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Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Manga Translators are Whack:

Thousands, tens of thousands of manga are scanlated regularly.  (21,434 to be precise) Every imaginable nonsense gets a scanlation, no matter how obscure or unpopular.  And yet somehow, some of the most popular, famous and high quality series are no longer receiving any translations.

These series were good enough to receive large anime adaptions, were translated for years, are extremely well known and in high repute, and yet, here we are.  It's unimaginable that among the 21,434 series being translated no time can be spared for these guys.  Who is making these decisions and why?  You're telling me that these series are lower than 20,000th on the priority list of what to translate next?

Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Ilya 3rei?
Zettai Karen Children?
Guyver?
Major?
Hanayamata?
Locodol?
Joukamachi no Dandelion?
Sore ga Seiyuu?
Kitakubou Katsudou Kiroku?
Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card hen?
Lucky Star?
Nanoha Vivid?
Futari Ecchi?
Alien Nine Next?

Again, these series aren't obscure.  They're popular, famous works.  They have anime adaptions.  At the same time, they haven't been fully animated, so it would be extremely useful for the un-animated portions to have their manga translated.  Everyone who fell in love with the anime would get to see what happened next.  I can't imagine a more noble purpose for a manga scanlator that would benefit more fans.  But here we are, with 21,434 series being translated, and despite how obviously good it would be to translate these series instead of 'obscure nobody #20,000', all these series have simply dropped off the face of the Earth.

Some of these series are among the highest sellers in Japan, or the longest running manga of all time (longevity is proof of merit, how else could the mangaka stay published the entire time?)  But they still aren't good enough to merit one single translator to go out of their way to help them, despite 20,000 other series making the cut.

I just don't get it.  What goes through the head of people who can read Japanese?  Do they seriously believe 'Deer Island' takes priority over Fate/Kaleid Liner?  Or are they just trolling us?  Have they all gone mad?

Fate/kaleid liner is being translated into Vietnamese every month, so someone on Earth is showing it proper respect.  But not into English.  Despite English being the world's common tongue.  The lingua franca.  We don't receive a translation while even the Vietnamese do.  In what world, what timeline, does this make sense?

I've successfully caught up with World Teacher, Michibiku Douchuu and The New Gate.  I'm currently working on Arifureta.  But I'd trade all of them for just one more chapter of Kaleid Liner, a series I actually care about.  It's the same for all this other junk.  What the hell is going on here?  I can read all the World Teacher I want but not Kaleid Liner?

Fate/Stay Night just isn't popular enough to merit a translation?

What's next?  One Piece will stop being translated?  Instead we'll get more Usagi Shouzoku?

If people just applied their amazing Japanese reading talents correctly, we could have all the answers to all the anime viewers' questions resolved by now.  Instead we're stuck in an eternal limbo cliffhanger, while meanwhile the translators toil away at delivering Chirori and Liebling.

Fansubbers have the worst taste on Earth.  20,000 series but no Kaleid Liner or Nanoha Vivid?  WTF?  How are Fate/Stay Night and Nanoha even up for debate?  They've been the most popular franchises in anime for decades now.  How are they not at least in the top 20,000 in terms of manga fansubbing interest?

How can fansubbers and consumers have such incredibly different taste in manga?  We want to read one thing, but they only want to scanlate something else.  All the way down to 20,000 preferred choices, over the one damn thing the whole world wants to read.

In the real world, in Japan, where regular fans can just buy what they want to read, sit down, and read it, stuff like Kaleid Liner and Nanoha Vivid are acquired easily.  But over here, in the English language, it's like a 100 Years Quest where we have to slay five dragons as strong as Acnologia to get one additional chapter.  How did this gap occur?  What happened?

All I want is the ending to all my favorite stories.  But because scanlators are too busy translating 'Chuuou Asia Cooking' I can't have that.  What level of insanity is this?

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