Karakkan

Ummm...me?  We're not all pirates that refuse to pay a dime for literally anything we're required to download.

It's just one generation deep into the inbreeding, give it more time and I'm sure we'll start seeing something real special. I'm eagerly awaiting Imouto Paradise 4 where everyone looks like this:
 

The more Sakura stuff I see, the more I like to imagine that they have us caught in the long con.  That all of their sweaty shiny boobs money is being stashed away somewhere to hire an actual writer to pen a legitimately great story to go alongside their art (which regardless of how you feel about the company as a whole, I think it can be safely agreed that the artist could be doing so much better, whoever you are sir/ma'am please raise your standards and throw yourself behind a good writing team), and once its released and people go to review it ironically only to realize, "sweet shit, this is amazing!"  The internet goes nuts because people can't believe that it's actually good, and it spreads like wildfire, sales go through the roof, the Visual Novel community is saved by the second coming of OLEVNs!  Men weep openly in the streets without shame or fear, sunlight bursts through the clouds with a chorus of rainbows and song!  All the praises of the world are song to Winged Cloud and lauded for the achievements and accolades no one ever thought they could possibly earn!
 
Or they just want to milk the sweaty shiny boobs money cow for as much as they can until the novelty wears down.

I listened to the live stream and they never said anything like that.

Except now since they have/will localized G-Senjou, that means they have potential access to all of Akabei Soft's library.  Think of it as getting a foot in the door.

Progress Update #49

Umi's route is undergoing a revision too.
 
Just to note, but you probably shouldn't act so entitled towards translations. A fan translation's just volunteer work. If you want to read something so badly, then you should just learn the language. You ought to redirect some of that passion on criticizing other translation groups to improving your own capabilities as an individual. 

Wait, you havent even played the game and already asked for walkthrough?

Hmm...  I don't quite know why, but I feel like you may be biased somehow...
 
Seriously though people actually go read it, lots of fun

Go play Ayakashibito, if you haven't already. Suzu demands it. :3
 
incentive vid: (ED music, with some spoilerish cgs)
 



 
Been Tl'd for about a year now, I know - I just happened to read through it again recently on a whim (first finished reading it exactly 1 year ago today, lol). And recalled just how much I love this VN~ It has its flaws, but overall a epic read. <3
 
ok, think I got that fangasm out of my system for the time being~

So, as a little preview of what to expect on a qualitative level, we prepared a little prologue patch for you.
Note that this is not the final product and many an iteration is yet to come to polish it, but it should serve as a general representative of the level we strive to uphold.
 
The patch contains:
- All image content that needed translation / editing. We also took the liberty to fix some serious fuck-ups like "Sinario Select"... Don't blame us on the "Option" header in the menu, that's also one of favorite's masterful exercises of English and would involve a LOT of editing to change since it's on like 10+ images with distortion effects and whatnot...
- Fully translated & edited prologue segment of the game
- Subbed opening movie
 
Note: You need version 1.1 of the game. Click to download.
 
Special thanks goes to:
binaryfail for helping me with all the stuff that was over my head
ayase for masterful image editing skills (and almost 100 images at that!)
chuee for having handled most of the editing
 
Note that save files you might have are not compatible, so you might be well-advised to rename your save folder.
 
And here goes the patch.
 
Both positive and critical feedback is highly appreciated.

What a tease that is.  Though I'm still glad to see that progress is still being made at a rapid pace!

What a tease that is.  Though I'm still glad to see that progress is still being made at a rapid pace!

Sorry about the lacks of news concerning the project. Our translator recently moved into a new apartment so he was deprived of internet for a few months because of that, he'll get to work on his route pretty soon.
 
Apart from myself the only other member that regularly frequents the IRC is the hacker. One of our leaders (Oystein) that was also in charge of the website but he hasn't shown himself in months, and unfortunately there is no way to contact him about the website at this time. The other leader (Darkquake) is probably on a trip somewhere, but when he returns I'll pester him about making a wordpress site so we can post updates there instead of relying on this thread.
 
Other than that, just follow this thread and I'll post more news whenever it becomes available. Thanks for your patience and support. As long as we've got a translator at our disposal I'll make sure to keep pushing forward even it takes years to release a completed patch.
 
Edit: In other news, I've recently edited Lovely x Cation The Animation - 01 and you can stream it for free here. Hopefully it can satiate your appetite just a bit for things to come.
 
https://www.subdesu-h.net/lovely-x-cation-the-animation-01/

Wait what, are we really doing this?

Skyspear Translations is back! And this time we're trying our hand at a more popular title, but we need you to help us! Since the recent release of the fully translated patch for Majikoi there has been increased attention to the series. For this reason we would like to begin working on Majikoi A-1 in coordination with the project working on Majikoi S. By working on both projects at the same time we can bring the series in its glorious entirety to the community in a shorter time than one team could accomplish. 
 
Progress chart

Translators 2/2 - 2on, storyteller
Translation Checkers 1/1 dowolf
Editors 1/1 - EldritchCherub
Image Editor 1/1 - CryingWestern
Hacker 1/1 - CryingWestern

Progress Update Week #39
2 routes left to go.
 

Well, I hope nothing bad happens if I triple post, but here goes:
 
TL: 87.3% (9760/11177)
Editing: 86% (9615/11177)
Script Insertion: 33% (3686/11177)
 
This week, we managed 640 lines translated, and about 1400 lines edited. Since editing's essentially on par with the translation now, I got back to my first rounds of script inserts in a long while. Productivity burst mainly came from the long weekend, and having just checked off a couple of my big ticket assignments and exams.
 
It would not be unreasonable to expect TL and editing done in a couple of weeks, but even though I'm done with my batch of uni work, our translator is about to head into his crunchtime of exams and assignments. Even so, I can roughly foresee a full release by maybe mid May. Fingers crossed.
 
 

I don't want to turn this into a big drama-fest, so I will say, if I were in Qian's position, I'm not sure I would have acted all that differently. Maybe worded a few things more carefully, maybe been a bit more diplomatic in some circumstances, but I suspect the overall result would have been about the same. The guy is putting himself between a rock and a hard place with regards to handling English-speaking fan communities that are so used to not having to deal with legalities, and Japanese companies that are so used to their own insular business strategies. It's inevitable for there to be a whole lot of friction in the overlap. Maybe he doesn't smooth out that friction in the most tactful ways one could imagine, but that doesn't mean it's all his fault to begin with.
 
I didn't really mean to start a whole "this guy is such an asshole!" circlejerk; I just thought it was necessary to explain how and why Sekai Project and I were not able to work together.

An update to this project:
 
It's done. I finished my English patch for Part 1 on December 23 last year, and I finished my English patch for Part 2 (as well as some small revisions to Part 1) today, March 16, 2015. Everything is translated, quality checked, styled, polished, beautified, packaged, etc.
 
I will not release it publicly. I'm sure this is probably not what you want to hear, and it's not something I want to have to say, but my hands are pretty much tied. To explain why, here's a brief and necessarily vague overview of what has happened since the last time I posted in this thread:
 
As you can see earlier in the thread, Sekai Project pre-announced that they were considering producing an official English release of the Grisaia no Kajitsu series, with Chiru Chiru Michiru as a possible stretch goal to their Kickstarter campaign, just a few hours after I initially posted to announce that I was working on the VN. I contacted Sekai Project by the email form on their website, informing them that I was already half-way through translating the game, offering to work with them, and stating that I planned to finish the project regardless of anything else that happened. I received a response soon afterward from Raymond Qian, the CEO. He wanted me to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement before he would talk to me, and I agreed to that stipulation, signed the contract he sent me, and waited.
 
When we began to talk in earnest, it became clear the he was not at all interested in working with me. We discussed a few particulars of the situation, business details that I can't go into due to the NDA, but it seemed like he never even entertained the possibility that I could be a potential benefit to his endeavors rather than a threat. He was fairly adamant that I stop work on my project immediately, but I refused; even if I couldn't release anything to the public, I was going to continue with the translation itself. In the end, he asked me to remain completely silent about anything related to Chiru Chiru Michiru, and essentially disappear from public view, until the Grisaia Kickstarter had finished. I agreed to this.
 
In case you didn't know, a translation of a fictional work is considered a "derivative work" in copyright law. It's very similar to a sequel, side story, or fanfiction. The anime community (both Japanese and foreign) in general, and the community of English-speaking fans of visual novels in particular, thrives off of the creation of such derivative works. I originally bought Chiru Chiru Michiru at Comiket, a bi-annual event in the heart of Tokyo with an attendance of over half a million people that is completely dedicated to creation and sale of derivative works (mostly in the form of doujin manga). Grisaia no Kajitsu owes all of its popularity among English speakers to the efforts of Koestl and the TLWiki team that created the original Grisaia no Kajitsu translation as an unauthorized derivative work. But the fact remains, rights to a derivative work remain with owner of the original work's copyright. In other words, it is simply not legal for me to release my patch for Chiru Chiru Michiru to the public.
 
Most doujins, VN translation patches, anime fansubs, etc. manage to slip into a gray area in the law due to the anonymity of their creators or the lack of financial threat they pose to the business driven by the original work. Indeed, the original fan translation of Grisaia no Kajitsu did far more good for the series than it did bad; without it, the English-speaking audience for it would have likely gone forever untapped. But, I cannot slip into this grey area; my options have been made very black and white. I have no anonymity, and Sekai Project clearly sees me as a financial threat. I can choose only to release my work to the public in direct defiance of copyright law, or sit on it. So, I'm sitting on it. It's infinitely frustrating, but I have no choice.
 
I don't regret the choice to bring this project to completion, though, even if nobody can see it in the end. It was an unbelievable amount of work, but it was fun as well, and I gained a lot of confidence in my translation abilities in the process. I'm also incredibly proud of the end result, as it turned out far better than I ever could have imagined when I started the project. In the beginning, I legitimately thought I wouldn't be able to even finish the entire script, but now, I truly think I managed to create a version of the game that any Michiru fan would be glad to read. I'm actually at the point where I think it has a chance of ending up as being comparable in quality to the eventual official version.
 
Going forward, I hope to continue doing fan translations, hopefully for some less legally controversial titles. You may even see me around here sometime in the future with another visual novel project. And finally, I apologize for this post being, essentially, a message of "You get nothing." It almost seems unnecessary, or even arrogant, to provide this update, since there's no benefit to the people reading it. From an objective outside perspective, I might as well have just remained in my "mysteriously disappeared" status in this thread. Still, I wanted to share my story and keep people filled in. If nothing else, hopefully some people's curiosity has been abated.
 
And, thankfully for you, as a reader, the Grisaia Kickstarter is finished, and it did meet the stretch goal for Chiru Chiru Michiru, so even without me, you'll be able to read it, sometime in the future, when the official English version is released. I don't know any details about the progress or planned date of that release (and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to tell you), so you'll just have to wait for it. I'll be waiting too.

How about we nip this argument in the bud, eh guys?  You want to debate the merits of it somewhere else, by all means go ahead and do it in another thread.  Let's keep the conversation here fun and on-topic and not get petty.  He didn't like it and while we may not agree with his reasons, they're his reasons all the same.
 
I on the other hand would like to talk about Ayaka's route.  Just started Chapter 22, but damn, was not expecting it to go the way it has so far.

Too bad there's still no Ageha-sama's route.
 

... After I made the signature on saturday and pondered about it til now, I finally gave in. Praise Ritsuko. 
 
Ayaka's route is amazing by the way. I won't even write more words, just read it.
 
I actually found myself agreeing with the headmistress's argument about the culture festival matter in Rise's route. 
 
She's a fine antagonist. For a negative comparison, look at Sensei-what's-his-face from Konosora.