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.

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

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.

You, Homu, just go and do the same things to Mado.

WHAT THE HELL?

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

When you come, make sure you say "Tiro Finale!", all right?

TIRO-FINALE!!

Never have I thought of seeing this here...

M4 R4DD-1SH.

Accurate.

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.

XDDDDDD

Ah. Don't mind us. Just do whatever you've been doing.

Don't link to the image file. Link to the HTML page.

I have my problems with the game, but that's not one of them

A Japan IP? Proxy? VPN?

I guess? I was thinking more of it as a work, though

Which is to say, the problems I was referring to are basically 'it feels cynical and pandering'

Well as long as it's making moe girls out of vessels.

I have my problems with the game, but that's not one of them

A Japan IP? Proxy? VPN?

One question:
Are there anyone around you who are oppose to this Fleet-Collection game/comic because of some anti-militarism reasons?

But then they'd have to oppose Strike Witches and it's hard to argue against Eila x Sanya.

And you forgot Girls und Panzer.

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.

One question:
Are there anyone around you who are oppose to this Fleet-Collection game/comic because of some anti-militarism reasons?

Spoiler:

.............................................
HOMU ... Mami.....................
.............................................

................... HOMU...............
Mami Mado..........................
.............................................

HOMU...................................
............... Mami Kyouko.......
.............................................

...................... HOMU.........
Mami Sayaka....................
..........................................

Ritsu you did the right thing.

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.

I'm not so optimistic. When it becomes an "industry", it can produce nothing but waste. Take a look at what the "software engineering" has become, and you'll know what I mean. Translation itself is, as long as it's done by human, a craft, which should never be done by paid workers, but by dedicated fans.
Oh. Did I mention a number of crap-like translations that don't deserve to be supported and respected at all, some of which even got uploaded here on DR?

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.

last edited at May 10, 2014 3:25AM

Everyone here reads Yuri.

Find myself loving this manga more and more on every release.
(The anime too)

Yeah. You even changed your avatar for it, didn't you.

for JUSTICE!

Come to think of it, I found myself laughing badly at one version of subtitles, where they mistook the "justice" with "just this". I think their line-dumper needs to attend English classes.

I saw that one first, then re-watched and noticed it.

EH!?? I was talking about a CHINESE version!! Did we watch the same one??

Ep5, to Nekoyama: Of course you can sing it(=the ED)! It's your own song!

so are DS planing n geting chapters 9-25?

Lazy Lily is skipping those chapters - because they were covered in the anime - so they can catch up with the print releases. As such, there is nothing for us to "get" at the present time.

Well that means I've got to read the Chinese scanlations.