This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
I decided to be “productive” during my break.
This may or may not be readable. Chalk it up to me providing the quintessential scanlation experience.
Click on the image because I’m sure this blog will auto-smallerize it.
On a side note, Dorohedoro is pretty good.
come on, this was too easy to be funny. review a group that thinks it’s good. but gantz waiting room – i just feel sorry for them now.
Wait, are there actually scanlation groups who think they’re good? I mean, sure, most are better than the official source (I was reading a book that had “Prasie” instead of “Praise” last night), but I’ve pretty much been disappointed by every scanlation I’ve ever seen.
Try scanlation groups like Storm in Heaven or Kotonoha. They’re really good at what they do.
hm… havent been into manga on the web for a while. afaik, they have (or had) next to no respect, got ripped of by online reading sites, and were pretty much ALWAYS shitty…
official (paper) releases are pretty good nowadays, but how about the work of scanlation groups now?
Watermarks everywhere. Quality is as shit as ever.
can a make a request?
You can request anything you want. Whether I will fulfill said request or not is the question.
if you are bored..
here you go http://www.batoto.net/read/_/69711/to-aru-kagaku-no-railgun_v1_ch1_by_bakanky
2-3 pages are enough
http://img.batoto.net/comics/2012/01/03/t/read4f036f7fcf1fd/img000004.jpg
Untranslated.
http://img.batoto.net/comics/2012/01/03/t/read4f036f7fcf1fd/img000003.png
Untranslated.
http://img.batoto.net/comics/2012/01/03/t/read4f036f7fcf1fd/img000005.jpg
Untranslated.
F
I am sure nio meant 2-3 of the actual pages but you spared yourself, I have to say it would get an F anyway.
As a side note: I have yet to see a scantilation group poop out anything but C- or below quality.
They’re out there. Ignore mainstream/shounen/whatever though, the better quality series are the ones done by smaller 2-3 man groups.
The seinen genre tends to be better handled on average (ignoring gantz_waitingroom and a few other groups), a lot of series are at least B/B+ quality. Acony, for example, was fairly well-done, iirc. Stuff like that.
There are some good scanlation groups. I only really follow MangaStream (for Naruto, Ippo, Vinland Saga) and EvilGenius for Berserk – I find that they both do a good job.
People say fansubbers can be stupid and literal dumbasses, but I honestly think scanlators beat them there. You need a lot less skill and intelligence to do 90% of the roles, and less personal investment.
The proofing, typesetting (and sometimes QC, if it even exists) positions are where most of the nippon!banzai idiots end up since they’re considered the easiest, “least skilled” roles. Despite being the roles in charge of the text and overall quality. Nope, no critical thinking involved in those roles!
Localizing? What’s that? Isn’t that where you put a note explaining your translation or wording under the panel? Random example, from a series I literally clicked on at fucking random from a large list because of how common this is:
http://www.batoto.net/read/_/117598/omae-o-otaku-ni-shiteyaru-kara-ore-o-riajuu-ni-shitekure_ch2_by_imangascans/38
Yeah, see how they have to explain the japanese context of ‘bitch’ there for it to make sense? If you can’t think of the simple localization for that in 2 seconds, or are mentally incapable of replacing that word with a localization, you’re probably a scanlator. And that group is still technically considered a quality group when compared to others.
When the mistakes and not!localizations you make actually make a bad series better because of how laughably stupid it is reading it, you’re doing something wrong.
Words are fucking hard to translate man.
I should also mention the translation quality is more often bad than not, even by fansubber bad standards. Bad as in script gaps with a tl note that boils down to ‘I dunno’ are relatively common for lots of groups. A fun thing is to look around for dumbass typesetters who actually typeset in the ‘I dunno’ tl note without noticing.
I proofed/edited/qc’d in the past, and by the end of it I knew enough common japanese to actually tlc the chapter and fix half the script. Hell, with a dictionary I could work out a much better script than those translators that would never be fired because of lack of staff/alternative tls.
I love this translation a lot.
http://img.batoto.net/comics/2011/11/26/d/read4ed17a8cce075/img000002.jpg
“As its name suggests, Migimaru-hole is a town to the right of Hole.”
One thing that really annoys me is when people put wikipedia links in their scanlations. It’s just the most pointless and unhelpful thing to do.
On a technical note, unlike fansubbing the state-of-the-art for scanslation has remained effectively static for nearly its entire existence. Fansubbers have moved through multiple file formats and codecs in search of improvement, eventually ending up with the current situation where extremely efficient and high quality codecs are used with soft subs, multiple tracks, all of which can be very, very nicely styled (it takes skill and effort, but the tech is there). In contrast, scanslation is still basically the same old set of JPEGs/PNGs in a zip. About the only changes are that we don’t see MS Paint much anymore, and the resolution of the scans has been creeping up.
I honestly thought that at least some equivalent to softsubs and search capability would have taken over years ago. Even without any new formats, something like PDF should be able to handle it to an extent, and the vast majority of scanslators are using Photoshop/equiv and have all the layers created properly anyway. But nope. So it’s a pain to check originals, a pain to find stuff after the fact, etc. Shitsux.
You want some real fun, check out the head-trauma retarded scanlation groups who not only translate from Chinese translations of Japanese manga, they also leave in *subtle* little hints that they are, in fact, translating from the original Chineseian:
http://mangafox.me/manga/gals/v01/c001/17.html
Yup, yup, the girl’s as flat as an airport ( ¬‿¬)
Hmm, forgot to add a “dumb FOBs” in there somewhere. Oh well.
‘TL note: airport runways being flat’
eh… wut, if they’re comparing ‘her’ to a ‘runway’ then use the word ‘runway’ and not a fancy-pancy ‘airport+TLnote’
people them are supposed to be native english speakers, or at least having a basic undrstanding of it…
even worse, they turn into circlejerks, and serve as a bad example for every non-english speaking guy that hopes to pick up something from the scans…
Yeah, but the thing is, they don’t even fucking mention the word “airport” in the original Japanese line, it was supposed to be おまえペチャだもんな・・・ but apparently they utilized a Chinese TL that used “airport” as a slang for surfboards, and instead of, you know, using their noodles and being fucking creative, they TLed the Chinese slang literally and put in a note. Hell, they could have used the last word in that note and not come off looking like the bunch of clueless FOBs that they are.
The question is, why translate into English if you don’t have a single English-speaker on staff? Poorly translating Japanese text requires next to no skills, so the target language is really what’s important.
Cool, well NyanTaku’s SAO episode 3 is out, are you able to get it out today?
I’m able to. Not sure if I’m willing, though. See, I gotta get this La Storia shit done first. But the show is even worse than Fam, so I keep delaying it. ~_~
The sooner you get it done the sooner you won’t have to think about it for the rest of the week.
Let’s just say that Arcana sucks ass and can be delayed it enternity, it’s not like anyone’s going to watching it!!!!
You know I actually got pretty hyped up for Arcana seeing as you headlined it.
I thought the brutally awkward first episode exposition was just a first episode thing…so I gave the second episode a chance.
/dropped
Episode 3 is also filler. Fuck me. I choose the worst shows.
As someone with no personal stake in this (not involved with subbing it for anyone), if you’re not enjoying it you’re probably better off dropping it early rather than letting it spiral out into increasingly long delays when there’s a handful of episodes left that you feel obligated to sub but have no motivation to do so. It’s better for you and fairer for the viewers; after all, life’s short enough without spending it doing things you hate.
I felt the same way too, but you know mafia shows turns out bad, let’s just look forward to K!
No one will blame u for dropping dat catastrophe of a show, yo.
Seriously what did you expect from a reverse harem/otome game…
A tournament one involving cards, on top of that. I’m surprised, I thought you picked it on purpose because of that. No idea why you would, but it was obvious enough how it would turn out…
…Honestly, my highest expectations this season probably go to Campione. Whatever problems it might have, at least slow pacing isn’t one of them. So many series have had their progression slow to a crawl for no reason, flying through volumes in 1 or 2 episodes is actually refreshing. Let’s get this shit done with.
Review this: http://www.batoto.net/read/_/97224/medaka-box_ch143_by_cxc-scans
Fun starts from page 4!
This is awesome.
If scanlation is so easy, then why is fansubbing community overcrowded while scanlation community is undermanned?
Scanlating is less effective for growing your e-penis, you won’t get 15k downloads.
… or maybe less than 5% of the fansubbers actually know moon because FANSUBBING = EDITING CR/FUNI SCRIPTS.
The same statistic applies to scanlators, but unfortunately for them that 95% don’t have simulcast scripts to fall back on :(
Ironically, some of the best quality scripts I’ve ever seen come from Korean manwha. There’s a surprisingly large amount of competent Korean TLs when you compare it to the competence ratio of the Japanese TLs. Slightly annoying to me since, imo, the majority of manwha have pacing and plot quality issues, but it’s a thing and is nice regardless. And the manwha that are good are *really* freaking good (ie Tower of God, I’m still hoping they make v2s of the earlier lower quality chapters).
Chinese manhua is almost nonexistent still, “School Shock” is the only one I can think of off the top of my head (it’s actually much better than I expected, no releases for a while though).
This applies to reliability and personality too — J-E scanlation TLs are generally some of the most egotistical unreliable assholes you will ever meet (with some exceptions of course). On the opposite side, I’ve only known one K-E TL who was anywhere near being similarly unpleasant (and I’ve known a good amount). Might be coincidence, but everyone I’ve known has confirmed this in their experiences.
That’s all partially tied into why it’s understaffed: anime is a scheduled, by-season thing so there are clear deadlines. The majority of scanlations are from existing series, so there are no clear deadlines or real motivation to move on to the next chapter.
Pure ego is all that motivates a sad amount of scanlators, and it’s part of the reason why you rarely see recurring names over a long period of time (another is people tend to change their identity periodically to cut off all the drama that inevitably becomes attached to the name/group). Money is starting to play much more of a role though, with ads and such. Makes me glad I got out of it before that became a big thing, it’ll bring nothing but trouble.
This got longer than I intended it but meh. Tower of God is good series though, so I’ll plug it.
>J-E scanlation TLs are generally some of the
>most egotistical unreliable assholes you will
>ever meet
It can’t be helped, because it has been scientifically proven how we are, in fact, better than you ┐(￣ー￣)┌
All kidding aside, I stopped counting how many times I’ve been ignored, banned and yelled at by scanlators whenever I point out how they don’t know dick about TLing moonrunes.
Tower of God rocks indeed. /fanboi
The Voynich Hotel is also an awesome series, in a really odd way. The author’s stuff is… strange, but good.
*manhwa, not manwha. I always make that fucking mistake, can never remember that word for some reason.
Who cares? Just call it manga.
Because almost nobody cares about dumbass manga, and competent people realize their time is better spent working on anime or doing something else entirely.
Scanlating could be done by 20 diligent chimpanzees.
But manga are usually better than their adaptations and there are hundreds of series that won’t get animated despite their quality.
Yuru Yuri S2 review? It’s popular right now and there had been “heated professional debates” on /a/. Granted 90% of the groups are just re-editing flawed CR scripts.
Not much to review. Looking at Ji-Hi, mine (Commie) is pretty much the only one that’s any different. If you like how we edit, pick Commie. If you don’t, just save yourself some time and download HorribleSubs.
I wasn’t talking to you, dipshit. If I want a lame [gg] rip-off, then yeah, I might pick yours.
Wow you sound pretty mad.
My jimmies were greatly rustled! By golly! >:(
Coalgirls sounds like the group for you.
Thanks for the compliment.
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.” <- D_S, wtf?
The comments system is weird. A whole lot of your posts actually end up in the pending queue. Luckily I check the comments religiously (yes, I have read every comment on this site), so it’s not always that noticeable.
I thought I was all in the clear when I registered, then boom, my post was pending. Porque Whiners? Porqueeee?
I fucked up the Spanish.
I didn’t code the system, don’t ask me. :X
Scanlating is mad hard. :(
Word.
> biting the hand that feeds you
> biting the hand that feeds you
> biting the hand that feeds you
> biting the hand that feeds you
I SERIOUSLY HOPE YOU GUYS DON’T DO THIS
> implying that Dark_Sage can read moon
> implying that your God, Daiz, can read moon
> implying that your fansubbing Gods aren’t completely useless when it comes to scanlating scene
You’re an English-phile who doesn’t know Japanese so really, you’re in no place to judge them.
GWR (Gantz Waiting Room) is the best scanlation group I know. They scanlate only most interesting, most under-appreciated and most unique manga. They are pioneers and trend setters and they don’t care about popularity of the manga as most groups do. They scanlate titles which no one is willing to do (at least until it’s popular enough) and use their own money to buy tankobons. But now with less and less people caring about them doing anything (after all why read such great titles as Desert Punk, Dorohedoro, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Shingeki no Kyojin, Moyashimon, etc. when you can read hundred different ecchi title or some other shit) and sites such as Manga*ox, Manga*ere, Manga*eader and similar making profit they’re losing their motivation.
The amount of projects they have is astounding and they scanlate only unique manga. No mainstream shit. And normal people, who don’t care about proper English as long as it’s understandable (so the quality is much better than via Google translator) and there aren’t too many misspellings it’s good.
>GWR (Gantz Waiting Room) is the best scanlation group I know
>They are pioneers and trend setters
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
>English-phile
That’s a hilarious term. Almost as good as “westaboo”.
Here comes the rage of the manga-hipster
>GWR (Gantz Waiting Room) is the best scanlation group I know.
………..
> And normal people, who don’t care about proper English
Please do more scanlation reviews.
http://i44.servimg.com/u/f44/11/84/13/49/naruto13.jpg
just been wondering…
you guys still doing Arcana Famiglia right? xD
Man, a lot of people are getting butthurt about scanlators being called out for being terrible.
Interesting, isn’t it?
Because unlike the fansubbing scene, scanlation scene is undermanned. Having 1-2 people quitting the scanlation scene (especially TL) has significant effects on a group, and may actually hinder them. Unlike the fansubbing scene, manga leechers are fine with slightly subpar but acceptable grammar quality because if you do, they may ragequit. Unlike anime, manga is rarely being fully translated. Also, you can’t actually criticize TL quality unless you have access to the Jap raws. As long as you get a gist of the story and the grammar is decent, majority of the leechers have no problem with it.
Sorry for double post.
> Unlike the fansubbing scene, manga leechers are fine with slightly subpar but acceptable grammar quality because if you whine, scanlators may ragequit
Fixed.
Personally, I’d rather a group not scanlate a series at all if they’re not going to do a decent job (and I’m not talking about slightly subpar grammar, a lot of them go far beyond that). Mainly because it seems like when a series, or part of it, has already been scanlated, even if the existing scanlation is terrible, there’s less incentive for anyone competent to cover the same ground. This is just my impression, and I don’t know how true it it in general, but the existence of a crappy scanlation seems to make it less likely that a decent one will appear.
No, that’s fairly accurate. Some good groups have actually been based on kicking off various series with a few chapters, then publically dropping it once people know about it to leave it open for another group to do long-term.
“Turf” is a big thing in scanlations, it’s seen as really, *really* fucking rude to work on a series someone is already doing. A lot of short-lived groups are based on “stealing” other groups’ work and mass producing a lot of lower quality releases than the group that “owns” it (they used to do it to piss people off, but now the main motive is, again, money). I personally hate those groups, better for them to invest their resources into unscanlated series or pool resources in a joint with the other group.
Thread is old now, but an example for scanlation turf drama cropped up that was too good to pass.
http://www.batoto.net/read/_/121701/sore-wa-totsuzen-unmei-no-aite-ga_v3_ch13_by_village-idiot
This sort of thing is pretty common.
Wow.
Confirmed that scanlators are psycho.
Hacking websites to shit-stir? Sounds like there’s never a dull moment in scanlating!
But then, if you leave every series to decent scanlation groups, the number of releases listed on mangaupdates would halve. In fact, some series that are really niche or unpopular won’t be scanlated at all. You might not care about them, but still…
So can I start my own scanlation group? All I need is Bing/Google Translate/ATLAS and Photoshop right?
Apparently.
I do hope that you’re just sarcastic with your comment. Apparently, you need a raw. Unlike fansubbing scene, raws aren’t easily found, unless you import. I’ve been looking for raws for some really niche or rare manga for some time.
Just scanlate some Shonen Jump shit, that stuff is easy to find raws for AND the leechers love it.
I’m not interested in joining the scanlation community as I don’t have the skills required. You seem to misunderstand my post. Though to answer to your post, having another group do something that is being scanlated doesn’t contribute anything to the community.
It was mostly aimed at PolynAzn, whom you told raws weren’t easily found.
Also, it was hardly a super serious reply. You’re reading the wrong article on the wrong site if you were interesting in that.
(but yes, Jump scans ARE easy to find. Just search for Jump on nyaa)
>All I need is Bing/Google Translate/ATLAS and Photoshop right?
石手を流れる黒い川面に, 糸雨が吸い込まれるように落ちていく.
The dark water surface at the Ishigawa Dam absorbed the threads of the falling rain.
Can I be a wapanese translator now? Please note that I speak no moon and English isn’t my native language. I just used Google Translate + what brains my blonde head possesses.
Yes, you’re already a top-tier LN TL now.
Yay! It’s my lifelong dream!
I’m so used to bad scans that I don’t even notice, I read Dorohedoro like, 2 months ago and it was a great read and I’m pretty sure I just mental block most of these poor scans.
And yes, good job and good tastes picking up this diamond.
This is really nothing, Go and take a look at the official English translations of Japanese LN and try not to claw your own eyes out.
I dunno, the Zaregoto translations seemed quite fine.
And Bungaku Shoujo wasn’t bad neither.
The yaoi English publishers are fond of “Japanese” English ie translations so literal that in some cases it stops making sense, not to mention the crappy editing. I’m not going to look for each and every one of them (i’m not that bored) but here are couple that I found by just randomly opening the books.
“But from now on, you should live you life as you see fit”
“As it passed 6p.m., he caught the delicious aromas of the dinner being distributed in the hospital, and his stomach growled.”
Also, while I’m not native English speaker, I’ve read my share of novels in English (in fact most books i read nowadays are in English) and odd sentences aside, when it comes to these particular translations i never can shake the feeling that most of the time the language is wooden and unnatural, it doesn’t have the flow of the translation of say 1Q84 and Kafka on the Shore. Of course you could argue that the original material is not of the same caliber, but still I can’t image the original being that awful.
Who’s the publisher?
I think that there are small companies that exist and license some stuffs like that. Try Yen Press and big companies’ licensed works, though I do not believe that they do these kind of stuffs.
Both these examples are from June imprint, ie DMP.
tri4 has to be the greatest scanlation group ever.
http://www.batoto.net/read/_/119598/minami-ke_v6_ch111_by_tri4/8
Just look at that font choice and that completely necessary tl note.
I like how they don’t even recognise the っ as a Japanese character. The next page is even better: ‘Areっ!? Areっ!?’. Lucky there isn’t an English word this sugoi nippongo could be confused for! In fact, why should Japanese words even warrant *translation*? We should just convert it into romaji and be done with it!