#大島弓子

[classic-shoujo]

Banana Bread no Pudding (1978) by Yumiko Ooshima

[nijinokanatani]

大島弓子 ŌSHIMA Yumiko

綿の国星 (Wata no Kuni-Hoshi) The Star of Cottonland

[asnowperson]

Ooshima Yumiko's Tanjou! (1970)

Work (that will kill me) in progress...

[seldomscans]

Wata no Kunihoshi - Chapter 19

The OG catgirl is back! I repeat! Chibi-neko is back!

Sadly, few of Ooshima Yumiko's works are available to English readership. Possibly her most known work, Wata no Kunihoshi, is the manga that invented catgirls and won the Kodansha Manga Award in 1979. Yet even this shoujo classic couldn't escape the "no license curse", and fan translations are incomplete.

Friendship Scans, who brought many classic shoujo titles to us, scanlated 18 chapters before disbanding. I was translating Drops of Dreams for them right before their disbandment, and that's how I got to know the state of Wata no Kunihoshi scanlations: There were some translations, some proofread scripts, and some cleans. So many people had already spent their time and effort for the rest of the chapters, but then lack of typesetters and disbandment happened, and all that work was just sitting there. I like this manga, and thought that it was a waste. Knowing that the scanlations can actually be finished spurred me to take it upon myself to fill the gaps and see this through the end. Red and Unnoticedkouhai, project managers of Friendship Scans, kindly allowed me to use the work of their former staff. (I would like to thank them, and all the other staff I never got to know! I hope they are all doing well. You'll see it in our credits page when their work is used.) Then I took this kitten I picked up to Attolia, who gruelingly did everything for this chapter, and we proudly present you: Chapter 19 of Wata no Kunihoshi!

Download the chapter here, or read it online on Mangadex to find out how hard it is to be a cat. Give me a little paw-pat if you want to help.

Rant corner: After actually translating an Ooshima work, now I know why there are few scanlations. This woman is really beyond my level. Please, good translators out there, translate stuff like this instead of generic shoujo romance/isekai #4578.

[holespoles]

Yumiko 0shima

大島弓子

[hisuix01]

古本屋探索、三原先生とは２回連続の出会い。

[kaipanzero]

Gou Gou, the Cat

グーグーだって猫である (2008)

[emuni1203]

大島弓子作　漫画「綿の国星」より。

大島弓子先生の絵の雰囲気を自分なりの絵柄に落とし込もうというのが無謀すぎた。

[rest-in-green]

大島弓子 Ōshima Yumiko

「綿の国星」 “Wata no Kuni-Hoshi” means, The Star of Cottonland

[nagaihiru-lineup]

古本（漫画）／大島弓子『夏のおわりのト短調』／白泉社文庫／￥400【通信販売】

[yokoishuko]

三月はライオンのように来て、羊のように去っていきました。

さて四月。

春は怖いのです。ちょっと苦手…。

[classic-shoujo]

Banana Bread no Pudding (1978) by Yumiko Ooshima

[life--in--pink]

大島弓子 Yumiko Oshima

[asnowperson]

This is Ooshima Yumiko's Dansei Shikkaku (男性失格, No Longer Man), another 1970 short story published in issue #27 of Weekly Margaret, and included in her Tanjou one shot collection (Also available in her 1977 星にいく汽車 and vol. 1 of 1986 大島弓子選集１巻). Yet again, I couldn't find this early one shot in any of her digital one shot editions, which shows the importance of what deadscanlations is doing.

I believe that the title of this story is a reference to Dazai Osamu's novel, Ningen Shikkaku (人間失格, No Longer Human).

This one shot tells the story of Simon, a manly man, getting hit by some radioactive waves (very likely because of nuclear tests-I see what you did there, Ooshima-sensei!) and slowly becoming a woman, Simone. And (s)he and Arvie, Simon's room mate, slowly fall in love with each other, until maddo scientists and Simone's dangerously radioactive body separates them. Another tragic story by Ooshima.

His chest hair is killing me. It looks so out of place in this shoujo art style, but it also makes sense.

Of course, this story reminds you of another Ooshima story: To Joker (ジョカへ…, 1974), which everyone should read. Really. You have no excuse. It even has a great scanlation. One can argue that Dansei Shikkaku is its precursor, playing with the gender swap theme.

I love how despite the seemingly orthodox shoujo feel of the story and the shoujo wackiness, it has an underlying message about nuclear tests, which was quite a heated topic of debate at that time. The titular work, Tanjou (誕生, Birth, which I have already translated hehehe), is also on a very controversial topic (teen pregnancy). The second one shot, Utako to Yonde Mou Ichido, is the most conventional shoujo story of the bunch, yet even that is too real in its depiction of sickness and he hopelessness of those who have leukemia. I still have a ton of Ooshima works to read, but reading some earlier works of hers was really nice. Knowing the artist she became later, you can catch little glimpses of what made her one of the prominent artists of her time even in these more "generic shoujo" works.

[amiens2014]

水木しげるロード/鳥取県境港市【ウォーキング】鬼太郎と妖怪に埋め尽くされた街

水木しげるロードとは 水木しげるロードは、鳥取県境港市大正町（とっとりけんさかいみなとしたいしょうまち）にある道路だ。 妖怪のモニュメントが置かれている。 それ以前は2万人だった観光客が370万人になるという、再開発の成功事例として知られる。 1993年に誕生した水木しげるロードは境港駅から水木しげる記念館まで約800ｍ続く妖怪の道。道の両側では177体の妖怪ブロンズ像が来る人を見守って（？）います。 昭和レトロな面影を残す町並みに佇むブロンズ像たちが創り出す懐かしくも不思議な世界。大人も子供もその魅力に惹きこまれることでしょう。 水木しげるロード | 水木しげる記念館 から引用 水木しげるロード 鳥取県境港市大正町 0859-47-0121 (more…)

[yanarchy072]

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