I would like to dedicate this final chapter to my late paternal grandparents, which in my opinion is quite ironic considering my grandfather was a veteran. My grandfather had a fulfilling live. He was married four times (my dad was born from his second wife), each passed away before he did. I only remember his fourth wife, so to me she was my grandmother. They were the only members of my family who didn't make fun of some of my introvert and feminine traits at any point. One particular memory I had with them was when they were visiting and I served them tea and they praised me for it (I was 8 at the time).
When I read this series, I would think of them. They passed away when I was in my freshman year in college. My grandfather had been bedridden for years, and my grandmother spent her days taking care of him. I remember I was at my aunt's house when I got the call telling me that my grandmother passed away. My mother said she was perfectly fine that day. She took a shower, stepped outside for a moment, returned home, and the next thing they knew, her heart stopped beating. It was quiet a shock for our entire family to hear about her passing. One month later, my grandfather drew his last breath. The way we looked at it, my grandmother didn't want to be separated from him, so she went ahead first.
I remember it was 3AM in the morning when my dad woke me up to tell me that he had passed away. We all had stayed over at his house, preparing for his final moment. We've said our goodbyes and had already accepted the inevitable. He was buried next to my grandmother. I remember after the funeral, my siblings and I watched my father standing in my grandfather's front lawn in alone the middle of a crowd. We went to him and hugged him.
When I first read the series, I knew immediately that this is something that people have to read. The moment where he confessed his love to Kaoru was the deciding moment. The journey Kaoru and Toranosuke had to went through just to get to that was long and arduous. And their marital life, while there is a couple of hardships along the way, was filled with happiness. It's such a rare gem that a manga is capable to tug our heartstrings every single chapter. It felt like it was their story and we're allowed to catch a few glimpse of it. And I feel honored to be the one to present you their story.
I actually planned a whole event for this final chapter of Umakawa. I keep mentioning that I would be doing a livestream celebrating this final chapter. The plan was me and a couple of friends would sit down and do a table read of the first chapter. But they have conflict with the schedule (plus I took too long thinking about what to write in this post thus I was too late to make a prior notice to them). So that livestream may have to be postponed until April 10th, Toranosuke's birthday. In the meantime, I'll try to see if anybody else is interested to do the live table read. I'll also be releasing the extra chapter then. There's still a bonus epilogue chapter from the tankobon release, some stuff courtesy of Miku Morinaga's twitter account, and oh, a one-shot manga set in the same universe as Umakawa. I might do that last part separately. There's also Kimi no Koe, the new series by Miku Morinaga. I'll be working on the first chapter after this series is completely finished.
So anyway, special thanks to everyone who has showed their support throughout the entire run of this release. Thank you to daszgfz, thebenefactor, and Lone Samurai for providing the Japanese raws. Honestly, this series wouldn't have been able to go on without your support. Special shoutout to TotoroTheGreat over at Reddit for promoting this series. I saw a jump in viewing count on my site because of you. People at the comment section of Mangadex (and some other random manga sites) for showing how much they love the series (and somehow sparked a debate on the ramification of war). I am glad to see how the story touched people like how it touched me when I first read it a couple of years ago. And lastly, to everyone else who read this series. Thank you for reading this series despite many, many questionable quality of my translation. Thank you for sitting through the awkward lines, unnoticed typos and grammar mistake. Thank you for letting me share this experience with you. Really, it made working on this series much worth it. And I said that without any hint of sarcasm whatsoever.
So once again, here we are. It's almost hard to say goodbye to Tora and Kaoru. With a meeting comes a parting, but the moment we spent in between will always stay. Let me know in the comments if you find any error. And I'll see you next time.
Umakawa FINALE:
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Shout-out to this month's patrons:
Umakawa FINALE:
Read Online | Download
Shout-out to this month's patrons:
Natsidle
Gregory
Vydricka
Tracy Umeda
MrIncognito
TWil
Tracy Umeda
MrIncognito
TWil
The Marrer
Vivant
Vivant
M. Buttery