in which the dog abruptly segues into snark.

[kaigou]

This is a semi-continuation of my earlier post, which was far more reasonable and explanatory. I think. I'm not making that attempt in this post, but I divided the two to give myself length if I wanted it, and to allow those of you who want the quasi-intellectual contemplations without wading through the snark. Or vice versa.

As we return to the days of lore the scene of the crime, at last check the hero that bastard was on page twenty-nine of a thirty-three page chapter and starting to make decent headway, when what did arrive in the email inbox but...

I'll break it out in segments, because I feel the urge. Everyone, feel free to sing along when I get to the chorus. You should know the words by now, snark included free of charge, be sure to tip your waiters.

On the one hand I'm really glad you like this titel on the other I'm really disappointed to see this.

My first reaction? Well, yeah, I know I'm way out of practice when it comes to reading Chinese, but I didn't think I was that bad. If you're a purist enough to only want the good stuff -- aka the actual scanlation group, y'know, the one I not only mentioned but linked to in my post -- then just disregard this and carry on. There's really no need to sniff in disapproval.

Mede Shireru is by far my favorite project and being one of the leading staffs of Dangerous Pleasure I gotta say first that it's normally not my style or the teams style to contact someone else that scanlates "our" manga. There's no such thing as someone owning a project, after all.

Uh, okay. So you're posting this because...?

I would just like to explain that we're as much of fangirls on this titel as probably everyone else and we're dying to get our hands on more. Sadly the magazine it was running in is sold out everywhere we looked and volume2 has just not been printed yet. That's the only thing keeping us from scanlating the story further.

First, that's the second time for the same typo. It's not T-I-T-E-L, it's T-I-T-L-E. Please.

Well, I'd hope you like the story, since your group's translating it. It'd probably suck to be you, otherwise. But I'm not sure why you feel like you need to explain yourself about stuff that's obviously outside your control. So you can't get it in Japanese. And? What do you want, a fricking cookie?

Nowhere did I complain in my post or my replies to the replies about DP being too slow, and I certainly wouldn't hold a bunch of volunteers responsible for whether or not I get my fix of a continuing series. Hmm. Maybe this is one of those times you need some kind of secret decoder ring to read between the lines. Does anyone else have one handy? I mean, I figured this was both complimentary and ingratiating and rather damn polite to remind people that there's a group that does a quality version. I quote myself:

This is not a formal scanlation, erm, in that it's really just my practice for switching over to traditional after learning simplified. I assure you, when Dangerous Pleasures releases vol2, you can be sure it'll have a great deal more accuracy than honestly manageable when going Japanese-Chinese-English path.

(Hell, I even included information on where to find the Chinese scanlations, if anyone else was interested.)

I could be wrong. It's possible that if you have the SooperSekritSpecialScanlation version of the decoder ring, what's really being said is, "I'm doing this because no one's done it yet because that group sucks, since obviously they're just being mean and depriving us so obviously my version is way way better, nyah."

But, the post continues, and therefore I read with baited bated -- no, I think baited works fine in this instance, but I suppose if you can't distinguish which is actually correct, then you'll miss my meaning. Anyway. To continue:

We put a lot of energy and money (double-scanning) into scanlating vol1 to the best of our abilities and would really appreciate it if everyone would wait with us until vol2 is issued since in my humble opinion chinese translation and raws will just not do this titel justice. It's such a gorgeous manga and thus deserves to be put out at the highest quality possible.

Ahem. T-I-T-L-E.

What I really thought at this point? "Hey, kids, you can snow no matter what your hobby!"

Because I don't freaking know what "double-scanning" is but I bet it's supposed to be Something Really Time-Consuming And Awesome That Only Quality Scanlation Groups Do. Such a lovely move, isn't it, like when you're talking to clients that you're quite certain are total twits, and you say, "the product lines and data and process requirements have PLM objectives."

The problem is that the instant you drop jargon into a conversation where you have reasonable expectation of the listener not knowing your industry-specific terms, that the I'm-so-impressive impulse backfires on you doubly. Because not only do I get that you'd rather toss inexplicable or limited-area terminology around instead of letting your work stand on its own two plain-english feet and possibly be judged as not really that fancy after all, I'm also getting that you're doing so because you think I won't know better. Well, I sure as hell know enough to know that I'm not a clueless moron, and I don't appreciate being treated like one.

Lesson for the day, kids: people really can tell when you're trying to snow them, and they not only don't like it... they're automatically disinclined to listen to anything else you say. Why's that? Because doing so reveals your contempt, and ain't none of us much impressed with that. I mean, hell, I was already doing the marginally-amused eye-rolling before, but this just made me laugh. That's nice that you can use a scanner. How about you spend some time with the dictionary, instead?

Despite that, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that scanlation-land has its own set of logical rules, but hey, I think I did okay in that class on Godel*. How hard can this be? Let's see...

*Look, look, it's another version of the jargon-specific snow, but this time it's name-dropping. BE IMPRESSED BECAUSE CLEARLY I ARE TEH ABSOLUTE AWESOME. Oi, I can even mangle my own damn language, but I'm allowed to do that because I know how to spell atrabilious. Definition? You're looking at it, babe.

1. We can't say we 'own' a manga's scanlation, since hey, not owning rights, etc.
2. We've not been able to get a high-quality copy of the story yet.
3. You should stop that.

Wow, this fangirl logic is hard.

I can see how 2 maybe follows 1, although not necessarily as any sort of a causal relationship. More like a justification, I guess. Or maybe it's like those trick arguments where extra stuff is thrown in to confuse you. Anyway, we've got two options here. Either the premise -- "we don't own this" -- is true, in which case the conclusion is false -- "don't do that" -- or, more likely, the conclusion reveals the premise to be utter hypocrisy.

Oh, sure, you don't 'own' any sort of rights except for being, y'know, more speshul because you're doing the japanese-to-english version. Should I quote, again, the part where I told folks to be sure to get the, uh, 'special' version when it comes out? Or are you going to miss that even on the second go-round? Or are you still convinced that I used lemon juice on my computer screen to send a Sekkrit Message to all fans that there's no quality-english scanlation because, y'know, that group's just being meeeeeean?

However, we must also then break out the supporting elements of this hypocritical conclusion, to wit:

1. We work really hard at it.
2. Chinese translations aren't good.
3. Low-quality scans aren't good.
4. You should just wait until we can do a Good Version.

Unh-hunh. This is starting to feel like one of those abstinence arguments for teenagers: it's really much better when you wait. No, honest. Just say no to paltry substitutes!

But what such admonitions hide is this: paltry substitutes can be a lot of fun! Moreso if you can waste time with them while waiting for the real thing to come along; it's not like paltry substitutes are going to take it personally. They know exactly what they are. They're here for the beer in the fridge, the roll in the sheets, and when they're gone in the morning you're tired, satiated, and still unable to remember their name but not really caring.

Or, y'know, you could wait.

Right.

Continuing on... wait, you didn't truly believe that was the end of it, did you?

Not that I can stop you from continuing of course and from the look of the comments it seems like people are thinking we're malicious creatures that don't put the rest of it out 'cause we enjoy tormenting readers, so I just wanted to note that "no, this is not the case."

*lightbulb*

Oh, I get it!! You must've read that other post, the one where no one thanked me for posting my student-version because they were too busy dissing Dangerous Pleasures for being a bunch of selfish bitches who'd rather keep the joy and agony of a translated boilerplate historical romance allllll to themselves. Right, right, now it all makes sense! Because on the post that I posted, I didn't see a single complaint to any significant degree other than one or two people complaining about not being able to read the Chinese themselves to figure out at least a general idea of what-happens-next. But I guess if you're talking about that other post, then your hyperdefensive, hypocritical reaction is totally justified.

I feel so much better, now that I've sorted that one out.

We're eagerly awaiting publication of vol2 to start working on it and check on the publisher's and sensei's site regularly to find out when it'll be released. Sadly with no luck yet. But since there's 5 chaps issued in the mags and that's the standard for numbers of chapters in a book it probably won't be all that long anymore? Who knows.

TRANSLATION: We don't actually have copies of the Japanese originals, and we're not really sure when we will, but we will. Eventually. Any minute now.

Implied conclusion: So you should be waiting, like us, because that's what good fangirls do.

Which is all a big fat duh. If a group is known for a series among the general populace, I'd sure hope they have every intention of continuing, and therefore are looking eagerly for the continuations of ongoing series. Not continuing would suck. But I suppose it's only a duh if you're willing to accept that I'm not sitting here ramming 14-gauge wire repeatedly into a voodoo doll labeled Dangerous Pleasures Scanlations -- which would mean actually taking my post at face-value. Y'know, the one that stated outright that *cough* eventually DP will release a high-quality version of the same quality-level as their other works. In case you didn't notice, it's something the story's fans are pretty much counting on. I have every certainty that if I were to say I'm not translating any further, in a week, it'd be forgotten. For DP to say it's being dropped (for any reason other than licensing, that is): yeeeeeah, I'd expect a lot of grumbling.

So why the defensive, threatened, reaction?

Geez. Y'know -- or maybe you don't -- that Friday/Flycoo has a lot of stories out, so it's not like this was my only option. I also know that there's nothing more disappointing than to put a whole lot of work into a story, be 2/3rds of the way through the final quality-check, and someone else releases the same chapter. Naturally that would burn, and doubly so if you believe your version to be better by any degree, however biased. That meant I figured I'd rather avoid any story that seemed to be within a month or two of a group's release -- and preferably one that's four or even five months off in the future, so there'd be time between my study-pages and the Japanese-to-English version, for people to forget what they might've read in the past.

Hmmm. So I says to myself, self, I says: the most recent english-language version was released last November. That's around the same time that the Chinese groups released the 3rd or 4th chapter of the second volume. Since then (and until only a few days ago), rumors have appeared pretty thin on the ground about future chapters. Even more telling is the complete lack of Japanese raws. I could be wrong, but from what I've seen over the past few years, when you see the RAW show up somewhere, it's a safe bet that this directly precedes, or at least runs concurrently with, an English-language group doing their version. After all, if one english-language speaker is able to get a copy, then it's a safe bet another one can, too (compared to those in countries, like Taiwan and China, where the trade is quicker and more frequent).

My logic: reasonably speaking, with no volume out and no raws available, any scanlation group (DP or otherwise), is probably waiting on a good-quality copy of the releases. From the way most groups talk, it can be anywhere from a month to three months before the start hits the end and fans see a download. (I've seen "in progress" markers on even the fast-moving scanlation groups that have stayed for months.)

And hey, this one I really want to read, so if a nice version comes out in two months, three months, maybe more... who's going to remember this one? More importantly, who's going to care? The links will be gone, the download expired, and this paltry substitute will have moved onto the next conquest. This one can come and go, and most importantly (to me, yes, whether or not some believe a bastard can think this way), it's not obviously impinging on a group's current work. That is, no group had stated on their pages: "We have the raws, and we're currently scanning, stay tuned!" or even (like Shoku-dan does, bless their hearts): "It's in the mail! It's on its way!" ... I mean, they're all about the advance warning, there... which is great.

But, I suppose I should let the, uh, representative move towards the conclusion.

I'm gonna delete this comment so it won't cause some huge havoc or anything. It's just my explanation of why we haven't released more yet to you and that we're not thrilled to see chineseLQscanlations around and I can't imagine Flycoo feels any different.

Okay, let's address this tiny but crucial detail: posting, and then deleting, is just being a goddamn coward. If you stand behind what you say, and you believe you have legitimate reason for saying it, then bloody well leave it.

Post-and-delete does not constitute the start of a dialogue, any more than I genuinely consider this post the continuation of a dialogue. It's not. It's me ranting about another incident in my life that reveals people to be childish, hypocritical, self-centered, jealous, cowardly, twits who can't spell. What do I expect from posting this? Entertainment, pretty much, which is the only reason I do anything. It just happens to be this poster's turn to be gnawed on as this weekend's source of amusement.

However, I do think I should make something clear that seems to have gone over the head of whatever "leading staffs" it was from DP. In case anyone else was confused -- and maybe it's just me but the comments implied people did read, and did understand, my purpose -- let's repeat this.

I am trying to learn, and thus improve, my reading comprehension of hanzi, specifically traditional.

I spent two-something years studying simplified, but I never once looked at a traditional character, and it's time I did. Plus, there's a lot of stuff coming out of Taiwan and Hong Kong that frankly (especially with Japan's crazy-vicious sense of export taxes) is cheaper, and works just as well for me. Oh, and in case this isn't clear: I have NO FREAKING INTEREST in learning Japanese.

None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Sure, it's fascinating although only to the extent of what a meta-linguistic understanding can tell me about the culture, but to read anything in the original Japanese? No, thanks. (For that matter, would I even want to live in Japan? No freaking way. Visit, sure, live, you couldn't damn well pay me enough.) Again, I spent several years investing time and money in learning Mandarin, and it's not like I didn't have Japanese as an option at university. I had plenty of options. I chose Mandarin because it's a language that appeals to me a great deal.

That needs to be made clear for anyone to understand what I qualify as "success" in translating any chinese-language text into english -- be this for myself using notepads to keep track, or by typing it into textpad as I read, or by being able to finally read it and not halt for a single character.

For me, to say I have "successfully" translated anything means: I translated well what was said in Chinese. Hell, it's possible that down the road, I'll discover that on page 17, the Japanese text said, "please be so kind as to refrain," while the Chinese version said, "stop that, you dirty rat!" While I know I'd find it vastly informative to see how the different languages phrased each, it's academic: if my english comprehension is "please be so kind" ...that means I've have failed, because I did not actually translate what it said in Chinese.

I'm not saying I won't tweak a line to make it make sense in English -- that is the language my brain thinks in most instinctively -- but beneath it, the source, and by that I mean the Chinese version, is the measure of whether or not I can read, and comprehend, accurately.

Sure, that means any Chinese-to-English version has a decent risk of not being accurate to the Japanese. I got the sense that most people who replied to my post understood this fact; any who didn't, I hope, couldn't have missed the notes I included for other students about where things did, or didn't, make sense to me. What else should I have done? Stamped a big red watermark on every page that said, "STUDENT COPY NOT FOR RESALE" or something?

Furthermore, I doubt I can speak for Flycoo any better than some hit-and-run artist with a LJ account... but I'd think it's equally possible that a) maybe they'd be flattered that anyone might prefer their scans over available licensed works. More likely, though, b) they wouldn't freaking care. In case anyone can't follow the logic, here it is: the Chinese audiences want to read a translation from the Japanese. SO DO THE ENGLISH AUDIENCES. Translating from Japanese to Chinese to English? Really not competition, and other than this one oversensitive poster, I see no signs that anyone else fell off this clue bus, either.

I mean, I'm flattered that some, uh, self-identified 'fangirl' thinks I'm so powerful -- and my translations just so awesome! -- that I could single-handedly reduce all future hard work to a forgotten footnote, but... wait, actually, that does sound kinda nice. I wouldn't mind being that good at Mandarin.

We can of course understand fangirls get as impatient as we do, so we will update with the next release that vol2 hasn't been issued yet and that we're not "dropping" or leaving this project hanging. Actually vice versa. Kaname-sensei and Hakusensha are leaving us in a bind by not giving a definite release date.

Of course I can also understand if you get mad and ignore this almost-whining comment. However, if you wish to talk about this further I'll drop you my email: [removed]

I am no stinking fangirl. I do not squee, I do not burst into tears, I do not jump up and down. I am a bastard. Get it freaking right.

And for the most part, I'm pretty damn lukewarm about the vast majority of the fandom out there except in the rare instances that I find a storyteller powerful enough, and complex enough, to keep my interest. I find this story by Suzuki to be amusing, and well-drawn thanks to Kaname, but it ain't no Lord of the Rings. It just happened to be the lucky story that a) I'd read some of already, and b) appeared to have no scanlation releases in the foreseeable future.

Does that mean I'm going to stop? Excuse me, why would anyone think I would? How many times do I have to say, my purpose isn't to slather the world with the rough drafts of my linguistic abilities, it's to freaking learn the traditional and get back in practice on the language's nuances. Of course I'm going to continue. If, by random chance, the volume hits the American market tomorrow and some scanlation group churns out a version next week, so what? They're translating from the Japanese. It has no impact on whether I can read the goddamn traditional characters, because my goal is some of "find out what happens next" and a whole lot of "be able to comprehend what happens next." If, in that case, there are other students of Chinese who want to compare notes on how they translated/understood lines, then I have every intention of welcoming such conversations. And, too, in that case, I'd be as interested in the rest as reading the English version, for all the reasons I mentioned in this post and its counterpart.

But I'm still going to keep at re-learning hanzi, and I really don't freaking give a rat's ass what some entitled twit thinks is, or is not, appropriate for the rest of the fandom.

As far as writing privately? Don't anyone kid themselves now, you hear? If it's worth saying, just say it in public -- especially when effectively accusing a whole bunch of people of maliciously sniping about your group's inadequacies. In your shoes, right now I'd be asking whether or not I'd just actually made my fear -- of being fussed about -- into a reality, thanks to one impulsive, selfish, post.

Which is why this near-to-last bit really strikes me as, well... just read it:

Also if you allow me a comment: there are probably a lot of teams hiring chinese translators out there that would love some help and just as many unscanlated series floating around in chinese :)

Uh, yeah. I'm sure they'd just be beside themselves to have someone join them who still sometimes forgets the difference between 的 and 得 and keeps mistaking 裹 for 應. I'm sure they'll just line up. Any minute now.

Not to mention the amateurish attempt at a kind of bait-and-switch: "here, honey, don't play with the bear, wouldn't you rather play with the monkey, instead? see, nice monkey!" No, I will not play with your fucking monkey. Take your switch elsewhere. I'm playing with the goddamned BEAR and anyone who doesn't like it is going to have to COPE.

I presume the addendum was meant as a "well, here's something, uh, kinda nice to say," but given the rest of the tone, it's really just more of the "this is what you should do, because I'm with a group that believes in quality unlike your paltry substitute, so I know better."

I believe in quality. I just happen to be measuring my quality by different standards. As long as everyone can get that through their heads, then we'll all be able to get along peacefully. However, if anyone thinks to get on my case or whine at me in defense of helpless overworked double-scanning fangirls, then I will delete your comment without a second thought and carry on as I'd intended, anyway. This corner of the network exists solely for my amusement. If you can't be witty in your kneejerk reaction, try tap-dancing.

That's it from me. Sorry it got so long but hopefully it expressed how much we care about this particular titel ^_^;

It expressed something, sure, but I don't think it was quite what the poster might've intended.

Oh, and... T-I-T-L-E.



Geez. Some people.

Comments

[haya5h1.livejournal.com]

I think by double-scanning they mean that they scanned and scanlated the chapters as they came out in the magazine, and then scanned the tankoubon and re-scanlated those... If in fact that's what they did. If they didn't, then I have no idea. It's not a term I've come across. :edit: then again it's not something that I would personally do myself, since I figure I've done enough work just by scanning the magazine raw.

in any case, they're just stupid. Scanlating/translating/scanning isn't a damn contest. hell, I'm glad when someone scans stuff before I do, so I get a break...but then I'm a lazy pirate.:P

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

If double-scanning is as you described (and the only other thing I could think of is "it's a fancy term for having to do every page twice on the scanner because actually we screw it up the first time"), it's still... uh... well, not that impressive. It sounds more like a big waste of time. Why not just scan once and do it properly?

Too, I look at the quality of the chinese scanlations -- I mean visual quality -- and I can guarantee you and anyone else that no one's going to confuse my short-lived translation practice for The Work That Other Group Does. There's just no comparison; whomever does their photoshop stuff really is that good, and works with some really high-quality files from the get-go.

It feels like one of those times when you run across multiple versions of a story... hrm, like the movie-version of Black Beauty versus the "read along" version with the recording that tells you when to turn the page. Doing the latter results in a significantly different (potentially) version, but no one thinks of it as the same as the movie's way of editing the novel. In any audience's mind, the two become almost independent works that just happen to have the same source.

[kitti-p.livejournal.com]

hehe, you had me laughing through-out your rant, which i actually read all of (don't usually do). i'm sure they'll really love you now, lol.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a rare mature person willing to accept that any non-love is entirely the result of their own stupidity. I certainly don't see his/her post as universal -- that is, representative of DP's position as a whole -- until such time as the entire cast and crew stand up with little picket signs.

(At which point I will be even more amused, but hey.)

Which, in all, is really a pity. DP's work is top-notch. The dialogue is usually smooth and coherent, and the images are artifact-free and often so well-cleaned that you can't even tell where the original Japanese text might've been laid over the image. It does rival the work I see in professional licensed versions, but in my experience not everyone can separate the "wow, they've got some serious attitude issues" from "they do a quality job" -- which not only means such posts risk a backlash (minor, true, but the net can be a tiny world sometimes) but also that I'm sure some folks may look at me askance when I say none of this changes my attitude when it comes to continuing to get, and support, DP's scanlations (including their work on MeDeShireru). I'm not going to deprive myself of quality reading just because they've got a *cough* fanpoodle on staff.

A rant that can't be done with a sense of humor shouldn't be done. I find frustrated, helpless, anger to be one of the most soul-destroying mindsets -- but if you can find humor in it, then you can get through it.

Besides, I hadn't had a good rant in awhile. I think I was overdue. ;-)

[askerian]

... *headdesk* Oh my god.

SOL HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO THEM. HOW. WHY, YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED. D:

Now I have this image in my mind of this pack of tiny, froofy, yappy fan-poodles trying to jump high enough so they can pee all over that manga. Because it's their territory, bitch.

Because, uh. They decided so?

Yip louder, fanpoodles. Even if someone else wanted to release a high-quality scanlation of it, you'd still have no leg to stand on. The day you buy the rights from the freaking mangaka, you can go around whining at other people about what they're allowed to do with it. In the meantime? Congrats, you and your inflated sense of self-importance are officially ridiculous. :D


(titel. DX)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Oh, believe me, I am sooooo ashamed, but mostly because I feel like an idiot for not grokking faster the slang intended on the last page. (See the chapter post (http://kaigou.livejournal.com/470999.html) and scroll down to comments... I'm sure you'll love the explanation of what 3P was doing in the middle of all that hanzi. Oh, wait, that's not what you meant?

Ehehe.

...this pack of tiny, froofy, yappy fan-poodles trying to jump high enough so they can pee all over that manga.

OMFG. I love you. I really do. I think you just invented a new category of fandom. There are the unwashed fanboys, the crying fangirls, and the peeing fanpoodles.

*dies*


I feel an icon coming on, but I'm try very hard to resist.

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

Although the mental image I had is closer to fan-peekapoos, I vote for fanpoodle for the neologism of the year.

[askerian]

Alas! To my great regret I did not invent it.

But it's a pretty vivid neologism, so I'll second that vote. u.u

[rogue53.livejournal.com]

Have I said lately how much I love to read you?! I live for your rants, I must have giggled/snorted most of the away through these two posts! And I so love the fact that they can't spell 'title', makes me wonder about the rest of their stuff if they continue to misspell something so simple.

And I have to agree with you, the more the better. I'm never going to learn either Chinese or Japanese, I'm too old/lazy/dyslexic to ever get some of the finer, let alone broader, aspects of either.

Hell, I have enough trouble with English, and I've been speaking/reading/writing it for 50+ years!

You do your thing, and ignore the rest.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I've always known that translations are difficult -- I mean, it was hard enough sometimes to capture the nuance-differences when I spoke French fluently and would try to repeat in the other language what I'd said in the first -- but it's even more difficult when the culture is also at such a divide (Chinese/English, Japanese/English, hell, honestly, even Chinese/Japanese).

Given my impression that English is a bit more graceful about adapting to loanwords and foreign-language inclusion, I find it surprising that several folks have reported they prefer Japanese-to-Chinese translations, while I find the two languages' perspectives to be so different that I can't believe I'd be getting a truly 'accurate' (if there's ever such a thing) translation. I dunno. Although one person pointed out, reasonably so, I think, that being able to compare a J-to-C-to-E script to the J-to-E script just means the chance for greater insight into the original story: y'know, comparing multiple versions.

I suspect the one who wrote me is probably involved on the photoshop-side of things, since DP's work is usually remarkably mispelling-free. At least, I hope so, or else I really feel for the editor who's got to run her stuff through spellcheck every single time... ;-)

Kind of lol.

[reilax.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. k, I wouldn't normally leave a reply to these kind of things but seeing how it is, I can relate to this as I have also had a group tell me to stop scanlating a certain project just because they started it first. I didn't expect Dangerous Pleasure to send out that kind of email, especially to something that isn't even meant to be an official scanlation, I mean its not like we won't download their version when they do release, since, as you've mentioned already several times, your version is purely for improving your Chinese with the added bonus at a sneak peak of volume 2. Also, I really did laugh hard at the misspelling of "titel" on several occasions. I have nothing against Dangerous Pleasure, and still do wait for their releases, but honestly, we're fans, and they're fans, so I don't see any valid reason for them to tell you to stop translating Itsuki and Suzuki sensei's work so we can appreciate it more, apart from the fact that if and when it's licensed. That can be considered some what contradictory on their part I suppose. All in all, I'm happy just to be able to see what I can expect in the story so I give my thanks you Kaigou, and like the vast majority of fans, will still download dangerous pleasures version when they do release, and buy the manga when its licensed in English, though I still buy the raw manga anyway. Its common sense, and I really did expect Dangerous Pleasure to know that the only people who have the right to tell others to stop is the people who actually OWN the rights :)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Way I see it, if I'd done a scanlation and actually made a serious attempt to have it accurate, clean, and fancy -- with titel, err, TITLE pages and everything -- then I'd fully understand such not-rational-but-comprehensible ire... which is why I didn't. It's why I said, don't distribute outside this comm (and have done my best to check elsewhere to make sure this remains true), it's why I left in notes about what parts didn't make sense to me in translating, it's why I didn't try to do a consistent and fully-cleaned presentation. I wanted to make it clear that it wasn't something to be taken as quality enough to save, and surpass, any later-comers.

I've never heard of DP having state-sized egos, so I suspect this is a case of one member going off on her own thanks to her own insecurities, more than anything born from the group's mindset. And thus, I equally dismiss it, too. (Okay, and mock, but I mock even what I don't dismiss. I am all about the mock.)

Although I think with the last part of ch1 -- and the remaining chapters -- I'll just be even more blatant about including the hanzi, pinyin, and literal translations. Just to make it perfectly obvious!

[(Anonymous)]

LOL~ Oh no, they always say such things when asking someone else to stop. A big round telling you to stop, then coming back to "no one owns". Because there are also times they overlap others, so they need that to protect themselves. They used that same sentence when they overlap with others. And they always state they have best qualities (than what you have).

How to declare 100% translation error-free then? All jap-to-eng translations 100% correct? Come on, it's a free world, when it comes to translations, it's still depends very much on the interpretation of the translator.

[scryren.livejournal.com]

Seeing as a link to this entry just landed in my inbox this morning, I'm not sure if I'm more shocked or angry at my staff right now. Judging by how informed they are about the project, it probably is one of our staff members...who I hav to go hunt down and kick in the ass right now. I'd like to clarify that "DP" did not leave you a message. Usually, I'd send an email from the group address but I didn't see any contact info on your profile so I'll comment here.

But anyway, scanlating a manga that another group is in the middle of working on is rude, even more so when you use Flycoo's LQ watermarked scans. You might as well be putting "I don't give a fuck about anyone and I'll do whatever I want" on every page so of course when people find your release (and they will or I wouldn't be here), no matter how private you think it is, some of them are gonna be pissed.

I won't ask you to stop or say that I approve of what you're doing, just realize what you are doing is frowned upon to the point that even if you picked up a dead group's project, you'd still be getting angry comments from people. It's like one giant, virtual female dorm--there's a logic barrier around the entire building.

Double scanning? *scratches head* Probably when the tankoubon comes out and there are enough changes that we scrap the magazine scans and work from the tankoubon. If you're interested, check out the old scanlations of Crimson Spell done from Chara. There's probably about 80% more screentones in the tankoubon.

Scryren

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

The only angry comment I got was from the self-proclaimed member I quoted above.*

I don't know why you got a link to this; I consider it a dead issue at this point... so I'm not sure whether you were relayed the link to tell you to provide an official disapproval or to let you know of a member's mouthiness.

You may not be aware that what the sections I've released since are translations (and rough in some places, at that, where I have questions for fellow students). I did the scanlation part -- as I'd explained -- purely out of puzzlement and curiosity as to what the skill requires. (If nothing else, it requires a boatload more free time than I have.) Some folks are hanging in there to get a gist of the story, but (as I'd expected) the ones most paying attention are those with the skills to review my hanzi/pinyin and offer alternate/better translations (and explain what I missed).

I mean, not that many people are genuinely willing to put up with page after page of something like this:

啊是麼？
na shi me
...你這個傷患的
ni zhe ge shang huan
待過還真不錯啊
dai guo huan zhen bu cuo a

this injury, misfortune's wait / to do, act / also still really not mistake

...which I'll admit is half the reason I do it that way.

The net is the net, and I would be surprised (though pleased) if the first chapter just faded away: still, given it's covered with notes and side comments about the varying meanings of some of the characters, alternate meanings, questions, and the like... a reader would have to be absolutely brain-dead to miss that the author was running some kind of self-test and that it's hardly an attempt at truly professional release. I did it that way on purpose, so that when a decent English translation does come out, any self-respecting addict would say, "forget this one, I'm getting that one!"

Lastly: it's good to know I'm not the only one who couldn't parse double-scanning.

*I will admit that it's possible no one else has complained because they just don't want to be a source of my amusement, themselves. To which I'd say, if you can spell, and are coherent in your logic, but... who knows.

Comparing this area of fandom to a huge female dorm is both apt, and somewhat unnerving. There was a reason I never went near the women's dorms unless my life was absolutely on the line.

[scryren.livejournal.com]

Ah, my mistake. I thought you were speed scanlating (AKA I don't care if it looks like a Xerox, I want it now). I only skimmed your post so I might have missed that explanation. I actually learned how to scanlate by using babelfish to re-scanlate a project back from German. Of course, it was my luck that a week later I learned what scanlations were and found hordes of English scanlations. -.-;;

Since you're sharing these, even if just with friends, I'd put an image at the beginning of the chapter saying you're practicing scanlating, so if it ends up some place like 4chan, even the lowest forms of life will get what you're doing. I'm more worried that you'll do a manga later on that "belongs" to a group who freaks when people share their releases outside their IRC channel, etc. I'm sure they'll throw a fit.

I actually have the fortune of living off campus. The cat fight stories I hear... *eye twitch*

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I only skimmed your post so I might have missed that explanation.

I think I was probably clearer in the post previous to this one, which discusses in greater length some of the issues & questions (and amusements) of Chinese vs Japanese vs English perceptions in language.

Since you're sharing these, even if just with friends, I'd put an image at the beginning of the chapter saying you're practicing scanlating, so if it ends up some place like 4chan, even the lowest forms of life will get what you're doing.

Well, I figured the comments at regular intervals that say stuff like "This is what I think it means, but I'm not sure, does anyone else know?" and "I have no clue what's really being said here, and this is yet another example of why you'll really want a better version when it comes out" seem pretty obvious to me. I could be wrong, of course.

I'm more worried that you'll do a manga later on that "belongs" to a group who freaks when people share their releases outside their IRC channel, etc.

Ha, ha. No, see, what I feel like I keep saying (not to you, but in each separate set of comments etc) is that translating-for-audience is just the easiest means, but certainly not the end. When I get to the point that the dictionaries can go back on the shelf and I'm not stopping mid-breath to stare into space with a baffled expression, I've no intention of releasing scanlations or translations or whatnot. I won't have the time! I'll be too busy reading!

[hou-peng-you.livejournal.com]

I'm soo late reading that post.
I really like your translating style(writing chinese and pin yin) and I know how hard it is to interpret the meaning. I'm currently learning chinese and I'm very grateful for your translations!

I can't believe how rude that person is!

"it's normally not my style or the teams style to contact someone else that scanlates "our" manga"

What's that? their mangas? They should be happy that someone is translating their manga, so no one will write anymore complaints that they forgot that manga!

Sorry for my bad English >.< I'm from Germany and I'm still learning!

[kerryannh.livejournal.com]

I don't read Chinese or Japanese so I really appreciate you taking the time to translate this manga. I am sure that when DP releases their official scanslation, it will be just great. In the meantime there are lots of people who absolutely love this story and want to have some idea of how the plot advances. Once I start reading a story that has not been completely translated, I will find the Japanese raws just to get an idea of the ending by lookinf a the pictures. I cannot wait for months to find out. That would just be torture. So thanks again and keep up the good work.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Heh, thanks, I keep meaning to... shortly after I posted the last part, my harddrive died and I lost everything. Yes, it was horrible. (Important stuff got saved, but I still lost most of my fun kinds of files, along with email.) Since then, I've just not had a chance to rebuild what I did have -- including notes of the as-yet-unposted translated parts.

I keep meaning to go back and do more, but I don't even have copies of which parts I did translate! Eventually I'll get the show back on that road. It just might be awhile (and in the meantime, I can always hope DP will suddenly appear with the entire 2nd volume translated so prettily and get me off the hook, eh?)