was wondering what the title 'Howling in the Darkness' was supposed to mean. Apparently it's another Nyarlathotep reference.

I think this is my new favorite page. Kushina's cute pose and Chiro's sexy pose.

Chiro will bring about the end of days with her sexiness.

>>263
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1_8M6oW8l4
This one(it has a link for subbed version in the description, since the uploaded videos with sub were taken down) uses a few SAN moment.

And it is getting made into TV anime series.

>>264 Oh great, tentacles. Just when I thought the implied bukkake and pervert bunny was enough.

>>265 What's this, a loli manga making fun of the creepy pedophiles who are the target market of loli figurines? Awesome!

>>268 I haven't seen the subbed version yet, but there's already two visual H.P. Lovecraft references in the first 50 seconds alone.

>>270
I've still never really thought of Mato-chan or Chiro-chan as loli manga. Not in the way Mitsudomoe or Ichigo Mashimaro are.

Watashi no Oniichan is way more of a loli manga than I thought though. Maybe I'm just naive, but I had always thought the figures were pretty innocent up until now.
In doing some of the research for >>265 though, I found out that each of the things Mato lists is a specific reference to one of the figures from Watashi no Oniichan.
Mion's figure (standing on a chair, cleaning the blackboard) can be undressed (the first thing Mato mentions). That's no surprise, since people have been taking thes skirts off of PVC figures for as long as PVC figures with skirts have been produced. But you can also take off her shirt, and her torso was actually cast with nipples, which is a little worse.

Sonome's figure (standing in the hall holding a sloshing bucket of water) is the same way. Not only can you undress her, but her stance (holding the bucket in front of her) make it so that if you remove the bucket, you now have a girl standing in a puddle, hands clasped in front of her with water dripping down her legs (the second thing Mato mentioned). That can't have been an unintentional design.

The worst one is Harusame's figure though (collapsed on the floor next to a spilled pot of stew, with some splattered on her). It turns out that if you take the shirt off of this figure, the naked torso underneath was designed with a completely separate set of arms folded behind its back (as if they were tied) with more splatters added to the bare chest. The torso was completely grey though (the same color as the shirt) so in order to give it a flesh tone, people had to use paint thinner to remove the paint (the third thing Mato mentioned).

This stupid page sent me on a 2 hour wild goose chase all because I misread a single character in the title (multiple times).

The actal word was touji ('back then') but I misread it as Souji, the name of the main character from Kamen Rider Kabuto. Since they've mentioned Kamen Rider Kabuto in this series before, and since one of his special attacks is 'Cast Off' (where pieces of his armor fly off like shrapnel) I spent almost 2 hours trying to figure out what the title meant and what Mato was talking about.

As it turns out, 'Cast Off' is also slang term for figures that have removable clothes/parts. It only came about in 2006 though, which is a few years after Watashi no Oniichan was released, hence the title.

>>272 Really? Maybe I'm paranoid, but when I read Watashi no Oniichan I was shocked by the sexual overtones. It's part of why I normally avoid most "moe for the sake of moe" series and shows. Mato-chand and Chiro-chan avoids this quite well, as it often parodies it and contains way more nightmare fuel and dark humour than fanservice.

Ever seen "worksafe porn", porn pictures that have been edited with MS Paint to show completely nonsexual and innocent activities for comedic effect? That's what the WnO figurines remind me off. Then again, I am known to have my mind in the gutter.

>>272 I can't even read Ichigo Mashimaro at all. I've tried, but I always feel dirty afterwards. It's just way too creepy.

>>274 >>275
I think you might be a little overly sensitive.
Ichigo Mashimaro is certainly not without its share of lolicon fanservice, but it's really tame compared to some of the other stuff out there. I personally really like it, but that probably says more about me than about its content. When you've seen as many loli manga as I have, you may get desensitized to the point where anything without fanservice is considered cute not pedo, anything with a little fanservice is cute and pedo, and then there's just porn.

As for Watashi no Oniichan, setting aside the figures for a moment, the character drawings by Yuki Ooshima at the beginning of each book (the ones where the girls were covered in totally-not-semen; Yuki Ooshima is the same guy who designed the figures by the way) were really the only sexualized parts of the series.
All the other artist's segments seemed legit. No fanservice, no pantyshots, just a bunch of girls doing their daily thing at school. I can see how you might be made to feel like a creep reading it (it kind of feels like you're spying on a playground) but at the same time it's all pretty wholesome content. Girls making lunch. Girls shopping for clothes. A girl writing letters about her daily activities to her older brother (that segment was my favorite).

Even saying that, I would still call Watashi no Oniichan a loli manga, because even though it's not sexualized in any way (again, Yuki Ooshima notwithstanding) it exploits the characters' gender, age, and cuteness to attract a very specific target audience. It's got very little substance aside from "Look at these cute 8 year old girls" which I can see bringing out the creepy factor for some people.

Whereas I wouldn't call Mato-chan/Chiro-chan a loli manga, because although they feature young girls as the main characters, it's more about the characters' personalities and interactions rather than trying to focus on how cute they are.

phew, back to translating.

I wonder if Mr. Adzura is supposed to be the author.

I like where this chapter is going.

Oh shi-

I apparently misunderstood Mato the same way Riki did, so I went back and edited >>279 to be more ambiguous.

"Why don't you have a seat."

May Sickness occurs shortly after the school year starts in April when students begin to lose their enthusiasm about their new routine.

I considered swapping it with "Senioritis" since it fit with them being 6th graders, but I'm not sure how well known that term is either, and May Sickness isn't that obscure of a reference.

It's been very subtle, but the characters are continuing to slowly develop physically as they age. (I'm talking about Mato's boobs.)

Most of you are probably familiar with the Rafflesia flower, even if you don't know it by name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafflesia

"Eccentric smell" is the best I could come up with. The actual term seems to be generally used describe things that have distinctive odors, but that are enjoyed by certain people.
Things like gasoline, cardboard, diesel exhaust, new car smell, etc. We already know Mato's taste in smells (her what?) is odd from her visit to the zoo.
Also because she's Mato-chan.

I never noticed before how similar Riki and Uzu's hair is.

I'm almost getting the feeling that Uzu genuinely doesn't like Riki...

Another pun in this one.
The word for "tell others" is kougai and the word for "land planarian" is kougaibiru.
Land planaria, a type of non-parasitic flatworm, are also sometimes known as hammerhead worms.

I had trouble deciding what word Grampa should call Riki here.
I wanted something suitably harsh and disciplinarian, but not overly vulgar either.

Hey wait, 'disciplinarian'.
That gives me an idea.
I just changed the translation of the pun as I was writing this. I think this isn't as lame sounding as what I had before. I spent like 20 minutes coming up with the other one and settled when I couldn't think of anything better, and then this just suddenly came to me. Weird how that works.

Uzu is insane.

So it turns out Riki is the lesser of two evils.

Bet you never thought you'd be hearing that.

I know I tried to translate tsundere before, but I figured if I'm going to leave moe alone, I might as well leave tsundere alone too. I also can't think of any English word or phrase that really fits.

It's Halloween and I'm making like Chiro (pretending I'm not home).

It's been awfully quiet here the past few days. I hope I didn't scare everyone off with all the loli talk.
I enjoy the comments and discussion about the series, even if 90% of it is just me and Bug Pope.

I hate the heat...

The title on the left wasn't me trying to be clever, it was actually the Japanese title for the film "Some Like it Hot."

This seems to be another subtle reference to the Japanese superstition that I mentioned before about a snake coming out if you whistle.

I don't know much about badminton, but a smash seems to be the equivalent of a spike in volleyball.
I'm pretty sure Uzu just made takash up on the spot. I think there might be a bit of word play in there too since takai means 'high'.

More advanced techniques.
hiku means low, and dobu means storm drain, but I like the way the names sounded, so I kept them.

Uzu has the best games ever.

Oh my god, they killed Mato!
You bastards!

So apparently gwaragowagakin is one of the unique sound effects from the baseball themed manga Dokaben, made whenever the character Iwaki hits the ball.
It's so popular there's even a baseball website/blog with the name gwaragakin.

Dokonjo Gaeru (literally 'Gutsy Frog') was a manga series from the 70s about a junior high student who trips in a vacant lot and falls on a frog, smashing it, but leaving an imprint of the frog on his shirt.
The frog's soul lives on within the shirt, giving the boy advice and leading to general humorous situations.

Jigumo spiders are a type of spider that spin an unusual sac-like web that they often attach to the base of trees, or old house foundations.
You can find some interesting pictures if you Google search ジグモ巣 (jigumo web).

An English search for "jigumo" just turns up sites dealing with the character from Naruto though.

>>295

Fortunately, it seems Mato-chan is indestructible. She must have the strength of an insect...

hmm I thought this series had passed its prime, but to my surprise I enjoyed it more lately.. Keep up the good work!

>>297

Mato-chan will grow up to be The Tick? Weirdness...

>>272
You can undress some of the WnO-figurines?! Wow, I did not know that.

A late comment I know, I just have not checked-in for a while.

Will check out Mitsudomoe. Guess I am one of those creeepy lolicons.

Ichiro Suzuki, right fielder for the Seattle Mariners.

Nice to see the comments coming back in.
It was getting kind of lonely by myself.

>>298
I certainly hope it hasn't passed it's prime. We're only at the halfway point of volume 2, with all of volume 3 to go (and based on the afterword in volume 3 it looks like the series is still ongoing).

Chiro reminds me an awful lot of myself.

Also, wow, how old is that radio?
Oh wait, maybe that's her visual project.

You know I had a thought a while back that aside from some of the references to modern TV shows, that there was really never any indication of what time period this took place in. We never saw any technology like computers, cellphones, game systems, etc. so it left the possiblity open (to me at least) that this could potentially be taking place a long time ago.

Then Mato had to go and blow that out of the water by mentioning the internet a while back.
Also, Chiro-chan playing Mario Kart.

So it looks like more Kushi-chan and Cero in this chapter.
Two of my favorite characters.

>>303

>Chiro reminds me an awful lot of myself.
> an albino tsundere? I knew it!

Yep, Chiro definitely reminds me of myself.
Also, she looks good in a ponytail.
This is not a new look I would recommend for Cero though.

>>228
You know, you may be on to something after all.
I still say it's mainly just plot device, but it could be developing into more of a story element.

I'm sure Bug Pope and others will get this already, but I had to look it up.
Apparently I'a means "Praise" or "Verily" in Lovecraft's ancient alien language.

Ponyo was modeled after a Deep One?
I'll never be able to see that movie the same way again...

This is a reference back to the very first strip in >>1.
The Japanese name for the Sea Hare is amefurashi.
So in this strip Chiyo screams Ame!

Kushina makes her cute pose again.

Obon, the Japanese Buddhist festival of the dead, is celebrated in August and usually signifies the start of cooler temperatures.
It's also the time of year when jellyfish swarm the beaches.

...the Lovecraft turn in this manga is fascinating and creepy. This comis started out as, you know, tsun(no dere) second-fiddle character, and now we have Nyarlathotep inhabiting a loli.

Great work, enjoying it.

>>310
What's really bizarre is how South Park did almost exactly the same thing this week, but in the opposite direction.
It took a story about Cthulhu and mashed parts of it up with cutesy anime My Neighbor Totoro for no real reason.

I'm not sure if I'm using my plurals correctly here, because I don't know enough about the Cthulhu mythos to know if they're trying to summon Cthulhu himself, or just a Deep One.

Also, I'm open to feedback on my sound effects. The original sound effect was zo-zo-zo which is used for menacing creatures, but it's more for atmosphere than an actual sound being produced.
You can imagine the bum-bum-bum as something like the Jaws theme if you like.

And that's the end of this chapter.

Starting tomorrow: A chapter about boobs.

>>311 I'd have used Dun-dun-dun for a dramatic/somewhat silly effect, but bum bum bum works.

>>307 To be fair, Ponyo's frog-form was pretty damn creepy. Honestly I'm surprised I haven't seen any realistically drawn nightmare fuel pictures of that, considering how popular it is to turn Ghibli characters creepy and disturbing for comical effect.

Holy crap, what are that girl's parents feeding her?

I've got mixed feelings about (imaginary) grown up Chiro.
On the one hand, her face is kind of sultry looking.
On the other hand, I've never really been a boob man.

Mato-chan,
Mato-chan,
Does whatever
A hornet can...

In before "little brown girls."

So the strange thing about this page is that "Before" and "After" were already written in English, exactly as you see them.
What's weirder is how closely they seem to match the font I've been using.

There's a little joke here with Futoto-kun's name.
The to part is written with the same character as the to in Riki's name, but the futo is written with the character for 'fat'.
Iwato = 岩戸
Futoto = 太戸

>>315

Her adult face there kind of reminds me of when she tried to smile in volume one. Which still gives me nightmares...

>>315 Ah, puberty. Teaching young people that there's no such thing as fairness, especially not in nature.

>>286 Personally I don't think Uzu really dislike Riki, it's more about her being an annoying jerk. A lovable annoying jerk.

>>315
>>316

This chapter officially ruin everything.. I want my loli back!!

Btw will you release this all in one folder or do I have to save it page by page?

So any of you who may have been wondering (innocently I'm sure) what Chiro's chest feels like, just rub your face against your forearm. It's apparently exactly the same.

>>322
Yeah, while it's kind of touching to watch Mato develop into a lovely young woman, it's kind of sad to say goodbye to the adorably terrifying little girl who captured all our hearts back in Mato-chan.

And don't worry, once I've finished with volume 2, I'll go through and proofread my work one last time, make any changes for consistency, and upload them as a rar file just like I did with volume 1 in >>213.

There will also be some additional scans (like the cover pages, color art, and a character sheet) that will be included in the .rar file that I wasn't planning to upload here with the regular comic pages.

Wait, who is this guy again?
Are we sure he's not some 30 year old who just squeezed into a school uniform?

And I swear, Miss Yachiho gets bigger every time I see her...

Yachimata x Mitsuki OTP (I'm not sure what I just said)

>>325
Repost of this page.
I had trouble figuring out Chiro's usage of the English word "Follow" which was also paired with a verb that I had never seen in that context.
After finding some examples of this phrase with Google though I think I've got it mostly right (at least closer than it was before).

Another page that looks like it was originally in color, but printed in grayscale for some reason.

I like how both the light and dark official have Chiro's hair ribbons.

I like how we have to keep being reminded that Riki is a boy.
I'm sure Chiro doesn't need any reminders though.

So the strip on the right took forever to figure out, much like the "Wombat" strip in >>183.

I guess I lose nerd points for never having played any of the Gradius games.

For those who don't know, in the Gradius series, there are power ups called 'Options' which are glowing balls that follow the player's movement and firing patterns. Uzu is saying she's the main player and Riki is the 'Option'.

The pun/misunderstanding comes from the fact that in Japanese shon means 'pee'.
option = opushon
Riki-tion = Riki-shon

I would also like to take this moment to mention how surprised I am no one remarked about the menses joke in >>316.

>>331
Maybe I've just been image-boarding too long, but I didn't read it as that sort of those particular fluids...

vc: coy

Funnily, the "GOGOGO!!" was written like that in the original.

I'm not sure what to make of Hisa's expression...

Minor change to the last punchline in >>336.
I was trying to get one last page done before I went to bed and ended up making a mistake (以上 in this case should mean "the above mentioned" instead of "more than this").

>>326
"A flat chest... and a squishy stomach..."

Yeah, I agree, that is wonderful too!!

Looks like Futoto-kun is an otaku in training.

>>323
ahh glad to hear.. I've been faithfully saving these mangas page per page since mato-chan in bugpope era.. then u came along and just gave link to dl all of em.. I got mixed feeling back then I guess..

Must have missed the other links cos I usually just skipped posts consist of text only

Futoto-kun may look pudgy, but he's all beefcake.

I find it awesome that someone who was originally nothing more than a sight gag has now become a semi-regular character.

The original misunderstanding is due to the words "Chicken Breast" (sasami) and "Poached" (mushi - literally 'steamed').
Mato only hears '-sami' and '-mushi' so she fills in the gaps with 'hasami-mushi' which means 'earwig'.

This is all for this chapter (another half length one).
Tomorrow, non-loli fanservice.

>Tomorrow, non-loli fanservice.

We've sink that low now?? I remember when it was the beginning of Mato-chan evry1 seems so pure2.. and now it's service time??........ I want my Kushina fanservice..

>>345
Don't worry, it's just Miss Yachiho.

Yes, she really does say "Happy Merry Christmas" here.

I left shoryuken alone since I figure almost everybody remembers it from Street Fighter.

Drunk Miss Yachiho in a skimpy santa outfit?
Do want.

On the other hand... drunk teacher at a party full of grade schoolers? This can't end well.

And why is there champagne at a party for 12 year olds anyway?

......that smile does not put me at ease

Yachiho drunk is...strange. I never would have thought of it.

Yachiho is a funny drunk :D She just might have not a boyfriend anymore... She did manage to kill off quite a few bugs back in Mato-chan's run....

>>350
Her case most likely is the same with Sawako-sensei from K-on, Hawt and beautiful woman with absolutely no luck when it comes to romance..

>>207

>>347

Looks like we're not the only ones that noticed...

vc: muff
...

I need 30 CCs of DFC, STAT!

Mystery solved... (and now we know where the champagne came from too).
Miss Yachiho likes to party hard.

This now lends whole new meaning to the "Detox! Detox!" from >>219.

>>353
That kind of outfit is a bit dangerous for a side job as a high schooler, don't ya think?? I hope l8er, they'll go deeper into this subject

>>354
That's the first time I've seen Riki affected by Yachiho.

I guess the last time, he was drowning, so he can be forgiven.

Still, that was hilarious.

>>357
It seems that Riki always ends up breathless whenever he touches Miss Yachiho's boobs.

A number of notes for this one.
The song Yachiho is singing is this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtID9aW0ihE

"The Crawling Chaos" is another of Nyarlathotep's names.

"Present For You" and "Present For Me?" are both said in English which makes it cuter somehow.

Awww, how sweet-slash-creepy of Himeda...

I think Grampa would approve of Courage Wolf.

I've done my best to edit all the text I find up to this point, but I think this banner has me beat.
It simply says "Happy New Year".

So another full year has passed in the storyline since the beginning of this volume (we began just before New Year's and now we're there again).

The group is going to be moving to junior high soon. I hope that doesn't mean we have to leave Miss Yachiho and Kushina behind.
Although in >>316 Miss Yachiho said the junior high was "next door" so we may still get to see them from time to time.

I love this author's sense of humour. Thank you translator for doing so well.

>>361
Thank you for your encouragement.

This is another one that took me a while.

At first I thought the joke was that Dai-Shon sounds like 'Big Pee' (and that may still be part of it).
But the main joke is that Dai-Shon sounds like 'Dyson'.
The only vacuum cleaner that never loses suction.

Bunny!
Nooooo!!

>>364
Moral of the story: Pedophile deserve to die in an explosion. Oh who am I kidding, this is Japan! Go Fanservice!!

This scenario reminds me of a Saw movie.
Bunny is kidnapped with Chiro trapped inside her along with timed explosives (yes, Bunny is female, or at least speaks in a very feminine way. I'd forgotten to mention it before now).

>>366
Bunny's female...woah...

>>353 Woah, it's like Riki-chan's head is some sort of boob magnet. I'd call him a lucky bastard if the rest of his life didn't suck so much.

>>367

>Bunny's female

Well... was at least.

The title on the left is literally otoshi-dama which means New Year's Allowance, but since dama can mean ball as well as money, I figured this fit the double meaning better.

While that old myth about M&Ms having their candy shell made from beetle shells isn't true, it is true that the dye for the red ones (and many other red foods) comes from pigments extracted from bugs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal

Here it is.
The fanservice you all have been waiting for/dreading.

Chiro is having war flashbacks.

I'll assume that most people reading this are already familiar with the Setsubun tradition of throwing soybeans at "demons."

This is another Japanese bug that I couldn't find an English name for (the scientific Latin name is Agabus conspicuus) so I just literally translated the Japanese name.

Mato looks almost evil in the third panel on the left...

Here we have another made up insect name for the purpose of preserving the pun.

The bug Mato names is the mizusumashi or whirligig beetle.
It's normally written 水澄まし but there's an alternate writing as well: 鼓豆虫 (豆 = 'bean' and 虫 = 'bug').
However, despite having the character 豆 in its name, it's not pronounced mame, the same as it was in the two previous bug names, or as it would be for the word 'bean'.

>>375
Mato in panel 3 is scary... but also a nice change from her usual deadpan expression.

>>348
Remins me of the English idiom "in her cups" (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/in_one's_cups) Given the author's apparent fondness for Lovecraft, it's entirely possible that was the origin, translated to Japanese.

Also, since I haven't said it yet, I do genuinely enjoy this manga and thank you for translating it.

>>376
Thanks for the comments.
One of my favorite parts of translating this (or anything else) is getting other people's impressions.

Mato seems to be getting more expressive in general as she gets older.

I'm not familiar with the idiom "in one's cups". There was no dialogue in >>348 meant to refer to being drunk though, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

>>372
Mato always looks like that in the cold. I like it.
>>373
Mato's developed now, so fan service is all right!

Yeah, now that Mato's going through puberty, the Mato fanservice is finally getting enjoyable.

>>379
B-b-but.. this is kids show if you know what I mean..

Btw, Ralen.. can you post me link to dl your scanlation of WnO? thx...

>>377
I think she's talking about Miss Yachiho, who's been acting drunk through >>346, >>347, and the right-side of >>348, and by >>355 is apparently on her 6th bottle of champagne...

She (Hisa?) seems to be gently and slowly reasoning through Miss Yachiho's behavior, as the setup to Uzu's blunt-force trauma.

>>380
Sure, just attach the following to (media fire dot com)
/file/4bluwl2s914tuu4/Watashi%20no%20Oniichan%201-5.rar
I can't type in the actual address or the spam filter will block me.

>>382
Of course it was obvious Miss Yachiho was drunk, but I wasn't sure which dialogue the poster of >>376 thought had originally been adapted from the phrase "In one's cups" since none of the dialogue was actually referring to her being drunk.

Not a bean?
Thank you captain obvious.

I wonder... could it be Mato's little brother?

>>384

>could it be Mato's little brother

That reminds me of the Mato's ending.. it was epic, but a bit misfit for an ending..

Are you sure it's not pea rather than bean? I have no idea what it says in the original japanese, but beans aren't really round.

>>387
Well technically the Japanese word can mean either.
It's typically used to refer to soybeans though (or some other variety of what we would call 'beans' in English).

The strip on the left here gave me a lot of trouble in multiple ways.
First, the top panel was a pain to edit.
Second, I had trouble understanding what Mato was saying in the third panel (the word she uses, kinchaku means 'drawstring pouch' which didn't make any sense to me, but I guess Chiro was imagining the balls as containing lots of bugs, rather than being a single giant bug as I first thought).
Finally trying to make the pun work (mushi-kin being similar to muchi-kin).

Another reference to the Hello Soybeans song from >>358.

One thing I thought was interesting in this strip was that the addage "Two birds with one stone" was the same in Japanese as in English. Literally "One stone, two birds."

>>388
Mato looks so cute in the third panel, second strip.

Mato is definitely getting more expressive as she grows up.

There's now only one chapter remaining in Volume 2.

>>383
Somehow I had trouble downloading it, never happened before.. Do you have any other link??

>>393
Just the one I posted in the Mato-chan thread.
Due to the spam filter and the board's automatic formatting, you'll have to remove all the parentheses from the link.

rapidshare(.)com/files/236670742/()Ralen__Watashi_no_Oniichan_1-5__ENG().rar

>>394
And it still screwed up the link.

Try this instead.
http://rs.4chan.org/?s=watashi+no+oniichan&from=ALL

I wonder why that is (more expression as she ages)?

>>396
I already know it's not what we think, but I'm curious to as what it really is.

She seems to be developing more respect for life as she gets older too.

Well somewhat...

Oh good.
For a second I was worried we were going to go this entire volume without talking about Riki's penis.

This joke actually worked better in English, mainly because 'Canon' and 'Cannon' don't sound the same in Japanese (the original had to cheat by showing the kanji meaning 'cannon' but then having the pronunciation key read 'Canon').

Just in case (I'm sure you all know this song even if you don't know it by name)
The original:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wpPk8qk3uQ#t=01m52s
Modern variations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM#t=02m18s

A slight revision to the text about cleaning the pool in >>400.

vc: death

In the punchline to the strip on the right, Mato actually says tsun-mure a combination of tsundere and mushi (bugs). In her words, it's someone who acts tsuntsun but is actually mushi-dere.

I'm getting a little emotional myself.

And thus ends volume 2.

I'll have the afterword and bonus pages up in the next few days, followed by the full volume archived in a .rar file with translation notes (don't worry, I caught the typo in >>403).

After that it will be a bit longer before I can debind and start scanning volume 3. You can probably expect volume 3 to begin by mid next week sometime.

On to the notes for this page.
Ozaki refers to Yutaka Ozaki, a tragic young musical artist who dealt in teen angst back in the 80s. He died at age 26.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yutaka_Ozaki

The first few lines ("Graduating from under their control" and "Go around breaking the school building's windows at night") are from his song "Graduation" (Sotsugyou).
The last line, "Speed away on a stolen bike" is from his song "The Night" (Juugo no Yoru, literally 'A Night at 15').

English lyrics to some of his songs can be found here (on a German website oddly enough).
http://www.golyr.de/yutaka-ozaki/index-52230.html

>>404
wait.. it almost seems like goodbye.. don't tell me ;_;

>>402
I think Mato shows more expression in this page than in the entire series combined so far, including Mato-Chan.

>>404
Awww, poor Mato-Chan. The girl just wants to hug her beloved teacher goodbye. Shame on Yachiho.

Can't wait for vol. 3.

Afterword.

Just like the last volume, and like with Mato-chan, there was a full color book jacket with a flap containing a photo and the author's musings. I'll include the scan of that when I upload the .rar of volume 2.
This page is what was printed on the book's actual front and back covers, under the jacket.
The blue pages from volume 1 that had the 'Lucky Laugh' pieces were from the front and back cover of that book as well (you can see the spine in the middle).

The left side is the front cover (so technically that should have been the first page I posted, but I didn't want to split it up), and the right side is the rear cover.

The punchline on the left side is a reference to a line from Fresh Pretty Cure, where one of the characters introduces herself as "Freshly Ripened Fresh."
But since "Fresh" and "Flesh" sound the same with Japanese pronunciation, I figured the latter seemed more appropriate here.

>>409
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Usakun is a lolicon artist.
Also there's the pun with usa being short for "rabbit"
(Bunny's name is actually Usa-chan).

Anyway, surprise! Bunny is pink.

I debated on whether to post this page or just include it in the .rar file, but I figured there was enough content to go ahead and post it.

This was the first page in the book. It's the first page in volume 3 as well, except the line about Hisa being "assigned a new role" has been taken out (since I guess that was specific to volume 2).

>The Main characters of the previous series "Mato-Chan" who continues to grow up quickly in blatant defiance of readers' requests.

This is awesome.

Do you have the continuation of the WnOs? The arts from barasui are so Uguuu~ I also like the stories that always appear at the first part of the books

>>412
Continuation?
I have the 5 main chapters (I think there was a bonus 6th chapter featuring Tetra-chan that I haven't been able to find) but I don't know anything about any continuation.

ahhh, I made a mistake and thought the 3 volume at the bottom right as WnO.. My bad.. are they suppose to be a joke or sth??

>>414

>My bad.. are they suppose to be a joke or sth??

Yes...
See the note directly under the 3 books at the bottom where it says "This magazine is a complete joke"?

>>410 When I was translating this page one part on Hisa's description gave me some trouble. It said she had some 腐 tendencies. In this context 腐 is short for fujoshi, or a girl who is into Yaoi. I couldn't think of anything I had seen that made Hisa seem that way though, and fujoshi can sometimes just be a generic term for a girl geek, so I went with that instead.

Then, while doing my final proofreading today, I noticed what she says in >>363 about prefering Riki as a submissive type, (literally she says she thinks he should stay uke.)
So now it all makes sense.
I changed my translation of >>410 to say that she's "into gay boys" now.

Here's the complete archive of volume 2.
Tanslation notes compiled, typos corrected, changes and other tweaks for consistency made (in other words, the pages are not completely the same as what was posted here) and the book jacket scan and translation included.

Remember, this is at "media" "fire" (one word) dot com
/file/ilmzngrziz4sglu/Chiro-chan_Volume%2002_English.rar

Hmm, you know I've seen this image dozens of times by now, but I only just now realized Mato is peeking under rocks at the base of a tree (no doubt looking for bugs).

>>417
Oops, I was so excited that I accidentally hit 'Reply' before I typed my comment.
I was going to say something about Chiro discovering zettai ryouiki.

In this one, the girls discover they've all started to grow strange protrusions...

>>418
I love the expression on miss Yachiyo's face.. I bet when Riki's finally grow up he'll get long nose and big sparky shoujo style eyes as a sign of true uke

>>419
And Futoto-kun will be seme.

Yay, new strips!!

Riki has graduated to trap.

I wasn't kidding about Futoto-kun being seme.

And yep, Hisa's a fujoshi. I just never really noticed it before.

The word that Futoto-kun uses on the right is ナオン (naon, an inversion of onna which means 'girl') which is apparently an old derogatory term for women, typically used to refer to them as sexual objects.

>>422
I approve of this

>>423

Dem traps be making you question yer sanity.

Horrifying to be on the other side of the scale, hilarious to be the onlooker.

In case you were wondering why there's a giant crucifix in panel 3, it's because I had to destroy this pun to make it work in English.
It's also why Mato is holding a spear, and not a knife. Any time you watch anime and see a weird sight gag with accompanying dialogue that makes little to no sense, this is the reason why. I spent over an hour on this page and this is the best I could come up with.

So the original joke is that seibutsu (生物) means "animal."
If you swap out the first character to make it 静物, it's still pronounced seibutsu, but now it means "still life".
And finally, sei ibutsu (聖遺物) means "religious artifacts." The artifacts pictured here are the Holy Grail, the Cross of Christ, and the Spear of Destiny.

Spear of Longinus!

>>426
Do I smell Chu-bug? I'm getting excited here..

>>428
Chu-bug?

We're setting up for another massive pun here.
Unfortunately my translation of "TreAct" doesn't give me much to work with...

I just hope what I've come up with here will be flexible enough if it keeps recurring in the future.

>>429
Just like Chubra but with bugs LOL.. A weird club, filled with lolies

>>430
Oh, I've never heard of that series before.
I wouldn't be surprised to see some references to it in this volume then, even if I probably won't catch them myself.

Okay, explanation time.

As you should all know by now, the original name for TreAct is muchikin.

The name of this club is Ai Muchikin (ai is written with the character for 'love' very tiny at the top of the club sign).
So Chiro interprets this literally, as a club that's soft on bug-holders.
But in the last panel the girl explains it's actually the Aimu Chikin (I'm Chicken) club.

I realize that "Soft React" sounds dumb in comparison, and it's nowhere near as clever, but unfortunately the "love" part is integral to several strips later on, so I couldn't veer too far away from that. "Soft" was the best word I could think of to describe both compassion and timidness at the same time (and TreAct was non-negotiable).

>>422 D'aaaaaaaaw! Riki's so cute when he pretends to have any dignity left.

>>423 Bow-chicka bow wow!

>>414 I like how the artist has been openly mocking the disturbing pedo-bait genre. Even if I'm "a little overly sensitive", it's nice to see at least someone agreeing with me. Really enjoying this manga by the way, keep up the good work.

>>434
Hey, your trip code changed.

>>431 Hey wait, so did mine.

So a club where people with an aversion to social gatherings can gather socially? And it's not doing well?
Imagine that.

>>435
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/boku_wa_tomodachi_ga_sukunai/

.- . this club reminds me of this

>>436
Ahhh, that series.. What's with Japan? The cutest girl always turned out to be a trap.. My body was not ready ;_;

>>437
.- . I think traps are becoming more common these days

Heck, there's Waai magazine that is based on traps genre, like this one

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/past_future/v01/c002/8.html

Some deals with the sexual identity fairly in a heavy manner, but there's also very hilarious one like this or Usotsuki Lily
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/usotsuki_lily/v01/c006/48.html

' _ '\

>>431
I spent a lot more time thinking about how to translate this pun. I keep feeling like there's some really good interpretation that's just outside my grasp.
I really liked the idea of "Fry Treact" (Fright React) but I can't think of any way to make "Fry" sound compassionate or loving (which is important later).

I ended up tweaking my current interpretation slightly, just to make it sound a little more natural.

I'm of course open to criticism though.

The Softer TreAct club.
It's like TreAct Light. All the fascism, none of the calories.

Remember what Grampa said about women getting you under their thumb Riki.

>>440

Woah, she's stacked!

And now we have a name.

Yae-chan?

Fun trivia about her name, the to in Toshiro is written with the same character as the to in Iwato and Futoto.
And the ya in Yaeko is written with the same character as the ya in Yachimata.

I wonder whether Mato and Chiro-chan actually sold well in Japan.. I like these titles but they're definitely not mainstream stuffs..

>>443
Based on how much I've seen of it online, I get the impression that they're not terribly popular (although that's not to say they're unpopular, just more obscure).
There are only about a half dozen images on pixiv related to Chiro-chan/Mato-chan, and even though this is a monthly serial like Yotsubato and Ichigo Mashimaro, I've only ever seen about 5 of the serial issues available on Share, and none of the paperback volumes except for volume 1 (whereas many serial comics appear on Share regularly as they're released each month).
But obviously Chiro-chan is doing well enough that Yuhki is continuing to produce it. It seems like his other series are more widely known though.

Time to put on your Yuri goggles.

We also have another muchikin pun here.
The joke is that Chiro replaces the syllable mu with the character meaning 'none' 無 (also pronounced mu) so that it reads as Mu Chikin or 'No Chickens'.

>>442
Modified version of this page.
I realized I have to introduce the actual word "Love" in here somewhere, otherwise the next pages won't make sense.
All I did was add it to Chiro's first panel of dialogue.

The title and Chiro's line in the third panel on the right are both quotes from the character Haman Karn in the Gundam series.
They're actually said in a fairly distinctive way that doesn't really translate well, so the uniqueness of them is kind of lost in translation. I looked for the English dub equivalents of these quotes, but couldn't find them anywhere, so I just went with their literal meaning.

Futoto was calling Riki "Rikki~" before in >>423 also, but I just attributed it to him pronouncing it slightly differently because he was pissed off.

Seeing it here again though, it may be more of a subtle pet name.

I guess that's a nervous grin on the bottom right?
It looks more like a "Just as Planned" grin to me though...

I seriously hope we're done talking about "Softer TreAct" for a while...

This is the weirdest manga. And yet, not only are you managing to translate intricate and horrible puns with a reasonable degree of accuracy and considerable devotion to the task, I've been reading for two-plus volumes now.

I'll burn a few bucks of hell money for you. Ask Myarlathotep where you can pick it up.

>>450
Thanks for the kind words.

To be honest, I'm still not really happy with this latest batch of word play, but I'm pretty satisfied with most of the previous ones (I'm especially proud of disciplinarian - planarian).

This art style of nightmare Takahara reminds me of something, but I'm not sure what.

I love this new girl.. but is she a replacement for Kushina?? Does it means we'll never see her again?? ;_;

I like this recurring gag about Mato deftly avoiding Chiro's physical attacks.

Speaking of giant bugs, I wonder if we'll ever see Mato's older brother again, in human form this time.

...probably not.

Mato looks so serious!

>>456
Bugs are serious business.

This series just turned into Lord of the Flies.
And I'm not talking about Mato-chan.

Speaking of giant monsters in the boiler room, does the little shadow creature in >>455 remind anyone else of the ghost kids at the school in the original Silent Hill?

>>457
Forgot my page.

>>458
"Me...? Give up...on bugs...? not that..."

Who is this lovely young woman with the joyful expression, and what has she done with our adorable little deadpan Mato-chan?

It's really amazing to go back and look at the original strips from "Mato-chan" and see how much these characters have grown. Yuhki has done an incredible job of aging them subtly over the years.

Hisa has developed quite the pair of Yaoi/Yuri goggles in her adolescence.

>>460
I agree, it's kind of touching seeing them grow up.

>>461
I thought Yae was the creature?

LA LA LA LA LA LA LA let me type it a few dozen more times LA LA LA LA LA this didn't get tedious at all editing these pages LA LA LA LA LA LA LA

A Multiple Tie Tamper is an automated railroad maintenance device for... tamping ties...

I thought of translating it as "Jackhammer" to get a similar feeling but I wasn't sure the original was all that hard to understand.

I didn't realize Yae-Eee was going to become her name from now on. I'm debating whether I should change it since the two vowel sounds next to each other makes it hard to say.

Originally it was Yae-Hii (technically Yae-Hii-Senpai) which is a little easier to say because of the 'H' ('Hii' being the sound of a scream or shriek).

>>462
No, that was just Mato and Uzu overreacting.
They heard a sound and immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was the creature.
Hence my reference to Lord of the Flies.

This is the creature.

Both strips here are referencing the 80s anime/manga Cat's Eye, a series about a team of art-thief sisters.

The strip on the right references the ending theme (skip to 1:15 in the video if you don't want to watch the whole thing).
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4y9dj

You may also be more familiar with the Lucky Star parody of this scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Gyihrr92Q

Himeda, still my favorite character thus far 'w '

Chiro's wearing a ponytail again.
Sweet.

Just some advance warning that I'm going to be out for the Christmas holiday, so you'll have to make do without any new strips between Christmas and New Year's.

I have to wonder if Uzu will ever develop a sense of shame...

Oh shit, Riki's finally gone postal.

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA

>>468
Uzu has a nice back

>>469
>>470
Pissed Riki is officially the most awesome thing ever

>>471
Her bottom isn't bad either.

They're like 13 now, is it okay to be saying these sorts of things yet?

Is this the chapter of alternate hairstyles?
Well, everyone except Uzu I guess.

Mato looks super cute with that T-shirt and her hair in braids.

>>472
I was debating on this one whether Riki was talking about making fun of Cero, or using Cero to make fun of him. Based on this page, I'm now thinking it was the latter. It'll be corrected when I upload the rar file.

I think this page may be an obscure reference to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and how Nausicaa was the only one with the ability to calm the Ohm. (Uzu literally says Mato is "The Princess" rather than "The One").

Poor Riki.

Poor, lucky, lucky Riki.

>>472
Legally no
Morally maybe

>>474
Aww, look at his blissful expression!

>>475
More of Riki's simultaneous good and bad luck

Huh, I just realized that everyone except Uzu has a different hairstyle this chapter.

>>477
Did you realize it right around the time you read >>473 ?

Another alternate hairstyle in this one. I prefer the ponytail myself.

Geeze Hisa, can't you appreciate art when you see it?

Reminds me of that life sized Gundam statue.
http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/20005/Odaiba+Gundam.html

So some fun trivia: This is apparently Nagi from Kannagi (you probably already knew that but I'm not really familiar with that series).
Kannagi is drawn by Shinichi Yuhki's little sister, Eri Takenashi, and recently Yuhki started a spinoff series titled Kanpachi.
In addition to Kanpachi, Yuhki's series Uchu Slave Gotoda Risako and Himena Kamena have been run in Comic Rex, as well as a special edition reprint of Mato-chan commemorating the release of the paperback.

The title on the right originally had a little bit of word play that I couldn't really preserve. It was Dekanagi (a combination of deka meaning 'giant' and Nagi/Kanagi).

>>435 Posting on different computers.

>>473 Braids are a pretty good look for her, actually.

>>478

I realized that Mato's was different in 473. I didn't notice Chiro's hair until 475.

It's been almost a week with no updates TT

I'm not rushing anybody, I'm just concerned.

>>483
See post >>467

>>484
bawww ;_;

A new year means new Chiro-chan.

With his new haircut and that wife-beater, Riki really is starting to send out hick vibes.

>>479
Looks like it's more similar to that Gundam statue than I realized.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykamCJsKFBI

The titles of these two strips are from the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam, spoken by Amuro Ray when he first pilots a Gundam. In the English dub, these lines were changed to "It's on" and "It's so incredibly powerful" respectively, but I kept the translation literal here.
Although when I was trying to source the "5 times more powerful" quote I found lots of Japanese websites wondering "5 times more powerful than what?"

>>487
Reposting with a change to Hisa's second punchline.

This thing does look pretty sweet lit up at night.

>>489
Forgot the link.
http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/20239/Gundam+Lit+Up.html

Happy new year! Chiro-Chan has returned!

Believe it or not, Hisa's pose in the third panel on the left is actually what they recommend you do if you're stuck in an open space during a lightning storm.

You crouch to make yourself low to the ground, stand on the balls of your feet to minimze contact with the ground, and cover your ears to prevent hearing damage from the sound of the strike.

Takemikazuchi is the Shinto god of thunder.
Also, a character from the Persona series.

>>492
Hisa seems uncomfortable with the situation in general, and also exasperated by Mato and Uzu's behaviour.

>>493
She came

Finally, I was wondering when we'd get back to Yachiho.

Also, does this guy have a moustache, or are those lines just crease marks around his mouth?

I guess it's just his mouth.

Oh my god, is that...

>>497
Is that Futoto?

>>497
I made small mistake on the left strip here, both word bubbles in the final panel belong to Chiro (she's telling him not to take Uzu and Mato seriously).

Futoto's going to be quite the ladykiller if he doesn't turn out to be gay.

Oh dear...

Now here's a face we haven't seen in a long while.

If you'll recall, Mato's dad used to be ripped, until Mato commented that he had abs like a cicada, at which point he promptly chubbed up.

It took me forever to figure out what Grampa meant by "color" in the strip on the left. I eventually figured he was talking about the pages being in color (it makes the most sense in context). Yuhki seems to be breaking the 4th wall a lot more often.

First the comment about the characters having noses, then Miss Yachiho talking about the highlights vanishing from her eyes when she's depressed, and now this.

Alright, is it just me, or did anyone else think of Free Willy when they saw this?

Experimenting with a new photoshop technique for the shading on the "rustle" sound effects.

>>228
Some further development of the plot point that Chiro's parents don't seem to be around that often.

>>402
Also, a recurrence of the term tsun-mure here (which I've been really tempted to translated as Bug-Dere but I just can't bring myself to do it considering how much I've tried to avoid using foreign terms whenever possible).

>>504
Chiro and Cero look so cute here

Thank you for translating this by the way! You're doing a good job

>>509
Thank you.

In case you aren't familiar with taiko drums:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiko

The joke here is that Taiko-uchi means "Taiko Drummer" as well as being the name of a particular species of water scorpion.
Chiro and Mato are using the same word, so they each think they're talking about the same thing, but they're each using it in a different sense.

I figured Taiko Beetle and Taiko Beater sounded similar enough to preserve the misunderstanding (even though the bug isn't strictly a beetle).

>>506
Pht-hahahaha!!

>>510
Tsundere Chiro! <3

This marks the half way point for volume 3.

I plan to continue this series as the future strips come out, but since raws of the monthly serials are impossible to find, I'll have to wait for the compiled volumes to be released for sale online. At the current rate, the release times seem sporadic.

Volume 1 came out in December, 2007
Volume 2 came out in September, 2009 (21 months later)
Volume 3 came out in June, 2010 (9 months later)
Each volume has been exactly the same length though, so there's no telling when Volume 4 (and beyond?) could be out.

Anyway, the point is, I want to continue this series, but after I finish volume 3, we may be in for a long dry spell before Volume 4 comes out.
I'm assuming at this point that there will be a Volume 4, since the afterword of Volume 3 ends the same as the afterwords of the previous two did:
Well, until next time, let's meet again in Volume (next sequential number).

>>512
It took me a second to get the "beating" joke

>>513
Poor Chiro

>>514

>It took me a second to get the "beating" joke

Wait, which part? The part where Mato's dad covers his groin?

>Poor Chiro

More like poor Riki.

I hope the bottom panel looks okay.
Placing apostrophes in vertical text is always so awkward.

Just out of curiosity, have people been losing interest in this series?

I ask because I was just checking out the number of downloads of the two .rar files the other day and I noticed Volume 1 had 68 downloads, but Volume 2 only had 14 (and they've both been that way for a while).

I'm not planning on stopping or anything, I was just wondering.

The first thing Mato says is from old idiom that literally translates as 'A summer's bug into the flames," but she reworks it as "An autumn's Chiro into the flames."

The second thing she says is a reference to a popular children's song about a bonfire.

If you're curious, you can hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkJSZz9pYs8

And the Japanese and English words are here (scroll down a bit)
http://blog.alientimes.org/2010/12/in-early-winter-it%E2%80%99s-sazanka-camellia-sasanqua-not-tsubaki-camellia-again/

Die-hard Shinichi fan here. I don't download the .rars but that's because my ancient crappy computer can't handle it. But I worship this manga and am extremely thankful for your translation work!

Wise move, Cero.

Chiro is starting to worry me a little too, the way she keeps inching forward.

Himeda's back!

I wasn't able to find anything about Nyarlathotep living in a forest, so if someone could explain if this is a reference to something, I'd appreciate it.

I'm ashamed to admit, I like to burn things too. It seems so... crude compared to Chiro's love of fire.

>>520

I wonder what reaction Mato would have to thinking of Chiro or Uzu as firebugs. Or what theirs would be to being called it...

As for Nyarlathotep, I see that one of his avatars exists in a place called the "Wood of N'gai." I think I've found the text of the story but don't see a reference to it being burned down.

>>521
This isn't the first time Chiro has shown an inclination towards fire (see >>18).

You all can't possibly appreciate how much trouble the fireworks packaging gave me. I spent over an hour trying to work out what it said. It was written all in kana, and on top of that the words were grouped strangely. I kept thinking it was written left to right on two lines, with some of the letters hidden behind Cero's nose, but it ended up that everything on the left side of his nose was one word, and everything on the right side was a separate word.
I groaned when I finally worked it out.
It turns out, it's a pun referencing this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinogradentia