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.
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I had no idea about all this drama. I tend to stay in my small little corner of scanlating, and I'd say you're probably my only connection to the wider community since you're more plugged in than me.
ReplyDeleteThere are various reasons why one would choose to spend an exorbitant amount of hours in scanlating, but I don't see why someone who put in all that time would stick it to the fans and rage quit over a little drama. I've had my own problems in the past with Kuragehime, but that turned out better than I hoped (I was honestly surprised when they gave it back to me). Looking back on it, I don't think I'd respond the same way I did back then, but that's only to avoid further complications.
In the end, scanlating is about love. In the immortal words of Beatrice: "Without love, it cannot be seen." Here's to hoping that more drama doesn't come our way in the future.
You know I've thought about this for a while. It seems subbers and scanalators are all competing against each other. You all want people to read your releases, and you want to know people are using your stuff. I'm about to say something that may seem harsh, but its true: No one gives a fuck. Its like in a movie theater. Once the credits roll, the lights go on and everyone leaves. No one sits there and reads, "Wow, distributed by Sony. God bless you, Sony."
ReplyDeleteNow don't get me wrong. I appreciate what you do, but once the previous group stopped Needless and you started, the transition was as easy as changing a toothbrush. There was no emotion, I was just using a new site to get my releases. Nothing changed. Unless someone is doing an incredibly shitty job, I'm content as long as its being done.
But this doesn't seem to get through to you people. You all think you're being worshiped and this is your life work. Blackwing was not releasing so someone moves on their turf, suddenly huge release. What a coincidence they managed to find all that free time to work just as another group picks up their slack. And XscansX get upset over losing a title from under their belt? What's the big deal. You're supposed to release this as fans of a series hoping to share it with others who would like it as well, not create some monopoly.
My idea which will get more releases easier and broader: Create a "United Nations" of sort. Just all get together and work out what you do. Groups workloads would dramatically decrease, and you'd be able to do other things. We don't need 5 groups doing Bleach. Trust me when I say 99% of people will just use the fastest release, and only the most of elitist will wait for a "quality" release. Then the series which has been through 7 groups of being dropped, picked up after 6 months, and dropped again (Billy Bat, only 60 chapters and its gone through this BS)can have a steady schedule, as well as dead series finding a new home.
But I'm nobody. I'm just a leech. I can't put this together, you'd all just think who the hell am I, and why should anyone listen to someone who doesn't understand you. And I'm tired of just sitting around seeing people disbanding and fighting waiting for this to occur in someone else's mind. Somebody needs to put the wheels in motion. After reading your post, maybe that will be you. Please bring peace among your kind before the translating community eventually dwindles to nothing.
Anon, I'm not sure how my post was a launch-pad for the direction your comment took, really... Your "UN" idea is sort of what I was getting at with the part discussing my feeling on joint projects and such, too... I don't have it in me to start mangahelpers2.0 AND run my own scan group, but you can definitely reread my post and see that the attitude you describe in your comment is not the attitude we hold, and not an attitude that you can generalize to all scanlators.
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