We aren't dead!
Just like we said in our last post in... December? (Jesas), we had our next project lined up, and it was a big one.
So, about the time we were finishing Veranda, Citlali, aka, Cumbia lover, said they wanted to work on something... darker. So I said, why the hell not? Because there was something in our past that bothered me for years.
Back in 2020 (Oh my freaking GOD, THAT'S SO LONG AGO!) we worked on a little commission by Kino called "Even the stars are gone". Back then we knew it was only the first part of maybe a 3-parter so I was hoping that we would get back to it some day. And so, with our objective locked in, the whole thing being out for like a year at that point and some willingness to try some new things we got into it.
It's my first time buying and scanning a book, and it was no small task since the first time I decided to try this was with a 100+ page monster. Taking into consideration translating, editing and cleaning everything (and that maybe I scanned the dang thing like 3 times) and a few personal hiccups on Citlalin's and my end, I hope you can forgive us for disappearing for almost 6 months.
And today, we close one more cycle, YAY! And now, to the work at hand.
"Even the stars are gone" is a Magireco AU doujin by Kino where Ui died and Iroha didn't become a magical girl (guess pebble-sama wasn't around), but she still managed to meet Yachiyo. This a story of their meeting in these circumstances and what lies in the future for them in this timeline, where Iroha's lights are gone...
It's a darker story but it was still good, and after it we can find solace in the fact that canonically everything went well... so far (I'm looking at you F4, don't make the girls disappear... again).
Next, some words from Citlalin
Hello, buenos días, pialli. SGT is back at it again with yet another release, right when the whole world thought we were gone for good this time. We even got our resident sloth Namake back to bless this release. The haters and the losers can however rest assured: they will have their day, for death comes for us all, even oddly long lived PMMM scanlation groups. Ahnochipa tlalticpac. Zan achica ye nican.
This release would have been out months ago if I hadn't kept it stalled at maybe 80% done (though the last 20% of polishing is always the most painful) for like a month and a half as I went along steadily losing mental health hit points dealing with a Family Situation. In a weird and funny way, it was so draining on my mental health (I don't really want to describe it as "difficult" because it's really nothing compared to a lot of certified bad family situations even people I know personally have gone through) that I came out of it with a new appreciation for life. I feel like I'm seeing in 1080p, seeing colors more vividly (it might just be that it's finally spring though...), I feel like the shot of Yachiyo breaking through the surface of the water, floating and reaching for the moon from the MagiReco anime S1 ED. Life is too short to spend it being sad about things beyond our control, even if sadness isn't like a switch in the brain you can just decide to turn off. Anyway...
Did you enjoy this release? I certainly enjoyed reading it and working on it. As someone who has often felt and continues to often feel like Iroha does on page 85, wondering if I'll spend the rest of my life going through the motions of being alive, moving air in and out of my lungs, I love the bitterness, the astringency, the spice, of these kinds of stories, even if they can be a bit heavy handed. I love fluff and lighthearted fun too, but the core vision of PMMM has always felt like it required engagement with despair even if a particular story comes out on the side of hope, so I'm glad we got to work on something a bit darker. Once my hostile takeover of SGT is complete and Ica is exiled to some remote pueblito up somewhere in the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca (with internet, of course, so they can continue doing all the typesetting), you can expect to see a lot more of this kind of thing from SGT.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one and didn't find it too depressing for your taste. Hopefully our next release won't take as long as this one did, although we haven't actually decided on what it and the future of SGT in general are going to be. But that can be fun too — not knowing where you're going — right? Todo irá bien. Today was a good day. I got smoked at ping pong by some uncle who was on his university's table tennis team back in the day, it rained, I cooked some delicious beans, some trees are in bloom. Todo irá bien. Oc ceppa ticueponizqueh. Oc ceppa tixotlazqueh.
Some unsolicited thoughts on books and other media to pad out this blog post:
Evermaiden — very good, but a bit predictable near the end. Fans of PMMM, the few that remain, will enjoy this. Averla my beloved.
Phonology in Generative Grammar by Michael J Kenstowicz — just like with the Heim and Kratzer textbook, Blackwell simply does not miss. Been meaning to really study phonology properly and this is a great and incredibly thorough if daunting monster of a tome to start with. Bits of it are already starting to leak out of my moldy dish sponge of a brain and I'm definitely going to need to read this again at some point, but it's gotten me up to speed (up to like the late 90s ig lmao) in derivational phonology at least. Guess I should start reading some optimality theory now?
無垢なる花たちのためのユートピア by 川野芽生 — haven't finished this one yet tbh but definitely intend to. Lovely little collection of science fantasy short stories with a very ethereal, delicate feel to them. The book is beautifully written, with a lot of lines reading more like poetry than prose, a lot of attention paid to every word, every sentence. Beautiful prose hiding some quite raw and dark contents.
The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl: Pre-Hispanic History, Religion, and Nahua Poetics by Jongsoo Lee — as promised (to the exactly 0 readers who cared), some more thoughts on this book. Fascinating reassessment of Nezahualcoyotl, peeling away the layers of mythologizing and propagandizing surrounding the figure coming even from well meaning and highly respected scholars like Miguel León-Portilla. We hate to see our boy reinterpreted like this, but it had to happen 😔...
Josee, the Tiger and the Fish — so I actually watched/read just about every version of this story that exists apart from the manga which I think is just an adaption of the animated movie. The original short story by Tanabe Seiko and the 2003 Japanese film are both p interesting in their own ways. Odd little stories that are endearing but leave a kind of weird aftertaste. The 2020 South Korean film was... alright? and the animated film despite having Miyamoto Yume my beloved it pains me to say was not good imo.
Cantares Mexicanos translated by John Bierhorst — Chalcacihuacuicatl must have been like WAP back in the day to Sahagún. Need to reread once my Nahuatl is a bit better.
Quantification by Anna Szabolcsi — banger, absolutely required reading for anyone interested in formal semantics. Not the most approachable but incredibly thorough and precise.
Maboroshi — Okada Mari cooked so hard with this one. I've really tried to like all of her previous work from like IBO to Maquia, and even the most dedicated haters cannot deny there is some spice, some sabor to her oeuvre, but this was the first one that really immediately resonated with me.
And now, the link!
We probably won't tackle something so big as our only work again for some time, it was quite exhausting. Next we might work on something from Kirara, most likely Mahou Shoujo Bu. But you will know when we release the first chapter.... hopefully this year (crossing fingers!).
See ya!
