"but even if the two of us should be separated / I will change the world"

[larryhammer]

To those intellectually interested in the world of manga scanlation but who have not explored it because you have issues with copyright violations, I give a scanlation that violates no copyright -- because it's published by the US government.* Specifically, by the Department of Defence, who on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima released in Japanese the first chapter (of a projected three) of Our Alliance: A Lasting Partnership. In which an American boy named Usa-kun ("Bunny," but also the acronym) on a home-stay in the house of a Japanese girl named Anzu, where they seem to spend most of their time talking about, well, the military alliance between their countries. Like all good moe anthropomorphisms of nation-states do.

In other words, it's a pure propaganda infodump barely sullied by anything resembling a plot.

I'll give 50 quatloos, redeemable for an entire internet, to anyone who manages to read all the way through without skipping even a single infographic.

(Just as a reminder, the text reads in Japanese manner from right to left -- so start in the upper right corner, go across, and then down.)

* ETA: I should clarify that the USA subscribes to the legal theory that works created on the public dollar are in the public domain -- not all national governments do so.

---L.

Comments

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I am not the person who should be taking up your bet. I am about to link this post to gramarye1971, who is that person.

[larryhammer]

Do so. This use of public funds deserves to be publicized.

---L.

[gramarye1971]

...yeah, I'm going to have to read this one. It's a good thing that I like infographics!

[larryhammer]

Some infographics can be quite informative, and pretty.

(So who is that and why is he ordering Japan to get moving?)

---L.

[gramarye1971]

(It's former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is the star of the politics x mahjong manga with which I am currently obsessed.)

[larryhammer]

Well, at least it's not Aso ...

Politics x mahjong is, I confess, a combination I never thought of.

---L.

[gramarye1971]

Taro Aso's in that manga, too! As a cigarillo-smoking sharpshooter who prevents one of Kim Jong-Il's snipers from killing Koizumi during a match. (And that's one of the least far-fetched scenes in the series.)

[larryhammer]

Ah, manga, don't ever lose your crack addiction.

Have you met the recent one-shot about a tyrannosaur named Ralph who is killed by the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs and is reincarnated as a contemporary Japanese schoolgirl? (It is, unfortunately, very lame, as in shounen ecchi lame. But the premise is nicely cracked.)

---L.