“Are you still translating ‘Thou Shalt Not Die’?”
→No, unfortunately I’m not. I stopped my fan work on the series and delete everything because it was officially licensed by Yenpress, as it was stated at Anime Expo 2017. Please check out the clip of the official announcement and my editorial about it below!
- I have made summaries of additional chapters here.
Editorial:
This is where I get super picky about the details, so please excuse me.
(spoilers may be present)
Audience Member: How about the author?
Panel Spokesperson: The author?
Audience Member: Yeah.
Panel Spokesperson: In terms of…?
Audience Member: What else he’s done.
Panel Spokesperson: -intelligible- We will look into that.
As a fan of Yoko Taro and his previous works and also one who has been working on the unofficial English releases of this series, this passage was nothing more than CRINGE. They didn’t know who the author was or what his prior works were? What about the illustrator!? Those are the TWO most important things that you *need* to state when you’re introducing a new series. The story synopsis ought to come later.
And that summary about the story…. makes me very leery if they even read any of it. They probably just skimmed through the pages to look at the artwork. “Ohh, it’s a military story. I see. Oh, they’re kids with special abilities. Ok. I got it. We’re all set for the announcement!”
When you introduce a new series you MUST do the following:
- State the author and his prior works
- State the illustrator and his prior works
- Briefly explain the plot of the story, given what is already known
Knowing NOTHING about the author or even stating the illustrator’s name is beyond unconscionable for the first official announcement of this sort. Please do your due diligence before holding conferences like this. You want stuff to sell, don’t you???
Panel Spokesperson: They are being trained to fight in the war.
My problem is with the phrasing “the war”, which suggests there is one, singular war. There has been NO STATEMENT regarding a specific war in the total 27 current chapters. None other than that the world’s resources have been depleted to a dangerous level, causing international relations to plummet and tensions to rise.
If you’ve read my speculation in how this story connects to the early timeline from NieR…then maybe you can see where the story’s going, but they should not have stated anything about a specific war at all.
I sent YenPress an email and tweeted at them on September 1, 2019 and received no response. This was not the first time that I have contacted them regarding this topic.
EDIT: August 2020
On August 25, 2020, the manga has concluded with 59 chapters. With literally no word from Yenpress after their initial announcement, it may be that Square Enix has rescinded their license to release the manga and will be releasing it themselves as part of their new Manga & Books label. The manga has already been released there in Japanese.
This is Square Enix’s Manga & Books English page.
EDIT: May 23, 2021
A friend of mine just reached out to me regarding a recent inquiry to YenPress regarding the status of TSND, and this is what I was sent:
I believe this contact was made just a couple days ago, so this is the newest insight that we’ve heard since 2017 when YenPress announced they were planning on releasing the manga series in English…
This, of course, does not mean that an English release is entirely out of the picture. On the contrary, Square Enix has since started up their own self-publishing label “Manga & Books”, so it may be likely that they well release the series that way rather than relying on a out-sourced third-party.
At any rate, I will continue to inform everyone on any updates that I may hear regarding this! Let’s hope something gets announced soon!!
Lastly, for simple posterity sake, here’s the final screen shot of the counter that I had running ever since YenPress announced that they would be licensing the English version of TSND… Alas, it is no more… It has now been 3 years, 10 months, and 22 days since their announcement… Wish we could have been told what was up sooner…
