Dreamysyu

Oh god, please no.

Hello Lady! Translation Project Recruitment
VNDB

Hello everyone, I am coming forth with a translation project that I’d love to make a reality.
I’ve been a fan of Akatsuki Works for a very long time, love almost all of their titles and I’ve been waiting for three years now for someone to pick up Hello Lady! in order to translate it.
However, no one picked it up and I thought it was about time for me to try my luck with it.
So here I am, I’ve been preparing a lot of things since last week and I think I’m about ready to make my announcement.
Because yeah, for now I’m all alone and if I’m making this post it’s mostly to see if there is anyone interested in helping me / seeing a Hello Lady! translation.
If you’re looking for more information about the game, just browse the VNDB page: https://vndb.org/v13631
 
 
Current state
I’d like to start by saying this, but unfortunately, I’m no translator and thus no progress on the translation have been made so far, however:
I’ve spent the last week trying to extract the scripts and other files from the game, I’ve now figured how this all works and am able to extract everything without issue from the game. Despite a lot of trouble, I am now able to repack all kind of data inside the game (see the pictures at the end of this section) and there seems to be no issue with using English inside the game. I wrote a custom formatter to format the scripts into an easily readable format and scrapped everything useless from them, the scripts are now uploaded to my google drive as worksheets so
they can be really easily edited and are stored in the cloud (I’m going to keep backups often though, just in case) So basically, I’ve done everything I could possibly do by myself. As I am not a native English speaker nor a Japanese speaker, I’d like to avoid doing any linguistic work (except proofreading for spelling mistakes and such).
That being said, I’m not going to be completely useless during the whole project either, I can do a lot of small things on the side. As I said I can do some proofreading but I also have some skills in editing,
not to the point of uncensoring of course, but I could edit the menus without too much trouble.
 
Some images of the game with English text inserted:


 

Here’s an approximation of the sentence count for each part of the game:
Common
Pershow (?)
Tamao
Sorako
Eru
Saku
5103
194
4040
3906
4563
6358
Not sure what Pershow is to be honest, anyway it’s very short.
 
Recruitment
As previously said, I would need to assemble a team in order to make this project a reality.
If you want to volunteer, first thank you a lot, but then please contact me by private message here on Fuwanovel and not by responding to this thread.
For now I am only looking for a translator (since nothing will be done without it) but I will open new positions as soon as a translator is found (if it ever happens ).
Translators / Translation checkers
I don’t really care about previous experience, what I’m looking for is someone serious about this (that can stay around for more than two weeks and who knows what they’re doing)
and that have at least a few hours every week to give to the project, I don’t want this to drag on for years and I’d like to submit weekly updates as often as possible.
 
That's all for the recruitment as of now.
 
Final word
Thanks to everyone who read up to this point, I hope that I’ll be able to found at least one translator because I’d really love to see this game translated.
I’m going to check this thread and my Fuwanovel profile regularly from now on in hope to find a translator and I’ll update with new positions (Editing / QC) as soon as something happen, but please do not get your hopes up for now.

- Azengar

Thank you! We were all shocked as well!

You know, I had the same conviction about Kajitsu when I was starting it. I was wrong, and I deeply regret reading the censored version.
I think, somebody mentioned that the h-scenes in Rakuen are actually important for the story in some way, but I haven't played it yet so don't quote me on that.

You know, I had the same conviction about Kajitsu when I was starting it. I was wrong, and I deeply regret reading the censored version.
I think, somebody mentioned that the h-scenes in Rakuen are actually important for the story in some way, but I haven't played it yet so don't quote me on that.

Direct delivery of feels  o7



 
Swan Song (big spoilers)



 
Fate/stay night



 
Grisaia no Kajitsu



 
That's all that I can think of off the top of my head.
 
EDIT: Fixed the CGs that weren't showing up.

I'm alive (more on that in this morning's upcoming VNTS post)! What's more: I've sought out stable internet, and I've given Fuwa a good ole six-hour blitz. Lots got done, but I think you'll all be very glad to hear that...
All themes should be back up and running! Let me know if you run into problems with any of them! I fixed the thing. I removed the other thing. I've flagged all accounts who turned traitor and used Rooke's Crappy Default Theme. They are traitors to the cause and will be punished. Once more we are all equal, and some are more equal than others.  Joking aside, themes should work. Give it a go, and let me know what I unintentionally broke.

Greetings fellow Muv-Luv fans! 
Sorry for this abrupt post, but we here at ixtl would like to reach out and get more acquainted with all the fans out there. Of course, the Kickstarter was just the beginning - we have much more great things in store! To help kick this off, we've prepared a survey that we'll use to help influence our planned presentation at the Tokyo Game Show 2017. So, those of you who have time - please fill it out. For those of you who have more time - please share this with any Muv-Luv fans that you know or can reach. (No matter where that might be!) To prove that it's official, the survey will be hosted on the official ixtl site. If you have any questions, list them here and we'll get back to you as soon as we can! That said, please fill out the survey asap as TGS is nearly here!
Details here: http://www.age-soft.co.jp/archives/2143
Survey here: https://sites.google.com/view/muvluv/
The Muv-Luv Team

While the truth to this statement is generally questionable(seriously the level of quality of certain fan translations is laughable). , I will say this is not the case for the translators of Dies Irae. You are implying that the translators did not genuinely love the work, put passion into it, and worked their butts off on the Dies Irae project. I talked to the translators numerous times, and they have told me that despite being underpaid they took on this crazy project. You have no idea how hard it was to translate Dies Irae at all. Masada's script is complicated, the kanji he uses can range from archaich to straight up requiring specialized knowledge to tackle on (ie: knowledge of Buddhism suntras and such). The translators spent over 800 hours on transalting Dies Irae, and it was a challenge. 
Yes, there are typos and errors, but in a game that is 50+ hours long, mistakes are bound to happen. The translation team is actively working on fixing the mistakes and it isn't like they don't give a fuck.
 

Well, the thing is: they actually did. It had a pretty long prefundia and some sites advertised it but nowadays it's pretty hard to get more mainstream exposure even for the KS of the bigger publishers like Front Wing or Sekai. Just how many news websites reported on Subahibi? VN KS is not something new and unusual like before so even these companies have to rely on their loyal fanbase they had a chance to amass. Plus SS isn't even something literally anyone has ever been hyped for before. Probably the best thing Sol Press can do right now is releasing that promised demo and striking a deal with other publishers to get a shout out in the updates of the big and succesful Kickstarters.

HYPE.
I was waiting for this release since it was announced and was counting the days until now. I hope my enjoyment of the game is as high as my expectations, which seems it will happen. For those interested, I'll leave the link for MG's page.
Let's talk about this wonderful game for the next days, shall we?
http://mangagamer.org/misslonesome/ (SFW)

Lol, I got the email for this too. I wouldn't buy that bundle for a dollar!
Edit: I gotta say though, the descriptions on these games are gold!

I've seen people say they won't buy it because Sakura games suck.

So, I finished Yang's route in Pygmalion now, and I think I'll leave it at that. To be honest, I think I only made it that far because I enjoyed its music so much. I really have to try to extract its music somehow or get a download for it since it would be a waste to just have it gone. In that regard its similar strong or maybe even better than Tokyo Babel which also had a quite good soundtrack overall. For all their flaws, Propeller did have a good sense of music.
Unfortunately, the VN had a lot of other flaws that couldn't just be compensated by the music. First and foremost the weak character cast, followed by a very chaotic story flow. And the top offender was Mina itself, the protagonist. If I would be forced to find a word that describes everything about her, personality, attitude, character strength, everything in one word, then this word would be "Huh?!". Nothing else describes her complete cluelessness, lack of common sense and character strength better than this word. You can literally talk her into every crime with just a half-assed explanation because she will believe everything or just be too timid to doubt you. You can totally expect stuff like "Huh, how could I have known that the kid will be dead after I shot it?!". Overall, she acts like a 5 year old child for the most part of the VN which gets VERY annoying after a while.
The rest of the 'yuri circle' - Riko and Jessica - also didn't exactly stand out through particular smartness. Riko was as bland and boring as it gets while Jessica was at least bearable and actually has some decent scenes. Another top offender was Madame Leifang who could be considered the leader of 'Team Ruka'. Her main agenda seemed to be to cause as much infighting as possible and get her team killed as fast as possible. She also constantly seemed to change her attitude through the VN to a point where I had the strong suspicion that she might constantly having her days. At some point I just gave up trying to understand what she actually wants.
Yang, her daughter, was better and some of the characters who acted a bit more mature. Though she was essentially not more than a side character. She only appears for a short time at the start and then just joins much later on. And most of her 'route' consisted of sitting in a car and talking with Jay, which was surprisingly one of the more relaxing parts of the VN's. And speaking of Jay, he was probably the best written character by a long mile. Calm, composed and loyal - I really liked him. He would have been a way better protagonist than Mina.
Art was hit and miss. The artist had frequent problems finding the right facial and body proportions. At its best there were some really nice and beautiful CG's, but more often than not it just turned out as weird and distorted.
For the story itself, it had potential, but the weak character cast and chaotic story flow more less killed it.
Character ranking: Jay > Yang > Jessica >> Riko > Madame Leifang >> Mina (I use a character ranking instead of a heroine ranking this time so I can include Jay)
Overall rating: 6/10
 
Regarding other translated VN's I'm currently reading, I'm half through with Chrono Clock. Makoto's route was pretty good although a bit short. Misaki's and Michiru's routes felt really unnecessary and tagged on though, with a much lower quality than Makoto's route. They dragged quite a bit and it took me several breaks to dig through them. Currently at DD's route which I'm not sure yet how it'll turn out. But the VN certainly lives from its charming characters.
Finished Kasumi's route in Dies which wasn't that great and getting to the end of Kei's route I think. Seems a bit better than Kasumi's, but it's still rather bland and predictable. I think I've never experienced a writer that had such a tendency to blather like in Dies. Ask anyone for directions and he'll just say "Just over there, 200 meters from here on the left side.", ask Masada and you get a half hour sermon about 'going against the forces or nature', 'wilth full spirit', 'even if it costs you your life', 'and never give up' and stuff like that - you get the picture. It's only possible to digest in small doses... -.-
Also started with Fata Morgana and it's rather promising so far. In contrast to most others I didn't like the music at all and replaced it with the soundtrack from Beyond two Souls from Lorne Balfe which somehow fits the gothic atmosphere better. The original soundtrack also had too much (bad) singing and I find atmospheric music with singing horribly distracting. The sprites are good, the backgrounds... not - in half of the cases I can't even figure out what the background image is supposed to show. Oddly enough, as long as the sprites are good the weak backgrounds don't hurt the experience as much as I thought. But the writing is overall spot on so far and compensates for a lot of its other shortcomings.

This post shows exactly why releasing in English a VN with "Sakura" in the title is a risky decision nowadays.
Wait, there are two Sakuras in the title...

And the Chaos:Head patch was released in 2008.  It had a show-stopping bug where, if you saved at the wrong time, attempting to load that save would crash the game.  Whoever developed that patch never bothered to fix it.  It wasn't fixed until earlier this year (or was it late last year?) by a completely different team, and then only because that new group started working on Chaos;Head Noah.
Also, you mention fan translation scripts that have been "perfected"?  Fan translations vary widely in quality, and many of them are pretty darned crappy.  I haven't played it myself, but I am given to understand that even at revision 4, Amaterasu's work on ReWrite just wasn't very good.
Finally, while it is true that fan translation patches are free, the games themselves are not.  Fan translations ask you to pay the ridiculous Japanese retail price for these games.  That's way more than any of the professional releases you mentioned.  Of course, if you just pirate the Japanese release, and compare that to paying for Western releases, well then that's not a fair comparison at all.

If the missing voices are due to missing voice files in the Japanese release, there is not really anything translators can do about it. However translators can introduce crashes. This would be a crash when displaying a certain line, though this will usually cause a crash even if you try to skip passed it. Not all VN engines are equally friendly towards getting English text and it's can actually be a lot harder to get them working than one might think. Sengoku Rance (the patch, not the MG work in progress) has left some names untranslated because translating them would cause the game to crash. I had to write a program to insert English text into Musumaker because just replacing Japanese text with English will cause crashes and the workaround for that is too tricky to do by hand for each line.
It's also worth mentioning that some official translations have been using different engines than the Japanese versions of the same VNs because of engine limitations. For all we know, Fan TLs can crash because of such engine limitations. Fan tls has less freedom when it comes to choice of engine because they can't repack every single data file to match the new engine. Also some VN engines use compiled scripts and moving those to a new engine requires the source code for those scripts. Just like pre-censored CGs, the source code is only available to official translators.

In short: yes missing voices and crashes are annoying, but I wouldn't blame the translators for those, at least not without checking that the problems aren't present in the Japanese version or if they are caused by engine limitations.
The script errors are due to translators, or rather editors and QC. @Fred the Barber commented pretty well on that part.
 
I was about to write something about how that's not the case and fan tls are progressing etc. (at least those I have internal knowledge of). However your post made me think about this and I have come to realize something.
 
Way back in the dawn of time for English VNs, lets say year 2000, translations were made by a group of people gathering in the same building to work on a translation. Once completed, it was put on CDs, placed in boxes and then the boxes were sold. In other words it was the pre-internet approach.
 
The problem with that approach is that if you happen to live in an area without such a company and you can't or won't move to a location of such a company, the only way to translate is to make a fan tl patch. Sure enough fan tl patches started to appear.
 
Now the one building resulting in CDs approach has died and most (all?) of the companies with it. Today we have some other companies and they have embraced the internet. Suddenly translators can sit in their parent's basement or in some foreign country or whereever they are and work on commercial titles. This means skilled people are no longer forced to only work on fan tl patches.
 
What does this mean for the fan tl patches? Mostly it means brain drain. Skilled people figure why not get paid to do what they currently do for free? Is it the end for fan tls? Not as I see it. The fan tl community will likely shift towards having a bunch of people who does the work to gain experience, which will help them getting a paid job. This means it will not die, but since the official releases will end up with all the skilled and experienced people, we can expect the fan tl quality to drop relative to the official releases. I wouldn't call that dying, but we will likely see fewer masterpieces. Having said that, some people want to translate one specific title and if they can't get paid to do so, they could do it for free, which is likely the main reason why I will say that we might still get masterpieces as fan tls.

Recent professional English VN releases from known good localization outfits (anything recent from MG, SP, and possibly JAST?) are universally higher quality than fan translation patches. The team that did Dies irae was not associated with any of those, and this was their first project; they likely incorrectly believed they didn't need (or perhaps could not afford at the rate they promised? who knows.) as much QC as is merited. Turns out that when you have hundreds of thousands of words to deal with (Dies irae might even be into the millions?), even if you're pretty damn good, you still make a lot of mistakes.
I'd be curious to see a citation of a really excellent fan translation, which some people in this thread seem to be asserting not only exists, but even go so far as to imply it's the norm. Honestly, even the best ones I've read have universally been filled with errors (at least as high an error rate as what you're seeing in Dies irae, given the number of lines you've quoted and the size of the script), and that's to say nothing of abominations like 11eyes. KoiRizo is a great example of a fairly well-written script, for a fan TL, which is again still chock-full of errors, because QC is both hard and hard to prioritize for fan TLs. Or we could go look at, I dunno, the Little Busters! fan TL, which doesn't even have word wrapping in the entire script. I've certainly never read a fan TL with as high a quality as the S;G0 release being called out in this thread, for instance, even though S;G0 does indeed have at least a couple dozen errors that I found when reading it. I think that's nonetheless still pretty solid for a script of its size.
I also don't even usually see fan TLs releasing patches; the aforementioned KoiRizo, for instance, certainly had someone who was willing and able to make all those fixes, but the people making the patches couldn't be bothered to take them.
Fan TL is a fine thing for getting exposure for stuff that otherwise wouldn't get it, but you're kidding yourselves if you genuinely believe it's higher quality than what you're getting from known good English VN publishers.

Hi everyone ! I want to let you know The Last Birdling has been released:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/


Bimonia is one of the last Birdlings alive on this earth. The Birdlings see humans as sworn enemies, and Bimonia has been taught to kill on sight.
One day, Bimonia meets Tayo, a human child hunting in the forest. Bimonia fails to kill Tayo, and they instead become friends. Mother will be furious if she finds out, or worse, this relationship may cause tension between the two species to erupt.
The Last Birdling explores Bimonia and Tayo’s fight for their friendship as the world threatens to tear them apart.


Follow Bimonia and Tayo’s journeys from alternating perspectives. With 21 decisions and 5 different endings, The Last Birdling is a culmination of all the lessons I have learned since 2012. There is a progress tracker available, which means players can unlock all the conclusions without any guides. I have also added a glossary feature, so those who wish to dive deeper can immerse themselves in the lore.




I hope you can give The Last Birdling a look and spread the word. As always, a review afterward would be much appreciated, since it will help other gamers out.


Thank you for the last five years of support!

“During this difficult time of betrayal I am confiding in the anime whose authentic, pure, and heartfelt love story made me fall in love with the medium: Kanon,” reads a note left by Irons.
 
just wait till he finds out Kanon was also an eroge lol

PARIS, TX —  Last week, 28-year-old anime fan Learmont Irons reevaluated his life upon finding out that his current “anime of the season” was originally porn. Reports indicate that Irons was browsing the franchise’s Wikipedia page when he discovered the horrifying truth.  While struggling to cope with this revelation, Irons barricaded himself in his room. Eyewitness accounts state that he refused to come out until “Nasu took back what he did”.
Kinoko Nasu has been unavailable for comment since the incident.
When questioned about his reaction, Irons had this to say, “When I first started watching [Fate/Stay Night] Unlimited Blade Works I expected the girls to be pure maidens. Imagine my shock when I found lewd images of my favorite character. It’s one thing if it’s fan art, but the fact that it was official ruined my image of Tohsaka Rin. I felt betrayed.”
When asked about other characters such as Saber and Sakura, Irons said he had no problem with that. He explained that since neither Saber nor Sakura were his waifu then he could “care less about those sluts and their H scenes in the visual novel.”
Anime expert and Type-Moon enthusiast, Howard Ludo shared his thoughts on the matter, “It’s these dirty secondaries. They think that they can waltz right in here without reading fifty hours of scrolling text. [Irons] wouldn’t have been surprised if he had read the fucking visual novel.”
There are similar reports involving such beloved series as Little Busters, Utawarerumono and Yosuga no Sora. Fans seem to be uncomfortable with the fact that their favorite anime was originally fap fodder for lonely Japanese men. This has baffled researchers.
“During this difficult time of betrayal I am confiding in the anime whose authentic, pure, and heartfelt love story made me fall in love with the medium: Kanon,” reads a note left by Irons.
As of press time, Irons is still barricaded in his room. According to his MyAnimeList account, Irons is still keeping up with the series despite the setbacks.


Sauce