recruiting Hello Lady! Translation Project Recruitment

[Azengar 38]

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

Edited July 15, 2017 by Azengar

[littleshogun 1528]

Good luck with the project there, because this time I had a little bit of personal reason to seeing this VN translated. Just take it easy there, and hope you'll be able to find the translator.

[Clephas 3716]

I'd love to help, but... truth be told, I don't have the time or energy to take on translation work at the moment.  Also, AKB2 is really aggressive about C&Ding for its works and those of its subsidiaries, so I don't really want to get involved with a publicly-announced project for one of their games, lol.

Good luck, though.  This is an excellent game.

[Azengar 38]

Thanks for the messages, if it comes to C&D well I'll see but thanks for letting me know, because I'm probably going to change my plans a bit then.

[syfjhz22 8]

2 hours ago, Azengar said:

Thanks for the messages, if it comes to C&D well I'll see but thanks for letting me know, because I'm probably going to change my plans a bit then.

Mimasu Kei (三舛啓) is famous for being Chuni. He spent a lot of time fighting 流風の舞 from KF, which even made 新妻LOVELY×CATION unplayable by inserting poorly implemented DRM engine.

Although he is good at sending threats and gaining publicity, but no effective action at all. All DRM implemented games are still cracked the same day as soon as released, and his threats are jokes among KF community. I can only blame his combative Chuni style as a reason for being targeted.

Good luck with your project!

Edited July 14, 2017 by syfjhz22

[VirginSmasher 984]

I gotta say that you're gonna need an extremely good translator for this one and not an amateur fan translator. Otherwise, good luck.

[Azengar 38]

3 hours ago, syfjhz22 said:

Mimasu Kei (三舛啓) is famous for being Chuni. He spent a lot of time fighting 流風の舞 from KF, which even made 新妻LOVELY×CATION unplayable by inserting poorly implemented DRM engine.

Although he is good at sending threats and gaining publicity, but no effective action at all. All DRM implemented games are still cracked the same day as soon as released, and his threats are jokes among KF community. I can only blame his combative Chuni style as a reason for being targeted.

Good luck with your project!

Thanks I'll need it, and good to know

2 hours ago, VirginSmasher said:

I gotta say that you're gonna need an extremely good translator for this one and not an amateur fan translator. Otherwise, good luck.

I'm aware of that, which is why I'm telling people not to get their hopes up, but I still want to try, maybe someone qualified is interested in translating this, and thanks.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Azengar

[ChaosRaven 564]

Maybe you could try to ask someone from Amaterasu Translations. They've translated Comyu from Akatsuki Works, so maybe they're interested in that one as well.

The best of luck with the project. You'll need it, since getting a translator on board won't be an easy task.

Edited July 14, 2017 by ChaosRaven

[DarkZedge 1041]

I wish you the best of luck with your project. 

[Azengar 38]

Thanks guys !

57 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Maybe you could try to ask someone from Amaterasu Translations. They've translated Comyu from Akatsuki Works, so maybe they're interested in that one as well.

While I could ask Ixrec about this he doesn't seem to be active anymore. Maybe it's worth a shot though.

[Decay 2701]

7 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

Maybe you could try to ask someone from Amaterasu Translations. They've translated Comyu from Akatsuki Works, so maybe they're interested in that one as well.

The best of luck with the project. You'll need it, since getting a translator on board won't be an easy task.

Oh god, please no.

[eplipswich 152]

I would have loved to help, but I'm down with my own translation project, so I hope you'll be able to find good translators at your end! Good luck!

[Kirashi 34]

10 hours ago, Decay said:

Oh god, please no.

What do you mean?

Edited July 15, 2017 by Kirashi

[Zakamutt 1359]

Amaterasu is headed by Ixrec. Ixrec is a known bad translator. The result would likely not be very good, though it probably wouldn't look terrible if you didn't know the original.

[Kirashi 34]

Never heard Ixrec was a bad translator. Do you mean his japanese is lacking? Or is it a lack of americanized sentences full of make up words?

[Zakamutt 1359]

Both, really. I guess I'll probably only be able to make you care about the first, though.

[Kirashi 34]

I read comyu, the sentences were really not that badly wrote. 

[Zakamutt 1359]

34 minutes ago, Zakamutt said:

The result would likely not be very good, though it probably wouldn't look terrible if you didn't know the original.

Well, not that terrible, anyway. It probably wouldn't necessarily be well written either.

[Decay 2701]

1 hour ago, Kirashi said:

I read comyu, the sentences were really not that badly wrote. 

He got better at not writing complete nonsense by Comyu, but there were some real head-scratchers in some of his earlier work, especially Muv Luv and Chross Channel. Comyu's prose still felt decidedly dumbed down, though.

He also makes egregious mistranslations on a regular basis, an area in which he has not actually improved in over the last ten years. 

[Chuee 186]

Well, in the first place Ixrec hasn't translated anything in how many years? I don't see him suddenly coming back, much less at the request of some person he doesn't know asking him to translate a game that he may not even care for to begin with. 

[Azengar 38]

Yes, not to mention they were in the middle of translating Harvest Festa.

21 hours ago, eplipswich said:

I would have loved to help, but I'm down with my own translation project, so I hope you'll be able to find good translators at your end! Good luck!

No problem and thanks !

[Nier 157]

On 2017/7/14 at 10:38 AM, Clephas said:

I'd love to help, but... truth be told, I don't have the time or energy to take on translation work at the moment.  Also, AKB2 is really aggressive about C&Ding for its works and those of its subsidiaries, so I don't really want to get involved with a publicly-announced project for one of their games, lol.

Good luck, though.  This is an excellent game.

How come they haven't said anything about Comyu though?

 

22 hours ago, Kirashi said:

I read comyu, the sentences were really not that badly wrote.

In terms of translation quality from the stuff I have read:

Inganock, Sharnoth, Rewrite and Comyu here solid.

Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative were good.

Cross Channel was not good.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Nier

[Kirashi 34]

21 hours ago, Decay said:

He got better at not writing complete nonsense by Comyu, but there were some real head-scratchers in some of his earlier work, especially Muv Luv and Chross Channel. Comyu's prose still felt decidedly dumbed down, though.

He also makes egregious mistranslations on a regular basis, an area in which he has not actually improved in over the last ten years. 

As I said I didn't know but now I am really curious where do those assumptions come from.

Did you actually played all his translations and played the japanese novel to check what you are talking about? Are your knowledges in japanese sufficient to assert he has not improved at all since the last 10 years?

Quote

In terms of translation quality from the stuff I have read:

Inganock, Sharnoth, Rewrite and Comyu here solid.

Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative were good.

Cross Channel was not good.

I wanted to try Cross Channel. What exactly is wrong in it? 

Edited July 16, 2017 by Kirashi

[Decay 2701]

2 hours ago, Kirashi said:

As I said I didn't know but now I am really curious where do those assumptions come from.

Did you actually played all his translations and played the japanese novel to check what you are talking about? Are your knowledges in japanese sufficient to assert he has not improved at all since the last 10 years?

I played almost all of his fan TLs, and I know some people who understand Japanese and have analyzed them. This isn't an imaginary problem. I can't tell you exactly how much he has or hasn't improved, just that several people have pointed out tons of egregious TL errors present in his Comyu translation.

2 hours ago, Kirashi said:

I wanted to try Cross Channel. What exactly is wrong in it? 

The English TL is written very poorly, mixes references up, makes confusing mistranslations, and is just much harder to understand than it should be. Cross Channel is supposed to be difficult to understand, so people use that to excuse the translation, but the translation amplifies that effect by being misleading or confusing in ways never intended.

Anyway, if you want to go on about this, maybe take this to PMs instead of clogging up this thread with an unrelated debate. The point is: Ixrec isn't the translator you want for this and he's probably not available anyway.

[Nier 157]

2 hours ago, Kirashi said:

I wanted to try Cross Channel. What exactly is wrong in it? 

To make it simple:

23 minutes ago, Decay said:

- The English TL is written very poorly

- much harder to understand than it should be.

- Cross Channel is supposed to be difficult to understand, but the translation amplifies that effect by being misleading or confusing in ways never intended.

Pretty much this, it was one of Amaterasu's earliest translations and either he did improve alot since then or he got much better editor(s) or both.

I tried it, it felt like I was reading one of these english asian-only releases from Bandai Namco:

Basically it's so badly written that it's very difficult to make sense of without reading the same sentence multiple times and re-arranging it in your head to try making head or tails of what you just read.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Nier