JoJo Project Releases

To all the people who read Steel Ball Run: JoJo Project would like to announce the release of the latest English chapter, Chapter 84. With this chapter, we finish volume 21.

We don't have any fancy kind of hype blurb this time. We believe that this chapter needs to stand by itself.

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?ug9ndnzdlc74f1f
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/pq73gx
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JUU27MZY


Previous chapters are at http://www.mediafire.com/jojoproject, and you can check on our status at our new blog (shizukajoestar on tumblr) or at shizukajoestar.blogspot.com.

We hope to have v22 in a convenient block ready for you as soon as possible! We can actually get things done faster overall by doing volume releases, as we discovered on v21, and we suspect it might cut down on some of the spoiler problems.

It's been a little longer than we like (haven't we said this way too many times?) but we're moving along at a way faster speed than we have before, and Steel Ball Run chapter 81 is ready to go and on its way! Guess what? Not only are we into volume 21 (!!!!!) BUT! After this we only have one, yes, ONE more chapter in the seemingly never-ending D4C arc! I bet it feels like a breath of fresh air to you all, doesn't it?

As for what's going on in the story... Well, D4C! This chapter marks the reappearance of two things which should be familiar to readers; one familiar to everybody who read SBR and one from... past times?! An old friend and an old enemy, both on the side of our heroes...

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?grcq2wu3bc9qvcw
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/2if6jo
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4Y9AK34S

And as always, past chapters are at mediafire.com/jojoproject if you missed chapter 80.

IN THIS CHAPTER OF STEEL BALL RUN, BEARS!

Hey guys! It's been a little while but SBR chapter 77 is out! It's the first chapter of volume 20, which means we're getting way closer to the end! And Araki's definitely letting us know. The tension is ramping up like crazy—what on earth is this new Stand power that's manifesting, and what the heck is up with the bear sign? As our hero team reaches view of the Atlantic Ocean, what on earth is going to happen next?

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?5tk61eod3jorjux
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VFQ7AXRN
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ykaf7u

And back chapters are, as always, on mediafire.com/jojoproject for your convenience.

I also need to apologize. I've been doing the absolute best job I can to set things up to continue uninterrupted in my wake, but I'm (unfortunately) rather tied up in the organization of how JJP operates, and I will be out of the country in a week with dubious internet access. I'll be gone about two weeks, and I'm most likely going to have one terrible case of jet lag when I return. I've got stuff set up so hopefully my scanlation friends can put out a chapter while I'm gone, but I can't guarantee anything. I know you guys have been very patient with delays, so I hate to inflict more of them on you, but I think it's only fair to warn of a possible problem.

It's the Fourth of July, also known in America as Independence Day! This is also the name of a old cult hit movie starring Will Smith. Years ago, a manga author in Japan was watching that movie before starting a new manga and thought to himself that "A fighting President would be cool!" The manga that resulted is Steel Ball Run. So let's celebrate Independence Day in the best way I can think of that's still legal (well, not really): Some more SBR!

SO YEAH, SBR 76. What does it contain, other than being the end of volume 19? It has Dio, violence, Dio, Gyro and Johnny talking about random stuff, an off-the-cuff comment that may blow some previously held fan theories ENTIRELY out of the water into the realm of impossibility, and bears. Welp. Sounds good to me!

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?p8ejte3j783qayl
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/82aj9y
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GO5YCL0X

And the back chapters are always at the mediafire archive, mediafire.com/jojoproject whenever wherever you need more (old) SBR!

(Also for the record, this is being released under just JoJo Project because instead of getting in contact with anybody else, I rushed this the fuck out in hopes of making it in time for July 4 and only one of my friends helped with the editing.)

And have a bonus: A picture designed for use as a light fabric T-shirt iron-on transfer, matching the typesetting of the sign from the end of the transfer! We care. Just be careful where you wear this.

WHAT IS THIS?

It's been a very, very long time indeed. Some of you have called us SlowJo Project for this. I honestly don't blame you. There's been miscommunication that just would sound stupid if I went and tried to explain it all, but finally, we're done. Chapter 75.

And what do I have to say about Chapter 75? BADASS ACTION ON A TRAIN. Dio really gets a chance to shine this chapter (and incidentally, on one particular speech bubble, the only editing I did was to remove the furigana. It was kindly written in oddly typeset Roman letters for your convenience). And you finally get to figure out more about D4C, how it works, and what its weaknesses and strengths are!

This is also the last chapter which will be done as a joint with Red Hawk. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with the slowness of this chapter; in fact, they were finished with the redraws earlier than the typesetting, and the slowness was caused by miscommunication between Freek and I about when each of us were available. Rather, their group has pretty much reached full workload capacity. We were already borrowing some members from another group they're friends with, and considering Otafreek already worked with them on some other projects other than SBR, it made more sense to get our extra cleaning in the future from I Eat Manga. Let's hear it for the wonderful cleaning help that has given us glorious spreads in the past, and for a future full of even more SBR!

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?5cfq5faly4wa54h
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UXUPXVPA
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/35h8sx

And as always, mediafire.com/jojoproject for back chapters!

May you enjoy wryyyyyyding this chapter!

You guys. You guys. You guys don't even KNOW what you're in for, or how happy I am for you that you get to read it. I haven't been so excited to have a new chapter released since way back in volume 16 when we were hearing about napkins while Magenta Magenta and Wekapipo fought on a carriagetop. Or maybe even earlier than that. This is seriously a big fucking deal we've got going on right now.

You can basically tell when the chapters that comprise volume 19 first started to appear in Ultra Jump by looking at Pixiv. This particular chapter here spawned a near critical mass of fanart within a week of its release; suddenly Pixiv was drowning in… well, you guys will just get to see! I don't doubt for one bit that some of the same craze that swept Japan is going to hit the English-speaking internet. This chapter also features a few nice call-backs to a previous arc, including one that I am about 100% certain that all you JoJofags have just been dying to see, and introduces a minor meme that I particularly like (a quirk in the President's speech that will become one of his catchphrases for a while).

Seriously though. This chapter is awesome. This volume is awesome. Normally I rather hate how, thanks to my access to the Japanese volumes, I know things before everybody else. This time, however, knowing what's coming and knowing that I get to watch all the speculation happen again except in English is absolutely delicious.

I want to give special shoutout thanks to Freek for some particularly amazing typesetting this chapter; I could definitely not have handled all the stuff with the torn-up note. Thanks to Momo for doing an emergency translation of the author blurb (isn't it hilarious?). And thanks to Red Hawk for doing all the lovely redrawing work. This chapter may have taken a while, but it's been a delight.

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?dw78nrvfy7xuwnb
sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/l0v1zb
MU: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ESWHPUY0

And keep watching this blog for more chapters… and a special announcement coming Sunday! >:3

That's it guys, Volume 18 is finally complete!
http://www.mediafire.com/?l1yki4ca8979mwy

And unfortunately, again with the late, but this time, it is 100% my fault.

Red Hawk had the cleans they had done for us done WAY earlier, and if it were up to them it'd be out over a week and a half ago. Unfortunately, I'm the JoJo Project contact person and I do some of the typesetting and proofreading myself, so when I'm knocked offline it can be kind of bad... I then had both a dual hard drive failure (my hard drive AND my most recent backup) and then was sent to the hospital for a while. It's so unbelievable that I'd think I were lying if I were reading it... but I swear I'm not. Otafreek, with just a bit of help from a proofreader who joined through JJP for a bit who prefers to remain anonymous, teamed up with the current JJP translator and managed to work some MIRACLES while I was occupied. I'm so proud of all the other people, and of everybody who wasn't a dick while waiting.

Oh snap the release speed is not glacial! Thanks to Red Hawk for partnering with us on this and providing the cleaners we needed.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ml266o898vh29wt
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kfyig0

And because I was made aware of some pretty terrifying feedback from a certain imageboard where a lot of the JoJo fanbase is, here's a few answers to the complaints from Green Oval.

Bawwww Red Hawk get out of our JoJo, I remember when JoJo Project was two dudes in a basement, etc
JoJo Project is still JoJo Project. The only thing Red Hawk is providing us with are cleaners and a bit of help organizing ourselves. JoJo Project has always been rather a motley crew with severe disorganization problems, and a constant turnover of rookie cleaners. We had one of our rookie cleaners on this set, but we let Red Hawk help us with the redraws. It's the difference between 10 weeks and 1 week for a chapter, and no, I'm not even joking. If people are still angry that JoJo Project accepted an offer to help with cleaning, even if it means a drastic fall in speed if we leave the joint offer, we'll consider not doing this any more. But just because some people have some inexplicable issue with Red Hawk does not mean what they did for us at JoJo Project is any less awesome to us or that I am any less grateful.

The typesetting sucks/the script sucks/wtf happened to Freshy
Odd that everybody hates the typesetting this chapter, when last chapter, which was also primarily Freek typesetting, there were certain pages which everybody was praising for being some of the best typesetting yet in SBR. I don't understand it, and neither does he. Does everybody just miss when I used way the hell more fonts because I didn't know what the hell I was doing? As for the script sucking and/or Freshy's absence... Freshy is very, very busy, too busy at the moment to be working on SBR. (She has more important things to worry about like, oh, being Japanese and having family in Japan, as well as college classes with an insane workload.) It'd be nice if she could come back and help proofread, but I'll be proofreading in the future and despite my Japanese being kind of poor, I know JoJo more than most people and I'm not a terribly bad writer (this tl;dr shocked blog entry aside) so I think I can help a lot. Also, you can't blame Kewl or Freek or me or ANYBODY for this particular chapter sounding terrible; ever since this chapter first came out in Ultra Jump magazine, people hated it for sounding terrible in Japanese. We are not miracle workers. We cannot fix that there is stupid shit about winter catfishes and that this chapter is badly written by Araki without changing things so much that we'd really be releasing fakescans or parodyscans. Wait until next chapter before you judge us so harshly.

Shizuka I hate you, you're an attentionwhoring bitch
No, I'm really not, and I'm sorry if anybody hates me. I'm trying to do the best I can juggling what life I have with some severe illness and still trying to get SBR out. If things are occasionally kind of rough, or I make mistakes, I am sorry, but I'm just trying the best I can in a shitty situation. I will be attempting to fix some errors in v18 (which even I know has been a clusterfuck compared to previous volumes) for a full volume re-release, but as it is, I really am doing my best.

I have neglected this blog since pretty much forever, so here are the missing chapters.

Chapter 66: http://www.mediafire.com/?iv6m7idbfs0pwkr
Chapter 67: http://www.mediafire.com/?j2eilpc2v2ktyde
Chapter 68: http://www.mediafire.com/?83h65p52uq934yz
Chapter 69: http://www.mediafire.com/?74snetvfffbwl7d

I would also like to issue some clarifications:

1) I am not the entire project. I'm just the publicity dude, who also does miscellaneous stuff for the team. Please, in comments here and on other forums or sites, direct any thanks to the people who the credit page indicates actually worked on the editing or translation, not to Shizuka.

2) We have way more team members now. Please check the first post in this blog routinely to see who is currently on the SBR project; the part 5 scans, which we are NOT working on until we are done with SBR, are being done by a slightly different team who is still part of JoJo Project.

3) I'm terrible at updating blogs, so please if you need to contact me immediately with a question or you think the status is out of date, please use email to contact me: shizuka dot joestar at gmail dot com. I will respond within a few days, I promise.

4) We're trying for a chapter a week until we catch up with Japan now.

Well would you look at that! For once I'm not writing about delays!

This chapter is short, sweet, and delightfully confusing. It's like spicy chocolate. You'll be trying to piece together the events on the streets of Philadelphia for weeks. Who is the Steel Ball Run shadow man villain? What is Wekapipo doing? Where is Dio? And what on earth is up with Disco and his crazy Stand? Read it, enjoy, and try to puzzle it out without resorting to spoilers!

Mediafire - http://www.mediafire.com/?mjmiznkzodm
sendspace - http://www.sendspace.com/file/eivbyk
megaupload - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=33HQIJVQ

And as always, back chapters are at http://www.mediafire.com/jojoproject if you need to catch up.

Special thanks to Frequency for saving my butt and doing the joins for me this time. It made this chapter an absolute delight to edit.

Part 5's translation existing translation is, quite frankly, pretty terrible. It leaves stuff out all over the place and outright makes things up in places, not to mention how it doesn't preserve the charm of the original very well at all. Plus the image quality was rather bad. Freshy and I have wanted to redo this ever since the first day we teamed up to work on Stone Ocean, and have been secretly working on this for months. We're proud to present the first volume to you.

We will be releasing part 5 in full volume batches. The first one, volume 47b (the first part of volume 47is taken up by the very end of part 4), is here.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?wnxznz2ayrm
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hkf67m

It's been way longer than I would have liked but it's finally here - the seventeenth volume of Steel Ball run starts here!

You know, normally I love writing crazy summaries to hype up the upcoming chapter. It's one of the highlights of chapter releases for me. But this one... most of what makes it so awesome is also incredibly spoilertastic. So all I'm going to say is that...

IT'S TIME TO LISTEN.

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?innhd3gm3f2
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/1u7txn
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YDWIJEZ0

And as always, back chapters are at http://www.mediafire.com/jojoproject so you can catch up easily!

It's been far longer than I would have liked it to take, but the next two chapters of Steel Ball Run are out!

When we left off, Lucy thought that the President might just be the Devil. Why is this? What is happening to him, and even more importantly, what's happening to Lucy? It's scandalous and scary and it might just blow your mind. Then we take a detour to the wild streets of Philadelphia, where a vicious battle takes place atop a runaway carriage as two old favorites return to duke it out.

Then we have chapter 63. It's five pages. Five hilarious pages. You'll love it, I promise.

-CHAPTER 62-
Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?yryummyt1zw
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EMLV66HE
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/hkrbpw

-CHAPTER 63-
Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?nzxkmjhmd4z
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EWYSE0CC
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ox0332

And as always, you can go to http://www.mediafire.com/jojoproject to catch up.

It hasn't been very long since the last chapter at all, but since I had had this chapter cleaned for a while and it's such an important one, I couldn't resist working my tail off to get it out faster than I even thought possible.

This is quite possibly one of the most plot-heavy and overall important chapters in the entire series; coupled with the upcoming chapter 62, more will be done to advance the plot than in the last two or three volumes combined. In this chapter, the history of how Lucy Steel married Stephen Steel is revealed, before we start to unravel the mystery of the President's involvement with the race. And what about the corpse? What will become of it? You might just need a napkin to wipe the sweat off your face after this one.

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?yzz4nyhyfyy
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/fatd2s
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BPNQR1JX
Rapidshare:
http://rapidshare.com/files/360418321/Steel_Ball_Run_chapter_61__v16ch2_.zip.html

And as always, back chapters are at http://www.mediafire.com/jojoproject and you can go to http://shizukajoestar.blogspot.com to track our progress.

At last, the long-awaited chapter 60 of Steel Ball Run. It's the start of volume 16. This is my personal favorite volume so far, because it is the most plot-dense action-packed revelatory volume so far. I wish I could hype this chapter up as much as I normally can, but that would involve some pretty major spoilers... so without ruining your experience, you can look forward to the return of an old friend, the return of an old enemy, a white-knuckled battle atop a carriage careening through the streets of Philadelphia, and a revelation that will determine the entire plot of the manga for volumes yet to come.

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?tyhxl5nyw51
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IS030KP1
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/umnplv
Rapidshare: http://rapidshare.com/files/359668831/ch_60.rar

And as always, back chapters are at mediafire.com/jojoproject.

Translation: Freshy. Editing: Frequency and Shizuka Joestar.

-----

I would also like to make a small comment about why this chapter is incredibly special to me personally, and to JoJo Project as a team. Back when we were a brand new team, assembled ragtag from a series of late night threads on /a/ and anonib and a few personal connections, we wanted to see if it'd be possible to do the SBR magazine chapters as they came out while waiting for Stardust Crusaders to catch up their backlog, so the end result would be the English scanlations finishing at about the same time as the Japanese. This was the first SBR chapter that I ever personally cleaned, because at the time it was the absolute newest magazine chapter; when I got to help out Frequency with a few pages, there was this amazing sense of nostalgia when I was retouching page 37, where the text goes over Magenta's hat. I remember being frustrated and having nightmares over it a year or two ago when I first found it, and while it was still hard, it really helped me realize how much I've grown as an editor as I comparatively flew through those pages.

With this, we've come full circle and have finally accomplished almost everything JoJo Project set out to do. We put out Stone Ocean at the best quality we could. We caught up, if not to SBR, to where we were before we abandoned magazine chapters as infeasible. From here on out it's new territory for us; it's exciting and wonderful, and I hope you can share in our happiness.

Hey there! It hasn't been very long but because Frequency and I got our scripts at about the same time, I'm delighted to present to you Steel Ball Run chapter 59, the last chapter of Volume 15!

This is it, folks. This is the series' turning point. After that crazy cliffhanger from last time, how can this chapter possibly end? It's thoughts more than actions that have the chance to win this battle, and how it plays out will have you at the edge of your seat. And even crazier, the end of the chapter has a twist that will leave your jaw hanging and set up the rest of this manga's plot. Buckle up and enjoy the ride, guys; it's going to be one fun roller coaster from here on out.

Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?21yjmtfhid1
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/md4qwf
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DF10W0MG

And as before, http://www.mediafire.com/jojoproject has all your back chapter needs.

Translation: Freshy, editing: Shizuka Joestar.

It's been a long time, but we're proud to present the third chapter in Steel Ball Run volume 15. It's Chapter 58, the third chapter of the Civil War arc!

Sin and regret are tricky things to think about. What do you do when you're being attacked by the things you thought you left behind? Johnny's past comes back to haunt him as Axl Ro attacks with something you probably never saw coming. The Corpse's identity confirmed, the sadness laid on thick, and to top it all off, the ending will have you clutching the edge of your seat and begging for chapter 59.

Links:
Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?umydzotwwnm
Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1LELDK86
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/01jjsg
Rapidshare: http://rapidshare.com/files/346974413/SBR_58.rar

And as always, previous chapters are at http://www.mediafire.com/jojoproject so go ahead and catch up if you need to!

Editing: Frequency
Translation: Freshy