Howdy,
The elves have managed to overcome their lethergy just enough to leave chapter 135 over at:
http://www.cafealpha.org/
I encourage you to thank the elves. Don't cost nuthin'.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Wow! Those Elves indeed know how to use magic!
And what a brilliant retelling of chapter 30!
...And like the misterious traveller we keep returning once and again to Café Alpha....
- DavidF
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
With some of the best manga, like "Kimagure Orange Road" and "YKK", characters come alive for me. Even tho the manga ends, I can imagine the characters living their lives, having kids, etc.
- Kerry
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Why do these recent chapters make me feel like the YKK series is coming to a close?
Anyways, kudos to the elves again for their diligent work. This kind of thing makes my day!
The first-person chapter also reminded me of some hilarious parts of GTO that had the same format (when Eikichi visits his corrupted cop buddy). Much more crude, of course.
- Glen Hwang
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Wow, the elves must be hopped up on green tea to get another excellent piece of work out this quickly. Excellent. Thanks.
- C_P
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Thank you ELVES!
and thanks to DavidF for pointing out chapter 30! I would not have remembered it if you hadn't mentioned it.
- outsideking
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
You are a machine!
This episode suggests that while other things change, Alpha does not change. This is very sad. I hope this is just a way the author uses to say that time passes. I hope he gets things moving again soon.
- Loran Gayton
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Thanks to the Elves!
Is Chapter 30 the one that is read on the start of the Third Sound Story Disk? Everyone must have liked that one a lot to put it on the disk.
- Soyokaze
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Bless you elves!
However, this is the first chapter in a long time that bored me.
- El Gonzo, Purveyor or Ennui
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Thankies!
I thought I'd wait a hell a lot more than what I should.oh well,THANKS AGAIN!!!
Heh.A guy who likes calm manga likes this adn wacky ones like GTO...pfeh...
- Ryo Hakusho
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Thanks a lot. Please take my deepest respect and appreciation of your work. It's really important and very pleasing to be able to read the story as it continues - thank you again.
Yes, in recent chapters there is certain amount of conclusions and it really looks like the story is going to its end.
Aww... If it's so, I think it will break my heart.
But sometime ago I wondered how long Ashinano will be able to walk on the edge of spoiling the mystery or losing the reader's interest. And it does looks like he is not going to fail...
- Drake
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
WOW! The elves are as fast as they are fluent! THANK YOU!!!
I liked this chapter as much as 30... It puts a point on the fact that as much as she has changed, Alpha has indeed stayed the same... Still its fascinating to note the details Ashinano puts into the frames when you compare the two chapters, now 10 years apart...
The first page is the same with Alpha holding the (pretty much) same rake and standing in the same spot, but its obviously Autumn in ch30 and Summer in ch135. The details along the road showing the weathering and the same on the front door and door handle are telling that the world continues to get older, yet for all of her maturity, Alpha does not...
Even as the narrator notes that he's older, Alpha treats him as if no time has passed, and again at the end points out that even if he returned in 10 or 20 years, he'd expect to find her just the same and expects he'd be greeted in the very same manner... Just another reminder that even as she experiences, learns and reacts to the aging world around her, Alpha is stuck in a timeless loop of her own...
- Darin~
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Thank you!
At first I thought the chapter is great, but now that I can actually read the text -- it's even better.
- Radomir Dopieralski
Thursday, September 29, 2005
That's really a great job! Thank you elves...
Maybe it's just an impression that the "first person mode" made me but........i feel like the person who talks in this chapter is the author himself......like he's a character of the story......than another thuoght striked me: what if the author is the owner?.......ok i'll end here before someone tries to kill me^^. Sorry for the bad english
- bluecrow
Thursday, September 29, 2005
The overgrowth of the grasses. Self-serviced gas station. No more oji-san. Is it going to end very soon?
Elves always get my best regards. Thanks!
- painsama
Thursday, September 29, 2005
However, Alpha's personality has changed a great deal in the "more than ten years" between chapter 30 and 135.
The woman who "looks terribly embarassed when sitting with a customer" (http://ykk.misago.org/Volume4/101) clearly is not the person who "sits in front of me as is was the most natural thing in the world" (http://www.cafealpha.org/ch135/7.html).
She behaves more and more like a host receiveing guests and not like an shop owner serving clients. Even her clothing style is more and more casual.
I think she only need a little push to leave definitely the Café...
- DavidF
Thursday, September 29, 2005
from this chapter that we can assume no more ojisan & doctor .while she in casual dress, may because no one has come in awhile. i feel very sad after reading this chapter.
- charles C
Friday, September 30, 2005
It's too early to bury Oji-san or Sensei already, but as Ashinano hates to point anything directly, self-serviced gas station is a grim sign, agreed.
- Drake
Friday, September 30, 2005
Well, the gas station went self-service (automated) a while ago, while Ojiisan was still alive and farming, so I don't buy that as more than a reminder of the changes from 30.
.... and I have to agree with DavidF that the point is more that as much as Alpha's appearance has stayed the same, she has certainly changed a lot. Structuring this so similarly to ch. 30 begs for contrast between the two, and Alpha acts rather differently.... Though she will always welcome you back.
Nothing lasts forever.
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Beautiful work again, all.
- Speaker59
Friday, September 30, 2005
First things first, many thanks again, elves!
The chatting Alpha looks somewhat desperate to me. It seems that she feels very lonely now and longs for every customer to have somebody to talk to. And it looks like that on pages 11 and 12 she's realizing that fact herself too.
On the bright side, the end gives me hopes that Ashinano plans to continue YKK for at least another ten "plot years". (However, if you're the pessimistic type, you can also interpret it as a kind of "...happily ever after"...)
- Beaker
Friday, September 30, 2005
"On the bright side, the end gives me hopes that Ashinano plans to continue YKK for at least another ten "plot years"."
And then haunt Alpha's Cafe as visiting ghost - BOO! - cause he will not be able to do it till that time =)
- Drake
Friday, September 30, 2005
Soooo... with Ch 135, where does that put us with respect to the Tankoban? Are we now finished with Vol 13 and onto Vol 14? Or not yet...?
- Darin~
Friday, September 30, 2005
Speaker59, though you said that the station went self-serviced a while ago (can you point out which chapter, I'm not very sure of it ^^), but considering that the grasses grew tall, implying that it was not taken care of, and maybe Oji-san was sick already in this chapter that he could not take care of the gas-station anymore. The fact that the narrator in this chapter said that the road was also in bad condition, overgrowth of grasses everywhere, also implies that the population there were going down (since no one bother to take care of those things)?
And for Darin, we're already in volume 14 of tankoubon starting from chapter 131, if I'm not mistaken.
- painsama
Friday, September 30, 2005
Sensei and Alpha talk about it in Chapter 132 when they discuss Sensei using Ojisan's truck. I think at one point during the last chapter we see Ojisan in he makes some note of it but I'm not certain. I do know we see it discussed in 132.
- Christine K.
Friday, September 30, 2005
look like my dream of seeing sensei & M1 reunite not going to happen
- charles C
Friday, September 30, 2005
Howdy,
The first mention of the gas station going automatic was in chapter 132. The next time we see the station is in chapter 135, and there is a sign out front that says "self".
We haven't see Ojisan since chapter 132.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Friday, September 30, 2005
Thanks painsama... I'll adjust my folder organization right away... I need to get vol 13 anyway...
- Darin~
Friday, September 30, 2005
As always, thank you.
- martialstax
Monday, October 3, 2005
Painsama:
Good thing you called me on that; in looking over my collection, I realized I had a second copy of 133 instead of 132. really glad that's fixed now.
At any rate, for thoroughness' sake: in 132, on page 6 (http://cafealpha.org/ch132/6.html) Sensei mentions in asking after "that old fogey" that "The gas station went fully auto" and Alpha responds that "He's growing more tomatoes and okra than he can sell".
... Even so, I've gotta grant that it'd seem to be Ashinano's style to treat someone's passing that....
... quietly.
- Speaker59
Thursday, October 13, 2005
yea. most of the YKK chapter seem like it ending soon. i've discovered this manga 2 years ago, and now, i've feel like the magic in this YKK is going. at least, i no that the world may be changing, but i won't b here to see it, however, YKK help me image what would happen if the world was at peace and everyone is thriving to recover what is lost or what will disappear. image one of japan most famous feature lost. the hot spring i dink was japan most popluar feature.
i dunno bout ya all, but i dink i better find another manga dat this artist drew. if any of ya all have any info. i'll welcome it cuz it help me slow down and pace myself while enjoying the nature we have before everyding goes to hell. namely the weather and the situation in new orlean.
- terra
Friday, October 14, 2005
Thanks again to the elves for their speedy work! I just got around to reading this and chapter 134, for which many thanks as well!
- Smarasderagd
Saturday, October 22, 2005
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