Information sources on VN fan translations?

[Plk_Lesiak]

H-h-h-h-hello there!

I've mentioned once or twice in the past that I'm a PhD student - I actually specialize in fan and popcultural studies. There's a pretty neat cultural/new media conference coming in month and a half and I was thinking about preparing a paper on VN fan translations - as it's a pretty close deadline, I would have to hurry quite a bit when collecting data (and especially preparing the abstract to send in first), so while I would normally try to take it slow and don't ask for such favours, I wondered if some of you guys could direct me to interesting cases and information sources on FTLs, which can't be easily found on the forums (which, most likely, still be my main source for the initial presentation and the post-conference paper, I hope to later expand the study into something more serious and publish it in English). There's literally no papers on VNs and only one, fairly old book that focuses on completely different things that FTLs and localization, so I really have to rely on whatever I can find online (and, in later stage, most likely on interviews, but that also depends on whether the initial project leads me anywhere). I'm especially looking for:

1. Blogs and articles on VN FTLs, especially on its history and relationship with the developers/publishers

2. Cases of FTLs being used to create official Western releases of VNs

3. Cases of FTL projects being effectively blocked by the developers/publishers

4. Cases of aggressive attempts at blocking FLT projects that failed miserably (I mean, the attempts, not the projects)

5. Notable VN fan translators that got hired by the industry/went professional as freelance translators

I'll be very thankful for any leads and even general thought on each of these topics.

[Guest]

Sorry I can't help much, but I know some stuff that might fit the 2 and 3 category.

2: Some of Sekai Project releases (Don't remember now)

3: LuckyDog 1 (Tou they just don't want a patch and are okay with the translation) and Glass (The Dev litteraly said to the translator to "fuck off" xoD, tou there is some context behind it of course, look at the vndb discussions of the page). 

Edited January 17, 2018 by Guest

[Dreamysyu]

You might want to look through the older blogs on the main Fuwanovel site. I remember reading quite a lot of information there in the past and. Checking it now, there are interviews with notable fan-translators, and many of them went official later.

52 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Cases of aggressive attempts at blocking FLT projects that failed miserably (I mean, the attempts, not the projects)

I heard rumors of something like that happening with the first Muv-luv Alternative translation, but I don't know the details.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Dreamysyu
grammar

[Guest]

Interview with the Translator of Togainu no Chi and Chaos;Head (mainly focus on TNG tou).

Here:https://fuwanovel.net/2010/09/968/

EDIT: Hoshimeno Fan Translation Interview https://fuwanovel.net/2010/09/hoshizora-no-memoria-staircase-subs/

Edited January 17, 2018 by Guest

[Zenophilious]

Well, there's the C&D that MangaGamer sent aaeru (the creator of this site) for trying to translate Da Capo 3.  Here's a thread about it.

[bakauchuujin]

Not really something that has happened yet, but it seems like Cherrykissgames, who are the english publishers for norn/miel are interested in getting fan translations that they can officially publish. This is based on their conversations on their discord. Gues that could work as an example of a company currently thinking of making fan translations official.

 

Also while this is not on your list of things you asked of I think the fan patch for IMHHW is quite interesting. In this case it is the reintroduction of cut content due to the developers buthering a VN. There also is a full retranslation in the work due poor official translation. Kind of interesting how bad buisness practices can cause there to be fan translations being made after an official translation. Though I gues since this is a big VN you probably already knew it.

[MaggieROBOT]

Saya no Uta's official translation was based on the FTL one and even done by the same guy

Piece about this: http://novelnews.net/2009/07/17/jast-usa-is-working-with-fan-translators-for-nitro-titles/

 

[Plk_Lesiak]

12 minutes ago, bakauchuujin said:

Also while this is not on your list of things you asked of I think the fan patch for IMHHW is quite interesting. In this case it is the reintroduction of cut content due to the developers buthering a VN. There also is a full retranslation in the work due poor official translation. Kind of interesting how bad buisness practices can cause there to be fan translations being made after an official translation. Though I gues since this is a big VN you probably already knew it.

I've heard about it, but you made a good point about how it shows the communities frustration with publishers especially well. At this point any thought/suggestion is useful btw, I didn't even start making notes and it will be a challenge to go through all this material available around here and try making sense of it on my own. Obviously, my goal is to pinpoint some tendencies and changes over the years, not just describe how it looks now, so the more examples and people's experiences I gather the bigger chance I'll be able to show some interesting patterns and dynamics.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[bakauchuujin]

This one is also a bit interesting https://vndb.org/t8399#10 an Eiyuu*Senki patch. The VN is currently officially released by JAST. The interesting thing about it is that it combines the PC version with the PS3 version, which each have exclusive content making a complete version as well as adding scenes from Eiyuu*Senki Gold. Doing this makes a complete version, superior to any official version and I gues that can be difficult for official publishers. So in this case there is a patch which is able to be superior to the official by it not having to follow rules sett by the developers of the VN.

 

Here are some links to fan translation patches on VNs based on things that had an anime https://vndb.org/r49171 a russian patch for To Love-Ru Trouble Darkness: True Princess and https://vndb.org/r27122 an english patch for Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai. These types of VNs based on pre existing things seems to very rarely get any translations, the only official translation I could find for these types of VNs are New Game! -The Challenge Stage! with a chinese release and Gakusen Toshi Asterisk Festa Houka Kenran with an english release. Gues it is also worth mentioning https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4SSYkTQItWl6U6VU-6IgBA, someone on youtube who translate parts of VNs based on anime and upload fotage of the game with the translation. From what I can see the person has done parts of Nisekoi: Yomeiri!?, To Love-Ru Trouble Darkness: True Princess  and Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu Death or Kiss. Not really fan translation patches, but still a type of fan translation.

[Zakamutt]

In general the encubed (novelnews) site has a huge amount of articles on what you're looking for. If you want to find C&D'd projects literally just look through the archives. I think one article mentions Kara no Shoujo / Cartagra; you can maybe consider that a C&D failure since afaik that got a fan tl version out (nowadays both have official releases too however!).

Fan TLs being used to create official releases:

Way too many examples, but some early ones you might consider of historical value are School Days and ef. ef is pretty interesting because iirc the general feel before the licensing attempt was that Minori was hostile toward any western efforts (you can also try to find the "acrimonious history" which seems to be scrubbed from this particular post). Note that the Sekai Project that handled School Days was pretty different from the company you know today.

Notable fan translators that got hired... I think it's easier to list notable fan translators that didn't get hired honestly. Koestl (grisaia), bdh/yukino + rito (danganronpa FTL / fata morgana and more), Arunaru (some rance stuff iirc), Good_Haro fan tl'd hadaka shitsuji, VerdelishJP fan tl'd toradora portable, Makoto (Saya no Uta, Hanachirasu, etc)... while I would not quite agree with the statement that everyone good in fan translation got picked up by the companies, there's some truth to it.

Two prominent translators that never did get hired as far as I know, though their tls might have gotten bought out, are Ixrec and TakaJun. Their translations are not very good, so this is understandable.

[littleshogun]

There's a lot to answer here, although I'll try my best to answer what I knew for now at least.

2. There's a lot of example at TL Wiki page, and the most prominent one would be Grisaia no Kajitsu and Little Busters. Also there's Eien no Aselia, in which they used the fan translated version of that. Sekai themselves had one example with School Days, because they work on School Days as fan translator before cooperate with JAST. If that's not counted here, then Steins Gate might be count because they started as fan translation project before the team decided to work with JAST to release that.

3. As for that, I assume that it was C&D. For the most recent example, there's Hanasaki which is got hit by that after some drama within the team themselves. Other than that, there's first Baldr Sky translation project and aforementioned Da Capo 3 project.

5. There's Koestl and Arunaru who currently work for Mangagamer, and Tulip Maria Goddess as well who already work for both of Sorcery Jokers and Rance Quest. Other than those three, there's Phlebas (Former Dakkodango member) who is the employee at Fruitbat Company as well.

I guess that's all for what I could think at the moment, and hope it could be help.

PS - For the translator that not get hired, there's Phar who is the translator for both of Symphonic Rain and YU-NO.

[Plk_Lesiak]

I decided to necro-post a bit instead of making a new thread, maybe someone will be able to help with this one:

I'm still working on my project and reading into all the VN publishers' history, one thing made me wonder. While Sekai Project came out of a fan translation team and JAST seems to have its own ties to the VN fandom, MangaGamer is a rare case of Japanese VN industry trying to get into the West with their products. My question is: who typically works on translation projects for MG, do they also hire people from the fan community, or depend on gaming TL professionals? Anyone knows anything about it?

Edited February 8, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[littleshogun]

As for Mangagamer, I remember that they hired some fan translator like Arunaru or Tulip Goddess Maria so I guess we could say that they hired people from fan community in the past. Although nowadays looks like they depend on gaming TL professional, because they employ some staff to translated VNs - in fact Mangagamer CEO Kouryuu was also translating VNs and currently work in Maggot Bait. Keep in mind that I may be wrong for the info.

[Zakamutt]

A lot of people in the industry started out / are doing fan translations. The meme that all the good fan translators are working for one or more of companies now isn't far from true. Kouryuu fan translated Soul Link then went official with it iirc. Haro FTL'd Hadaka Shitsuji. Verdelish did toradora portable as well as some other youtube tls. Ritibito + bdh started out on the danganronpa FTL. Conjueror started out working with garejei on some masada stuff afaik, plus Himawari started as a fan tl then turned official. Koestl begun with his fan translation of Grisaia no Kajitsu. I could find more if I wanted.

 

 

[Nandemonai]

I thought Kouryuu fan translated Koihime, not Soul Link.  But yes, basically any fan translator who is actually any good, and wants to go pro, can do so.

As for #4, I don't think it's ever happened.  I cannot think of a single case where either a licensor, or the original Japanese rightsholder, issued a C&D, and the fan translators ignored the C&D and released the game anyway.  Several projects have been killed by C&D.  One of the most notable was Aroduc's hilariously ill-conceived attempt to Kickstart a fan translation.  That one actually attracted a DMCA, and Kickstarter yanked it.  (The original project page is blanked out by Kickstarter, but there is in fact a Wayback version here: wayback).

Since nobody has been crazy enough to continue and release a patch after a C&D has been issued, we haven't seen the aftermath.  Sooner or later someone will decide to push their luck, and we'll see what happens.

Legally, this would be a very dicey proposition.  Suing someone in a foreign country is a massive hassle.  A real lawyer can tell you more, but generally, if you sue them in your country, the judgement's basically worthless. And if you sue them in their country, you have to actually go there and show up in court, which costs a fortune and is a royal pain in the ass.  These companies are typically small and can't really afford to file that kind of lawsuit.

Practically speaking, a rightsholder can use the DMCA, or similar processes, to demand that a patch get taken down, or that an FTL website be removed from the internet.  But that's generally going to be the limit of what they can get away with.