Burrowowl

It is just about the end of the month, and a quick perusal of my web stats show some interesting points. Mostly I’ve inspected the referral stings, entry pages, exit pages, and search strings. This information comes from a pre-installed copy of Webalizer provided by my web host.

• It looks like Manga Inc‘s reference to me as the primary mirror for School Rumble is still in use. When the first three chapters of Volume 4 were released in English, there was a noticable spike in daily traffic as the loyal fanbase scrambled to get their copies.
• The anime release of Tenjo Tenge has prompted an increase in its relevance for search strings leading to this site. Searches for “Tenjo Tenge” and its variants jumped up by a factor of ten or so. This probably had a synergistic effect with the realease of Tenjo Tenge Volume 11 in japan. However, the bulk of the searches were for “Tenjo Tenge Anime,” which is in a way disappointing. The manga is top-shelt, whereas the cartoon is merely good.
• The content I’m hosting for Anime-Fanservice.org continues to show its popularity, with no signs of slowing down. Unfortunately, it’ll probably be the first thing to go if I run into bandwidth quota problems or run low on diskspace.
• Google is still kicking the pants off of Yahoo as sources of traffic. As a user of Google, and as somebody that appreciates how they do things, I say “good.”
• The bulk of hits were created by clients that don’t return a REFERRER environment variable. As I seriously doubt that hundreds of people have this page bookmarked in their browsers, I find this to be a bit rude.
• People still apparently think they can find hentai content here. I laugh at your hentai habits and call them a silly thing.
• As any web guru would tell you to expect, Internet Explorer 6 variants were the overwhelming majority of user clients for this site. I still recommend Mozilla Firefox for everyone. It’s the bees knees.
• Saudi Arabians continue to make up an extremely small minority of visitors. Good for you. I wonder if this had anything to do with a link I put up a while back to Al Jazeera.

After much waiting, anticipation, and rambling about the anime version, it looks like Tenjo Tenge 11 is out and being translated. It is available via Bit Torrent, which is a lovely mechanism with which to distribute such fare. Fugu Tabetai (the nom de plume of the english-language translator) released the first chapter of Volume 11 earlier today, and it is up to his great standards. Of special interest to japanese language enthusiasts, Fugu puts translation notes right at the bottom of the page so you don’t have to juggle some awkward text file around in another window while you read. The quality of the translation is such that you don’t really need such notes, but it is nice to see them there.

I suppose we didn’t really expect to get the IKCG in April of this year, though there was talk of it being sent to the printers “for April.” This is now being interpreted as meaning that the printers should have everything by May, will subsequently print it, and it will hit the streets by some time in… 2043. In a continuing effort to keep the decreasingly-rabid fanbase interest piqued, the folks at Privateer Press have released another peek Behind the Iron Curtain. This time we get a rather neato grayscale image (presumably from the book) and some historical information about the tenative peace between Cygnar, Llael, Ord, and Khador (the Iron Kingdoms proper).

This version of the Iron Kingdoms history varies a bit from my previous understanding of things (as it implies that the Protectorate of Menoth, the Scharde Islands, Rhul, and Ios were signatories to the treaty). Older history info implied that the Corvis Treaties were specifically crafted to ensure an end to hostilities between the four human counties on the continent (the Protectorate did not yet exist, and Rhul and Ios simply weren’t involved). Perhaps it’s just some tricky wording in the second sentence throwing me for a loop.

If you like online comics but are tired of video game geek humor with a twist of hipness, give The Chopping Block a try. I’ve been following it for about a year now, but haven’t bothered to put an entry up. It shows slice-of-life humor in the life of a serial killer. Repeat themes involve cannibalism, collecting human organs, and the mummified remains of the killer’s mom. It’s dark but often inspired humor.

It looks like the fine folks at ushi have had quite enough BS from other translators mooching their scans without consent, so Air Gear has been discontinued as one of their projects. I’ve known about this for a while, so that aspect isn’t really news. The news is that I just found out last night that SnoopyCool has picked up that ball and will be running with it. At present, there are 4 volumes of this title available in Japan (and likely at your local Kinokuniya), and ushi only got through the first volume plus one chapter. The title is by Oh Great!, the same author as Tenjo Tenge. It’s about flying street gangs on roller blades, so take that as you will. The art is great, as expected from this mangaka, and it looks like he’s finally found a story that doesn’t require too much ecchi content. Check it out if you get the chance.