Pika Ichi Chapter 5 -- A lot Better than chapters 3 and 4

Pika Ichi is always such a long slog!  Fortunately, this chapter is much better than chapters 3 and 4, except for idol chick.  She really needs to go away.  Anyhow... in this chapter Dougen finally enters the scene and he may be as some of you expected.  I think most of us are hoping for a Tarou-Hanako-Dougen love triangle.  That could be interesting, but Tarou's heart is fragile and I would hate to see him suffer.

Links to Piki Ichi chapter 5: (Zip) (PDF)

Spoilers Ahead!!!
The question for me after reading this chapter is what to do with Ibuki.  In a way I see this kinda heading towards a suicide attempt and then redemption.  But what will Hanako do?  Will she turn Ibuki in or cover for her?  Will Dougen do anything to Ibuki?  And then there's the question of Dougen.  If there is going to be a love triangle, then will Hanako have split feelings between Tarou and Dougen or will Dougen's feeling be one-way.  What will happen to make us the reader like Dougen?  I'm also still curious about Misono.  Is he just Dougen's yes-man and friend, or he the one who's truly behind the order to bully students?  There's a weird kinda of royalty vibe going on there with respect to Dougen.  Misono acts as though it will somehow sully Dougen to be seen.  Is it a royalty thing or is Misono trying to hide Dougen or hide something from Dougen?  Certainly, that Sakahashi guy is gunning for power, but I have to ask myself why.  What good is bullying the other students?  It seems to me that people like that are just plain antisocial.  Sakahashi sucks.  He gets the boo-boo face from me.

Enough of my rambling...next up is "Zoo"!  Chapter 2 feature a dormouse and a rabbit.  I've begun the translation and so far it cute and funny.  If you like chapter 1, then you won't be disappointed with chapter 2 :).

Ouran High School Host Club Chp 81 Previews

I decided to break up the previews and the project announcement into two separate postings.  The project posting won't be finished until tomorrow because it requires a lot of detailed work.  Anyhow, here are the previews from Lala magazine.

Update 7/28/2010 -- the only Ouran freebie I can confirm is the drama CD that is coming with Lala 10.
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It looks like there will be at least 3 (including chapter 81) more chapters and with each chapter starting at issue 10 there will be a special Ouran freebie included inside Lala magazine.  The first freebie will be a CD with favorite quotes from the Ouran anime series. The project is a 3 part fan project with prizes that will be raffled off.  I will translate most of the project announcement because it is a very nice retrospective on the series.  I will put that out tomorrow.

Some thoughts on chapter 81:
From the preview, it looks like Hatori is done with the Suoh family drama and is now moving on to resolve Tama x Haru.
It seems like the matters with Kyouya's family and his situation are going to be neglected :(.  That kinda sucks.  Who knows, though, maybe Hatori will throw in a quick surprise that will wrap that up too.  Anyhow, I'm happy that after a 3-month break we are going to get a nice long chapter.  I hope the remaining chapters are just as long since it's feels like there is plenty of story left to cover.