yumi

And it's still going! Wouldja look at that. Huh. Crazy.
Just a mandatory "signs of life" post over here.
I'm legitimately sorry for the few peeps here and there who have tried to join the Discord server in the last months, but haven't been accepted in from the lobby.
That's because the shitfuck of a bot ("Yui") that we used on the server robloxed itself one day without warning, and since I didn't find anything I liked to replace it, it fell on me to give out the "Citizen" roles by hand. And I often wasn't on time before a disappointed newcomer left the server.
If that was you, dear reader, please join again. The server isn't dead nor do I hate you, I promise.
What else is up? We're 56% done, but also we work and in particular iterate soooo much faster than we did in the first two years of the project that you shouldn't extrapolate one way or the other from that number.
Also, we might be in a little bit of a pinch. It seems that we really might need another translator now, because for the time being I appear to be alone.
Seriously, if you're a competent translator, I don't care if you come in to one-shot some hentai scene without context or join for the long story haul, we just kinda need more hands on deck in the TL sector. Also most of what is left is pretty much straight up hentai anyway. And there's a lot of variety in that, I'll tell you that much. You'll even get to pick and choose. As long as you're good. Call now.
We might also soon take on a few fresh test readers. Not looking for TLC anymore because real TLC is a unicorn, and non-native TLC is just like, your opinion, man. Plus literally nobody does TLC anyway, not even paid work, so the whole point is moot.
Anyway DM me on Discord (yumi#0163) if you wanna talk about whatever. I don't have a good track record on replying to Fuwa DMs; sorry about that.

It's often said that one needs to decide whether they want to work on games, or on engine/tooling, because realistically one won't achieve both.
What you're proposing in this thread seems like an exceedingly lofty goal. While I was reversing KrkrZ and certain plugins and scripts for our current TL project, I considered translating and releasing just a small portion of the configs and docs, but dropped the idea after about five minutes as not worth the effort. There are maybe five people in the world who could appreciate it; all established OELVN makers are happily chipping away at Ren'Py and NaniNovel and finishing and releasing actual games.
It's not like I don't understand your fascination, though; I've waded around in its guts, and I do appreciate KrkrZ for what it is. It's a solid, lean and mean piece of code with a fantastic track record of running without issue on literal potatoes, and Japanese devs are still cranking out games for it - because that's what they know. It's convenient, for them.
But it's also a decade-old piece of nonportable code, and the environments in which those established Japanese developers finish projects are a hodgepodge of long-lost and proprietary plugins and tools, most notably the M.2 Scene format.
Ren'Py is free and NaniNovel costs $135. These are modern tools for modern developers, supported by an extremely active and enthusiastic community worldwide. It just doesn't make sense to try to make KiriKiri work for projects in the west - in my opinion, and seemingly that of existing OELVN developers.
Now, if you really do want to tinker with engines instead of games, I truly do wish the project godspeed. Krkrz is an interesting curiosity, and frankly machine translation and programmer's intuition can probably take you a long way in figuring it out. I can try to answer questions with my very limited existing knowledge, but most of the basics I've already jotted down here.

Gosh darn, I can't believe the previous post was in January of 2021. Though I guess I did a community post sometime more recently, at least.
Anyway, I've updated the main post again!
Basically, 2021 was really slow but we're doing pretty great now. Found not one but three new editors, built a new workflow, fixed most bugs that remained etc.
I didn't imagine the project taking this long when I started it. Granted, I didn't think much anything back then.
For some reason I feel kinda bad about that, but real life happens. I'm unfortunately rather detached from the project myself still, because I need to earn my bread and there's not much of it going around in the first place, for a struggling freelancer and entrepreneur.
However, the fantastic change this year is that my attendance or lack thereof is no longer a bottleneck for the project!
It used to be that we'd TL and edit chapters by sending back and forth these small database files, and I was the authority keeping track of progress and assigning, receiving and compiling together the work units. It worked sort-of just well enough when it was just two or three of us and when I was more available day to day, but became untenable as soon as I couldn't be around as much.
Now, after a few weeks' coding work from myself, everyone shares the same centralized data store via an online editor, also making a full history of changes, commenting/discussion per line etc. possible - and I don't even need to compile a build of the data for the others, any team member can apply the latest changes locally to their game via a single button press.
TL;DR Manakashi - alive and kicking!
Join the Discord

I get that this is not strictly on topic, but...
It's perfectly fine to learn things as you go!
My philosophy is to never wait around for something until you're "good enough to do it" under some arbitrary measure, because then you're wasting time, and time is the most precious resource of all. Additionally, I firmly believe that hands-on work is the fastest way to learn practically anything.
Of course it helps if you can be realistic about where you are skill-wise and what you need to do to grow (i.e. you're past the first Dunning-Kruger peak), but there's no reason not to start whatever it is you want to do right now.
Now, if your work is atrocious, people will tell you for sure, but very few are actually malicious enough to fault you for trying. You can safely ignore those few and try again or keep going.
Coincidentally, I'm translating Manakashi no Yuri wa Akaku Somaru. Why that one? Meh, no particular reason, really.

Not going to comment on any of the other parts or whether this seems like a workable idea in general, but you should run waifu2x-caffe locally on your own to process as many images with as crazy parameters as you want, rather than burden a public website with the load.

I'm very happy to announce that @LuckyDaikon has today joined the Manakashi team as a Translator!
She's very capable and I trust will be a major asset and advantage for our little project.
Give 'em a warm welcome, and remember to come hang out at our Discord to chat with our team and others who're looking forward to this title.

I'm very happy to announce that @LuckyDaikon has today joined the Manakashi team as a Translator!
She's very capable and I trust will be a major asset and advantage for our little project.
Give 'em a warm welcome, and remember to come hang out at our Discord to chat with our team and others who're looking forward to this title.

I'm very happy to announce that @LuckyDaikon has today joined the Manakashi team as a Translator!
She's very capable and I trust will be a major asset and advantage for our little project.
Give 'em a warm welcome, and remember to come hang out at our Discord to chat with our team and others who're looking forward to this title.

I'm very happy to announce that @LuckyDaikon has today joined the Manakashi team as a Translator!
She's very capable and I trust will be a major asset and advantage for our little project.
Give 'em a warm welcome, and remember to come hang out at our Discord to chat with our team and others who're looking forward to this title.

@yumi - Well, when you put it that way, that's understandable. Sadly, it's not an optimal situation. You're in the same position I was when I was doing Miagete Goran Restoration project. Finding and getting TLers to help ain't easy. Also, it doesn't help that the fanTLer pool has kinda been dwindling with most of the folks going official these days. So yeah... you wouldn't have much choice, so I understand where you're coming from.

Hello and good morning 
This is me just shamelessly bumping the thread to point out that the entire main post was replaced with fresh info and all that good stuff
Also, to reiterate, I'm officially putting the call out: We're looking for additional translators! Please see the main post or our homepage if you're interested, or point your friends there if you know someone who might be interested.

I'm not a fan of projects where you put the burden of good prose writing all on editors. Sure, editors are there to improve the flow of text and the overall reading experience. That's true. But I'm of the opinion that your TLer already needs to be at least somewhat versed in good prose writing (including flowery descriptions, etc.).

Hello and good morning 
This is me just shamelessly bumping the thread to point out that the entire main post was replaced with fresh info and all that good stuff
Also, to reiterate, I'm officially putting the call out: We're looking for additional translators! Please see the main post or our homepage if you're interested, or point your friends there if you know someone who might be interested.

Hey hey and Ho ho, quick post before I write up any bigger update!
Merry only-slightly-late Xmas!
Here's a new demo video of the project:
EDIT: Xmas video trailer deleted for being too wildly out of date at this point. (2023)
It's just a collection of short clips from different places, meant to show the technical side and also the rough TL/writing quality of what we're working with.
The scenes are random, spoiler free and not in chronological order.
Feel free to let us know what you think!

Hey hey and Ho ho, quick post before I write up any bigger update!
Merry only-slightly-late Xmas!
Here's a new demo video of the project:
EDIT: Xmas video trailer deleted for being too wildly out of date at this point. (2023)
It's just a collection of short clips from different places, meant to show the technical side and also the rough TL/writing quality of what we're working with.
The scenes are random, spoiler free and not in chronological order.
Feel free to let us know what you think!

I can promise you this one is not going to take years
I'll post a full update on the current situation on Fuwanovel pretty soon; we're stronger than ever and things are looking up!

I can promise you this one is not going to take years
I'll post a full update on the current situation on Fuwanovel pretty soon; we're stronger than ever and things are looking up!

I bet there's a lot people interested in this game, we don't see often in English games like Manakashi, we have for now in English, Maggot Baits and Sadistic Blood, and sadly NikuNiku ENG TL, game from the same dev/writer/artist that Manakashi was dropped time ago  I come to here the forum monthly just to check if there's more updates, and I'm happy you're still alive. I don't mind wait years for this TL, I've waited years for the ENG TL of Maggot Baits. 

Hey all, thanks for the replies and encouragement!
I realize that if one only uses this forum as their information source, the progress on this will probably have seemed rather scarce
And I admit, I haven't updated the thread at all to create any additional hype or expectations, but that's kind of been on purpose - I'm the sort of the person to typically walk the walk before talking about it. That way I can't let anyone down, heh.
Actually nothing in particular prodded me to post this update either, and I don't have a grand announcement to make right now, I just thought I'd pop in to say hi while coming to the forum to answer a few PMs.
So, how's it going? Well I'm not dead and the project certainly isn't either, all in all it has chugged along very well. I've been pretty active on a few big VN Discords and received a ton of help from a ton of absolutely awesome people, but for the past month or two I've unfortunately been very tied up in some other responsibilities. Such is life! However, I'm trying my darndest to get back to the Manakashi project right about now, so don't worry. I will, also, actually create a new teaser video of some sort soon to show off the quality and progress we're working with, as well as how I solved certain technical challenges.
I don't like talking line counts - and actually I don't keep or know exact line counts, either - but while there's a whole ton still to translate, I can at least say that I am rather proud of the quality of what has been done so far.
So anyway, I guess all I wanna say to you lovely people is that if you want to see this project happen, please don't hesitate to keep letting me know Reply to this thread, talk to me on Discord (yumi#0163), PM me on Fuwanovel, whatever - It does help me gauge interest and thus my own time allocation to the project, and actually means more to me than I'd like to admit.
I might've started the project for entirely selfish reasons, but due to the sheer volume of material alone it's not going to end that way. So, in addition to the previous paragraph, I guess I'd like to put out a lazy call for reinforcements. Translation (and the editing that follows) is the job I'm most picky about, but if you happen to be a proficient translator/writer and would want to help with this project, don't hesitate to get in touch. I also periodically need a few trusted people to QA/test the project while it is in progress. If you'd like to do that and think you'd be good at it, feel free to DM me on Discord, preferably. Additionally we will need a real TLC down the line, but that's actually not very critical right now.
So yeah, alright, that's the Manakashi project right now! Talk to you again later
Maybe I should ask for a developer role on the forums to create one of those dev diaries...

Hey all, thanks for the replies and encouragement!
I realize that if one only uses this forum as their information source, the progress on this will probably have seemed rather scarce
And I admit, I haven't updated the thread at all to create any additional hype or expectations, but that's kind of been on purpose - I'm the sort of the person to typically walk the walk before talking about it. That way I can't let anyone down, heh.
Actually nothing in particular prodded me to post this update either, and I don't have a grand announcement to make right now, I just thought I'd pop in to say hi while coming to the forum to answer a few PMs.
So, how's it going? Well I'm not dead and the project certainly isn't either, all in all it has chugged along very well. I've been pretty active on a few big VN Discords and received a ton of help from a ton of absolutely awesome people, but for the past month or two I've unfortunately been very tied up in some other responsibilities. Such is life! However, I'm trying my darndest to get back to the Manakashi project right about now, so don't worry. I will, also, actually create a new teaser video of some sort soon to show off the quality and progress we're working with, as well as how I solved certain technical challenges.
I don't like talking line counts - and actually I don't keep or know exact line counts, either - but while there's a whole ton still to translate, I can at least say that I am rather proud of the quality of what has been done so far.
So anyway, I guess all I wanna say to you lovely people is that if you want to see this project happen, please don't hesitate to keep letting me know Reply to this thread, talk to me on Discord (yumi#0163), PM me on Fuwanovel, whatever - It does help me gauge interest and thus my own time allocation to the project, and actually means more to me than I'd like to admit.
I might've started the project for entirely selfish reasons, but due to the sheer volume of material alone it's not going to end that way. So, in addition to the previous paragraph, I guess I'd like to put out a lazy call for reinforcements. Translation (and the editing that follows) is the job I'm most picky about, but if you happen to be a proficient translator/writer and would want to help with this project, don't hesitate to get in touch. I also periodically need a few trusted people to QA/test the project while it is in progress. If you'd like to do that and think you'd be good at it, feel free to DM me on Discord, preferably. Additionally we will need a real TLC down the line, but that's actually not very critical right now.
So yeah, alright, that's the Manakashi project right now! Talk to you again later
Maybe I should ask for a developer role on the forums to create one of those dev diaries...

Hey all, thanks for the replies and encouragement!
I realize that if one only uses this forum as their information source, the progress on this will probably have seemed rather scarce
And I admit, I haven't updated the thread at all to create any additional hype or expectations, but that's kind of been on purpose - I'm the sort of the person to typically walk the walk before talking about it. That way I can't let anyone down, heh.
Actually nothing in particular prodded me to post this update either, and I don't have a grand announcement to make right now, I just thought I'd pop in to say hi while coming to the forum to answer a few PMs.
So, how's it going? Well I'm not dead and the project certainly isn't either, all in all it has chugged along very well. I've been pretty active on a few big VN Discords and received a ton of help from a ton of absolutely awesome people, but for the past month or two I've unfortunately been very tied up in some other responsibilities. Such is life! However, I'm trying my darndest to get back to the Manakashi project right about now, so don't worry. I will, also, actually create a new teaser video of some sort soon to show off the quality and progress we're working with, as well as how I solved certain technical challenges.
I don't like talking line counts - and actually I don't keep or know exact line counts, either - but while there's a whole ton still to translate, I can at least say that I am rather proud of the quality of what has been done so far.
So anyway, I guess all I wanna say to you lovely people is that if you want to see this project happen, please don't hesitate to keep letting me know Reply to this thread, talk to me on Discord (yumi#0163), PM me on Fuwanovel, whatever - It does help me gauge interest and thus my own time allocation to the project, and actually means more to me than I'd like to admit.
I might've started the project for entirely selfish reasons, but due to the sheer volume of material alone it's not going to end that way. So, in addition to the previous paragraph, I guess I'd like to put out a lazy call for reinforcements. Translation (and the editing that follows) is the job I'm most picky about, but if you happen to be a proficient translator/writer and would want to help with this project, don't hesitate to get in touch. I also periodically need a few trusted people to QA/test the project while it is in progress. If you'd like to do that and think you'd be good at it, feel free to DM me on Discord, preferably. Additionally we will need a real TLC down the line, but that's actually not very critical right now.
So yeah, alright, that's the Manakashi project right now! Talk to you again later
Maybe I should ask for a developer role on the forums to create one of those dev diaries...

Hey all, thanks for the replies and encouragement!
I realize that if one only uses this forum as their information source, the progress on this will probably have seemed rather scarce
And I admit, I haven't updated the thread at all to create any additional hype or expectations, but that's kind of been on purpose - I'm the sort of the person to typically walk the walk before talking about it. That way I can't let anyone down, heh.
Actually nothing in particular prodded me to post this update either, and I don't have a grand announcement to make right now, I just thought I'd pop in to say hi while coming to the forum to answer a few PMs.
So, how's it going? Well I'm not dead and the project certainly isn't either, all in all it has chugged along very well. I've been pretty active on a few big VN Discords and received a ton of help from a ton of absolutely awesome people, but for the past month or two I've unfortunately been very tied up in some other responsibilities. Such is life! However, I'm trying my darndest to get back to the Manakashi project right about now, so don't worry. I will, also, actually create a new teaser video of some sort soon to show off the quality and progress we're working with, as well as how I solved certain technical challenges.
I don't like talking line counts - and actually I don't keep or know exact line counts, either - but while there's a whole ton still to translate, I can at least say that I am rather proud of the quality of what has been done so far.
So anyway, I guess all I wanna say to you lovely people is that if you want to see this project happen, please don't hesitate to keep letting me know Reply to this thread, talk to me on Discord (yumi#0163), PM me on Fuwanovel, whatever - It does help me gauge interest and thus my own time allocation to the project, and actually means more to me than I'd like to admit.
I might've started the project for entirely selfish reasons, but due to the sheer volume of material alone it's not going to end that way. So, in addition to the previous paragraph, I guess I'd like to put out a lazy call for reinforcements. Translation (and the editing that follows) is the job I'm most picky about, but if you happen to be a proficient translator/writer and would want to help with this project, don't hesitate to get in touch. I also periodically need a few trusted people to QA/test the project while it is in progress. If you'd like to do that and think you'd be good at it, feel free to DM me on Discord, preferably. Additionally we will need a real TLC down the line, but that's actually not very critical right now.
So yeah, alright, that's the Manakashi project right now! Talk to you again later
Maybe I should ask for a developer role on the forums to create one of those dev diaries...

Hey all, thanks for the replies and encouragement!
I realize that if one only uses this forum as their information source, the progress on this will probably have seemed rather scarce
And I admit, I haven't updated the thread at all to create any additional hype or expectations, but that's kind of been on purpose - I'm the sort of the person to typically walk the walk before talking about it. That way I can't let anyone down, heh.
Actually nothing in particular prodded me to post this update either, and I don't have a grand announcement to make right now, I just thought I'd pop in to say hi while coming to the forum to answer a few PMs.
So, how's it going? Well I'm not dead and the project certainly isn't either, all in all it has chugged along very well. I've been pretty active on a few big VN Discords and received a ton of help from a ton of absolutely awesome people, but for the past month or two I've unfortunately been very tied up in some other responsibilities. Such is life! However, I'm trying my darndest to get back to the Manakashi project right about now, so don't worry. I will, also, actually create a new teaser video of some sort soon to show off the quality and progress we're working with, as well as how I solved certain technical challenges.
I don't like talking line counts - and actually I don't keep or know exact line counts, either - but while there's a whole ton still to translate, I can at least say that I am rather proud of the quality of what has been done so far.
So anyway, I guess all I wanna say to you lovely people is that if you want to see this project happen, please don't hesitate to keep letting me know Reply to this thread, talk to me on Discord (yumi#0163), PM me on Fuwanovel, whatever - It does help me gauge interest and thus my own time allocation to the project, and actually means more to me than I'd like to admit.
I might've started the project for entirely selfish reasons, but due to the sheer volume of material alone it's not going to end that way. So, in addition to the previous paragraph, I guess I'd like to put out a lazy call for reinforcements. Translation (and the editing that follows) is the job I'm most picky about, but if you happen to be a proficient translator/writer and would want to help with this project, don't hesitate to get in touch. I also periodically need a few trusted people to QA/test the project while it is in progress. If you'd like to do that and think you'd be good at it, feel free to DM me on Discord, preferably. Additionally we will need a real TLC down the line, but that's actually not very critical right now.
So yeah, alright, that's the Manakashi project right now! Talk to you again later
Maybe I should ask for a developer role on the forums to create one of those dev diaries...

Can't wait!!! Good luck!!!

Hi everyone, I'm yumi from pantsudev and we're working on a translation of the 2019 adult visual novel
True Love's Lily Dyes Red
真愛の百合は赤く染まる
Manakashi no Yuri wa Akaku Somaru

https://vndb.org/v26232
Team

Team: pantsudev - Discord - Homepage - Twitter
Lead: @yumi
Translators: yumi, @LuckyDaikon
Editors: yumi, @nihilloligasan, girlrituals, Beau
Programmer: yumi
Contributors: @Zakamutt, @Funnerific

Ex-members: BlackBane91 (TL), @aho (ED)
Background
The work started sometime in the spring of 2020, mostly due to happenstance. I was bored and started hacking around this nifty new VN I'd found.
I developed my own tools and launcher/loader and started translating. Once it began to look somewhat promising,
I announced my lone work here so that others wouldn't accidentally end up duplicating my efforts.
Current State
Since the start of the project, I've been fortunate to meet some fantastic, nice and helpful friends who've certainly helped take the project to another level. Progress has been sometimes sporadic, sometimes steadfast, yet always inevitable. I'm a busy person, but never abandon my projects.
Last year (2021) was a bit quiet, but this year (2022) we've been happy to recruit THREE new awesome editors, and really picked up the pace again.
I created custom collaboration tools that allow the others to work on the project without my involvement at all, greatly improving efficiency.
A web-based translation editor allows everyone to translate, edit and comment on all the content in the game comfortably,
and a custom app allows everyone to synchronize the latest changes from the shared web editor directly into the game on their computer.
2023-02-15: Still alive
Still here, still going. You'd better believe it. Join our Discord. However:
It seems that we'll now be recruiting one (1) capable extra-/emergency translator!
We're no longer recruiting for new members. Thank you for your interest!
2022-05-25: Situation update!
We're no longer recruiting editors.
Thanks for your interest, and a warm welcome to nihilloligasan, girlrituals & Beau who recently joined the team!
As an interesting aside, with aho and BlackBane91 having retired from the project last year, we're now a team of 5 girls.
I swear it wasn't intentional. But slightly interesting, huh?
2022-05-25: Situation update!
The project is roughly 50% done now - and we've doubled the translated line count within the last 5 months alone!
The new TL & edit tools make for a much faster workflow, and all the programming and UI work is also pretty much done.
Therefore I feel confident in stating that we're now moving at a much faster pace than at any point before.
It's not going to take two more years.
What else? Well, our previous YouTube account got nuked; you can subscribe to the new one here.
Our Twitter account is @pantsu_dev should you care to follow. However, we are primarily active on Discord.
Alright, cool! Anything else?
Feel free to let us know what you think!
Join our Discord or reply to this thread, or PM me with any questions.
 
Thanks for reading!