New FKMTkrazy translator: Substar!

Hi everyone! It is my pleasure to introduce you to our newest translator, Substar! He is a 2nd-generation Japanese man living in America and he loves Fukumoto and mahjong so we feel he is a great addition to our team and enthusiastically brought him aboard! He will be translating Kaiji alongside Spanish starting at Chapter 408. His work is so similar to Sonickrazy's that it's practically indistinguishable, so I think you all will love having him here and he is very excited himself to be working with us! He is very shy so you probably won't see him in the comments or on discord or anywhere, and he didn't even want to write his own introduction post, but we are super thrilled to have him aboard and think his inclusion will be to the benefit of Fukumoto fans everywhere!

Now, despite what you probably weren't even thinking, I must emphasize that Substar is definitely not Sonickrazy coming back under a different name for legal reasons. Sonickrazy has moved on from FKMT and will never be coming back, despite being a constant presence in the FKMTkrazy discord. He is now doing professional translation for an official company, so he wouldn't be caught dead coming back to FKMTkrazy! So please put your suspicions aside, for I again assure you that this is absolutely and definitively NOT! I repeat, NOT! SONICKRAZY COMING BACK UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME FOR LEGAL REASONS TO AVOID TROUBLE WITH HIS NEW COMPANY! That would just be silly! But, heh, I mean if it were Sonickrazy coming back under a different name, I guess he might say something like this:

Hello everyone. It's been nearly 2 years since I left, but after taking time to mourn my father and seek mental treatment I requested to be let back in to the group and Tambur and Spanish both warmly accepted me. I think I'm finally ready. I'm very happy to be returning to what I love, as my life simply felt empty and barren without translation in it. I founded this group over 10 years ago and it carried me through my life. I sacrificed everything for this group, my education, my career, even my brain itself. I poured all my heart and passion into this group and now that I'm here 10 years later it's really the only thing in my life that has any meaning at all. So to just go my separate way from it and pretend it never happened would be a shame greater than any other. I stand here now, looking back on everything that this group has accomplished, and it fills me with nothing but pride. I give my heartfelt thanks to Tambur, Spanish, Jawsh and Gramercy for keeping the Kaiji translations going in my absence. We've accomplished a whole lot these 10 years, and now, I hope to help to bring it to even higher heights. I'm ready. I'm back.

But... I do feel I need to say some words considering the abrupt and childish way I left the group 2 years ago. These last 2 years have been very rough for me, but very eye-opening at the same time. I have completely given up marijuana, and I can see now that it was affecting my brain in a very severe way. I believe I was suffering from a combination of marijuana psychosis, alchohol addiction and severe grief at the time I wrote that post. It was a bubbling up of emotions that had been building up over the 4 months since my father's passing. I became a Christian out of a desire for comfort, I believed the gospel, and I came to see Fukumoto's works themselves as sinful and believed wholeheartedly that I had to set myself free from them as soon as possible. I will not delete the video that I made, as I believe it will give you insight into my mindset at the time if you care to watch it. But I will now add on top of that, having had 2 years of reflection at this point, that the extremity of my beliefs towards my past work and the ranting nature of my initial post were most likely a direct result of the psychosis caused by my marijuana dependence. You might say to that, but weed is a harmless drug isn't it? Nobody's brain can be affected by dope, can it? Well I am writing here to say that, in my experience, marijuana absolutely can affect your brain, especially in my case where I was especially susceptible to its affects. The first hit I did of weed drove me into a existential euphoria where I was questioning the very nature of existence to the point where I was completely unaware of my surroundings. One hit. And I was doing that stuff EVERY DAY. The more I did it the more I liked it, and the more strange thoughts entered my brain, until I got to the point where I was seeing meaning in things that had no meaning, was believing in things that are most likely not true, and due to my, for lack of a better word, unabashed disposition, I was willing to act on what I believed to be true to the detriment of many people I encountered. Having been clean of marijuana for a good year now, I can see that it was having a huge affect on my brain and the way I saw the world.

I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm simply telling you what I have come to realize about how I was at the time. Now that I am a year clean of the stuff, I can tell you that my mind is much clearer and less prone to wild delusions and leaps of logic. Believe it or don't, it's up to you, but it is my firm belief that were I not heavily dependent on marijuana at the time I would not have written that post, even if I did wind up still quitting out of grief.

I will also mention as a side note that I do still hold a belief in God, but fully admit now that the logic of (God is real -> therefore demons are real -> therefore the things I'm feeling in my room are demons -> therefore I must have brought them into my room with my work -> therefore I must repent and stop translating) was a faulty delusion and not true in the slightest.

I humbly apologize to the fans, to the group, to the person I alienated perhaps permanently with my erratic psychotic behavior (you know who you are if you ever read this) but most of all I apologize to Fukumoto Nobuyuki-Sensei for ever, even in a mournful rage, insinuating that his works were sinful and wrong. They are full of powerful messages that have changed many lives for the better. I don't expect anyone to forgive me or respect me, all I ask is that you allow me to return to my life's work of bringing as many of Fukumoto's wonderful pieces to you as I can. I just want to be a part of this ride as long as I can, and fulfill the wide-eyed, far-fetched dream I had 10 years ago of personally delivering Kaiji to the English-speaking world from the day I began until the day it is completed. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you can accept me back.

Haha! But just ignore all that! That's just something that Sonic wrote back when he thought he would be allowed to come back to FKMTkrazy a few months ago. But things have changed and now, since this wonderful new translator Substar has appeared out of the woodwork to take his place, Sonickrazy is happy to move on and allow him to take over Kaiji! Oh, and I should also mention, you might also see Substar doing some other random scanlations for other series (which oddly enough are series that Sonickrazy happened to have a vested interest in before he met Substar) but don't even pay any mind to that! Just welcome aboard our newest translator and don't even think about it any further than that, okay? Okay! Welcome to Substar and may he push Kaiji to new heights! We are happy to have him and I hope you're happy to have him too! Follow our twitter at the top of the page to stay up to date on the newest chapters! And if you don't mind being in a toxic swamp of degenerates occasionally broken up by Fukumoto-related discussion and mahjong games, consider also joining our Discord, also at the top! That's it! See ya!!