Tetsunaki no Kirinji Marathon 2

Hey,

First, thanks for all the kind and encouraging comments. Big, big thanks from the bottom of my heart to the 3 donators. I'll be able to pay my bills once PayPal Virtual Pending Money Gods decide to let the money into my account. That being said, I read it can take around ~21 days? So I might be a week or two offline at worst, but I don't mind. My faith in humanity has been restored.

As I said in a comment earlier already, I had a job interview last month, I managed to get a job in the Czech Republic, Brno, where I can use my fluent English and German, with paid accommodation, but I'd need to wait ~4 months for approval of the Visa application and work permit at the embassy, and the Visa and all the required documents would cost around ~200€ so I lost all hope and went through the worst time of my life.

That being said, our local tech-wiz, super-hacker, cyber-genius WhITelion implemented a fancy bar showing how far I am from my Visa, we call it the "Get Rinshan Out Of The Jungle And Back Into Civilization" foundation. With some luck and good people I hope I'll make it out this hell-hole and finally get a chance to work and live a decent life.

Back to Scanlation. I'll keep doing a chapter a day while I can, might take a day off if I get burned out. I'm glad so many people enjoy this series as much as I do and I hope my translation does it justice.

Chapter 27 Link
Chapter 28 Link
Chapter 29 Link
Chapter 30 Link
Chapter 31 Link
Volume 3 Link

~VOLUME AND NAME ANALYSIS BELOW~

Alright, let's start with 

Chapter 21: Deep-Sea Fish Tasting

Starting volume 3 the mahjong in the series gets much deeper. Since I'm just a noob 1-dan, I will probably miss out a lot of insight. I will focus on the story instead. There isn't much going on story-wise in this chapter, but there are some details I'd like to point out. For example, I like how the scene switches from the parlor to the hospital. Rinji deals into Sakiyo's hand, feels water rushing over him and drowning him, and then next we have a scene of a sunset at the ocean. It's Arino's nightmare.

We see him as a little boy sitting alone, being sad, on a tree stump, facing towards the ocean while the sun is setting. We hear something about his mother and then he wakes up. He looks at a picture of Hanako and Koume playing in the ocean and then says that "thanks to that day, it's not a nightmare anymore". Ocean and Ocean again. Coincidence? I think not.

Another detail I liked in this chapter was that whenever Kandata would talk like himself or say things Rinji couldn't possibly know, he would put the mask away from his face. 

Lastly we got our first Majin flashback. It's very foreboding. I especially like how they always talk about opponents as fish that they are trying to catch and eat. It's kind of true since they are gamblers and live off the opponents they "catch" and "eat". It also gives their dialogue a really nice Showa feeling. If it's an unknown species, slowly boil it in a pot. Good recipe.

Chapter 22: Cactus Thorns

This chapter is mostly mahjong and Sakiyo playing mind games with Rinji. There's another flashback with Majin and I like how he pops a pea from a pod with 2 peas as he's talking about the double pair

wait, which is a visual analogy to one of two popping, or one of two tiles coming out.

Chapter 23: Laughing Whale

Now this is interesting. Rinji was first a Shark - Gambler, became Flying Fish so he could overcome the shallow waters of Three Monkeys, then a Deep-Sea Fish once Sakiyo came in and the game became much deeper, and what's the use of all those play styles when Sakiyo is a whale. While being a pun, the real meaning is no play style is effective against Sakiyo since no fish can compete with a whale. The literal translation of the Kikazaru reading which I went "No Mercy" with is also something more of "Nothing towards it shows effect/It doesn't show effect/mercy towards anything", it's an ambiguous verb that can't be translated to English.

What enabled Rinji to win in the end was giving up on logic. If the ocean is reason, Rinji trying to go deeper and deeper just didn't work, so this was his introduction to unreason and gambling, doing plays that are less likely to win. This works against this line-up since his opponents aren't really that good and are kinda unpredictable.

Chapter 24: Dragon's Children

It's the first time we hear the titular Kirinji with its intended meaning. There was Kirinjipapa but that's just a nickname and the Kanji haven't been used. It's an eerie coincidence that Majin talks about a player being a Prodigy - Kirinji while Rinji's full name is Kiriya Rinji. Rinji is obviously aware of the fact that his name can be shortened to Kirinji, that's why his nick is Kirinjipapa. It's kinda ambiguous what he meant with his nickname. It can be either that he's a prodigy and a father at the same time, or that he's the father of a prodigy, thinking of Koume. Again, another nice touch is how the panel that talks about "The Child of a Dragon" shows a spiral incense burning. This is kind of symbolic since in Japan dragons have an association with spirals. Japanese and Chinese dragons are more snake like and longer than their European counterparts and were usually drawn in spirals.

Also a nice touch is how Majin's flashbacks always begin with a question in the last panel of a page, which is also how Hiroshi's flashback of Rinji in the next chapter begins. 

Kandata being the loudmouth he is and on top of that an internet noob, allowed Hiroshi to recognize him as his father, which resulted in a really emotional reunion after so many years. I find it impressive how Hiroshi still loves his father and cares about his opinion of him as a son, even though they were separated for so long. Well, the overarching theme of this manga is the unconditional love between a parent and child, so this fits right in.

One last final touch I liked about this chapter is that Majin said "Child of a Dragon" while the chapter title is "Dragon's Children", implying that not just Rinji is a child of a dragon, but Hiroshi as well.

Chapter 25: Bible of Persistence

This chapter was mostly online mahjong with some subtle exposition of some specific online mahjong (Tenhou) rules, like the 30,000 points condition, what happens when someone disconnects, etc.

Shoutout to: Sunglasses Chief, East Genji Haruko, Two-Faced Hey-Hey, Mole since they are recurring online mahjong characters. 

It's also refreshing to see someone look up to Rinji and Rinji being in other people's flashbacks, since most of the time we saw Rinji taking a beating and being down on luck.

Chapter 26: Planet of Rosy Cheeks

This was my favorite chapter of the volume. All the tension built up in the last chapters finally got released. It's interesting to sit in a leather chair and play psychologist while analyzing Rinji's dream. I guess it's simple to understand though, on a superficial level he wants the easy way out and just away from all his trouble and immerse himself in a fake reality of online mahjong, but deep down he knows he wants his family back.

We hear Tsukiko for the first time talk about Majin. Is this the same Majin as her father? Another Majin? I won't say anything about that for now. But I guess it's safe to assume that's the person she has her grudge against and has something to do with a fire incident.

Seeing Sakiyo working on the street selling food really caught me by surprise. We were led to believe they were rich people, she seemed so intimidating and strong, she even dressed up (Kikazaru 47th meaning) for the night and seeing her like this instantly turned her into a sympathetic character. I love the friend vibe between Rinji, Sakiyo and Iwami after such a long, intense night of competition. Iwami who appeared as tough as a rock is suddenly smiling. So good.

Really nice scene is when Rinji for the first time is, literally, feeding himself off his mahjong, sitting at a train station with rosy cheeks, after saying to himself many times in the past "I'm gonna feed myself with mahjong".

Next he calls Kandachi and this was also a really, really nice scene. Those of you who paid attention remember that Kandachi hates sandwiches due to his past of working at a bread factory. And what is he doing now? He's making a sandwich. Why? First off, he heard in online mahjong that his son as well is working in a bread factory, and, he is done with his past, he has no more regrets. He has finally reunited with his son and he is at peace. Character growth.

A nice touch is how he "lost" Rinji's ID. He knows how much it means to him and since he actually sympathizes with Rinji he doesn't want him to offer any money back for it, since he knows he'd annoy him with some money out of pride.

Chapter 27: Second Life

This chapter could have been translated "The life of a Second", I think it'd have been more appropriate, but this is a more ambiguous literal translation, and can be also a play on the line "You live just once", so let's go with it.

We see Arino being brutal. At one point he gets really angry. Those of you who paid attention remember that Arino has a traumatic past where his mother didn't come for him for some reason. That is why he gets very emotional and very angry when he talks about how you can't separate a mother and a child, and that a child needs its mother the most in its life...

Regarding the online mahjong character "Roland", he's a parody of Ronald McDonald, wonder how many of you caught that.

This is also the first time we see Rinji play after the Three Monkeys night and those of you who paid attention would notice that Rinji is getting calmer and calmer as he overcomes difficulties, the way he played here had the most composure in the whole series yet, since most of the time he was making shocked faces and screaming.

Chapter 28: Kamikaze Necktie

Second favorite chapter of the volume. Oh, oh, what's this, we got new names:

「弓島亨」- Yumishima Ryou

Kanji: Bow-Island-Smooth. This is actually a more common, tame name for Kirinji standards. I can't see any deepeder meaning yet like in the past volumes.

「綱山晃」- Tsunayama Akira

Rope-Mountain-Clear: Ditto like last name.

「比良仁志」- Hira Hitoshi 

Kanji: Season-Good-Humanity-Intent. This one is a lot more interesting. First off, Hira is actually a mountain in Japan and was also the name of a river-battleship. The Good-Season part will come in later on, it's cool if you know it now though, but his first name Hitoshi is actually more common in Japan, but I find it to be particularly to fit this character since he seems good, honest.

「豪野武」 - Gouno Takeshi

Kanji: Tremendous-Plain-Brave. Yeah, this one really fits this character. The "No"-"Plain" part is the same Kanji as in Arino, which kind of connects them, but than again the 「野」kanji is a pretty common filler, like I explained in my past analyses. Takeshi-Brave is also a common name, but particularly fits this hot-headed character.

Also I tried figuring out what animal paw print Rinji's tie has, but I couldn't figure it out. If anyone knows, please let me know, it could have huge implications for what happens later.

Chapter 29: Misdiagnosis

Mahjong. Also the chapter title wants to say that our doctor Arino made a misdiagnosis on Rinji, thinking he would get crushed by the pressure.

Chapter 30: Grasshopper's Season

Those of you who paid attention remember that Rinji bought that picturebook for Koume's birthday. Now we have Koume and Hanako reading it together while Rinji is betting his everything against his rival.

Also the dialogue between Arino and Gouno in the toilet had a bit of an ambiguous delivery where Arino's line could have been interpreted: "Didn't you always have erection problems?". I chose to pick the nicest reading.

We also see Arino's flashback of Hanako and Koume at the ocean... And a sunrise...

Chapter 31: Online Mahjong Cripple

The title is actually kind of a derogatory name of online mahjong/tenhou players. 「ネト麻の廃人」

It was kinda expected of the readers to know online mahjong players might be called online mahjong

cripples by real-life players but I hope the message got across and the ending of the chapter had the same impact as it did in Japanese.

Those of you who paid attention might have noticed that there's a clock tower being shown constantly. That's tied to the "Betting Time" theme of this and the last chapter.

Those of you who paid attention remember that Rinji's first win of the series in Chapter 1 was "Ittsu or Ikkitsukan", the same win he had at the end of this chapter, with other yakus piled on it. 

Alright guys, that's it for now. I want to thank WhITelion and xGeo for their support doing this marathon. I want to thank to the 4 donators for filling up the "Get Rinshan Out Of The Jungle And Back Into Civilization" fond. I want to thank all the people who wrote nice comments. Just knowing that people are enjoying our work is the biggest reward for me. Here's hoping I'll be able to continue this.