on the first day of shmupmas, Raizing gave to me...

[blackoak]

seasons greetings! As some know, I've been working on scanlating the Mahou Daisakusen manga for a couple weeks now, hoping to finish it in time for a special "christmas release." Finally, its done!



This was released in October 1994, about a year after Mahou Daisakusen hit the arcades. It was officially endorsed by Raizing (its mentioned on their page), and they even lent the artist all their design notes and materials, a selection of which is included in back of the manga itself. This means it stays very faithful to the original story, while elaborating on relationships and the setting generally. This is pulp stuff, but its fun, and matches the sense of humor Raizing had. I especially enjoyed the depiction of all the bosses and enemies! Since the full set is so large, I've broken it into chunks for downloading if you prefer. I've also got the bonus material in a separate smaller file, in case you only want to read that. UPDATE: smaller PNG set now available!

PNG:
Mahou Daisakusen (full, PNG, 330mb)

TIF:
Mahou Daisakusen (full, TIF, 682mb)
Prelude/Chapter 1 (241mb)
Chapter 2/3 (125mb)
Chapter 4/5 (117mb)
Chapter 6/7 (199mb)
Bonus Material Only (11MB)

A few notes: These are high-res, and probably look best at 100% resolution. In fractional resolutions, the midtones look kind of weird. I left sound fx art in (didn't want to disturb them or do complex cloning), so use your imagination there. I also did a couple fun "localization" touches which a fan of the game will recognize, but its all tasteful stuff that I don't think will grate on anyone. Feel free to PM me any technical or creative suggestions.

While you wait for those files to download, check out this stocking stuffer (hehe): the Mahou Daisakusen 8ing official webpage, translated and mirrored here! Like the Batrider translation I did awhile back with NTSC-J, it goes over the story/characters/stages in a fun way. There's also a funny developer notes section where they joke around and share a selection of alternate titles. I'm going to translate the pages for their other games (Bakraid and Dimahoo) sometime too.

Anyway, this was a really fun project, although something of a labor of love because I had to (wanted to?) learn every part of scanlation myself: debinding, scanning, cleaning files, and finally the text insertion/translation itself. I probably should have sought a team to help rather than do everything alone, but I also enjoy working this way. I have 3 other comics in the same vein: Sengoku Ace, Parodius, and Gunbird. I'll get to them eventually, but there's some normal interview stuff I want to catch up on. I'm really enjoying the community spirit lately with STG Weekly, the two recent tournaments, and just a general sense of goodwill... so this is my contribution. Happy holidays!


My previous shmupforum translations can be found at this thread, but I will also list them below for convenience:

Toaplan Shooting Chronicle Interview Madness
R-Type Developer Interview Collection
Gradius Developer Interviews (I,II,III,IV,Gaiden)
Scorer Interview Collection - TAC, LAOS, NAL, MON, etc
Stella Vanity and Valhellio Developer Interviews
Two M-KAI Interviews (Eschatos, JSS, Cardinal Sins)
Yoshinori Satake - Steel Empire, Over Horizon Interview
Armed Police Batrider Characters/Stages/Bosses translation (w/ NTSC-J)
Basiscape Composers Interview - Shooting Gameside #1
Cave Shooting History Interview Extravaganza!
Doujin Round Table Discussion - Shooting Gameside #1
Mushi HD/Saidaioujou Famitsu Cave Interview
Raizing Interview - Sotoyama Yuuichi and Yokoo Kenichi
Masahiro Yuge - Toaplan interview (Shooting Gameside vol. 4)
Tatsuya Uemura - Toaplan interview (Shooting Gameside vol.4)

[KAI]

Good Job, and happy holidays to you too blackoak.
What about posting info about this on mangaupdates.com?

[EmperorIng]

Great stuff - I always love these cheezy shmup-mangas! A very merry Christmas to you too, blackoak.

Now, I am a bit confused - is Mahou Daisakusen the same as Kingdom Grandprix, or is it its prequel? I'm a bit foggy on that detail.

[z0mbie90]

Awesome. Now I have something to read when Im bored.
Super great work as always man. And Happy Hoidays to you too

[trap15]

Now, I am a bit confused - is Mahou Daisakusen the same as Kingdom Grandprix, or is it its prequel? I'm a bit foggy on that detail.

It's the prequel. Mahou Daisakuen (Sorcer Striker) > Shippu Mahou Daisakusen (Kingdom Grandprix) > Great Mahou Daisakusen (Dimahoo)

[BulletMagnet]

For Blackoak's eyes only.

[Hagane]

Many, many thanks. For this and all the other great translations you did. Bestest user in the forum.

I notice the artist took a few design liberties with Chitta, hah.

I have 3 other comics in the same vein: Sengoku Ace, Parodius, and Gunbird.

Oh yes.

[EmperorIng]

I see the gunbird manga on ebay pretty frequently, usually for $20-30. I thought about getting it, but I don't think I'm -that- devoted to Gunbird!

[blackoak]

thanks everyone! btw, I've updated the main thread with a link to a smaller, equal quality .png set provided by Ghegs (thanks!). This should work in CDisplay as well.

@KAI, thanks, I'll take a look at mangaupdates now that I've got the more standard png set available.

[Raytrace]

brilliant stuff - thank you very much for this festive present

someone's posted it about it on tumblr too - I reblogged (y)

[Mortificator]

Nice work!

Some thoughts on the manga...
* I'd assumed "Sorcer Striker" was thought up for localization, so it was surprising to see that's the name of their ships.
* Bornham didn't use his squiggly-line magic. Maybe the artist didn't know what that was supposed to be either.
* Things got pretty rushed towards the end. The fight with Tsujimaru was cool, though.

[Eaglet]

I <3 U Keiji Haino

[jepjepjep]

Many thanks again blackoak! I really enjoyed the website translation too.

[blackoak]

* I'd assumed "Sorcer Striker" was thought up for localization, so it was surprising to see that's the name of their ships.

Yeah, it was thought up for the pcb localization--the word used in the Japanese manga translates to "magic ship," which sounds kind of silly in English. I was thinking of some way to translate it with a bit more color, and "sorcer striker" came to mind. Nicely providential. Likewise with the "here comes the strong one..." line. That was originally just some generic "here he comes!" kind of thing, but I thought translating it like that was a nice little nod to the series. I like to think that a Raizing-conscious editor would have made similar choices had it been officially translated into English.

On a side note, I've been playing Gunbird and working on the Gunbird manga. The art is a bit higher quality, done by the official Gunbird artist Masato Natsumoto. I've also greatly increased my scanning efficiency/quality so this should go faster. Lots of text to clone out though, might need to seek the help of a more experienced editor...

[Hagane]

The "suicide bomb" bit was very Raizing-like, too. Nice.

[EmperorIng]

The "suicide bomb" bit was very Raizing-like, too. Nice.

I had a good chuckle at that bit.

Goofy Raizing-isms, even in Raizing manga.

I like the little artist insert at the end bemoaning his lack of skill. All in all, this was a real fun read, and surprisingly well-drawn given and varied its subject matter.

[Frenetic]

blackoak, one of the top presents to the shmup community.

blackoak is the MAN!!!!

--F

[rtw]

Thank you once again for your effort blackoak, this scanlation is brilliant!

May I ask how your workflow is and which tools you use ? I do some scanning as well and I'm always eager to learn.

I.e. scanner brand, colour/greyscale, DPI used, S/W used to clean, process used to clean, etc ?

[blackoak]

thanks rtw! i'll try to keep this brief since its definitely not shmup related, but feel free to PM me any follow-up questions.

Basic process would be: debind with iron, scan (with large magazine on top to minimize shadows from the scanner light), clean in photoshop (order of operations: rotate w/ruler tool, crop, level, resize, save), do translation, do text insertion last. I used this as a general guide if you're curious: http://main.storminheaven.org/guide/main.html

I use an epson v33, cheap-o flatbed scanner with a large bed for magazines etc. I scan at 600 dpi--I know 300 dpi is considered standard via most guides, but there's a definite quality reduction in the finished product at 300... the jaggier lines jumped out at me

The big mistake I made for Mahou Daisakusen, which made everything take wayyyy too long, was to scan in color instead of greyscale. I didn't think it would matter, but it means you have to be much more aggressive with levelling in Photoshop CS6. That necessarily results in destroyed grays/midtones, so often I had to level the whole image to a reasonable point, then use the lasso tool to selectively level only the pure blacks/whites. Very tedious. Now that I'm scanning things in greyscale for Gunbird, there's almost no cleanup work outside of the occasional dust fleck, and the levelling needed is much less drastic. Midtones look a lot better too. Live and learn...

[rtw]

Thanks for the information blackoak!

I scan greyscale at 600DPI as well

[Pyongyang]

Your translations are amazing, very generous of you to be sharing the fruits of your labour with the community.

Thank you!

[cools]

May I ask how your workflow is and which tools you use ? I do some scanning as well and I'm always eager to learn.

I.e. scanner brand, colour/greyscale, DPI used, S/W used to clean, process used to clean, etc ?

Hope it's not too off-topic, but any recommendations for a scanner? I'm only looking to scan printed output - no photography or film. Used is fine, I'm just failing to find any sort of independent review resource to read through.

[Pyongyang]

any recommendations for a scanner?

AFAIK the ultimate consumer scanners are made by UMAX. I personally use the scanner on my HP Photosmart Plus which scans at up to 1200dpi. UMAX though are the top dog (this was a while ago though so it may have changed now).

Hope that helps.

[Mortificator]

I somehow missed that blackoak translated the official Mahou site too. Search Ghost... so that what those squiggly lines Bornham shoots are supposed to be.

[rtw]

For those about to scan, Adobe are offering the CS2 line for free!

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html