Manga Underground v3.1

It’s here, the one you’ve been asking and waiting for – Mugen no Juunin by Samura Hiroaki. Inhabitants of the Infinity, or Blade of the Immortal as it’s known outside of Asia, is a work 18 years in the making. This is another one of those series that doesn’t need too much introduction, its cross-cultural appeal is self-evident having been release in the US by Dark Horse for more than a decade.

The story is focused on the lives of its two main characters. The Immortal “100 men slayer” Manji has quelled his indiscriminant bloodlust and is on a redemption road, whereas Asano Rin is on a warpath for justice. The daughter of a well-known dojo, her father and mother were killed by militant revolutionaries hell-bent on changing the socio-political order of Japan under Tokugawa Shogunate. Together they make a pact to help one another – revenge for Rin, killing evil men for Manji.

I’d like to thank Jinchi and crew at Manga-Sketchbook for digitizing much of what I have here for you all (19 volumes!). They were an absolute force to the readers of the scanlation community. Delinquent-Manga, Inconnu, anotsuutranslate, BOTISCAN, Rippersanime, HappyScans!, OtherSideofSky, Offtopia have all pitched in to continue scanlating in the absence of timely release of BOTI. Special props to the current scanlators Rippersanime, HappyScans!, and OtherSideofSky.

Note: The tail end of v18 JP release continues directly from v19 of the US release, so there’s no mistake or redundancy. I have also included a bonus of quality raw volumes.

Christmas is over but still, Happy Holidays everyone and A Happy New Year!

I may not have read that much manga during 2011 but I made up for that during the last month of this year, during the last few weeks I finally managed to read many titles that were finished this year and that I did not have the time to read them as soon as they were released .

As for the manga that were released during the holidays…I don’t think it was just me who had high expectations during this period, unfortunately we did not get that many releases worth mentioning, oh well, we gotta be happy with what we got and there are a few other manga that were finished in december and late november and were not yet posted here, so you guys will probably have what to read during these last few days of 2011.

Also, I know everyone loves a top favorites of the year but right now I can’t think of any anime and manga titles that really impressed me this year, anyway, everyone is more than welcome to list their favorites, opinions on the closing year, to give it a push I will list my favorite movies released this year and the best books I read in 2011, I still have to think about manga and anime :)

Best Books read in 2011: The Hammer by K.J. Parker, To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, The Book of Sand by Jorge Luis Borges, The Tenant by Roland Topor.

Best Movies released in 2011: Midnight in Paris, The Guard, X-Men: First Class.
Worst: The Priest, Season of the Witch.

Best tv series(anime excluded): Community, The League, American Horror Story.

6000
Ch.01-05 by Lazy Ass Scans — mirror
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7 Billion Needles
Vol.01-04(end) download
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Hideout
Vol.1 ch.1-7 by Kotonoha — mirror
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Karakasa no Saien
Vol.01 — Vol.02(end)
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Kyousou no Simulacra
Vol.01-04(end) by Simple Scans & Maigo, StubbornOne
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Red Erewhon
Vol. 01-03(end) Easy Going Scans & OMFGG Scans & helz0ne
I only posted this one because way back the 1st few chapters were uploaded here and maybe there are those of you who are still interested to see how it ends, but overall I don’t recommend this one, I liked the art but everything else is quite bad, some complained that the ending felt rushed yet for me this whole manga was more like a 3 volume recap of a much much larger manga.
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Shiba Inu
Vol.01 ch.1-7(end) by Illuminati-Manga — mirror
A Collection of Short Stories.
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Sugar Dark
Ch.01-10 by StubbornOne
Ch.11-19(end) by StubbornOne
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Some Chapter updates:
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Vinland Saga ch.79 by HappyScans! & Hox
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Thermae Romae ch. 04 (Clockwork Lies)
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Boys on the Run ch.18-19 by DANIEL.AU
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RRR – ch. 26-55 (batoto) – single download (sorry I can’t collect those and repack them :/ )
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All-Rounder Meguru ch.50-52 by Kotonoha
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Gantz ch.354 by Utopia Scanlations
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Souten no Ken ch.192 by Hokuto no Gun

At the beginning of the Edo period (1629), when people enjoyed a time of peace, Lord Tokugawa Tadanaga decides to hold a tournament. In the past, matches were fought with wooden swords, but this time real swords will be used. The one-armed Fujiki Gennosuke and the blind Irako Seigen will fight each other in this tournament, even though both were disciples of Iwamoto Kogan — known as Japan’s greatest swordsman. So begins the story of intertwining fates, conflict, and colliding destinies.

This one’s relatively new in scanlation terms – written and illustrated by Nanjo Norio and Yamaguchi Takayuki respectively, Shigurui is very heavy on the gore, guts, and graphic violence in general. Interestingly, the goring of the human body is a major narrative and artistic theme, it’s also depicted as a perversion of Tadanaga to the strong but futile objection of his vassals. The story is told entirely in flashback, and it ends, in its present, as abruptly as it begins. The rich storytelling will leave you resigned to the inevitability of its finale.

Kotonoha got the ball rolling with a volume and half, after that Anonymous Spore picked up the slack for a whopping nine and half volumes, and Anonymous Stem rounded out the effort with the final four.