V27 summary update: Chapter 11

Due to a rather busy schedule, I didn't manage to work on any translations last week, so here's another UR summary update.

The eleventh chapter switches back to Kirito's perspective to wrap up UR content for this volume, as Kazuto gets a call from Roppongi...

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

V27 summary update: Chapter 10

As mentioned yesterday, I had been planning to make this update around two weeks ago, but didn't manage to pull it off due real life stuff. So, to make up for it, we've got a second release in a row.

The tenth chapter returns to Underworld, where a new foe makes his grand debut...

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

[Re:Aincrad] Chapter 7

Hey everyone. The past two weeks were a little too hectic for me. I spent the previous week going from one shift to another, then went to a conference for a few days and didn't have any spare time left for any translations... and now this week, I managed to catch some sort of respiratory virus and fell down with a fever for a few days and didn't manage to finish my UR summary in time for a release this week. So, I decided to finish up the summary update tomorrow and instead release a Re:Aincrad I had stocked up for a rainy day today.

Chapter 7 continues (re-)adapting the Aria story's boss battle segment from the beginning of the battle, till Illfang deals a fatal blow against Diavel... based on the anime's version of events. As you may have noticed in the past chapter, the manga artist has apparently decided to drop the idea of making "the best of two worlds" manga version of the story using both novel and anime scenes, and is now just redrawing anime scenes into manga form. The same tendency will continue with the following chapters as well.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas, Kaantantr
Redrawing: Celest
Typesetting: Celest

[The Next Day] Part 2

Since I had a bit of free time, we managed to finish up both translating and going through editing hell for part 2 of The Next Day side story? What better way to start a new month than with a healthy dose of Argo?

While Part 1 was mostly just Kirito and Argo chatting about stuff and didn't really have any actual action, Part 2 introduces some actual plot: Kirito and Argo going questing... though there's still a whole lot of chatting anyways... and then Kirito deciding to do a summary of volume 1 for a good page or two for some unfathomable reason... guess Kawahara had a page quota to meet?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas, Kaantantr

[Re:Aincrad] Chapter 6

I was planning to publish this yesterday, but my shift took its toll far more than I expected, since I spent most of the day sleeping. But anyway, as promised, here's another Re:Aincrad release.

Chapter 6 covers... a prolonged sequence of the raid party entering the boss room.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas, Kaantantr
Redrawing: Celest
Typesetting: Celest

V27 summary update: Chapter 9

I wanted to publish this summary update last week, but something unexpected came up during the weekend, so I didn't have time to finish up. I'll still count this summary update towards last week, so we'll have another release later this week (probably Re:Aincrad).

The ninth chapter returns to Kirito and Asuna chasing the monkey that kidnapped Yui, only to discover a bombshell revelation about the world itself.

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

[UR Manga] Chapter 0 (Prologue) (+ Project Announcement)

Surprise! Celest really wanted to do the Unital Ring manga, so we hereby announce that we've taken up working on a new project as of this month.
Surprise! (#2) We've already translated the prologue release for the manga to commemorate this very announcement!
See what we did there? The manga decided to publish the prologue out of the blue along with the project announcement in the Shounen Ace magazine (this caught us so out of the blue, that we didn't even notice that the magazine that announced the serialisation for this adaptation actually came with a proper release, in fact), so we decided to play the same game!

Now, the prologue is listed as "chapter 0", since it doesn't actually adapt Unital Ring content (aside from the final 3 pages). Instead, the artist decided to adapt "Prologue III" from volume 18 as a leadup to the Underworld portion of this arc. The proper serialisation of the manga and actual Unital Ring content will begin later this month (let's just hope that the serialisation goes well, unlike the trainwreck that the SAO manga scene has been the past year or so...).

We would also like to dedicate this surprise release to one of our very own editors. Happy birthday, Cirtoyt!

On a side note, since this manga will likely get picked up by Yen Press down the road, we will not be hosting the translation in image form on this blog post. Instead, like with our other more risky projects, we'll be hosting the translation in PDF/7z file links.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas Kaantantr
Redrawing: Celest
Typesetting: Celest

[Re:Aincrad] Chapter 5

Happy Easter to all those who celebrate it! (and happy holidays/regular weekend to those who don't, or celebrate Easter on a different day!). Since I didn't manage to finish our third surprise release in time because of the holidays (and because I needed some time to catch up on my reading list and just unwind), this week's release is going to be Re:Aincrad.

Chapter 5 covers Asuna getting her Wind Fleuret, explanations for SAO terminology, the bath scene, and the trip to the boss room.

This release marks the end of Re:Aincrad volume 1. And it's also the last chapter where the manga still tries to juggle both novel, and anime content. Starting next chapter, the manga will be leaning far more into anime canon than novel canon.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas, Kaantantr
Redrawing: Celest
Typesetting: Celest

[The Next Day] Part 1

After a long hiatus on our side story projects, we finally got around to working on them again. Technically, I had finished the translation for this particular part of The Next Day back in January... of last year. So, soon after the story itself came out, in fact. But there was a major issue that cropped up and put this project on the backburner: my editor bailed on me midway through the editing hell for this release, and I just couldn't bring myself to go through that hell all on my own when I've got a busy schedule in real life as is. Thankfully, Kaan volunteered to help me with the slog, so we finally managed to get this project out of editing hell. Just in time to mark the (eventual?) end of the Progressive storyline in-series (31 March, 2022 is the day that Kirito and Asuna finally parted ways, as Asuna joined the Knights of the Blood guild after the whole Floor 25 fiasco. And Kirito ended up with the Moonlit Black Cats a few days later).

This side story is kind of a sequel to The First Day side story from Volume 8, since it picks up where that side story left off. But only in the chronological sense, since the story focuses on Kirito and Argo's first meeting, and first joint party to complete a quest that we've only heard about in passing... until now.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas, Cirtoyt, Kaantantr
Proofreading from the audience: Quietscheentchen

[Project Announcement] Sword Art Online Progressive - The Next Day

When the Aria movie was being screened in Japan for the first time, there were various bonuses being given away at the theatres each week to promote multiple rewatches of the movie in cinemas. The bonuses ranges from minor stuff like illustrations and clear files, to audio dramas and even side stories. The third week (2021.11.13 - 2021.11.19) bonus was "Sword Art Online Progressive - The Next Day", a side story written by Kawahara Reki himself.

As the title may suggest, the story takes place "the next day" after a prior event. In this case, the prior event is "The First Day/Day of Beginnings" story from volumue 8 of the main light novel series. It details Kirito's first meeting with Argo (as you could presume from the fact that Argo's on the cover), as well a certain quest that gets reference in the Aria story.

The story consists of four parts. The first part is the longest one and will be published later today.

[Re:Aincrad] Chapter 4

After a long hiatus (our last release was back in February... of last year), we've finally returned to working on the Re:Aincrad manga. Initially, I just got too annoyed with Kibaou and ended up procrastinating this chapter because of him (I only got around to coming up with a speech pattern to use for Kibaou's dialogues due to his thick dialect in the past few weeks...and yes, the translation for Kibaou's lines might be hard to read, but as a translator, I prefer to bring out what makes the character unique over making everyone sound samey for easier readability, so I hope you can bare with Kibaouspeak in my translations... Kaan did have me rein it in somewhat, if you're wondering ^_^). Then I grew busy with real life matters and it spiralled down from there. The good news is that we're speeding through releases to catch up and already have four chapters ready for release, so you can expect weekly (or semi-weekly, if we have something else to release) for this manga for a while.

Chapter 4 covers the cream bun scene, Kirito's meeting with Argo, and the boss strategy meeting. In this chapter, the manga tries to blend the LN and anime canon together, even going so far as to add original scenes to explain differences between the novel and anime (such as Kirito dumping his coat from The First Day for newbie-looking gear for the meeting).

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas, Kaantantr
Redrawing: Celest
Typesetting: Celest

V27 summary update: Chapter 8

Our plan was to make a manga release on Sunday, but Mtt had some unexpected IRL matters that prevented him from sending me the files... and I personally had a shift on Sunday, so I didn't have the time to make an impromptu filler release, so our weekly release had to wait for when I was recovered from Post-Night-Shift Syndrome to actually get something ready... So, to pass the time while we wait for our main releases, here's a V27 summary update.

The eigth chapter focuses on Alice catching up on Underworld history and deciding what to do with the frozen knights.

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

V27 summary update: Chapter 7

I spent the past week or so returning to work on one of our manga projects that hasn't had any love for a long while and hoped our next release would be one of the chapters I finished working on, but since the final QC isn't done yet, guess we'll have to wait for next week. For now, here's another V27 summary update to pass the time.

The seventh chapter focuses on the gang's first outing on the Second Stratum... only to realise that they're not alone out there..

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

V27 summary update: Chapter 6

Since we were trying to push out our releases to finish up Scherzo (and because I didn't have enough free time with consecutive shifts one after another the past couple of weeks), I didn't manage to finish a summary update until today and it's about time I did. So, here's a more detailed summary of chapter 6.

The sixth chapter focuses on Alice and the girls in UW finding out what happened to the Order of Integrity Knights when they were "sealed".

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 019

Welp, after a couple of years, my country finally started getting SAO movies on screen and I'm just back from watching Scherzo, so... perfect time to release the final chapter of Scherzo to celebrate!

Chapter 19 covers the New Year Countdown Party and Kirito's run-in with PoH.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 018

Since the Scherzo movie is coming to my country (about time!) next week, I want to finish up our Scherzo releases for the occasion. Which means, we have a second release this week! I hope to release the final chapter next week, if all goes well. Also, this chapter featured Kibaou, so I went a bit wild with his speech... I admit that it's probably going to be hard to read, but he can be hard to read in Japanese without knowledge of his dialect, so...

Chapter 18 covers Kirito's confrontation with the ALS after the boss battle.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

V27 summary update: Chapter 5

Since I wanted to push through the final translations for our Progressive manga projects (Canon is fully release, a Scherzo release should be coming in then next few days, while the final chapter is currently in typesetting), I haven't had the time to make a summary update the past couple of weeks, so I thought it's time to rectify that problem. Please excuse the lack of polish; having shifts every other day didn't leave me much time with proofreading, so I'll save the polishing for later.

The fifth chapter focuses on Kirito, Asuna and Lisbeth catching up to the raid just in time for a boss fight.

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

[Progressive manga] Canon of the Golden Rule - Chapter 10

Since it was my birthday this week (even though no one in the community seems to have remembered it this year...), I figured this called for something special. So, we saved up the final chapter of our favourite project for the occasion.

This is the final chapter of the short-lived Canon of the Golden Rule adaptation. The final chapter of the manga continues covering the slime battle, the retrieval of the Sacred Key, and ends with the trio's return to Castle Galey and the arrival of an unexpected party at the Dark Elven castle... and that's where the story abruptly cuts off, as the artist dropped the project due to harassment/negative feedback on Twitter... which is a horribly shitty way to lose one of the best manga adaptions SAO has ever had... Kizmel's original dialogue at the end, honestly, feels like the artist's personal message to his actual fans.

With this release, we bid our farewell to one of the best SAO manga adaptations we've ever seen, both in adaptation quality and art quality. I wish we could have seen this adaptation through to the end (and maybe even have the artist continue covering future Progressive content too), but things are what they are. You'll have to read the novel to find out how the story ends, unless someone on the Japanese side revives this project.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyên Milk
Typesetting: Nguyên Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 017

Since Scherzo got licensed a while back and we only have a couple of chapters left, we're currently prioritising on getting these out before working on our other stuff. We only have two more chapters to do.

Chapter 17 covers part of the boss battle aftermath. Since the boss was defeated, the big question now... is who got the flag?

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

V27 summary update: Chapter 4

Since last week we had a Scherzo release and I don't have any other manga stuff to release right now, I feel it's time for another summary update to fill the time. Chapter 4 is on the smaller side, but it has a lot of dialogue, so I ended up with a decent chunk of text to post anyway.

The fourth chapter focuses on Alice chatting with Selka in the Grand Bath, before going up for dinner.

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 016

The 22nd marks the birthday of a friend of ours from the SAO Wikia community, so here's a little dedicated release. Happy birthday, Val! Unfortunately, I didn't have any AsuKiri I mean, KiriAsu (romantic) themed stories, so you'll have to settle for a Progressive release for your birthday.

Chapter 16 covers the end of the battle against Fuscus after it drops the gimmicks and comes out to fight as a regular golem.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

V27 summary update: Chapter 3

Last week I had three shifts... one of which was so shitty that I blacked out for the majority of the day on Saturday and was still spent come Sunday, so our last week's release came a bit late. Since Nguyen's been busy with exams (and because I want to get this summary thing over with sooner rather than later), I decided to squeeze in a summary update while working on Canon's final chapter.

The third chapter focuses on Asuna checking up on the UR side.

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

Sword Art Online Volume 27 summary (79%)

Since I had free time over the end-of-year holidays, I decided to finally get around finally finishing my read of V27. I shared my live reactions/short snipets from my readthrough on the SAO Wikia Discord and decided to do another podcast with Kaan so that everyone dying from spoiler withdrawal syndrome could get their dose of direly needed spoilers on what happens in Volume 27. I do plan to post more in-depth and organised summaries of the remaining chapters later on, but as a placeholder, I decided to repost the stuff I shared on SAO Wikia's Discord on this blog post, alongside the aforementioned podcast.

At the time of writing, only the first two chapters are fully summarised. Feel free to listen to our podcast version of the summary while you wait for the other chapters to be summarised in more detail:

Sword Art Online V27 summary: Chapter 2

Merry (belated) Christmas, everyone! Due to family health issues, and my laptop breaking down to boot, I unfortunately didn't manage to find much time to work on any translations the past month. And it's about time I got back to summarising... and heck, finishing my read of, volume 27.

I hope you enjoy the release.

If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

[Progressive manga] Canon of the Golden Rule - Chapter 9

Heya, everyone. Since Scherzo got some love earlier this week, we decided that Canon should also get some deban!

This is the semi-final chapter of the short-lived Canon of the Golden Rule adaptation. It starts covering Progressive volume 6, beginning from when Kirito awakes with Asuna in his embrace (so much for borders in beds ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ) to the part where the gang goes across the map an encounters a slime while searching for the Key. The next chapter will continue with the battle, but that's where the manga got axed due to people harassing the artist on Twitter... which is a horribly shitty way to lose one of the best manga adaptions SAO has ever had...

On a lighter note, today (28 November in Japan) marks best bro Klein's birthday. So grab your pizza and share it with your bros to celebrate!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Official SAOP Canon Twitter Account
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyên Milk
Typesetting: Nguyên Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 015

Heya, everyone. It's been a pretty long while since I last posted. My work had been keeping me busy for a long time... and now that I've finally had a calmer month, I've found myself needing time to unwind before I burnt out. Doesn't help that when I actually have a free weekend for once, I end up being dragged into family-related stuff (such as installing solar power modules on my grandmother's house...). Other members of our team had also been busy with moving house and stuff, so we kinda went on total hiatus for a month or so. I do hope that we'll be able to return to a more regular schedule, but I can't promise anything right now.

Anyway, as you may have heard, the Scherzo manga has been licensed by Yen Press. Since we're so close to the end, we decided not to drop the project so close to the finish line. Heck, the license news seems to have turbo-charged Nguyen, so for all I know, we may end up marathoning the rest of the Scherzo chapters... possibly...maybe... dunno. We'll just have to wait and see how this turns out.

Chapter 15 continues covering the boss fight from the moment Shivata ends up in the boss's mouth to the moment the boss comes down to its final form. There's four more chapters to go and the next one is going to finish covering the boss fight itself.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Summary] The movie "Sword Art Online -Progressive- Scherzo of Deep Night"

Hey everyone!

As I'm currently visiting Japan for two weeks (finally! In your face, COVID), I got the opportunity to watch the movie Scherzo in Japanese theaters.

Seeing that the Chinese summary/review is actually a little bit biased, I decided to go out of my way and make my own. Hopefully this can clear interrogations some might have! I figured I might also include my small, personal opinion of the movie at the end of the article.

If you have any question regarding the movie, feel free to reach us here or in the SAO Wikia Discord server.
Any feedback is also appreciated!

-Celest

Sword Art Online V27 summary: Chapter 1

Hey, everyone. I haven't been able to return to our weekly release pace due to being bogged down by RL work, but now that V27 is out, maybe I'll be able to return with more frequent releases with some summary updates until I manage to actually get back into the game on the translation front. I did manage to finally finish getting a manga chapter out of editing hell after it being stuck there for nearly a month... so I guess that's progress? The past months have really put me out of my game...

Anyway, we'll start off with a summary of chapter 1. I hope you enjoy the release. I think I'll publish the summaries in separate posts for now and then aggregate them into a single post later on when I have time to spruce things up.

If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

[Progressive manga] Canon of the Golden Rule - Chapter 8

Heya, everyone. It's been a while since our last update. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to work on much of any translations the past month, despite my desire to get back in the game. A family member lost the fight to cancer this month, so translations were the last thing on my mind for a while... and having a shitty work schedule this month didn't help either.

Since I haven't been able to work on anything this month, the only stuff we had in stockipile were a couple of Canon of the Golden Rule chapters that I finished up way back in the middle of summer. So, Mtt didn't even have options to pick from this time. But Canon is 👌, so I'm not complaining.

Chapter 8 returns back to the bath for some unfinished dialogues, then continues with more dialogue in less intimate settings, before concluding the adaptation of Progressive volume 5 with the bed-sharing pinkie scene that everyone loves.

There are only two more chapters left to go, so I hope you savour these releases while they last. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Official SAOP Canon Twitter Account
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyên Milk
Typesetting: Nguyên Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Progressive - Aria Audio Drama] Lisbeth Edition

Hey everyone, Celest here! We at DD came up with a surprise project. Were you expecting this? Seeing as Gsimenas was busy with RL matters, I volunteered to take on the role of translator for this project, with Kaan as the editor.

Anyways, this is my first translation project and I can say without any second thought that it was such an amazing experience. Well... Gsimenas actually spent a whole week polishing up my script due to his perfectionist nature; I learned so much from him. Working with Kaan & Gsi is always lots of fun!

With that said, this audio drama focuses on Lisbeth's story, three weeks after the game started. I find it interesting to experience how and what the characters feel as they're trapped inside the death game. Special mention to Ayahi Takagaki's outstanding voice performance as she was able to convey Lisbeth's feelings to perfection!
The audio dramas were available for listening on the official sao-p website, as a bonus for those who attended the Japan screening of the Aria movie during the 4th week.

We hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Celest

Credits

Translation, subtitles, raws: Celest
Translation-check: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas / Kaantantr

[Progressive manga] Canon of the Golden Rule - Chapter 7

Heya, folks. I was on vacation the past couple of weeks and didn't have time or energy to work on any translations, while Mtt was busy moving and couldn't QC any of the chapters I had stockpiled. Now that I'm back from vacation, I do hope things will pick back up again, but it all depends on how much RL decides to be a bitch, to be honest. Anyway, since we haven't had any releases for around a month, it might be time for a love-starved project of ours to get some much-needed attention. So, for this week, we'll be releasing a chapter of Canon of the Golden Rule. We were planning to make the release yesterday, but MEGA decided to randomly stop syncing files our files, so I had to wait for Mtt to get back from work to fix the issue.

Chapter 7 of the manga covers Asuna and Kirito's talks with Kizmel, before an obligatory excursion to the bath.

In kinda old news (seeing as we haven't had a release for this project in over half a year), as you've probably heard, the Canon of the Golden Rule manga was cancelled on chapter 10 because of poor reception (i.e. some a-holes on Twitter posting negative comments for petty things, which broke the artist's passion). This is a grave loss for the SAO community and we at Dreadful Decoding are devastated by this turn of events. Although the manga got cut short, we do plan to finish this project to the end.

So, I hope you all savour what little we have left of this amazing manga with the upcoming releases. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Official SAOP Canon Twitter Account
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyên Milk
Typesetting: Nguyên Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 014

Hey everyone. It's been nearly a whole month since our last release. Sorry for the delays, we've been kinda busy in real life lately... I haven't managed to get any decent translation work done due to work... and then, after two years, COVID finally managed to catch me off guard... at home. Luckily, Mtt finished a manga QC for this week, as I wasn't feeling well enough to work on any new translations.

Chapter 14 continues covering the boss fight. Kirito's raid goes on a counterattack... only to be met with a nasty surprise...

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Dengeki Comic Anthology] Yui-chan and the Road to the Abyss

Since Mtt's back from his vacation, our manga releases are back on track. Which is a good thing, since I was away for a neurologo conference this weekend, so I haven't had much time to work on translations this week 😅. Mtt had three different releases to choose from and he decided that we haven't done a Comic Anthology in a while (last release was an entire two months ago, apparently), so that's what we're getting this week!

This Comic Anthology focuses on Yui... undergoing an edgelord phase because the Internet told her it was cool and she wanted to cheer her papa up. Perfectly logical, no? Guess this kinda works well as a release for Americans, seeing as their Father's Day is this weekend... though we've already had ours like two weeks ago. Oh well.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Mangaka: Ｌａ－ｎａ
Raws: MttBlue2
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing, typesetting: Celest
Cleaning: Mttblue2

V25 summary update: Chapter 3

Mtt's been on vacation, so he hasn't had time to QC any of the chapters that have been put on his table the past two weeks. So, I had to prepare another quick release instead... but since I've marathoned a whole lot of shifts last week, I pushed back the release to today to maintain my sanity. I haven't proofread this summary, so please excuse any oopsies I may have left.

The third chapter features Kazuto getting confronted about hiding stuff from his friends, before he shares his idea for dealing with Mutasina's army.

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

V25 summary update: Chapter 2

Since 5 June is Argo's birthday, here's an update for my V25 summary. I haven't proofread it yet, so please excuse any oopsies I may have left.

The second chapter is mostly a dialogue chapter of the gang making small talk and then discussing Mutasina's upcoming attack.

You can read the summary here.

-Gsimenas

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 013

This week's release is a Scherzo manga chapter. We were supposed to release this last week, but that didn't work out so well. I didn't have time to prepare a filler release on the spot, so we'll have to make do with a belated release.

Chapter 13 is the first chapter from volume 3 and it covers the beginning of the Floor 5 boss battle, where Argo and Kirito figure out the mechanics of the boss... if only they could have warned their companions about what they learnt in time...

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Volume 2 Original vs Tankoubon Comparison

We were supposed to get a Scherzo chapter release last week, but Mtt has been ignoring me the entire week and I haven't had the time to finish up something non-manga during that time, so I decided to make a little filler release: a compilation of changes between the original Twitter release of Scherzo volume 2 chapters, and the final corrected version on the tankoubon compilation. The changes vary from finishing incomplete backgrounds, to redoing entire panels from scratch, so I thought it would be interesting for people to see the two versions side by side.

Links to our translation of the chapters themselves are posted below the comparisons. Whether or not we'll make a single file for the entire volume eventually depends solely on how motivated Mtt is.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

-Gsimenas

Sword Art Online Volume 25 summary (31%)

Since V24 has been released in English by Yen Press, I figured that it's a great time to start on a V25 summary. I've been delaying this, since we had done a podcast version of the summary around a year ago, so it didn't feel like a pressing matter. But some people were still interested in a detailed text summary, so here ya go.

I'll be releasing the V25 summary in batches. If you've just finished reading V24 and want to get spoiled crazy on V25 and don't want to wait, you could take at the podcast we did a year ago, where I go over the main stuff of the volume in an hour long talk with Gamerturk.

-Gsimenas

[Character Book] Vol.6 Alice

I was planning to release this translation for Alice's birthday, but I got hit with a marathon of tough shifts that week, so my plans got delayed... quite a lot. At least I got it done on the same month, I guess? That has to count for something, right?

Anyhoo, with this release, after a... whoa, whole four years or so, I finally finished up the Character Book series... translating interviews is STILL very much a pain in the ass, since people aren't exactly... coherent in live speech all the time.

The final character book features Alice (I'm still sore that Eugeo got left out... :/). This character book came with Dengeki Bunko MAGAZINE Vol.59, which was released on 9 December, 2017. That means the interview came out just as Kawahara released the prologue for V21 on that very same magazine, and a year before the Alicization anime started airing. Which means that quite a lot of stuff mentioned here can be quite outdated (mostly the stuff about Unital Ring, since Kawahara hadn't yet thought over where he was going to take the story, as he had only started working on it), or talked about anime stuff at a time when the (Japanese) dubbing process hadn't yet begun, so Kawahara and the interviewer didn't have much to work with in their talks. So basically, take things said about post-Alicization plotlines with a grain of salt. Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy the read.

I haven't managed to heard from Nguyen in a while and all my finished translations are Progressive manga stuff, so I'm not sure what we're going to release next. Maybe it's time I got around to summarising V25, seeing as Yen Press has just released V24?

P.S. I haven't had the time to proofread this translation, so please let me know if something sounds off, or if you notice an oopsie of mine.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas

[Dengeki Comic Anthology] If My Sword Will Protect You

Happy Easter everyone! Due to having a hospital shift marathon for 7 days in a row... and then doing lawn work or presentations on my days off, I wasn't able to finish my translation for last week's release slot... even now. Luckily, we had a different release ready for this week's slot, so we have something to celebrate Easter with!

This Comic Anthology story focuses on Lisbeth repairing Kirito's badly-maintained weapon... and her feelings for Kirito, as usual or SAO Lisbeth doujinshi... pretty sure we already had like one or two stories like this already, but oh well!

I hope to finish the aforementioned translation in the coming days and release it as soon as I'm done. This release will count for last week's release slot. For next week's release slot, maybe we'll get a Progressive manga chapter... if Nguyen is feeling better now.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Mangaka: Takano Itsuki
Raws: MttBlue2
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing, typesetting: Celest
Cleaning: Mttblue2

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 012

The past two weeks have been pretty busy for our entire team. I haven't had much time to work on translations due to being swamped in hospital shifts, one of our redrawers/typesetters wasn't feeling well, and Mtt was busy with his own real life work, so we didn't have anything ready for last week's slot. We were hoping to make another double Scherzo release to make up for it, but Nguyen still wasn't feeling well enough to finish up her work on chapter 13. Furthermore, while we did technically have this chapter ready for release yesterday, I got stuck covering for a colleague who called in sick with a fever. Hospital shifts are mostly a lottery: sometimes you finish up your work quick and nothing's going on, so you have plenty of time to yourself; othertimes, you're flooded with so much work that you go 12+ hours without food. Unfortunately, my unplanned shift turned to be one of the latter, so I was too exhausted to go through uploading the files and making a blog post for the release yesterday night. But better late than never, I suppose.

Chapter 12 is the final chapter in the volume 2 of the Scherzo manga compilation. It covers the gang's trek through the Labyrinth up to the boss room.

I'm thinking of making a comparison post for Scherzo V2 Twitter release vs the tankoubon (there were A LOT of changes... like, some-pages-were-literally-redrawn-from-scratch-entirely level of A LOT) to make up for the missing slot, since we're kinda running on empty at the moment. Might release it later today or tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 010 + 011

We didn't manage to get a release done for last week, so we're making up for it with a double Scherzo release this week.

Chapter 10 is another dialogue-heavy chapter focusing on Kirito's idea on how to resolve the ALS issue - one-upping them at their own game! Chapter 11 features the gang coming together and arriving at the Labyrinth.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Dengeki Comic Anthology] The Distance Between the Two

Well, this release is running a bit late, since Mtt went MIA for a few days, but better late than never, I suppose. RL can be a bitch.

Anyway, this Comic Anthology story focuses on Silica having a nostalgic trip to a certain forest for some payback... only for Silica to get some unexpected... competition.

Due to our current busy schedules IRL, I cannot predict what our next is going to be... or when it'll be released, actually.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Mangaka: Igarashi Yui
Raws: MttBlue2
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing, typesetting: Celest
Cleaning: Mttblue2

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 009

The past two weeks I've been so busy with work that I've barely had any time off, which also means that I haven't had the time to work on any translations during this time either. I wanted to do a chapter of Canon or finish up a Comic Anthology chapter, but didn't have the energy or time to finish working on either one of them. Mtt hasn't been able to finish the rest of Scherzo V2, but he was kind enough to finish reviewing at least one chapter to have something to release this week.

Scherzo chapter 9 is mostly a dialogue chapter... mostly about Kirito and Asuna discussing about the Harassment Prevention Code... oh, and I guess they technically also managed to discuss the fabled boss drop that was brought up in the previous chapter and was the spark for ALS to try and defeat the boss on their own in secret.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Re:Aincrad] Chapter 3

We were supposed to finish off Scherzo V2 this week, but since Mtt didn't think he'd get it done in time, we decided to instead release a chapter of the Re:Aincrad manga that we had been working on in the mean time, instead of making another split release.

Now, as you may recall, The First Day adaptation last chapter ended with an Asuna panel and I was wondering where the manga would be going with this. I was initally assuming that the artist decided to work on Asuna's background by introducing some original content or expanding upon the brief remarks in Progressive and volume 2... but turns out the artist just decided to re-adapt Aria all over again... but without the parody that was present in the original Progressive manga. I guess Aria was technically "covered" in episode 2 of the anime, so, technically, it does fall within the scope of this manga... though I wonder if it's only going to adapt Aria, or is it going to doubledown and become Progressive V2.0...it's definitely not following the anime timeline, if anything.

This is a short chapter that skims through Asuna's monologues in chapter 2, adds an original Kirito and Argo conversation, then returns to chapter 1 to adapt Kirito's first meeting with Asuna... and then returns back to chapter 2 to where Kirito tells her about the boss meeting. Despite how messy it sounds, it's actually all in chronological order... though I am disappointed that Asuna's monologues were skimmed through, rather than delving into her character more. You can read more on this in my little adaptation notes segment at the bottom of the page.

The next chapter of the manga continues the Aria adaptation. It's remaining pretty faithful to the novel's version of events... and even tries to explain away differences between the novel and anime, so I'll give it props for that. At least we get more Argo.

Since both Mtt and I are pretty busy, I can't predict what we're going to release this week. Finishing Scherzo V2? A Comic Anthology chapter? A new announcement? Whichever gets done first, I guess, so stay tuned!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas, Kaantantr
Redrawing: Celest
Typesetting: Celest

[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapters 006 + 007 + 008

While we did manage to finish translating and typesetting the entirety of Scherzo volume two in just a week or so, our hyperspeed engines proved to be too much for Mtt to review. To alleviate the hunger of our Progressive fans, we decided to split the Scherzo volume 2 release into more manageable parts. This week, we'll be releasing the first 3 out of 7 chapters from the volume, with plans to release the rest next week (hopefully... fingers crossed). Anyway, the first half of the second Scherzo manga volume covers the customary bath (and duel) scene of the 5th Floor, as well as Asuna and Kirito meeting with the organisers of the New Year's party event to find out why the ALS up and decided to go after the boss themselves.

I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyen Milk
Typesetting: Nguyen Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

[Announcement] Status Update - 30 January 2022

Now that Nguyen has been ceded the Scherzo of Deep Night manga project, our progress... went all the way into hyperdrive. We had been considering to start making chapter-by-chapter releases to deliver some actual progress to the community for a while now. That would have been more lenient to Mtt's schedule, and would have given me a rather large stack of content to use for filler releases during my busy weeks. However, since the manga is now concluded in Japan, it's only a matter of time till Yen Press scoops up the license and forces us to drop the project and even one release per week or two wouldn't likely be fast enough to finish the project before Yen Press comes in. Luckily, since Nguyen's poised to finish off my entire stock of translated chapters in a matter of days, we decided to release all Scherzo volume 2 chapters in one bigass release, just like we did for volume 1.

The bad news is that even Nguyen couldn't finish an entire volume in just one week (especially when it's the Lunar New Year)... and I still had a couple of unedited/untranslated chapters to finish up on my end. So, here's what I decided to do: since this is going to be a grandiose release, I figured no one would mind that we delayed it by a few days into next week. This would mean that we'd combine this week's release slot with next week's, so we'd only have one release in two weeks... but think of it this way: you're getting SEVEN chapters in the span of just two weeks. That sounds like a bargain, doesn't it? :P

Here's an overview of our projects while we're at it:

Canon - new chapter out just yesterday, so I haven't started on it yet. Plan to start on it next week. pic.twitter.com/ejwWrrsBVM

— Gsimenas (@gsimenas) January 30, 2022

Re:Aincrad - running smoothly. pic.twitter.com/Bkrob5Ds85

— Gsimenas (@gsimenas) January 30, 2022

Kiss and Fly - still on hiatus in Japan, so still on hiatus for us pic.twitter.com/4BbxZMwyBU

— Gsimenas (@gsimenas) January 30, 2022

-Gsimenas

[Re:Aincrad] Chapter 2

As you may have inferred from the previous post, the Dreadful Decoding team has been having issues keeping up with our weekly release pace. I'm personally struggling with a 60 hour work week (on average; usually not distributed evenly on a week-per-week basis) over two hospitals (+ seminars, evaluations etc.), which means that I can't devote that much time to translations nowadays. On quite a few weeks, the best I can do is a short manga translation or nothing at all. Even when I do manage to find time for non-manga projects, they tend to be pretty long and need an extra week or more for editing, in addition to the time needed for translation, so they can't be released on the same week as I finish my draft translation. Meanwhile, our chief manga editor has been finding it hard to work on his manga projects, so we're often struggling to have something available for release. Last week, we suffered a combination of the two issues: my week was spent preparing for a seminar on workdays and running all over the Emergency Department over the weekend, since I got two shifts there in a row on this specific week; meanwhile, Mtt was unable to finish working on a Scherzo chapter we were planning to release that week.

Since neither of us had anything ready for release, Celest and Kaan pitched in to get chapter 2 of the Re:Aincrad manga prepped for release earlier than planned... although we didn't actually make it in time to make a weekend release, but better late than never, I suppose. This is a pretty long chapter though, so I'm sure it's been worth the wait.

Anyway, with that sombre preamble out of the way, let's get down to the fun part. With the second chapter of the manga, Re:Aincrad parts away from the animeverse by adapting a fan-loved story (so much so that a certain someone made a joke anime announcement for the story on April Fool's last year) that both the anime and the original Aincrad manga skipped: The First Day/Day of Beginnings (はじまりの日). It's a pretty decent adaptation of the story, albeit there are some changes. Most changes come about due to the different nature of the medium, but there is one major change that leads to a plot hole due to a certain reveal in another side story (The Next Day)... as well as changing some implications behind the characters' actions even disregarding that plot hole. You can read more on this in my little adaptation notes segment at the bottom of the page.

The next chapter of this manga series is apparently... going to redo Aria of a Starless Night... which is rather unexpected. Technically, Aria was adapted to season 1, episode 2, so I guess this is the logic behind doing an Aria V2.0 manga. I'm interested in seeing where this will go, if anything...

Due to the aforementioned situation with our team, I'm not sure what we're going to release at the end of this week at this point. Stay tuned.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Finally, a standard thank you to all of those who contributed to the SAO Scans project for helping us get the raws.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas, Kaantantr
Redrawing: Celest
Typesetting: Celest

[Announcement] Status Update from Mttblue2

Yo everyone, Mtt here.

For everyone who does read our releases here on DD, I wanted to give you an update. For starters, y'all who are waiting on the remaining chapters of Scherzo shouldn't have to wait much longer. I will be passing the project off to Nguyen, one of our other resident typesetters. As Nguyen is currently doing Canon I'm sure it'll be in good hands. My plans was to do this update after I completed Scherzo, but seeing how it's been waiting on me for months I decided to do this now and pass the project on.

I will be stepping back from image work for the time being, and i don't know when i'll be back. For awhile now it's felt like a chore to do instead of a fun hobby. This isn't exclusive to SAO, but to all of my image work. I dread opening photoshop these days and hit a wall trying to do anything. Due to this, i've been training and teaching Celest and Nguyen as replacements for when this time came. To them, I will also still be here and a senpai to both of you, so no worries there. I'll still be part of DD, but mainly as a compiler and give my assistance when needed.

I will still be here, and doing all of my other SAO duties as i still love the series and the fandom surrounding it. I'll be chilling in the SAOWikia discord as always, and maybe one of the other Mtt's will show up for some fun still. Sorry everyone for the delay in releases this has brought and thanks for sticking with us so far.

Stay cool,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Image Editor

-Mttblue2

[Progressive manga] Canon of the Golden Rule - Chapter 6

Mtt was hoping to get a little surprise out this week and he would have succeeded too, if it wasn't for a meddling snowstorm! So, we're falling back to our original plan: a long-awaited Canon manga release

Chapter 6 of the manga covers Asuna and Kirito going to the next zone of Floor 6 to reunite with Kizmel. The manga does still take some creative liberties and has skipped over a few scenes (I've made a detailed adaptation note list below, for those interested in a comparison), but nothing too major.

Since I'm not sure if we'll manage to get a certain non-manga project ready for a release by the end of the week, I sure hope Mtt will have a manga release ready for the next weekend. Or that Kaan finally gets around to reviewing the First Day manga from Re:Aincrad... 👀

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Official SAOP Canon Twitter Account
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyên Milk
Typesetting: Nguyên Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2