29/07/2016

Greetings, I have good and bad news for you.
The good news: I procrastinated for a week to bring you this chapter.
The bad news: I procrastinated for a week to bring you this chapter.

Well, to sum it up, the weather was just too hot and me too lazy, so I worked on this instead, even though I shouldn’t. The consequence is that I want to (or rather, have to) focus on finished the rest of my thesis in the next two month, which means: No releases in that time.
I will be back in October with more, so please be patient.

On a related note, I could have waited to release this chapter until next week to have some kind of “excuse” for a release in august, but I came across a very interesting thread on /r/eddit. I am aware that my own biased views come across as hateful to most people, so I would like you to have a look at this well-written inside view on the business of light novels. It always makes me cringe when I see people complaining how Japan already has XY volumes out while the West lacks behind. The article does a good job explaining what hard work is involved in releasing a book.
My own standpoint is pretty biased, because my translator education emphazied on quality aka accuracy for years, and fan translation do skip most of the steps explained there, but one should not skimp on quality just because it’s done for free. I do not want to delve into ranting about wanna-be translators, so just let me say this: A profesional translator is said to take 4 weeks on an average for a whole! volume. That sounds impressive, but when you know what you do aka profressional, that is to be expected. On the other hand, most fan translators in the scene are self-taught. They are still unsure about a lot of grammatical structures and probably have to look up a lot of stuff. That takes time. And even if you don’t have to look up all that much, like me for example, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be faster. After all fan translation is a hobby and a hobby shouldn’t dictate your schedule. You do it whenever you have free time and feel like it. Some put more time into it, some others less. There is nothing wrong with it. A professional, though, has a schedule, a deadline. He has to make time for the translation, so in the end, he will spend more time on it than any fan translator will ever do.
The truth of the matter is that quick releases in the community do come at the cost of quality. It’s a whole different story if you are fine with that in favour for speed. For now I just want to bring to your attention that unlike professionals, we fan translator decide on our schedule by ourselves.
I cannot really speak for anyone else, so just apply this to myself: Please do not rush us. We love our hobby as much as you do and I doubt you would like it if someone told you every day to catch up on a certain series, because your reading speed or available time is less than his.
Selective perception certainly is a factor, but it’s in human’s nature to be affected by negative elements.
Share the love, but do respect the other party.
Professional translator do have a lot on their plate, too, and like you can see in the reddit post, most “delays” are beyond control, so take it easy with your accusations. All the problems addressed in the post cannot be fixed when the market does not grow because people insist that “quick” fan translations are better.
I think I, and probably others for that matter, already said that fan translations, be it anime, manga or novels, started and still ought to be a mean to raise awareness for the series, not a free access to everything. We are tolerated in a legal grey-area, so we shouldn’t push our luck just for our own convenience. If you really love it, do take a minute to think about what you will post to a translator next time.
Thank you.

Now enjoy the chapter~

24 thoughts on “29/07/2016

  1. Thanks for your work.

    Of course, there may always be issues due to schedule problems in some companies, but that happens too in companies unrelated to publishing and no one complains other than the workers, their bosses and client companies; it means nothing to the general public.

  2. Thanks for the chapter PROzess. I’ve never been one to rush a content creator. I put myself in their shoes and figure that after the novelty of being a translator/artist/etc. wears off it might feel like a chore to have to pump the chapters out. Not to mention that there’s often no tangible reward (barring translators who ask for “donations” but thats a whole other story). So I always have a lot of respect for people who are willing to put themselves through that. Anyways, you made me read a wall of text and a reddit post so now I’ll go read the chapter. Thanks again, don’t forget to work that thesis man.

  3. Hi, it’s been a long time since i getting my stuff done,wanna read this again buy i forgot how. I mean where can i find the chapter link

  4. Thank you for the new chapter and good luck on finishing the thesis.

    I’m glad you mentioned that translating the light novels is your hobby, not work. Some people tend to forget this fact! This got me thinking, as a professional translator, where do you fall on the spectrum of “literal translation” “translate the intent, not the sentence”? Now, for technical matter such as a paper from a scientific journal, you would obviously prefer the “literal translation”, but for non-technical literature, what are your preferences?

  5. A link to the chapter would be nice.
    At least I wouldn’t have to wander around to get to the goal.

  6. Thanks for the chapter. 🙂 Is this the last chapter of the volume? Or if not, what chapter does the volume end on? I tried to find the raws for this volume so that I could just take a look at the Table of Contents there to know how many chapters there are, but I can’t seem to find it. My only remaining option, then, is asking this question and hoping for a response.

  7. >A profesional translator is said to take 4 weeks on an average for a whole! volume. That sounds impressive

    No, not really. That sounds about right for a translation of that size.

  8. Let me start off just by saying thanks for your hard work and good translation, I love this novel quite a bit!

    I do have to say though, I understand the viewpoint of both parties (translator/readers) when it comes to all of the comments about release frequency. When I looked at the release dates for Vol4 that spanned the course of 8 months, I was pretty sad knowing that I’m probably going to have to completely forget about reading any sizable amount of this over the course of the next few years.

    I love you for translating it and know you have a busy life, but I hope this can get across my feelings on the matter as well!

    Maybe officially drop it for a year and see if anyone else picks it up?

    <3 regardless – Reader

  9. Thanks…………
    boooorrrrrreeeeeeeddd to death …… really hard to wait new translation.

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