ALL the licensed series. Don't backtalk me: Copyright sucks.

(unless you're a writer, artist or publisher, of course)

Nope, pretty much only benefits publishers. Especially when it's manga where the license is dirt cheap and none of the money goes back to the artist. The only one making money are greedy middle men so don't start that whole "supporting the artist" bullshit that holds no water when the only people making money are distributors.

Who do the artists work for? Who signs their paychecks? And should they self-publish, do they benefit by copyright then?

Like I said, there are problems with copyright. There's no question about that. But let's not toss the baby with the bathwater, all right?

Sure, but no one gets money from US releases, so really that entire spiel about supporting the author is just hot air. If you want to support the author import, otherwise you're helping no one.

Actually I'm just curious about what he/she has been doing here, on this you-don't-have-to-pay-a-single-penny-to-read-them website, while lecturing us about copyrights. XD

---

Ah, and, yeah, lecturing us about the authors' making money as well, before I forget.

I'm glad you're at least honest about your motivations here: It's all about you getting shit for free. I can respect that straightforwardness.

Just don't try to dress it up in some "it's because copyright is a problem" or "screw the middlemen" jazz (as if licensing doesn't benefit anyone but Big Manga). Because in the end it's all about not having to pay for your entertainment.

But you're the one dressing it up, you're saying it helps the artist to buy the licensed series when it doesn't. If you want to have someone shit in your face it's a good idea, otherwise support the artist by buying the original release if you want and get the scanlations if you want quality releases, otherwise you're only hurting the industry as a whole and yourself by getting shit in your face.

Wait, when did I say that? The OP said that copyrights suck and I said "no, they're useful". I NEVER SAID THAT BUYING A LICENSED MANGA DIRECTLY GOES TO THE AUTHOR. How many times have you quoted it so far without noticing that?

It does benefit several parties though. Publishers, who are the ones who hire authors and may hire more if it looks profitable. Professional translators, editors, and other staff who help produce the licensed versions. And indeed, it helps the fans who might not come to sites like this one and would be more likely be exposed to it in comic shops, Amazon, etc. Plus if licensed stuff does well it encourages more stuff to be brought over which, as you say you want, benefits the industry. And yes, that indirectly benefits the creators as well, as it might potentially get them more work with the publisher if an international market for their stuff can be proven.

But this all comes back to EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG, copyright has problems but does have valid uses. Acting as a barrier to getting what you want for nothing (as the original comment I replied to put so well) isn't one of those problems.

Come to that, unless you're buying a self-published doujinshi, importing raw volumes doesn't necessarily put money directly in the author's pocket either. Not sure whether royalties apply in a case like that, but the biggest beneficiary is still the publisher.

For that matter, if manga volumes provide royalties, are there also royalties that come out of licensing deals? Not sure where to look to find that out.

When it becomes an "industry", it can produce nothing but waste.

Manga was an industry before either of us were born. Licensing and translating manga and anime has been for at least 20 years.

There are advantages that legal solutions can sometimes provide which fan scanlations won't: guarantees of a certain level of translation quality, release consistency, access to different fan demographics.

You're kidding right? Have you ever even looked at CR's manga releases or just picked something off the shelf? More than half of them are worded badly horribly typeset and localized to the point that they make no sense. If you want good quality the professional translations are the last place you go, if you want to support the authors the professional translations are the last place you go. Essentially the only reason to buy licensed manga in the US is to support people who often steal the translations from scanlators in the first place making money off of doing poor quality work you can get better of for free.

I've been following the Spirit Circle simulpub coming out on Crunchyroll. I never know what kind of standards people who complain about 'typesetting quality' are on about so the chapters have seemed perfectly serviceable to me. Although I didn't have any complaints about the fan scanlation team, one of the advantages of Crunchy's service is its fixed release schedule. Overall I'm glad that Crunchy has started looking into up to date/simultaneous manga translation and would love to pick up a manga account if they get more yuri in their catalogue.

As for tankoubon, one thing that happened to me recently was handing off a copy of Osamu Tezuka's Buddha to my mother and (fairly aged) step-father. That is something I couldn't do with a torrent or an online reader link, and is one example of how licensed translations benefit overall manga fans. Another example is the 14 volumes I own of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Even though Kumeta Kouji does have a fairly dedicated scanlation group which has released many chapters of SZS, with 300+ chapters in the series and the denseness of the references in the series I'm glad that the English licensors managed to translate so much of the series.

You can throw in novel translations I own like the first two volumes of Nishio Ishin's Zaregoto, or the novelized adaptation of Strawberry Panic, as well. Although none of these releases are absolutely perfect, they are all very high quality and obviously done by people who have a lot of respect towards the original work. In all of the ways mentioned above, licensed translations can be an invaluable resource to manga fans in ways that would be difficult or impossible for fan translations.

Incidentally, although my collection of licensed manga and anime is larger than my collection of raw materials, the amount of money I've spent on Japanese stuff is easily more. Importing Japanese stuff comes with its own set of 'middlemen' (importing costs). When I make Japanese purchases, a more significant portion goes to parties which don't even have anything to do with the manga industry (shipping costs, sometimes customs payments, wut) making English releases much easier to pick up on a whim.

When it becomes an "industry", it can produce nothing but waste.

Manga was an industry before either of us were born. Licensing and translating manga and anime has been for at least 20 years.

And since then we've seen tons of waste comics. And waste softwares as well in the software industry, on a side note. Also, drawing comics and filming anims are different from licensing and translating them.

Acting as a barrier to getting what you want for nothing (as the original comment I replied to put so well) isn't one of those problems.

Unfortunately, it is. For I'm here on this Dynasty Reader to do I-and-uploaders-know-what-but-you-don't-seem-to-know.

so the chapters have seemed perfectly serviceable to me

You won't be thinking so if you have become a translator/editor/etc yourself.

You won't be thinking so if you have become a translator/editor/etc yourself.

You're just talking out of your ass without knowledge of the relevant comic now.

You won't be thinking so if you have become a translator/editor/etc yourself.

You're just talking out of your ass without knowledge of the relevant comic now.

Well, I'm just talking out of a common knowledge as a translator.

You won't be thinking so if you have become a translator/editor/etc yourself.

You're just talking out of your ass without knowledge of the relevant comic now.

He's not, the typesetting is really bad. If you found it serviceable you simply have incredibly low standards.

He's not, the typesetting is really bad. If you found it serviceable you simply have incredibly low standards.

What specifically are your issues with it? The fonts are legible, the placement appropriate. They don't do anything fancy with sound effects but that's how official releases should be given they're only supposed to be communicating the artistry of the original artists, not indulge in that of the typesetter's. I find it mind-boggling that somebody could complain about a typeset being 'below standard' when it manages to get across all of the actual text perfectly legibly.

He's not, the typesetting is really bad. If you found it serviceable you simply have incredibly low standards.

What specifically are your issues with it? The fonts are legible, the placement appropriate. They don't do anything fancy with sound effects but that's how official releases should be given they're only supposed to be communicating the artistry of the original artists, not indulge in that of the typesetter's. I find it mind-boggling that somebody could complain about a typeset being 'below standard' when it manages to get across all of the actual text perfectly legibly.

See? That's what the translating-industry have been producing, which is unacceptable for a craftstranslator.

Perhaps you don't know what it feels like when you found something better than others - more durable, more stable, more usable, more friendly, more whatever - is carefully handcrafted compared to its factory-made siblings. One such example is the CWPA 8, a MIDI-editing tool which feels much too greater than its descendant called SONAR. And I don't think there have been much difference from computer softwares to translating anims&comics&games: It's dedication that is able to create good products, rather than an industry.

last edited at May 11, 2014 9:45PM

Sorry, but that is a completely irrelevant argument. A translator or editor's craftsman's pride has nothing to do with what is actually good or acceptable for readers. In particular, facetiously disparaging the work of other craftsmen (translators or editors) without consideration of what is appropriate or necessary for their given environment or circumstances is nothing but selfish egoism. Until Gendo can point out an aspect of the particular comic's typesetting which actually effects general readers' experience negatively, he doesn't have a point.

Also, I can figure that you are probably influenced by experiences or conditions you've had to deal with in software engineering or something but you are still overgeneralizing in deciding that 'all industry is garbage'. There is nothing which actually prevents people or companies from applying dedication to industry (rather, the best products probably result from a combination of dedication and industry) so your blanket demonization of legal manga alternatives is simply nonsensical.

Sorry, but that is a completely irrelevant argument. A translator or editor's craftsman's pride has nothing to do with what is actually good or acceptable for readers. In particular, facetiously disparaging the work of other craftsmen (translators or editors) without consideration of what is appropriate or necessary for their given environment or circumstances is nothing but selfish egoism. Until Gendo can point out an aspect of the particular comic's typesetting which actually effects general readers' experience negatively, he doesn't have a point.

Also, I can figure that you are probably influenced by experiences or conditions you've had to deal with in software engineering or something but you are still overgeneralizing in deciding that 'all industry is garbage'. There is nothing which actually prevents people or companies from applying dedication to industry (rather, the best products probably result from a combination of dedication and industry) so your blanket demonization of legal manga alternatives is simply nonsensical.

I'll repeat my earlier statement that never mind the translation and typesetting, the manga itself is the product of a large and established industry that generally runs on very businesslike terms. There's been a manga industry since before most, if not all, of us were born and in Japan it's pretty well established. If industry were producers of crap by definition and caused lowering of standards overall, there would be nothing worth scanlating in the first place. Which of course invalidates pretty much the whole argument.

Thing is, I can accept that there are professional translations that have a lower standard than amateur, and even that in some cases those impact the readability of the final product. But you need to show that's systemic in order to claim that it's the fault of industry in such a general way. One or two outliers really isn't going to cut it.

Anyway this entire conversation is way off topic, and might be better elsewhere.

last edited at May 12, 2014 9:48AM

Sorry, but that is a completely irrelevant argument. A translator or editor's craftsman's pride has nothing to do with what is actually good or acceptable for readers. In particular, facetiously disparaging the work of other craftsmen (translators or editors) without consideration of what is appropriate or necessary for their given environment or circumstances is nothing but selfish egoism. Until Gendo can point out an aspect of the particular comic's typesetting which actually effects general readers' experience negatively, he doesn't have a point.

Also, I can figure that you are probably influenced by experiences or conditions you've had to deal with in software engineering or something but you are still overgeneralizing in deciding that 'all industry is garbage'. There is nothing which actually prevents people or companies from applying dedication to industry (rather, the best products probably result from a combination of dedication and industry) so your blanket demonization of legal manga alternatives is simply nonsensical.

Quite the contrary. (Off topic, the translators & QCers are the very first readers of translations, apart from the editors.) Firstly, if a reader finds a release acceptable while the translator isn't, the reader isn't reading the comic at all, because what he/she has been needed isn't a comic, but a mere text script without a picture, and some illustrations without a single line of text. Or rather, they just want a quick overview of the story, instead of a thorough understanding, which is what the translator wanted to convey to his/her real readers.
Thus, if you only get the main text translated/edited, you DON'T NEED TO do them at all - compared to which handing out a plain-text script would be of more good. If you expect your readers to understand what you left off in the raw's language, they must be able to read it (or at least, know something about it). Then what good are you doing except bringing the illustrations forward?

One minor thing is that the edited releases often get re-compressed when uploaded to online readers. But since we are talking about the "industry" of getting comics licensed, translated, edited & published, let's just skip that.

You mentioned disparaging the work of other craftsmen. If you are referring the translated comics as "works of craftsmen", I'd say that the main-text-only "translators" are just disqualified from being called either translators or craftsmen. Here is the place where our, like you said, "pride", can step in.
And what circumstance/environment could have made a so-called "translator"/"editor" think of something in their comics as "necessary"/"appropriate"? Just getting a 0-day release? Gimme a break. You might as well give your translation script to us. Work pressure because the company has other comic to do? See my last paragraph. Other than those, I can't think of any such "circumstance"/"environment".

I can even say industry pervents dedication. The streaming stages manually divided out of a continuous work make it inheritly impossible for dedication to get involved - you simply don't get to touch it before & after your work stage, and dedication usually isn't something you can share with others "as is".

Here I'll show you why the industry of both software engineering and comic translating are gabages:
1. You need to make sure what it would be like. For the former, they are your clients' needs (requirements); for the latter, they are what the author want to convey.
2. Since they are called "industries", they must be performed within multiple stages by definition. For the former, stages of "analysis", "design", "implement", "test"="QC" and "accept" are introduced; for the latter, they are "translation", "translation checking", "cleaning", "typesetting", "proofreading"="QC", etc.
2.5 Real industries, like house-building, toy-making, etc, requires standardized actions taken upon the materials, which differs from the two I'm talking about now.
3. If someone is working in one of those steps above, according to the paragraph above, he/she is likely unable to attend another because of the highly divided nature of "industries". Thus, he'she can hardly convey his/her idea and understanding to the downstream stages.
4. Even if we have "QC"s, they tend to ignore those text you left off, and might leave many small errors be, which in turn gets the most attention from readers. Believe it or not, it's just human nature to set one's eyes on the out-standing errors. The QC's often do this when the release is in a hurry.
5. We get garbage releases.

Sorry, but that is a completely irrelevant argument. A translator or editor's craftsman's pride has nothing to do with what is actually good or acceptable for readers. In particular, facetiously disparaging the work of other craftsmen (translators or editors) without consideration of what is appropriate or necessary for their given environment or circumstances is nothing but selfish egoism. Until Gendo can point out an aspect of the particular comic's typesetting which actually effects general readers' experience negatively, he doesn't have a point.

Also, I can figure that you are probably influenced by experiences or conditions you've had to deal with in software engineering or something but you are still overgeneralizing in deciding that 'all industry is garbage'. There is nothing which actually prevents people or companies from applying dedication to industry (rather, the best products probably result from a combination of dedication and industry) so your blanket demonization of legal manga alternatives is simply nonsensical.

I'll repeat my earlier statement that never mind the translation and typesetting, the manga itself is the product of a large and established industry that generally runs on very businesslike terms. There's been a manga industry since before most, if not all, of us were born and in Japan it's pretty well established. If industry were producers of crap by definition and caused lowering of standards overall, there would be nothing worth scanlating in the first place. Which of course invalidates pretty much the whole argument.

Thing is, I can accept that there are professional translations that have a lower standard than amateur, and even that in some cases those impact the readability of the final product. But you need to show that's systemic in order to claim that it's the fault of industry in such a general way. One or two outliers really isn't going to cut it.

Anyway this entire conversation is way off topic, and might be better elsewhere.

And what I've been saying is NOT about DRAWING comics. (Besides, it isn't an industry. It's a craft.) The "'industry' of TRANSLATING comics" is crap.

last edited at May 12, 2014 10:38AM

I'll repeat my earlier statement that never mind the translation and typesetting, the manga itself is the product of a large and established industry that generally runs on very businesslike terms. There's been a manga industry since before most, if not all, of us were born and in Japan it's pretty well established. If industry were producers of crap by definition and caused lowering of standards overall, there would be nothing worth scanlating in the first place. Which of course invalidates pretty much the whole argument.

Thing is, I can accept that there are professional translations that have a lower standard than amateur, and even that in some cases those impact the readability of the final product. But you need to show that's systemic in order to claim that it's the fault of industry in such a general way. One or two outliers really isn't going to cut it.

Anyway this entire conversation is way off topic, and might be better elsewhere.

And I'll repeat my opinion as well: Drawing comics isn't an industry. It's a craft. And the "industry of translating comics" is crap.

Drawing (and writing) comics professionally in Japan involves editorial input, from what I gather pretty heavily so in many cases. Not to mention, changing things in response to reader surveys since there's pressure when working for magazines to get good numbers. So yeah, it's an industry.

Drawing (and writing) comics professionally in Japan involves editorial input, from what I gather pretty heavily so in many cases. Not to mention, changing things in response to reader surveys since there's pressure when working for magazines to get good numbers. So yeah, it's an industry.

I can't see a relationship between "drawing&writing comics involves editorial input" & "changing things in response to reader surveys" with "it's an industry". In a craft, we do the same.

Drawing (and writing) comics professionally in Japan involves editorial input, from what I gather pretty heavily so in many cases. Not to mention, changing things in response to reader surveys since there's pressure when working for magazines to get good numbers. So yeah, it's an industry.

I can't see a relationship between "drawing&writing comics involves editorial input" & "changing things in response to reader surveys" with "it's an industry". In a craft, we do the same.

Then you don't understand what the word "industry" means. Which, from what I've seen so far, doesn't surprise me.

Drawing (and writing) comics professionally in Japan involves editorial input, from what I gather pretty heavily so in many cases. Not to mention, changing things in response to reader surveys since there's pressure when working for magazines to get good numbers. So yeah, it's an industry.

I can't see a relationship between "drawing&writing comics involves editorial input" & "changing things in response to reader surveys" with "it's an industry". In a craft, we do the same.

Then you don't understand what the word "industry" means. Which, from what I've seen so far, doesn't surprise me.

Yeah. I only know that an "industry" performs highly repetitive & standardized actions on large quantity of materials, where we introduced robots to liberate people from the boring labor. As with crafts, we put our hearts and dedication in, which differs from the heartless "industries".

And, I now agree with you about stopping this, since I can't find anything that proves you understand a single thing about translating, or at least, have ever done one.

last edited at May 12, 2014 8:25PM

Thus, if you only get the main text translated/edited, you DON'T NEED TO do them at all - compared to which handing out a plain-text script would be of more good. If you expect your readers to understand what you left off in the raw's language, they must be able to read it (or at least, know something about it). Then what good are you doing except bringing the illustrations forward?

You're misunderstanding something. I never said that Crunchyroll releases only translate the main text. I said that they don't do anything fancy with the typesetting, such as redrawing the Japanese sound effects and replacing them with specialized fonts. It is really just completely laughable that you are claiming people can't 'understand' manga based on Crunchy's translations. I suggest once again that you not make wild baseless guesses about things you have no knowledge about.

Did you realize that the 'translation' process you complained about producing garbage was the one that most fan scanlators use? There is no actual difference in the level of craft and dedication used in producing official translations. You're going on about imaginary flaws or the terror of industry with no basis in reality. The vast majority of good fan scanlations are produced via the same 'multi-stage process' as licensed ones are.

last edited at May 12, 2014 5:49PM

Thus, if you only get the main text translated/edited, you DON'T NEED TO do them at all - compared to which handing out a plain-text script would be of more good. If you expect your readers to understand what you left off in the raw's language, they must be able to read it (or at least, know something about it). Then what good are you doing except bringing the illustrations forward?

You're misunderstanding something. I never said that Crunchyroll releases only translate the main text. I said that they don't do anything fancy with the typesetting, such as redrawing the Japanese sound effects and replacing them with specialized fonts. It is really just completely laughable that you are claiming people can't 'understand' manga based on Crunchy's translations. I suggest once again that you not make wild baseless guesses about things you have no knowledge about.

Did you realize that the 'translation' process you complained about producing garbage was the one that most fan scanlators use? There is no actual difference in the level of craft and dedication used in producing official translations. You're going on about imaginary flaws or the terror of industry with no basis in reality. The vast majority of good fan scanlations are produced via the same 'multi-stage process' as licensed ones are.

Maybe you don't know that I AM in a fan scanlator group, and am now working as a translator there, in which the "multi-stage process" has been employed. AND that's where I found the "multi-stage process" unacceptable for a dedicated translator: I just have been failing to convey my understandings of how a comic should get translated and edited most of the time, no matter how seriously I put them into my scripts.
If the paragraph above fail to prove that I understand the differences between a comic-translating industry and a craft are, it'll be meaningless for us to talk anymore.
No offense & come to think of it, until now I haven't been able to find a proof against you being just a reader in your lines? Or rather, a proof that can show your knowledge about the insides of a comic-translating industry?

If you are seeing redrawing the sfx and replacing them with specialized fonts as fancy, I can only laugh to that, since that's just what a editor supposed to do. Who need a specialized (& dedicated) editor if the only work the "editing" means is to copy the text from the scripts, and paste them into the snow-white dialog bubbles? I can even write a program to do that, and then I won't have to worry about leaving a line or two.

Have you ever read this one? In case you aren't into Nanoha, just look at 06, 19 and Extra_2. Yeah, I know that if it was to get licensed & translated offically, it wouldn't take such much work, but I don't think those hired workers would put so much heart into it, not to mention how the chance of such a fanwork to get officially-done is close to zero. Furthermore, if a translation is done with dedication, it helps its readers to form a deeper impression about the story. It's just like cooking: even they taste exactly the same, a good-looking carefully made dish will definitely attract people from a plain-looking massive-produced one. As with such an "industry" you've been mentioning, I can't see such an effect, or at least so far.

last edited at May 12, 2014 9:00PM

This thread really went into a different direction...

--Kimi Ni Todoke (the manga is good but the anime makes it even better!)

I kinda got bored of the anime like 3 episodes in, I powered through like 10 episodes and it did not really get a hold of me...

--Horimiya (the most flirtatious of the ones I'm suggesting imho),

I guess this one is the one thats supposed to fit in to what I usually enjoy in flirty yuri stuff. It was not all that flirty, or more like... not flirty at all :S
10 chapters in and I already wanted to drop it... Read all that is translated and I don't feel like reading more.
Sup with all the love triangles? Even the typical "yuri girl who's love/crush doesn't stand a chance against the male MC, with whom she will probably end up falling in love with later on" is added to the mix...

Duno if I am going to check the rest of the suggested. It's just that to me everything comes out as typical romance stuff, quite bland, feels like cookie cutter stuff... all the same, nothing as fun to read as what I get from yuri...

This thread really went into a different direction...

Lol no kidding!

Duno if I am going to check the rest of the suggested. It's just that to me everything comes out as typical romance stuff, quite bland, feels like cookie cutter stuff... all the same, nothing as fun to read as what I get from yuri...

Eh, no worries. Those were the ones I found that I liked the most. Every time I go looking I end up stumbling into the same experiences as I described in an earlier post. These were the few ones that didn't need the use of sex for the characters to express that they love each other if the romance was actually decent for once. And I also agree about yuri, it's definitely a more enjoyable genre.

And I also agree about yuri, it's definitely a more enjoyable genre.

The only non-yuri romance I enjoy have been:
http://dynasty-scans.com/series/wakabayashi_toshiyas_4_koma_collection
and
http://dynasty-scans.com/series/yandere_kanojo_online Been re-reading this (like the 3rd time now), it's one of the most enjoyable manga I've read, one of my top fav mangas.

http://dynasty-scans.com/series/yandere_kanojo_online Been re-reading this (like the 3rd time now), it's one of the most enjoyable manga I've read, one of my top fav mangas.

Yandere Kanojo is pretty funny. I used to read a lot of non-yuri shoujo, but I've fallen out of the habit. I do have a fondness for Motomi Kyousuke's manga though. His (her?) protagonists generally have more spunk and personality than most girls in non-yuri shoujo.

Better art than most non-yuri shoujo too. Generally I find shoujo art to be stiff with questionable draftsmanship and anatomy skills at best, with only a few notable exceptions. It makes it really hard for me to get into.