Yeah, I know, I'm bad about keeping this blog updated... As I said at the scanlation blog though, I'm finally home, so maybe stuff will all get a little better organized now. Someone asked whether I bought anything at AX over in the main blog comments, so I figured I ought to give you guys a breakdown on the rest of my Cali trip and perhaps discuss AX a bit.
I stayed with Gief, one of our typesetters, for the majority of my trip, down in SoCal. I did go visit my grandmother in the valley for a while though, and it was over a hundred degrees there... seriously, fuck that weather, I'm looking out my window at a rainy July day here in WA, and I'm perfectly happy with this. Other than the weather though, the whole time between Fanime and AX where I was just kind of hanging out and vacationing in California was pretty fun. It wasn't terribly eventful though (my birthday fell during that part of the trip, I think I wound up playing League of Legends and going to bed early that night), so I'll skip over talking about it too much.
AX was... interesting. Allow me to open by saying that I had heard stories about how bad line management was at AX, and had a long-standing promise with myself not to go to AX. Well, then they announced the Miku concert, and I had to go and break my promise. I think I've been to enough cons at this point to be justified in making some generalizations. Anime Expo is the first con I've been to that didn't feel like it was being run by fans for fans. Every time you turned around, they were gouging you for more cash, the way events were run was counter-intuitive to the thought of making things the most fun for the most people, and they had the same problems with lines that I've been hearing about for at least 5 years. I won't go into gory details on the negative parts of the con unless someone really wants me to, I'll just leave it with what I said already.
The Miku concert was fantastic. The models were better than any of the ones used at the previous Japanese events, they had extended and improved a lot of the dance choreography, and the setlist had been updated a bit (huge improvement). When they intro'd Uraomote Lovers and later World's End Dancehall, I pretty much couldn't contain myself, I'm a pretty huge Wowaka fanboy, and two Wowaka songs at the concert was two more than I was expecting. The official Miku merchandise was marked up to hell and back, but I did get a free concert poster that's really nice, so at least I did walk away from it with something to remember the event by. I think they did a pretty good job of recognizing that a lot of the attendees were there because of Miku, and the other Vocaloid panels and events were all pretty interesting, and we got some cool sneak peek stuff (KAITO Append is going to be amazing, the song made with the beta version that they played was really good already).
Other events were a much more mixed bag. It was next to impossible to get autographs, so I didn't bother waiting in the massive lines for the guest Q&A stuff. I always go to some of the industry stuff, I find it interesting, but not to the point of being able to go to all of it and work for a 'news' site or anything. Viz should have been the highlight, but it was a shit panel. I went in hoping for some mention of corporate stability in the wake of Tokyopop shutting down, perhaps some discussion of the licenses Tokyopop left behind, and maybe some new announcements. What we got was a low-level staffer who wasn't allowed to answer questions talking about properties like Naruto and Bleach that we already knew they held, and a massive push for their iPhone/iPad app stuff, which also isn't anything new. Honestly, that panel flowed more like a 40 minute commercial than an industry panel at one of the largest conventions in the world. In contrast, we went to the Wakfu panel directly after the Viz panel. They opened the closed beta for the mmo for us, showed us gameplay, discussed their vision for the game, asked for feedback from people who had played already... and then, they answered the question "are there any plans to bring the Wakfu animation to the US" by showing up episode 9 dubbed. That was a hell of a panel, and it was put together by the US rep for a French animation company that's done a mere handful of projects. The Touhou panel was the same presentation by the same guy from Fanime. It was kind of fun, I dunno...
Alright, now to address the dealers' hall, since that's the question that prompted this... I didn't get anything for WOW!scans, yet again... Even at a convention as big as AX, there's little to no josou/otokonoko/trap/whatever stuff. To add to that, there's very little in terms of non-H that isn't already covered for scans either by us or by some other group. Doujins, I wish there was wider availability, but the closest you'll get to our demographic at a con is two bishounen going at it. What I did end up getting though, is a Suwako fumofumo plushie and a little piece of Suwako fanart. That makes my haul for this year's conventions: 10 figures (Asuka, Miku nendo and figma, Dead Master figma, 2 Sheryl figures, Klan Klan figure, the poseable Suwako figure, a Suwako mini figure, and an Arcueid swimsuit figure), 4 autographed Yoshitoshi ABe books, 9 Touhou doujins (no big name stuff, just fleshing out my collection, all non-H, one of them was made in the west and sold in the Artists' Alley, which was pretty damn cool to see), 3 Miku albums (Vocarock 2, Vocalonexus, and Cinnamon Philosophy), the Exist Trace album, 2 pillows (an Asuka daki and a mini pillow with Sheryl on it), one bedsheet (trap Hayate, too good), the plushie, and the concert poster. Time to let my wallet hibernate for 6-8 months, I think. I'm fairly happy with the purchases this season though, some of the things were just such amazing finds... Anyway, I'm going to go take a shower and hope it washes away my hangover so I can get to work on some WOW! stuff.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
What's with the community these days?
There's a rant down below, but I thought I'd throw out the typical tidbits of a progress update that I put over here as motivation to bother visiting before I hit you with that:
Kawase sequel chapter - ready to release
OtoBoku 16 - typesetting
Anal Angel 5 - typesetting
Mei is next in my queue, and Reversible! is after that. Near Equal is being ground away at by a new guy, I'm using it as a project to kind of test him out and train him as a translator. mosco is working on Maid in Japan, as always, and also as always, I don't get status reports from him and a script will just fall in my lap some day hopefully soon. Kaichu! is still a joint, hopefully they're working on the script/TS for a release someday soon.
If you don't live under a rock, you've heard about some of the drama going on between scanlation groups these days. It always bugs me when this shit happens, since (despite an influx of chapters at the start) it benefits no one, and readers always come away with a shitty impression of the scene as a whole. There's a pretty solid example recently (perhaps more to come, I've heard stirrings), so I'll just use what's public knowledge about that to share my thoughts on all this.
Alright, Nozoki Ana. This was the big shitstorm recently. Apparently (I'm not following the series, so the history is a bit secondhand) a group called Blackwing was working on it, and experienced a period of slow releases. Someone talked another group called XscansX into working on it, and they picked it up with a statement along the lines of: "We don't really want this series, we're doing this as a favor until the original group gets moving again." Well, following that, Blackwing came back to life, released a full volume over the course of a day or so, XscansX got upset (I thought they didn't want it?), there was drama, and eventually things got settled into a joint-project agreement of sorts. This, on the surface, seems like it turned out well for the fans, right? They got a volume over the course of a day after having had slow releases for quite a while. However, the guy from Blackwing was apparently still a little upset, and a (somewhat) unrelated thread on MangaFox going sour was enough to get him to rage quit, dropping eight series, and five more after another release or two. The motivation to scanlate is tenuous enough for some people that causing a big shitstorm like that just leads to one less scanlator.
Now, I'll try to discuss my thoughts on this kind of shit while also responding to the typical counterarguments. Stealing other people's series' is a dick move, and that's usually what causes this kind of drama. The response is usually "you can't steal something (pirating the manga) and claim ownership, that's stupid." No, but what people can claim ownership over is the time that they've sank into the series already. They can also claim ownership over their time in the future, and stop scanlating simply because that series was what they were interested in working on, not scanlating as a whole. Any response to calling it a dick move to take a series out from under someone is silly in the first place, because the solution to the problem is really simple, it's called email. Seriously, if people would bother to send emails and get in touch with other groups, 90% of this kind of shit would be prevented.
There's also the argument that it's alright to pick up someone else's series if they're going 'slowly.' I've never heard a more vague word used as the basis of a self-justification. Beyond the issues with that statement on it's own, the answer is as simple as the one I presented before: send an email. You know, I really like Ookiku Furikabutte, and I heard that the scanlations had stalled out. You know what my response was? I emailed them, asked them what they needed in terms of help, pointed out to them that people are trying to get the series picked up by other groups due to the delay in releases, and loaned them an editor part-time. They seemed grateful, I now feel more interconnected into the scanlation community (which I think is a personal quirk, lots of groups seem to dislike transparency and being connected with other groups for some reason), the fans will be happy once releases start rolling out - rather than jumping on their series, overtaxing our group, pissing them off, and slamming out releases as fast as possible and compromising quality just to spite them. It's everyone wins vs everyone loses. Simple to see which option is better. Don't take any of this to mean I condone people quitting or raging due to that kind of drama, that's just silly - but in the end, it's their time, and it really isn't our place to demand that they spend it doing something for us in the first place.
I think my biggest issue with all this kind of shit is that it's a respect issue. Getting worked up like this is disrespectful to the readers. Taking on someone's project without saying anything is disrespectful to the other group. Racing for releases and sacrificing quality or personal time is a lack of self-respect, and a lack of respect to the readers. It's so fucking easy to send an email, I don't understand why so many people just can't muster up that effort.
Anyway, don't take this discussion to mean that we're interested in anything he dropped or anything like that. I just felt like all the drama lately was frustrating me (there's been several smaller bouts, and a few clouds on our horizon that I managed to dismiss before anything happened) and felt like sharing my thoughts might get it out of my system a bit.
Kawase sequel chapter - ready to release
OtoBoku 16 - typesetting
Anal Angel 5 - typesetting
Mei is next in my queue, and Reversible! is after that. Near Equal is being ground away at by a new guy, I'm using it as a project to kind of test him out and train him as a translator. mosco is working on Maid in Japan, as always, and also as always, I don't get status reports from him and a script will just fall in my lap some day hopefully soon. Kaichu! is still a joint, hopefully they're working on the script/TS for a release someday soon.
If you don't live under a rock, you've heard about some of the drama going on between scanlation groups these days. It always bugs me when this shit happens, since (despite an influx of chapters at the start) it benefits no one, and readers always come away with a shitty impression of the scene as a whole. There's a pretty solid example recently (perhaps more to come, I've heard stirrings), so I'll just use what's public knowledge about that to share my thoughts on all this.
Alright, Nozoki Ana. This was the big shitstorm recently. Apparently (I'm not following the series, so the history is a bit secondhand) a group called Blackwing was working on it, and experienced a period of slow releases. Someone talked another group called XscansX into working on it, and they picked it up with a statement along the lines of: "We don't really want this series, we're doing this as a favor until the original group gets moving again." Well, following that, Blackwing came back to life, released a full volume over the course of a day or so, XscansX got upset (I thought they didn't want it?), there was drama, and eventually things got settled into a joint-project agreement of sorts. This, on the surface, seems like it turned out well for the fans, right? They got a volume over the course of a day after having had slow releases for quite a while. However, the guy from Blackwing was apparently still a little upset, and a (somewhat) unrelated thread on MangaFox going sour was enough to get him to rage quit, dropping eight series, and five more after another release or two. The motivation to scanlate is tenuous enough for some people that causing a big shitstorm like that just leads to one less scanlator.
Now, I'll try to discuss my thoughts on this kind of shit while also responding to the typical counterarguments. Stealing other people's series' is a dick move, and that's usually what causes this kind of drama. The response is usually "you can't steal something (pirating the manga) and claim ownership, that's stupid." No, but what people can claim ownership over is the time that they've sank into the series already. They can also claim ownership over their time in the future, and stop scanlating simply because that series was what they were interested in working on, not scanlating as a whole. Any response to calling it a dick move to take a series out from under someone is silly in the first place, because the solution to the problem is really simple, it's called email. Seriously, if people would bother to send emails and get in touch with other groups, 90% of this kind of shit would be prevented.
There's also the argument that it's alright to pick up someone else's series if they're going 'slowly.' I've never heard a more vague word used as the basis of a self-justification. Beyond the issues with that statement on it's own, the answer is as simple as the one I presented before: send an email. You know, I really like Ookiku Furikabutte, and I heard that the scanlations had stalled out. You know what my response was? I emailed them, asked them what they needed in terms of help, pointed out to them that people are trying to get the series picked up by other groups due to the delay in releases, and loaned them an editor part-time. They seemed grateful, I now feel more interconnected into the scanlation community (which I think is a personal quirk, lots of groups seem to dislike transparency and being connected with other groups for some reason), the fans will be happy once releases start rolling out - rather than jumping on their series, overtaxing our group, pissing them off, and slamming out releases as fast as possible and compromising quality just to spite them. It's everyone wins vs everyone loses. Simple to see which option is better. Don't take any of this to mean I condone people quitting or raging due to that kind of drama, that's just silly - but in the end, it's their time, and it really isn't our place to demand that they spend it doing something for us in the first place.
I think my biggest issue with all this kind of shit is that it's a respect issue. Getting worked up like this is disrespectful to the readers. Taking on someone's project without saying anything is disrespectful to the other group. Racing for releases and sacrificing quality or personal time is a lack of self-respect, and a lack of respect to the readers. It's so fucking easy to send an email, I don't understand why so many people just can't muster up that effort.
Anyway, don't take this discussion to mean that we're interested in anything he dropped or anything like that. I just felt like all the drama lately was frustrating me (there's been several smaller bouts, and a few clouds on our horizon that I managed to dismiss before anything happened) and felt like sharing my thoughts might get it out of my system a bit.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Still on a California Adventure
So, a bunch of shit happened, and last I left off, I was at Geif's house. Well, a bunch more stuff happened, and now I'm up at my grandmother's place in Visalia for a few weeks. It's a much more work-conducive environment, since I don't have my laptop set up out in public space where I'm easily distracted. This whole trip has been kind of strange though, since I'm bumming around, fairly broke, with only casual clothes like t-shirts in my suitcases, and I keep ending up in pretty upscale neighborhoods. Gief's place is in a gated-but-not-really-gated community, and it's really nice, it has several parks within the neighborhood, and a pair of pools. Then I came up to my grandmother's place, which is in an actual gated community, all the houses are huge, they all have their own pools... Luckily my uncle is a slob, so I don't feel too out of place around here.
As far as AX goes, there's a handful of things I'm really looking forward to. First and foremost is Miku, of course... but they've announced some guests that are exciting as well. I'm not sure whether I care or not yet, but they announced the producer of Saihate as a guest of honor. Some VN guys will be there, and while they aren't the autograph kind of guests, I'll be interested to go to the Q&A sessions and stuff, since that industry is pretty interesting. Miyuki Sawashiro will be there too, and she's voiced a million characters I like, so it's going to be hard to choose what/who to have her sign (I'll probably get a print of one of her roles from the artist's alley). They've also announced that the mangaka who wrote Kimagure Orange Road will be there, so I'll have to get him to sign something as well, that series is one of the great classics of the shounen romance genre.
I guess my goals for AX are the same as any other convention. I'll go to the events that seem cool, take pictures of cosplayers, and scour the dealers hall and artist alley for merchandise of my froggy waifu. Cross your fingers for me, Suwako goods are fairly uncommon. I think my focus this time around is going to be on digging through doujin bins hoping to luck into a copy of "King of Moriya" or something.
In terms of WOW!scans stuff, obviously I've had my nose to the grindstone lately. At the moment, I'm waist-deep in the script for the Me and Kawase sequel chapter, and either Mei or Anal Angel is going to be up next. Prunus Girl comes out around the 22nd, so I'm going to try and at least get one chapter of Mei and AA out before then, and maybe Reversible too if I have the time. I don't know if people realize, but I put in three eight hour days to get this past weekend's releases out; scanlation is a major time-sink even when I'm not getting the translation credits for a particular chapter. In any case, just wait patiently and things will keep coming out.
As far as AX goes, there's a handful of things I'm really looking forward to. First and foremost is Miku, of course... but they've announced some guests that are exciting as well. I'm not sure whether I care or not yet, but they announced the producer of Saihate as a guest of honor. Some VN guys will be there, and while they aren't the autograph kind of guests, I'll be interested to go to the Q&A sessions and stuff, since that industry is pretty interesting. Miyuki Sawashiro will be there too, and she's voiced a million characters I like, so it's going to be hard to choose what/who to have her sign (I'll probably get a print of one of her roles from the artist's alley). They've also announced that the mangaka who wrote Kimagure Orange Road will be there, so I'll have to get him to sign something as well, that series is one of the great classics of the shounen romance genre.
I guess my goals for AX are the same as any other convention. I'll go to the events that seem cool, take pictures of cosplayers, and scour the dealers hall and artist alley for merchandise of my froggy waifu. Cross your fingers for me, Suwako goods are fairly uncommon. I think my focus this time around is going to be on digging through doujin bins hoping to luck into a copy of "King of Moriya" or something.
In terms of WOW!scans stuff, obviously I've had my nose to the grindstone lately. At the moment, I'm waist-deep in the script for the Me and Kawase sequel chapter, and either Mei or Anal Angel is going to be up next. Prunus Girl comes out around the 22nd, so I'm going to try and at least get one chapter of Mei and AA out before then, and maybe Reversible too if I have the time. I don't know if people realize, but I put in three eight hour days to get this past weekend's releases out; scanlation is a major time-sink even when I'm not getting the translation credits for a particular chapter. In any case, just wait patiently and things will keep coming out.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Where the hell have I been?
Well, you may have noticed that not only have we been short releases (due mainly to my classes and the unexplained mass staff exodus), but my blog has been pretty damn sparse as well. This is due to a bunch of random stuff, so I'll break it into pieces, since some may be interesting to you all.
First of all, there was the staff meetup at Fanime that we've all been looking forward to for quite a while. Me and Holic got on the train in Washington on Thursday morning and rode for like a million years, finally arriving in San Jose on Friday morning. The seats seemed comfortable at first, but by the ten hour mark, they may as well have been made out of concrete. We actually were the first of the group to hit San Jose, and Yomi from our IRC met us at the station and walked us to the hotel so we didn't get lost. Herp, who's QC'd for us under various names, flew in from Florida on Wednesday, and he, Koiz, Gief, and another friend from our ventrilo server all met us in the lobby. The convention itself was kind of awful. The cosplay, dealer's hall, and artist alley were all pretty good, but the organization of the convention was the worst I've seen yet. In terms of content, things were pretty light from the get-go. There were two good guests (well, FLOW was there, but the line outweighed my interest), and both got kinda screwy. The Gainax founder who was supposed to be there cancelled. Yoshiki's plane was late, but his Q&A was really awesome - but the dipshit staff wouldn't let him sign all the autographs, so only 40 (none of us) people got autographs. The panels were really light on content and heavy on stupid stuff for 14 year olds like anime-themed games. We almost got fucked on the one panel I wanted to go to (the Touhou panel) since they didn't have schedules printed for the first day, and when they finally got (not enough) copies made, they were inaccurate. So, enough bitching and on to the highlights. I mentioned that the dealer's hall was good; pretty sure everyone of us that has a waifu found goods to buy of our respective 2D spouses. There was actually a small booth that was selling exclusively Touhou goods (we found out later that the guy running it went to Reitaisai earlier this month), so I was able to get a keychain figure of my frog waifu (Suwako) that I didn't know existed (amazingly well sculpted for such a small figure, too). Then at the Touhou panel (which was really good, but ran out of time before the live mixset that someone was going to do :/) someone who apparently had been at the swap-meet on Friday was selling the rest of their Touhou doujins really cheaply, and I managed to get one of my waifu and 5 more for 7 dollars (all non-H). Holic started out the trip with the statement "I'm not buying any figures, because I'm not a faggot," and ended the trip with 5-6 figures, a messenger bag, some art books, a poster book, and a few prints. I was really happy to see him get over that hump and let himself really enjoy his hobby like that. Other than the dealer's hall and the Touhou panel, the real highlight of the con was hanging out with everyone. We all got along right off the bat and meshed really well, since we all act basically the same in real life as we have been for the year and a half we've known each other online. All our inside jokes from vent worked just as well in person, and we had a shitload of fun even just during downtime in the hotel room.
So, I'm not writing this post from my house. I'm still in California, staying at Gief's mom's house with him for the next month. This was the part that actually threw a wrench into WOW!scans stuff getting done in a timely fashion... Basically, we had talked about me staying down here until Anime Expo a while back, but decided it wasn't really worth the hassle. Then they announced the Miku concert... So Tuesday of last week I hammered out the details to make it a month and a half trip instead of a week long trip. This meant that not only did I need to manage to pack for that long of a trip, but all that little shit that gets put off till "later" needed to be wrapped up before I left. So now I'm sitting down here in Orange County, wondering whether I'll be able to get some shitty temp job through a temp staffing agency so I have reasonable spending money for AX... I'll also see my grandmother that lives down here for the first time in a few years, so this trip should be pretty neato all around. I'll figure out more that needs saying later, I'm sure I missed something.
Also, here's a bunch of pictures, sort by tags since I didn't bother to make volumes: flickr.com/photos/yamadaadtrapm6
First of all, there was the staff meetup at Fanime that we've all been looking forward to for quite a while. Me and Holic got on the train in Washington on Thursday morning and rode for like a million years, finally arriving in San Jose on Friday morning. The seats seemed comfortable at first, but by the ten hour mark, they may as well have been made out of concrete. We actually were the first of the group to hit San Jose, and Yomi from our IRC met us at the station and walked us to the hotel so we didn't get lost. Herp, who's QC'd for us under various names, flew in from Florida on Wednesday, and he, Koiz, Gief, and another friend from our ventrilo server all met us in the lobby. The convention itself was kind of awful. The cosplay, dealer's hall, and artist alley were all pretty good, but the organization of the convention was the worst I've seen yet. In terms of content, things were pretty light from the get-go. There were two good guests (well, FLOW was there, but the line outweighed my interest), and both got kinda screwy. The Gainax founder who was supposed to be there cancelled. Yoshiki's plane was late, but his Q&A was really awesome - but the dipshit staff wouldn't let him sign all the autographs, so only 40 (none of us) people got autographs. The panels were really light on content and heavy on stupid stuff for 14 year olds like anime-themed games. We almost got fucked on the one panel I wanted to go to (the Touhou panel) since they didn't have schedules printed for the first day, and when they finally got (not enough) copies made, they were inaccurate. So, enough bitching and on to the highlights. I mentioned that the dealer's hall was good; pretty sure everyone of us that has a waifu found goods to buy of our respective 2D spouses. There was actually a small booth that was selling exclusively Touhou goods (we found out later that the guy running it went to Reitaisai earlier this month), so I was able to get a keychain figure of my frog waifu (Suwako) that I didn't know existed (amazingly well sculpted for such a small figure, too). Then at the Touhou panel (which was really good, but ran out of time before the live mixset that someone was going to do :/) someone who apparently had been at the swap-meet on Friday was selling the rest of their Touhou doujins really cheaply, and I managed to get one of my waifu and 5 more for 7 dollars (all non-H). Holic started out the trip with the statement "I'm not buying any figures, because I'm not a faggot," and ended the trip with 5-6 figures, a messenger bag, some art books, a poster book, and a few prints. I was really happy to see him get over that hump and let himself really enjoy his hobby like that. Other than the dealer's hall and the Touhou panel, the real highlight of the con was hanging out with everyone. We all got along right off the bat and meshed really well, since we all act basically the same in real life as we have been for the year and a half we've known each other online. All our inside jokes from vent worked just as well in person, and we had a shitload of fun even just during downtime in the hotel room.
So, I'm not writing this post from my house. I'm still in California, staying at Gief's mom's house with him for the next month. This was the part that actually threw a wrench into WOW!scans stuff getting done in a timely fashion... Basically, we had talked about me staying down here until Anime Expo a while back, but decided it wasn't really worth the hassle. Then they announced the Miku concert... So Tuesday of last week I hammered out the details to make it a month and a half trip instead of a week long trip. This meant that not only did I need to manage to pack for that long of a trip, but all that little shit that gets put off till "later" needed to be wrapped up before I left. So now I'm sitting down here in Orange County, wondering whether I'll be able to get some shitty temp job through a temp staffing agency so I have reasonable spending money for AX... I'll also see my grandmother that lives down here for the first time in a few years, so this trip should be pretty neato all around. I'll figure out more that needs saying later, I'm sure I missed something.
Also, here's a bunch of pictures, sort by tags since I didn't bother to make volumes: flickr.com/photos/yamadaadtrapm6
Friday, April 8, 2011
Wah, what're we going to do on the blog?
So, life is busy... On top of the class shit, I've got several things going on. I'm rearranging my room, making room for a new computer desk, another figure display case, and hopefully another bookshelf. Tonight I'm going to take measurements and draw things up in paint to see what all I can fit, tomorrow I'll prep and make room, then Sunday I'm going to Ikea. An added perk is that I'm going to pick up a chair that won't make my back feel like absolute shit after a few hours. In terms of WOW!scans, we've picked up a little help here and there, and things should start running a little more smoothly again here shortly, which makes me happy as a bifurcated mollusk. Also, Sakuracon is in two weeks... I have a room at my favorite hotel for that con (the Sheraton, it's a really nice hotel and it's directly across the street from the con, kicks the shit out of any of the others I've stayed in), get to see a friend I haven't seen in like a year, I'll have room at home to pick up new figures, and it'll be the first con I've attended since starting WOW!scans, so I'll be browsing the doujin vendors with a totally different mindset this year. Should be fun. On top of that, the fact that Sakuracon is only two weeks away reminds me that Fanime is only a month and a half away... first trip out of state in a while, first time seeing several online friends and WOW! compatriots in person, first non-WA convention, a full week vacation in a place where the weather isn't perpetually shit. That should be even more fun! I'm more than willing to kick it with any of y'all who will be at either con, I'll probably say something on the WOW! blog about which bar I'll sit at on Thursday or Friday night for Sakuracon.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Well, life tends to have it's ups and downs
So, a little mostly un-wow-related life stuff, and then some ranting and explaining, and some news.
The first two quarters I was down here at Evergreen, the classes always had plenty of room, so I felt fairly comfortable waitlisting classes this quarter... that turned out to be a terrible idea. Apparently, due to budget shortfalls, they decided to let in an unprecedented amount of transfer students this quarter, and didn't bother to make room for them by adding more classes. So, at the end of last week, I was at wit's end, scrambling to get into classes, even if they weren't the best fit with my area of study, so that at least I'd end up at full time status and get my financial aid for the quarter. Things eventually kind of worked out, I'm taking enough credits now, but my schedule is pretty fucking terrible. This impacts wow stuff in two ways - first, I'm still on the way out of being in a shit mood, and I'm not terribly productive when I'm in a shit mood. Second, it'll probably take a week or two to figure out where translating fits into this new schedule.
Alright, so here's two things that bug me about people who read our scanlations (I love our fans, I really do, but come the fuck on). First: if I anticipated your question and answered it in a blog post already, do me the fucking favor of reading it rather than asking the same shit over and over. Second: if you don't like one of our series, I really couldn't give a flying turd in space less. I love to hear about it when you do like something we're working on, but telling me which series you don't like just sounds like a passive aggressive way to whine that other things aren't coming out as quickly. TL;DR, I love NEEDLESS, it isn't slowing anything else down, and if you still have an issue, I'm all out of tissues for you.
So, despite my bad mood, I haven't been entirely unproductive... I haven't gotten much translated, but we've rearranged things and Kaichu! should be getting a lot more attention now, which I know is good news for lots of people. We also picked up someone who's going to work on an amazing surprise for you guys that'll seem like it came out of nowhere. On top of that stuff, we've got raws for a future project in the mail, raws for some upcoming doujin projects in the mail, and I've been getting us a bit ahead of the game in terms of scanning raws. Even when I'm not directly working on a translation, I personally can spend 6 hours in a sitting getting other shit done for the group and still not make a dent in what all needs doing. Anyway, more later, class is starting.
The first two quarters I was down here at Evergreen, the classes always had plenty of room, so I felt fairly comfortable waitlisting classes this quarter... that turned out to be a terrible idea. Apparently, due to budget shortfalls, they decided to let in an unprecedented amount of transfer students this quarter, and didn't bother to make room for them by adding more classes. So, at the end of last week, I was at wit's end, scrambling to get into classes, even if they weren't the best fit with my area of study, so that at least I'd end up at full time status and get my financial aid for the quarter. Things eventually kind of worked out, I'm taking enough credits now, but my schedule is pretty fucking terrible. This impacts wow stuff in two ways - first, I'm still on the way out of being in a shit mood, and I'm not terribly productive when I'm in a shit mood. Second, it'll probably take a week or two to figure out where translating fits into this new schedule.
Alright, so here's two things that bug me about people who read our scanlations (I love our fans, I really do, but come the fuck on). First: if I anticipated your question and answered it in a blog post already, do me the fucking favor of reading it rather than asking the same shit over and over. Second: if you don't like one of our series, I really couldn't give a flying turd in space less. I love to hear about it when you do like something we're working on, but telling me which series you don't like just sounds like a passive aggressive way to whine that other things aren't coming out as quickly. TL;DR, I love NEEDLESS, it isn't slowing anything else down, and if you still have an issue, I'm all out of tissues for you.
So, despite my bad mood, I haven't been entirely unproductive... I haven't gotten much translated, but we've rearranged things and Kaichu! should be getting a lot more attention now, which I know is good news for lots of people. We also picked up someone who's going to work on an amazing surprise for you guys that'll seem like it came out of nowhere. On top of that stuff, we've got raws for a future project in the mail, raws for some upcoming doujin projects in the mail, and I've been getting us a bit ahead of the game in terms of scanning raws. Even when I'm not directly working on a translation, I personally can spend 6 hours in a sitting getting other shit done for the group and still not make a dent in what all needs doing. Anyway, more later, class is starting.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Life, WOW!, and Everything
So, if you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that our releases come in spurts now... What happens is that we get some stuff close to release and then i end up coordinating all the release stuff and don't have time to translate that night (or those nights, in the case of the past several days). I guess it's fine since we're keeping up a pretty decent pace, but I thought it was interesting how the dynamic has shifted lately...
Also, I'm going down to my campus today to sort out my classes for this quarter, so we'll find out how busy I'm going to be and how much scanlating time I'll have left over pretty soon. Other than my 4 credit Japanese class, I honestly have very little idea what i'm going to end up taking this quarter, so it could go either way.
/tr/ is back up. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't lose their posts this time around, since apparently it was hard drive failure again. In any case, I'm glad it's back, since a lot of freelancing anons gather there and scan/translate/etc, and I'm not really sure whether they would easily find a new place to congregate.
IS is a lot of fun for a generic harem, and as with all generic harems, I've taken a much stronger liking to one or two of the girls in the show. Somehow I've lucked out, and the bros at kibitou4life (http://kibitou4life.wordpress.com/) have similar tastes, and have been scanlating lots of France and Germany doujins.
Also, I'm going down to my campus today to sort out my classes for this quarter, so we'll find out how busy I'm going to be and how much scanlating time I'll have left over pretty soon. Other than my 4 credit Japanese class, I honestly have very little idea what i'm going to end up taking this quarter, so it could go either way.
/tr/ is back up. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't lose their posts this time around, since apparently it was hard drive failure again. In any case, I'm glad it's back, since a lot of freelancing anons gather there and scan/translate/etc, and I'm not really sure whether they would easily find a new place to congregate.
IS is a lot of fun for a generic harem, and as with all generic harems, I've taken a much stronger liking to one or two of the girls in the show. Somehow I've lucked out, and the bros at kibitou4life (http://kibitou4life.wordpress.com/) have similar tastes, and have been scanlating lots of France and Germany doujins.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
So...
Well, we caught up on NEEDLESS already... Spring Quarter starts this coming week, which gives me mixed feeling on where WOW!scans stuff is at. I'm frustrated that Koiz and Gief are being lazy, but it's also nice that I'm ahead on scripts stepping back into being busy. Ugh.
This shit's really good:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mg7tvangf1xglgn
I ordered the Senjougahara figure (you know which one) since both HLJ and GSC are donating to disaster relief, so I can feel a little better about spending 100+ dollars on a piece of plastic. This reminds me, I REALLY need to clean my room, reorganize a bit, and buy another display case. I've got 29 figures outside the cabinet I have already, and Senjougahara on her way. It's time to go to Ikea, for sure. Also, Black Gold Saw arrived today... She's nice, but she really serves as a reminder than I need to find Dead Master, since I missed out on preordering her. I really don't want to pay out the ass on auction sites, but having BRS and BGS and no DM just isn't right.
This shit's really good:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mg7tvangf1xglgn
I ordered the Senjougahara figure (you know which one) since both HLJ and GSC are donating to disaster relief, so I can feel a little better about spending 100+ dollars on a piece of plastic. This reminds me, I REALLY need to clean my room, reorganize a bit, and buy another display case. I've got 29 figures outside the cabinet I have already, and Senjougahara on her way. It's time to go to Ikea, for sure. Also, Black Gold Saw arrived today... She's nice, but she really serves as a reminder than I need to find Dead Master, since I missed out on preordering her. I really don't want to pay out the ass on auction sites, but having BRS and BGS and no DM just isn't right.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Brief update since I am excite
We're picking up NEEDLESS. Yes, that NEEDLESS. Also, it's an outside translator, so it doesn't add to my personal workload. So fucking stoked. That's all.
Friday, March 18, 2011
A scanlation life has ups and downs
Treat this as half status update and half bitch/brag session, since that's what it is. Mei is still in typesetting, and I'm getting antsy since it's a good chapter and I love that series so much... can't blame Koiz for taking a few days though, it's a typical 40 page chapter :/ Anal Angel chapter 4 is translated, and the cleans/decensoring are done already, so it should be a fairly short wait on that release too. We've got a joint project doujin release coming soon too, with Kusion from UTW/[gg] making a guest appearance as TLC. I love doing joints, I love having people from other groups lend us a hand, and I love the feeling of community that comes from stuff like this, and I always feel like WOW!scans has actually become a legitimate part of things when we work with a big name like this. It isn't really an e-peen thing or anything, it's just that feeling of accomplishment, knowing that we somehow made it from where we started to being a "real" group. In other, more depressing news, /a/ had a string of about 800 posts about Houkago Play, one of the joint projects that I don't particularly enjoy working on and that keeps falling through the cracks. I feel bad, but on the other hand I do this for fun, and being insulted for taking my time on a series I don't enjoy is kind of lame. The other interesting thing is that there's a few people willing to work on translating the series - but they don't want to make any committments, they don't want to contact the editors to give them the translations, and they only want to do certain chapters out of order... I'm really depressed and frustrated over the situation, and now I really feel like I HAVE to sit down and force my way through a chapter of HP soon. I think I may make an official drop announcement after that chapter, depending on how much I hate the process of translating it this time around... Maybe one of these other people will commit to something once I'm not on the hook to scapegoat when releases are slow.
Monday, March 14, 2011
What's going on, baby, what's goin on
So, finally had a chance to sit down and translate again. That means new Mei no Naisho within the next few days, depending on how quickly koiz gets it typeset. This chapter has what a lot of people were demanding - male love interest, another trap, all that jazz. Also more misunderstandings and Sera being the coolest character ever. Honestly, I don't think it comes across on a casual read through, but spending as long immersed in each chapter as I do, Sera is hard to read - on the one hand, she's a pervert and a cunning bitch who likes to see Fuuka squirm, but on the other, she's the only one who sees right through Mei and makes sure she gets the support she needs. I'm thinking we may get more Sera backstory down the road, she's a pretty complex character for the amount of screentime she gets. Reversible! is somewhere near 50% done in TL, and it's already cleaned, so anticipate that fairly soon as well. The joints with Hachimitsu are all in his court, we've done our side on them. DEB joints, I'm never 100% sure what's going on, but hopefully Suzunone should come soon... No comment on the 4koma joints, I'm aware I'm being a piece of shit on those. My next project is going to be Anal Angel, since people are getting pretty impatient for that already.
Life is going pretty meh for me personally. I think the adjective that fits best is 'lukewarm.' Nothing much specific to comment on, good or bad, and I'm not in a particularly good or bad mood either. I'm becoming better friends with some people, which is nice, and some people have shown their fucking annoying sides and I'm getting a little distance, which counterbalances the former. All-in-all a boring past few weeks.
I've been playing SMT:Devil Survivor before bed lately, it's a pretty fun game... I'm not sure why I didn't give it a try sooner, for some reason I thought it wouldn't be any good. No comment on the earthquake, other than that it's annoying that all the worst anime of the season are on regular airing schedule while Reitaisai 8 got cancelled, fucking up all the music releases :/
Life is going pretty meh for me personally. I think the adjective that fits best is 'lukewarm.' Nothing much specific to comment on, good or bad, and I'm not in a particularly good or bad mood either. I'm becoming better friends with some people, which is nice, and some people have shown their fucking annoying sides and I'm getting a little distance, which counterbalances the former. All-in-all a boring past few weeks.
I've been playing SMT:Devil Survivor before bed lately, it's a pretty fun game... I'm not sure why I didn't give it a try sooner, for some reason I thought it wouldn't be any good. No comment on the earthquake, other than that it's annoying that all the worst anime of the season are on regular airing schedule while Reitaisai 8 got cancelled, fucking up all the music releases :/
Friday, March 4, 2011
Stuff, not WOW!
The last post was all WOW! shit, and I said I'd talk about other stuff next time... So, first up, conventions season's coming soon. I'll be at Sakuracon with real life friends (yes, I have a few of those), and at Fanime with Koizumi, Gief, Holic, maybe some other WOW!scans folks, a handful of friends from 4chan's /a/, and who knows who else. So far I have a commissioned cosplay of Yamada from NEEDLESS just about ready to be shipped to me. I'm considering picking up a Taokaka cosplay, since a few other people are probably doing BB cosplay and I've always thought her outfit is kind of nifty. Here's the Yamada cosplay, sans wig:
Also, depending on whether you're a tl;dr kind of person or not, I have a sci fi short story you may be interested in. I'm not one of those folks who tries to push all their amateur fiction on any unfortunate people who pass within range, but this story's kind of about a hikki in the west, so I thought it might resonate a bit:
http://www.mediafire.com/?o21nybx6d9849gv
I've started playing LoL, kind of as stress relief. If you play and would like to add me, I'm YamadaADTRAPM6. I'll warn you up front, I'm level 21 and play like I'm level 21, so no bitching that I'm not super pro. Also, I really only play ranged champs, mostly because I hardly ever play online games or RTS, so keeping the amount of mechanics I'm trying to master down is a big plus.
My spring break is coming up, and it's nearly a month long... I'm not planning anything big, but between WOW! stuff and getting drunk a lot (this quarter's been rough, so I've only drank like twice in the past month and a half, and I enjoy my drink) I should manage to keep myself occupied. I'm really excited to be a NEET for a month.
This season's anime have hit me kind of oddly. I dropped several shows I was excited for, and lost most of the anticipation I held for the others. Kimi ni Todoke moved too slowly so I dropped it and started reading the manga, and Hourou Musuko I'm for some reason having trouble following as well. Two shows I wasn't planning on watching, Dragon Crisis and Yumekuri Merry, turned out to be the ones I wait impatiently for each week. I don't know what to make of that other than to say that it's a good thing I keep an open mind and don't lock myself into judgments on things too firmly.
Also, depending on whether you're a tl;dr kind of person or not, I have a sci fi short story you may be interested in. I'm not one of those folks who tries to push all their amateur fiction on any unfortunate people who pass within range, but this story's kind of about a hikki in the west, so I thought it might resonate a bit:
http://www.mediafire.com/?o21nybx6d9849gv
I've started playing LoL, kind of as stress relief. If you play and would like to add me, I'm YamadaADTRAPM6. I'll warn you up front, I'm level 21 and play like I'm level 21, so no bitching that I'm not super pro. Also, I really only play ranged champs, mostly because I hardly ever play online games or RTS, so keeping the amount of mechanics I'm trying to master down is a big plus.
My spring break is coming up, and it's nearly a month long... I'm not planning anything big, but between WOW! stuff and getting drunk a lot (this quarter's been rough, so I've only drank like twice in the past month and a half, and I enjoy my drink) I should manage to keep myself occupied. I'm really excited to be a NEET for a month.
This season's anime have hit me kind of oddly. I dropped several shows I was excited for, and lost most of the anticipation I held for the others. Kimi ni Todoke moved too slowly so I dropped it and started reading the manga, and Hourou Musuko I'm for some reason having trouble following as well. Two shows I wasn't planning on watching, Dragon Crisis and Yumekuri Merry, turned out to be the ones I wait impatiently for each week. I don't know what to make of that other than to say that it's a good thing I keep an open mind and don't lock myself into judgments on things too firmly.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Ugh
Been busy. Very busy. I'll report on a bunch of shit though, so you know where we're at, and so I can vent about Eien 02 a bit.
Prunus Girl 21 raws showed up yesterday, so I stayed up all night to make sure it was ready for typesetting whenever Koiz wakes up. Pretty good chapter, 23 pages this time, some fanservice, lots of teasing Maki. As per usual lately though, no overt relationship development. I think there's too factors at work here- first is that romantic comedy series pretty much end once the relationship hits a certain point, and Tomoki wants PG to keep rolling for a while longer. Second, I really think he wants to let their relationship grow organically a bit more so it feels natural when there's some more overt shift in how they relate to one another (it's been reminding me a bit of Toradora and how comfortable Ryuuji and Taiga were with each other long before they realized that they had feelings for each other).
Waai coming very soon. That means more Reversible!, Sazanami Cherry, Devil-chan, Past Future, etc. Since we've been busy (literally everyone on the team, not just me and Koiz), Oto Nyan and Change H still aren't fully under control yet, so this should be a fun balancing act until we get things settled. I'm guessing that the times around the quarterly releases are just going to be retardedly hectic every time, since we've pretty much committed to making sure Waai and Oto Nyan get fully scanlated one way or another and we've picked up the handful of Change H series. Pray for my sanity over the next few weeks.
Eien 02 came out yesterday. I bought and scanned it well over a month ago. I'm rather displeased with how the sfx were handled, especially since we had long discussions with eXtreme and his crew on multiple occasions about it and they apparently didn't value our input at all (it's annoying that the first joint project that turned out with me feeling irritated towards the other group was one where I spent 60 bucks on a low page count book, too). I think in the future, especially with groups we haven't worked with before, we'll take control of the typesetting step just so that we have more control over the final product.
My plan at the moment is to get more Mei out, then more Anal Angel, along with focusing on getting the logistics squared away better since we've been slipping in that department with all of us busy in real life. If you don't pay attention to credits pages, I tend to only do translation on one or two things from each quarterly, since I like the consistency of working with series where we have raws stretching ahead indefinitely, so the goal with Waai and Oto Nyan is to get things whipped into shape and get our other translators back on a faster release pace. I honestly have no idea where the two 4koma joints I've been slacking off on fit in to things, it's the end of the quarter and I've got all that shit to handle on top of it being a busy period for WOW!scans stuff, so we'll just see what happens there.
I have some non-WOW! stuff I wanted to post about, but this one's pretty long already so I'll save it.
Prunus Girl 21 raws showed up yesterday, so I stayed up all night to make sure it was ready for typesetting whenever Koiz wakes up. Pretty good chapter, 23 pages this time, some fanservice, lots of teasing Maki. As per usual lately though, no overt relationship development. I think there's too factors at work here- first is that romantic comedy series pretty much end once the relationship hits a certain point, and Tomoki wants PG to keep rolling for a while longer. Second, I really think he wants to let their relationship grow organically a bit more so it feels natural when there's some more overt shift in how they relate to one another (it's been reminding me a bit of Toradora and how comfortable Ryuuji and Taiga were with each other long before they realized that they had feelings for each other).
Waai coming very soon. That means more Reversible!, Sazanami Cherry, Devil-chan, Past Future, etc. Since we've been busy (literally everyone on the team, not just me and Koiz), Oto Nyan and Change H still aren't fully under control yet, so this should be a fun balancing act until we get things settled. I'm guessing that the times around the quarterly releases are just going to be retardedly hectic every time, since we've pretty much committed to making sure Waai and Oto Nyan get fully scanlated one way or another and we've picked up the handful of Change H series. Pray for my sanity over the next few weeks.
Eien 02 came out yesterday. I bought and scanned it well over a month ago. I'm rather displeased with how the sfx were handled, especially since we had long discussions with eXtreme and his crew on multiple occasions about it and they apparently didn't value our input at all (it's annoying that the first joint project that turned out with me feeling irritated towards the other group was one where I spent 60 bucks on a low page count book, too). I think in the future, especially with groups we haven't worked with before, we'll take control of the typesetting step just so that we have more control over the final product.
My plan at the moment is to get more Mei out, then more Anal Angel, along with focusing on getting the logistics squared away better since we've been slipping in that department with all of us busy in real life. If you don't pay attention to credits pages, I tend to only do translation on one or two things from each quarterly, since I like the consistency of working with series where we have raws stretching ahead indefinitely, so the goal with Waai and Oto Nyan is to get things whipped into shape and get our other translators back on a faster release pace. I honestly have no idea where the two 4koma joints I've been slacking off on fit in to things, it's the end of the quarter and I've got all that shit to handle on top of it being a busy period for WOW!scans stuff, so we'll just see what happens there.
I have some non-WOW! stuff I wanted to post about, but this one's pretty long already so I'll save it.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Scanning and Drinking
Yeah, I haven't gotten many scripts worked on this week. Between getting talked into socializing and having both Oto Nyan and Change H to scan, there just wasn't time. The double edged sword to getting more people on the team and picking up more projects is that it increases the overhead in terms of time I have to put in doing things other than translating, which is frustrating. Coordinating, scanning, checking translations, answering questions, all of it is stuff that needs doing and that I don't mind doing, but after a while I realize that despite having spent 6 hours on stuff for WOW!scans, I haven't translated jack shit. Today or tomorrow I'm going to work on Anal Angel. Fuck all this other stuff, I've been wanting to do some AA for like a week and it keeps getting put off since other shit needs my attention. Expect some penises sometime this week.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Burnout and Gender Bending
This has been my (personally, not really the group) slowest week in at least a month or two. I attribute it to a variety of things, some of which are fair game for discussion, and some of which really kind of aren't. Suffice it to say, the burnout was fairly short lived, since I'm a very doting parent over WOW!scans... I just kind of boxed myself in with weekly/near weekly deadlines on our joints, raws aren't coming in the mail, Koizumi isn't making progress on the special project I bought to surprise everyone with... It seemed like stuff just wasn't going how I wanted, so I had to take a few days and just step back and recuperate a bit. OverDrive is going to wait another week I think, since once I finish Houkago Play for this week I really need to work on something *I* want to work on - meaning it'll be Anal Angel, OtoBoku, or Mei. I feel bad for OverDrive fans, but if I keep pushing through shit other people want and deprioritizing the stuff I have fun working on I'm going to burn right out again. (Just a side note, one of the stranger things on my list for today was raw providing the new Prunus Girl for a French scanlation group... we've also got Vietnamese groups working from our stuff... kind of cool, and kind of odd in a way)
Also, if you're into porn (who isn't?), you need to go here: http://www.mangatg.com/
Download Market Showgirl, Becoming a Girl by ShindoL, Avatar Trance, and Trans Panic. Thank me later.
Ugh, I felt like I had other shit that needed saying, but I guess it'll keep until I remember what it was, it's late here.
Also, if you're into porn (who isn't?), you need to go here: http://www.mangatg.com/
Download Market Showgirl, Becoming a Girl by ShindoL, Avatar Trance, and Trans Panic. Thank me later.
Ugh, I felt like I had other shit that needed saying, but I guess it'll keep until I remember what it was, it's late here.
Monday, January 24, 2011
4komas and Joint Projects
So, now that the first chapter of the Houkago Play joint project came out without incident, I thought I'd share my thoughts so far on this and the Imouto wa Shishunki project. It's really interesting to work on the two of them, especially since I started on them both at about the same time, because despite both being 4komas, they require wildly different translation styles. Houkago Play is probably my most literal translations to date, since a lot of it is specific detail reference - ie, not much to do when she asks why the hell a PSP has a stylus in terms of style and prose. Imouto wa Shishunki, on the other hand, is much more what I expected from working with a 4koma - this one is my most liberal translation I've ever done. Preserving the essence of a sexual pun when translating takes... creativity. For example, there's a word in Japanese that can mean both 'son' and 'penis,' while there really aren't any good direct translations that carry the same double meaning. The chapters of Imouto are really short, but it ends up taking me forever, since I sit there and rack my brains for a way to stay faithful to the original and still have the humor carry over. The other fun thing I've gotten from Houkago Play is lots of sites to look up Japanese PSX and PSP shit on, since I'm not much of a gamer in the first place, and the references a lot of times are talking about shit that never got ported over here... yeah, fun...
These two joints are also the first time we've done a joint where I'm doing the translating, everything else so far has been our raws, image editing, qc, etc and the other groups' translation, so it's a bit of a different experience this time. The one thing I've really learned so far is that despite disliking IRC, I am glad as fuck our group uses it, since it's a real pain in the ass to do everything over email.
I told someone I'd share my thoughts on this season's shows (at least the ones that fall inside our shared interest in TG/trap type stuff), so I guess I'll do that now before the season ends up halfway over without me getting around to it.
Kore wa Zombie-kun:
I'm not really sure what to think... this show is such a mash-up of elements, it's kind of hard to figure out what to expect from it. I guess it's supposed to be comedy more than anything else, and it makes me laugh, so I guess it's a success on that front. As far as the trap content goes... I wouldn't claim there is any. The MC getting forced into a skirt in order to access his magical girl powers is pretty amusing, but he isn't passable and only does it out of necessity. I'm going to keep watching this one, because I figure that even the worst case scenario is that this show turns into a somewhat less generic than usual harem comedy.
Hourou Musuko:
Really good adaptation. Really good. I'm still not sure how well it stands on it's own for people that haven't read the manga, since they skipped so much of the beginning and kind of rushed the character introductions, but since I did read the manga, that isn't an issue for me. I'm still not fully on board with how shiny their heads are, but other than that the art style is gorgeous, and fits with the way Shimura draws the manga really well. I'm not very critical of things like seiyuu, but I think they did a pretty good job casting for the adaptation, no one stood out as sounding off, really. The OP sucks. No real way around that one. They cheaped out on the visual side of it, it's really boring and uneventful, and the song itself is somewhat of a failed Spitz knock-off. The ED is ok, and next to that OP, it seems amazing. I'm really disappointed that they only gave this 11 episodes though, I'm anticipating being ticked off at the way they end things, pretty much no matter what they do.
These two joints are also the first time we've done a joint where I'm doing the translating, everything else so far has been our raws, image editing, qc, etc and the other groups' translation, so it's a bit of a different experience this time. The one thing I've really learned so far is that despite disliking IRC, I am glad as fuck our group uses it, since it's a real pain in the ass to do everything over email.
I told someone I'd share my thoughts on this season's shows (at least the ones that fall inside our shared interest in TG/trap type stuff), so I guess I'll do that now before the season ends up halfway over without me getting around to it.
Kore wa Zombie-kun:
I'm not really sure what to think... this show is such a mash-up of elements, it's kind of hard to figure out what to expect from it. I guess it's supposed to be comedy more than anything else, and it makes me laugh, so I guess it's a success on that front. As far as the trap content goes... I wouldn't claim there is any. The MC getting forced into a skirt in order to access his magical girl powers is pretty amusing, but he isn't passable and only does it out of necessity. I'm going to keep watching this one, because I figure that even the worst case scenario is that this show turns into a somewhat less generic than usual harem comedy.
Hourou Musuko:
Really good adaptation. Really good. I'm still not sure how well it stands on it's own for people that haven't read the manga, since they skipped so much of the beginning and kind of rushed the character introductions, but since I did read the manga, that isn't an issue for me. I'm still not fully on board with how shiny their heads are, but other than that the art style is gorgeous, and fits with the way Shimura draws the manga really well. I'm not very critical of things like seiyuu, but I think they did a pretty good job casting for the adaptation, no one stood out as sounding off, really. The OP sucks. No real way around that one. They cheaped out on the visual side of it, it's really boring and uneventful, and the song itself is somewhat of a failed Spitz knock-off. The ED is ok, and next to that OP, it seems amazing. I'm really disappointed that they only gave this 11 episodes though, I'm anticipating being ticked off at the way they end things, pretty much no matter what they do.
WOW!
>4 hours of sleep friday night due to translation shit
>get up saturday, finish translating, scan shit
>drink last night to make myself take a break from scanlation stuff
>wake up, check irc logs, I was actually still trying to do WOW!scans shit with a fifth of rum in me
I actually really really want to talk about how weird it is working on those two joint 4koma projects in a number of ways, but I'm going to wait until I'm not hung over any more so that the walls of text are at least coherent. But yeah, I'm starting to realize that I don't have many hobbies other than scanlation any more, my free time is all scanlation, all of my minor daily worries are scanlation shit, etc. Not sure whether this is kinda lame or kinda awesome, I guess at least it's something productive, right?
>get up saturday, finish translating, scan shit
>drink last night to make myself take a break from scanlation stuff
>wake up, check irc logs, I was actually still trying to do WOW!scans shit with a fifth of rum in me
I actually really really want to talk about how weird it is working on those two joint 4koma projects in a number of ways, but I'm going to wait until I'm not hung over any more so that the walls of text are at least coherent. But yeah, I'm starting to realize that I don't have many hobbies other than scanlation any more, my free time is all scanlation, all of my minor daily worries are scanlation shit, etc. Not sure whether this is kinda lame or kinda awesome, I guess at least it's something productive, right?
Friday, January 21, 2011
Today's Purchases
Well, I stopped by the anime shop in town on my way home today, and found out that he's going back to online-only and closing down his store. I was just trying to pick up some stuff to fill gaps in manga series that I'm buying (Higurashi 1-5, Bokurano 1), but since he's a nice guy and has pretty damn good prices, I wound up buying a bunch of shit. Pretty happy with the Zodd figure, glad I finally bought it - I've looked at it and decided not to buy it probably five times by now. I also ended up picking up most of Ikigami, Groundwork of Eva part 3, the Amano illustrated version of the Tale of Genji, and some back issues of Megami. All in all a really satisfying (read: expensive) visit, but it really reminds me that I need to make the trip to Ikea to get another figure case and probably another bookshelf.
A New Day, A New Blog
Well, I'm going to leave this one really simple, since it's pretty much a combination personal/academic/scanlation-industry type of thing, and it's just my own thoughts, which don't really warrant a fancy layout. I'm still not 100% sure where I expect things to go on here, but it'll most likely end up with irregular walls of text, rants, and shit that lots of people won't care about, so no claiming I'm boring or that I didn't warn you. I think tonight I'll bitch about something that really annoys me about the scanlation community, and then we'll see if something slightly less snarky comes to me later.
So, a lot of the time that I'm looking at joint projects and potential new projects for WOW!scans, rather than think about stuff I like or browsing tags on aggregators, I dig around in the community and look for series that are dropped, have gaps, or where the groups are going really slow/using bad raws/otherwise screwing the readers. In my opinion, it's a much better thing to bail out a series that has frustrated readers than it is to pick up some new series and create a new fanbase - you're not only creating the positive feelings in new fans, you're helping to cure that frustration that people get when a series they like ends up screwed up in some way. So, that brings me to my issue... I'm not sure what drives people to do shit sometimes. Take Shiki for example, we almost picked that one up for a while, because two groups were working on it, but the second group had left a gap of several chapters when they started, and the group working in order up towards the gap in scanlations apparently didn't care to put out more than one chapter ever few months. The first group, who knows, maybe they were on their last legs or understaffed. The one that gets me is that second group that picked it up and knowingly left a gap in the scanlations. I saw a thread earlier (which was being trolled, so I backed the fuck out) where some /a/non was working on Usagi Drop scanlations. Leaving a gap of several chapters. The solution isn't to troll him, but really, I don't know what the thought process is when someone decides to do that. Scanlation takes too much effort to not do it for the pleasure of knowing people are enjoying reading your releases - so how does screwing the reader or doing less than your best effort ever make sense? It's almost along the lines of those groups that don't QC (hours of TL and cleaning, just to put out a shitty Engrish scanlation...) or that use ugly, unreadable raws. It seems so counter-intuitive to me, if anyone can explain this kind of shit to me, please do. Dropping stuff, going on hiatus, all of that makes sense; although it can be pretty screwy too, especially when one project is dropped to make room for some shit no one likes, but picking up a series and leaving a hole in the translations is just unfathomable for me. Alright, rambling rant over. More next time.
So, a lot of the time that I'm looking at joint projects and potential new projects for WOW!scans, rather than think about stuff I like or browsing tags on aggregators, I dig around in the community and look for series that are dropped, have gaps, or where the groups are going really slow/using bad raws/otherwise screwing the readers. In my opinion, it's a much better thing to bail out a series that has frustrated readers than it is to pick up some new series and create a new fanbase - you're not only creating the positive feelings in new fans, you're helping to cure that frustration that people get when a series they like ends up screwed up in some way. So, that brings me to my issue... I'm not sure what drives people to do shit sometimes. Take Shiki for example, we almost picked that one up for a while, because two groups were working on it, but the second group had left a gap of several chapters when they started, and the group working in order up towards the gap in scanlations apparently didn't care to put out more than one chapter ever few months. The first group, who knows, maybe they were on their last legs or understaffed. The one that gets me is that second group that picked it up and knowingly left a gap in the scanlations. I saw a thread earlier (which was being trolled, so I backed the fuck out) where some /a/non was working on Usagi Drop scanlations. Leaving a gap of several chapters. The solution isn't to troll him, but really, I don't know what the thought process is when someone decides to do that. Scanlation takes too much effort to not do it for the pleasure of knowing people are enjoying reading your releases - so how does screwing the reader or doing less than your best effort ever make sense? It's almost along the lines of those groups that don't QC (hours of TL and cleaning, just to put out a shitty Engrish scanlation...) or that use ugly, unreadable raws. It seems so counter-intuitive to me, if anyone can explain this kind of shit to me, please do. Dropping stuff, going on hiatus, all of that makes sense; although it can be pretty screwy too, especially when one project is dropped to make room for some shit no one likes, but picking up a series and leaving a hole in the translations is just unfathomable for me. Alright, rambling rant over. More next time.
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