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Aiyoku no Eustia Translation Announcement


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I honestly want to lock this thread but this is just my personal opinion here so i won't act based on that but this seriously made me mad. 

 

Now why would you do that? Every fan-translation group should be able to post a thread on the fuwa forums. If you have a problem with some people's behaviour in that thread, then you should deal with that behaviour and/or delete the offending posts. Locking the thread is a lazy solution to the problem and will punish the fan-translator as much as the offenders. 

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assuming things

 

I'm pretty bad at Japanese to be quite frank

the Japanese may be translated imprecisely

Well, I won't comment until I actually see the lines/scripts, but.. gotta say, not brimming with confidence about this. I'm not sure why you're signing up to translate ~2mb's of text when you're shaky on your japanese. I mean, it's nice if it reads well, but it being littered with translation errors is another issue in entirety.

It is this epistemological limit that bars me from translating Eustia, a work I genuinely enjoy and am a fan of. While I was happy to see that someone had picked up the project again, I became rather annoyed. I began nitpicking and questioned the nuances of each line the translation team posted. And my diagnosis is "they don't seem qualified to translate Eustia for a while".

A real fan translator, I feel, is one who respects the work. It confuses me why a person who doubts his Japanese skills is translating a visual novel. It is not respectful to the work. Such attitudes sicken me.

 

I personally got pretty heated, but there was the same concerns from a person who was being much more polite than I was, but that was ignored because nobody seemed to want to address that.

 

Then that same person forwarded an amazingly detailed post from another translator who is just disgusted at the idea that somebody is disrespecting a work that they're trying to translate. Of course, that would again be ignored.

 

I've yet to see a single retort to the actual points I tried to make (in between all the angry flailing I did), other than Chronopolis's great exhaustive post that dealt with both sides of the argument and tried to keep us off bad points.

 

To say it's elitist to not want unskilled people to work on difficult works is just confusing to me. It'd be one thing if they worked on translating it for their own enjoyment and then that was that (which is basically reading it, I suppose), but why would you put your stamp on a project so it can never be done by anybody better? What is the point of that? What did that up-and-coming translator gain exactly by translating that work? That's what I want to understand. People talk about it being unfair and elitist, but I want to know what is being taken away from that new translator, exactly. 

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Now why would you do that? Every fan-translation group should be able to post a thread on the fuwa forums. If you have a problem with some people's behaviour in that thread, then you should deal with that behaviour and/or delete the offending posts. Locking the thread is a lazy solution to the problem and will punish the fan-translator as much as the offenders. 

Like i said, it's how it made me feel. Obviously I wouldn't lock a thread for this reason. But that's beyond the point.

 

I just can't understand why is there so much baseless hate. I'd understand if there was a partial patch showing how the translation looks and it was bad. But there isn't. Anything beyond that is pure imagination. Sure you can be worried or even pessimistic. But hating is going too far in my opinion.

This team volunteered for a translation and you're posting such discouraging words. I'd feel very offended if I were him. Even if he himself admitted his japanese skill is not that good, you still can't judge a product that doesn't exist. You can be doubtful but at least give him a chance. 

 

I thought this is what Fuwanovel was about, encouraging fan translation. That's why seeing so much pessimism and discouragement made me really upset.

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Hometown and Life and the point of that post was? I think anyone who has read a few of your previous posts got your opinion. You are pretty much running on a loop now. Your opinion is fine, but no need to parade this thread.

 

I'll personally set my opinion on this when we see any results. The TL's comments does consolidate concern, but not anything more than that for now.

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Hometown and Life and the point of that post was? I think anyone who has read a few of your previous posts got your opinion. You are pretty much running on a loop now. Your opinion is fine, but no need to parade this thread.

 

I'll personally set my opinion on this when we see any results. The TL's comments does consolidate concern, but not anything more than that for now.

 

To say it's elitist to not want unskilled people to work on difficult works is just confusing to me. It'd be one thing if they worked on translating it for their own enjoyment and then that was that (which is basically reading it, I suppose), but why would you put your stamp on a project so it can never be done by anybody better? What is the point of that? What did that up-and-coming translator gain exactly by translating that work? That's what I want to understand. People talk about it being unfair and elitist, but I want to know what is being taken away from that new translator, exactly. 

 

It was more of becoming a debate about the inclusion of sub-par translations for more seriously written pieces of work. I already understand that this work hasn't come out yet, which is exactly why if you read the earlier posts nobody is talking about this project specifically, but more of "if this project goes badly, is that okay?"

 

This team volunteered for a translation and you're posting such discouraging words. I'd feel very offended if I were him. Even if he himself admitted his japanese skill is not that good, you still can't judge a product that doesn't exist. You can be doubtful but at least give him a chance.

 

I wasn't trying to construe that the translation was already an automatic failure. It started as concern, but then people didn't tell me, "let's wait for the final product." They instead a bad product is fine.

That's why the argument blew up. It ended up being a discussion as if this new translation was bad and what that would mean to both sides. It was a hypothetical where I felt it is extremely disrespectful to the author and harmful to the community to do a bad translation while others did not feel the same.

 

In terms of this actual project, I of course cannot say that the work is already bad. I can however say that the attitude lacks respect as an author (yes, when you translate you are definitely an author, writing well is part of your job, your editors just do the cleaning). To go into a piece of writing and be shaky about your skills in the language and say that you'll just patch it up with editors is blatantly disrespectful and the sort of thing that scares off official localizations. Who wants their writing to go across the seas and get turned into something completely different? That's just horrifying.

 

Did he already make anything bad and will he make anything bad? No, and we'll have to wait to see. Has he said bad things? A thousand times yes.

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To say it's elitist to not want unskilled people to work on difficult works is just confusing to me. It'd be one thing if they worked on translating it for their own enjoyment and then that was that (which is basically reading it, I suppose), but why would you put your stamp on a project so it can never be done by anybody better? What is the point of that? What did that up-and-coming translator gain exactly by translating that work? That's what I want to understand. People talk about it being unfair and elitist, but I want to know what is being taken away from that new translator, exactly. 

 

There is nothing stopping another group taking up a project that's already been translated. It may not regularly happen, but there's nothing stopping people from doing it, ala the Flyable Heart's translation. If the translation community want to stop anybody who doesn't meet their standards from translating visual novels, then that is elitist and excusionary behaviour. If translators are pissed at a translation, then they can release their own patch. They don't tend to do this because they worry their version won't be read, and frankly I don't care a whit about those selfish concerns.

 

Who wants their writing to go across the seas and get turned into something completely different? That's just horrifying.
Yep, once again you should stop right there, the fan-tl community who pirates most of this stuff shouldn't be using the artists feelings in their argument. It's hypocritical.
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As I said earlier, the best solution isn't to stop less skilled translators from translating games, but to encourage the skilled translators to translate the games they're most passionate about regardless of already existing translations. In an ideal world less skilled translators would be working on less visible games but that's an impossible dream. People will inherently want to work on what gives them the most enjoyment to work on, and more power to them for that.

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Yep, once again you should stop right there, the fan-tl community who pirates most of this stuff shouldn't be using the artists feelings in their argument. It's hypocritical.

 

Official localized stuff sells plenty to stay afloat. Pirating a work that is impossible to obtain without heavy import fees is a completely different situation altogether. It is also not hypocritical to respect an author's work as art even if you have different feelings about the monetary gain one should have from intellectual property. Besides, the writer was already paid and any purchases are chiefly going towards the publisher, not the author, at that point.

 

You are also saying I am a hypocrite for pirating when you don't know if I even mostly pirate what I read. If you'd like I can take a picture of my closet to show you the VN's I had to spend ridiculous import fees in order to support their publishers after reading fan translations, but you probably wouldn't care.

 

As I said earlier, the best solution isn't to stop less skilled translators from translating games, but to encourage the skilled translators to translate the games they're most passionate about regardless of already existing translations. In an ideal world less skilled translators would be working on less visible games but that's an impossible dream. People will inherently want to work on what gives them the most enjoyment to work on, and more power to them for that.

 

I really wish that was the case myself. Things like anime subtitles compete with each other and it weeds people out in a more natural way. Unfortunately, visual novels can take years to translate, so putting years into a work people already have is really a long shot for most.

 

They don't tend to do this because they worry their version won't be read, and frankly I don't care a whit about those selfish concerns.

 

I'd worry about my stuff not getting read too after spending two years on it. Weren't you the one trying to go on about how much work free translators have to put it in at the cost of precious time and money? Fact is, with so many visual novels to translate, they're going to go for ones that are:

 

1)Not already translated (except for extremely awful cases)

2)Ones they feel they can handle and be faithful to

3)Ones that they, of course, enjoy reading

 

How is it selfish to not want to do free work for years that will be completely ignored when you can do free work that people will get to enjoy? You don't get anything out of your work being read, all you did was serve a bunch of people for nothing. How is that selfish to want to serve a bunch of people with your time instead of a very small number of readers?

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Damn.. never thought I would see a thread like this on Fuwa.

 

I've pulled together a ragtag group for the translation of Aiyoku no Eustia. We've methodized our translation, and should consistently be translating 50 to 100 lines a day. We made a website for our translation here:

 

http://blanktranslations.wix.com/blank-translations

 

As you can see, the website is still unfinished. We'll be tweaking things here and there over the next few days.

 

We are still looking for 2 translators and an hacker. If anyone is interested, please follow the contact information on our website.

I wish you guys the best of luck. You might be criticized a lot after your statement but I agree that it doesn't mean the product has to be bad. This is just the same old original work quality vs translator ability discussion, and there are a lot of different opinions from a lot of different people so it will probably never end, nor does it have to. There are not enough professional translators/high rated fantranslators to pick up all projects, so if you atleast give what you promised here I think there will still be a lot of non-Japanese reading people looking forward to reading your patch.

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Official localized stuff sells plenty to stay afloat.

 

Pirating a work that is impossible to obtain without heavy import fees is a completely different situation altogether. It is also not hypocritical to respect an author's work as art even if you have different feelings about the monetary gain one should have from intellectual property. Besides, the writer was already paid and any purchases are chiefly going towards the publisher, no the author, at that point.

 

You are also saying I am a hypocrite for pirating when you don't know if I even mostly pirate what I read. If you'd like I can take a picture of my closet to show you the VN's I had to spend ridiculous import fees in order to support their publishers after reading fan translations, but you probably wouldn't care.

 

 

I really wish that was the case myself. Things like anime subtitles compete with each other and it weeds people out in a more natural way. Unfortunately, visual novels can take years to translate, so putting years into a work people already have is really a long shot for most.

 

Localised copies sell barely anything. Barely a year ago, MG's top selling title barely registered 2,000 copies. JAST can't stay afloat by themselves, it needs to be propped up by JList. And translator's at MG rip through shitty nukige in a couple of weeks because they're poor and need the extra money. Compare this to Christine Love, who sold 30,000 copies of her indie VN and you'll start to realise how bad their situation is. 

 

It's hypocritical to talk about respecting an author while pirating their works. Whether it's expensive to obtain or not, respecting someone is to take into account their wishes and feelings, like their desire to be paid for the stuff they do. You can talk about respect for literature as much as you want, but once you start talking about respect for the author, you start treading into hypocritical territory. And while the writer has already been paid, you forget they work at a developing studio, many of which are struggling to stay open in Japan (the creators of EF, for example, have almost had to close down.) Purchasing their game and flooding money back into the developer will directly affect the writer and the situation they are in. 

 

I am calling the fan-tl community hypocrites if they want to discuss the feelings of the original author, because while you may import your games, the majority do not. Let's not pretend anything, the majority of the people who use the fan-tl patch will be playing it on a pirated copy, so when you're discussing the feelings of the author, you should know they would care sfa about how badly their work is being butchered and more that thousands of people are downloading it without paying. That would be the concern of the writer, NOT 'God no, Joe Black has missed all my sweet Japanese nuances, how dare he!' Game writers and small game developers are struggling to stay alive, their first concern would be the money their company is missing out on.

 

If you want to translate something because you have respect for the work and you want a high-quality translation for everybody to enjoy, then do it. It shouldn't matter if it's been done before or not. If you don't want to because some group has already done it, then don't do it. The translators can stop fucking whinging that somebody has got to a project before they could and is doing a bad job, though. That's called 'time to grow up', and it's sickening to see this teenage drama flooding the translation field. If they want to do a better job, they are welcome to do it. And the fans who can't read Japanese themselves? Well, it's just tough luck. Until people start buying more products and making visual novels profitable to localise, you're stuck with the inconsistent nature of fan-tls. And yes, that means taking the bad with the good.

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Localised copies sell barely anything. 

 

Oh come on now, Boob Wars sold truckloads (for some reason) and Go Go Nippon! has been making Steam's meters spin in circles. Virtue's Last Reward was hugely popular, Dangonronpa has exploded to the point of having a dub, and Phoenix Wright sold just fine. Just because people keep localizing moeges that nobody wants doesn't mean VN's can't sell.

 

You can talk about respect for literature as much as you want,

 

Okay, we'll leave it right there then. I'll retract my overreaching to "respect for the author," and instead push for the respect of the work itself. This does not change my argument whatsoever, other than some semantics at the end because of my wording.

 

I am calling the fan-tl community hypocrites if they want to discuss the feelings of the original author, because while you may import your games, the majority do not.

 

The community here also has a majority that does not care about bad translations that disrespect the literature. Hm, pirates don't worry about disrespecting the literature? What a surprise. If I live in a community of criminals, am I not allowed to make arguments from a lawful standpoint when I am not of the majority? Or do I have to shut up because I'm "one of them," despite not acting in the same way.

 

 

NOT 'God no, Joe Black has missed all my sweet Japanese nuances, how dare he!'

 

Ha, actually, a lot of translation deals go sour in negotiation because the original publisher doesn't think the English audience will get it right. Stein's;Gate still isn't on Steam simply because they think it's demeaning. The kinds of great works I don't think should be butchered are not written by struggling moege developers.

 

The translators can stop fucking whinging that somebody has got to a project before they could and is doing a bad job, though.

 

Uh, the previous translator quote that I was using wasn't mad that somebody got to it "before him." He was a huge fan that read it years ago and decided not to translate it because he decided it was outside his capabilities. He waited to see somebody that was capable pick it up, and seeing somebody pick it up that's disrespecting is what was upsetting. Translators don't get mad about somebody getting to a project before they do, that's horribly immature. The closest thing to that is official companies sending out a C&D letter if they plan to localize your project officially already.

 

 

Until people start buying more products and making visual novels profitable to localise, you're stuck with the inconsistent nature of fan-tls. And yes, that means taking the bad with the good.

 

Well, Stein's;Gate will have to be one of those things that hopefully proves the Western market exists. By the way, the entire official release was done by fan translators. That would be the same crowd that gets called "elitist," despite being responsible for holding up the entire chance of Japan releasing visual novels to the West. We're getting a bit off-topic with that, though, since a Eustia fan translation probably isn't going to have that kind of far-reaching effect.

 

Back on topic with this translation in particular, I understand that there are going to be bad translations. Professionals mistranslate things. The problem here is this person is going in saying that they're both bad at Japanese and will have imprecise translations. It's the attitude going in that is the worst part for me. Screw-ups happen, but you should always be going in believing you are doing a good job that is faithful to the original literature. I'm not going to go send some guy angry e-mails after he releases a bad translation that he believed he had done very good on. I would of course criticize it to hell and back in open discussions, but only because that's fair criticism of a released product.

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I'd worry about my stuff not getting read too after spending two years on it. Weren't you the one trying to go on about how much work free translators have to put it in at the cost of precious time and money?

 

You can translate something already translated because you respect the literature and want to service those in the community who want it. It'd be a lower percentage, but that's not your concern, after all. Or you can not do that, and translate something else because you want plenty of accolades. Now that is completely understandable, you are spending plenty of time on things and you definitely want some return. If any translators do go down this route, kindly shut up about how bad translators don't respect the literature. Because if you obviously cared so badly about a patch being released disrespecting the work, you'd set about fixing the translation, but you don't so you won't. 

 

Ha, actually, a lot of translation deals go sour in negotiation because the original publisher doesn't think the English audience will get it right. Stein's;Gate still isn't on Steam simply because they think it's demeaning. The kinds of great works I don't think should be butchered are not written by struggling moege developers.

 

The question was never IF they cared about translation accuracy, but whether they care on the same level as losing a boatload of money. Stein's Gate isn't on Steam because Japan is risk averse and are not familiar with it. And ALL VN developers are struggling to sell their games, 10 years ago top visual novels were selling 100,000+ copies in Japan, today they struggle to sell 30k. 

 

Uh, the previous translator quote that I was using wasn't mad that somebody got to it "before him." He was a huge fan that read it years ago and decided not to translate it because he decided it was outside his capabilities. He waited to see somebody that was capable pick it up, and seeing somebody pick it up that's disrespecting is what was upsetting. Translators don't get mad about somebody getting to a project before they do, that's horribly immature. The closest thing to that is official companies sending out a C&D letter if they plan to localize your project officially already.

 

Do you want me to link you to the latest Air translation drama?

 
As for his concerns that someone picked it up disrespecting the work, once again it's not an issue if translators were willing to translate VNs that were already complete. And once again, I couldn't care a whit about somebody whinging about a situation which stems directly from such a selfish attitude. 
 
Well, Stein's;Gate will have to be one of those things that hopefully proves the Western market exists. By the way, the entire official release was done by fan translators. That would be the same crowd that gets called "elitist," despite being responsible for holding up the entire chance of Japan releasing visual novels to the West.
 
Stein's Gate won't prove a western market exists, it won't sell through the roof. Fan-tls are NOT responsible for holding up the chance of VNs being localised in the West, JAST was releasing VNs in the 90s, and no they don't do fabulous work. And yes, I've read EF, and others. It's nothing but an okay source of cheap labour.
 
The problem here is this person is going in saying that they're both bad at Japanese and will have imprecise translations. It's the attitude going in that is the worst part for me. Screw-ups happen, but you should always be going in believing you are doing a good job that is faithful to the original literature.
 
And I suppose the word for that is tough. I'm not here to entertain your entitlement attitude, you don't have a right to get this game, you don't have a right to get it translated in a respectful manner, you basically have a right to sweet fuck all. You getting this game is a privilege, you getting it translated well is an incredibly lucky stroke of fortune you may or may not be lucky enough to receive. You ARE free to criticize it in open discussions just like the moderators are free to start taking action the moment your posts cross a line.
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I would of course criticize it to hell and back in open discussions, but only because that's fair criticism of a released product.

Nothing gives you the right to criticize a product you didn't pay for, though. You aren't the one doing the favor here, the TL group is. And it's 100% charity.

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My my, there's an awful lot of criticism being flung around here, good luck on the translation guys, should at least give people a chance before having a go at them. I look forward to trying it out. :)

lol at least give the team a chance to prove themselves before you start witch hunting their asses. Seriously guys. Let them release that partial patch first.

 

I feel like I'm reading a 4chan thread.

I just can't understand why is there so much baseless hate. I'd understand if there was a partial patch showing how the translation looks and it was bad. But there isn't. Anything beyond that is pure imagination. Sure you can be worried or even pessimistic. But hating is going too far in my opinion.

This team volunteered for a translation and you're posting such discouraging words. I'd feel very offended if I were him. Even if he himself admitted his japanese skill is not that good, you still can't judge a product that doesn't exist. You can be doubtful but at least give him a chance. 

No one is saying that the translation will be bad. No one is bashing the OP.

What people are arguing is their opinion that a bad translation (in general) is not respectful to the original work, and/or that it would greatly reduce the chances for a possible better translation.

I think it's incorrect to sweep the arguments under the rug and suggest they shouldn't have been said, by considering them baseless hate/bashing.

 

This team volunteered for a translation and you're posting such discouraging words. I'd feel very offended if I were him. Even if he himself admitted his japanese skill is not that good, you still can't judge a product that doesn't exist. You can be doubtful but at least give him a chance.

Based on what the OP admitted, in this case it was reasonable to be doubtful. If one thinks that the result is likely to be bad, and that bad result could do real damage/conflict against one's beliefs, then it's reasonable to voice concerns.

 

People calling posts out for just "discouraging the project members" aren't a new thing. But what exactly could be considered acceptable?

1) It is not ok to make a post in a project thread that contains little to no merit, and which only serves to discourage members from continuing the project.

2) It is not ok to go into a project thread and post something of probable merit that would likely be discouraging the team members.

 

Pretty sure everyone agrees with 1). Point 2) seems to be a more a sliding scale, with popular opinion within fuwanovel being that "encouragement" is very important: one would only post something likely to be discouraging in an extreme case where the project members' efforts look very misguided.

 

Different communities and people fall differently onto this spectrum and tolerate different ranges. What may be acceptable in some communities may not be acceptable elsewhere.

 

So what arrive from this is this poster believes the merit of what is being said is outweighed by the discouragement factor, and that the disparity is great enough that that is unacceptable.

 

I honestly want to lock this thread but this is just my personal opinion here so i won't act based on that but this seriously made me mad. Come on guys be a little reasonable.

He also doesn't lock the thread, so at least tentatively, this case is not far enough removed from the enforced community standards to be moderated.

Whether this extended debate should have happened another thread is another question, which honestly doesn't seem that important to me. Being in the wrong thread wouldn't make the arguments less valid.

 

As for why this discussion popped up here... This thread announced a project on a popular VN, and the OP said things which lead to people voicing their concerns. This concrete example was as good as any a trigger for someone to jump in and post about another, broader topic (bad translations).

 

In any case, to his credit, the OP has seemed to have taken this in stride. Hopefully the he also understands that the posts aren't  bashing the OP or this project.

 

Later posts have contested the second point:

Fact a) Currently translations/team members rarely ever pick up VN's with existing translations, meaning that a bad translation will rarely be followed by a better one.

Whether:

1) The current state of TL's not wanting to do retranslations largely comes from their own wants, which one don't particularly sympathize with. In any case, Fact a) is not a particularly valid as a argument against bad translations.

or

2) It is very understandable and valid for a TL not to want to TL VN's with existing translations.

-Lack of publicity/hype

-Diminished result: Less people will use/benefit from the TL. I believe very few people reread VN's after new translations.

And so Fact a) is NOT the TL's fault, and is valid to be considered a "repercussion" of a bad translation.

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One serious question for BlankTranslations:

Can you translate Aiyoku no Eustia?

It seems you aren't so sure about that. You won't gain anything by half-assing something that is way beyond your abilities. But you can lose a lot - mainly your enthusiasm. If your Japanese isn't that good, you will have to put a lot of effort into deciphering sentences that are too advanced for you, and after releasing a crappy patch for such a popular VN as Eustia, you will be hit with a torrent of (now perfecly justified) criticism (with a fair dose of 4chan-esque trolling in the mix).

You are confident in your English? How about trying to edit something? You could check the original script and see how it was translated, consult stuff with the translator and improve your Japanese in the process. And we would get a well edited VN.

You have some semi-decent Japanese knowledge? How about trying to translate something short for starters? You'd see how it goes, which aspects of your Japanese still need some polishing, you could get an experienced translator to give it a quick TLC to point out your mistakes etc.. And we would get an actually finished project.

 

I'm not telling you to drop AnE. If you think you are up to the task, by all means go on an do it. But keep in mind that a translation of a 65k-line title is a huge project - make sure you aren't tackling something far beyond your abilities, otherwise you will quickly burn yourself out. And half-assed translation causes more harm than good.

Just my piece of advice.

 

 

As for the comments... Well, I mostly agree with what Hometown and Life said, but I'd add one thing.

You guys are conviniently ignoring an important issue. The vast majority of projects started by people with inadecuate abilities never gets finished, and those people end up discouraged for good and don't return to the VNTL scene ever again.

(I'm assuming a good will here, and I'm only talking about people who are actually trying. Copypasting machine translations and other blatant trolling doesn't count.)

 

People who stupidly encourage inexperienced translators to pick up stuff that might be far too hard for them, not only are showing their disrespect towards original work (by letting someone butcher it), entire English-speaking community (by practically preventing them from fully enjoying said work in English, ever), but most importantly - towards said translators themselves. And they don't even realize the harm such blind acceptance can cause. With your nice, encouraging words, you are telling them to struggle with something that is simply beyond their abilities. To spend a lot of their time and their energy on a project that will only quickly burn them out without producing any decent results. When your skills are insufficient, not only your TL quality suffers. It also takes much more effort to produce said TL, even if it's bad.

A person new to the TL scene is almost guaranteed to misjudge the amount of time and skill that such project will require. He has a lot of enthusiasm, but it won't keep him going for too long if the script is simply too advanced for his shaky Japanese. Most of the time this results in projects left dead in the water and burned out translators. And on the off chance such project actually gets finished, the team will end up rightfully bashed by every sensible person. That's where such "beggars", who swallow everything indiscriminately, are leading aspiring translators - quick burnout and wasted effort. Sure, occasionally you will get a finished translation, but it will be crappy and won't represent the original work too well anyway. And for that one bad TL, you are willing to sacrifice the time and effort of ~10 or more aspiring translators who will drop their projects and disappear from the scene forever. How nice.

 

You know what? That's even worse than 4chan trolls. They tell inexperienced translators that they should just kill themselves, while Fuwa-style blind supporters basically tell them to bleed themselves to death while struggling with an overly ambitious project.

 

Too bad that usually nobody tries to push aspiring translators in the right direction, give them some hints and point out their mistakes in a civilized manner. And if somebody does, his/her voice is drowned by the constant "woow, you iz awesome, good luck lol!" and "kill yourself faget, lol!" exchange.

 

Try encouraging people to tackle projects they actually can finish. Just that. Blind support causes people to waste their enthusiasm and produce nothing of value. Directing that enthusiasm in the right direction can help someone become a decent translator. If you don't respect the original work or the community, at the very least show some respect to the aspiring translators. Respect = constructive criticism and guidance (if you have some experience). Pushing someone forward for your own amusement, when you know he is heading towards a dead end is just cruel.

 

Oh, and don't take this post as complaining about this particualr project. It's a general comment. Personally, I'm not that concerned about this TL. If I find it inadequate, I will just read AnE in Japanese. Because I can. ┐( ̄- ̄)┌

However, since I like VNs, and I kinda care about this medium, I enjoy talking about them with friends and obviously I'd like to see them getiing more popular on the West. Pile of dead projects or mistranslated BS doesn't exactly help here.

 

As for everyone who claims that you have no right to criticize something you get for free - I will give you an arrow. For free. 100% charity. Well... actually I will shoot you in your knee with it. But hey, it's for free, so you can't complain. Who's first? :P

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An active TL here, going under my own name to avoid any flack back to my group.

 

The topic of Eustia is but the surface of a much larger issue.

 

What we see here is an issue of the community. VN translations is a scattered, fragile, community; found at best in small, isolated pockets around the internet; plagued by inability, inaction, and inexperience. While diversity provides strength of insight, without a core commonality it quickly fades into miscommunication and clashing expectations. We find ourselves frustrated at the sheer inaccessibility of translations, the slow progress of such an enormous undertaking, and with dashed hopes as projects do not live up to the ivory towers we build them.

 

But it does not have to be this way. Underlying all the posts in this thread is the desire for us to be better; that not only can we ensure a work is of good quality, but that we can ensure the people behind it are prepared and able.

 

Fundamentally, this is about quality. We want it; from the translation, from the translator, and from ourselves, who support them.

 

The question becomes, how can we encourage quality? What sorts of behaviors and practices can we follow in order to create such a community?

 

Aaeru has taken the first step in creating fuwanovel, for a community exists only when it can cohere. A building does not stand without the foundation below it, and to build the largest buildings we need even larger foundations. To that end, we must seek to grow fuwa, to create a way for the community to come together and form a common culture. This has been the importance of VNTS for all these years, it has provided the small bed in which the fruits of VN translation can grow.

 

But as many of you aware, that bed is a harsh one. It is rare to find praise for a single person, project, or idea there, let alone encouragement or help. While VNTS can serve as a great pruning factor, it needlessly alienates those who would otherwise be prolific contributors.

 

So we must not be VNTS. But at the same time, we must not grow weeds in our flowerbed. To blindly encourage or support poor work only damages in the long run, much like abuse, extortion, and corruption only seek to undermine the societies they infect.

 

So what we must do is seek to promote quality in a way that does not compromise interest from those without experience.

 

Quality means more than criticism; it means support, growth, and betterment. Not only should we seek to help potential TLs recognize the gravity of the work before them, but we should help them improve themselves. We should recognize those who are skilled at what they do, and in doing so encourage them to continue their works. And for those who are not, we must endeavor to teach them, but kindly. The troll we must lambast (or ignore), but the fledgeling we should gracefully correct, the inexperienced we direct to learn form the experienced, and the leaders we promote. We implement policies and mannerisms that hold quality and education above all else, so that we may teach, grow, and produce works that we can be proud to put or names to.

 

However, such a community will exist only if the majority of members ingrain it into their everyday actions. The culture of Japan does not come merely from literary works, it comes because the Japanese people live, breathe, and exemplify the culture we see. So upon aligning our ideals and expectations to produce quality, we must implement it. We must strive to bring those plans to fruition, and we must do the long, constant, and often thankless work to realize these ideals.

 

Which brings us to the ultimate question: are we truly up to such a task? Can we, as individuals, align ourselves and create a community which produces quality? This problem is not an impossible one, consider the Open Source community. Despite thousands of individuals scattered across the world and with varying competency, they are able to centralize around a certain way, and highlight that which is good and works while diminishing that which is not.

 

So I propose the challenge to you fuwa, to the readers of this post, and to all who make this site what it is: create a community of quality. Identify what you can do to evoke this ideal, and act upon it. In this way, we can solve the issues that plague us, like those discussed here.

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I was going to say "good luck," but then I saw this bullshit on your page and instantly lost all respect for this project:

8MJ8K.png

I hope you realize that you are volunteering, and what you guys are doing are already borderline-illegal. I doubt you need even need money to "purchase software for [your] translators".

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One serious question for BlankTranslations:

Can you translate Aiyoku no Eustia?

 

No matter how it turns out, I promise to see this through. I've read a lot of visual novels over the years and I really feel like I want to give back to the community. As I've said before, I place a lot of faith in my team. We're new, I get that. We're not doing this for fame or some other lofty goal. Rather, we're translating Aiyoku no Eustia because we want to have something to look back on, something to be proud of.  Obviously life will throw us a few curve-balls along the way. However, I know that the dedication of everyone on our team is immense, and I would be shocked if even one person on our team left because it was too much work.

 

There isn't really any harm in us translating this. We'll be releasing a patch for Eris's route when it's finished, so the community will be able to gauge the quality of our translation soon enough. 

 

Yeah, we'll be removing the donations page. It was an idea of one of our editors, but I quickly decided to remove the button until we could have more of a discussion. We'll be taking that off with our next update this Sunday.

 

With that said, there's no risk involved with us translating. So please let us try to leave an impression. 

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I was going to say "good luck," but then I saw this bullshit on your page and instantly lost all respect for this project:

8MJ8K.png

I hope you realize that you are volunteering, and what you guys are doing are already borderline-illegal. I doubt you need even need money to "purchase software for [your] translators".

 

Taking this viewpoint of course means that you are forbidden from using any translations from a site that accepts donations, lest you be branded a hypocrite.  And of course all fan translations which have not been authorized are illegal.

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Taking this viewpoint of course means that you are forbidden from using any translations from a site that accepts donations, lest you be branded a hypocrite.  And of course all fan translations which have not been authorized are illegal.

 

Though I just said that I intend to remove that section of the site in my post above.

 

Edit: Also, I'm sorry if I sound like I'm being arrogant in thinking this will be easy. I know it's a challenge, and I'm treating it that way. I may even ask some questions around on the forums here if I'm unsure of how something should be translated. 

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One serious question for BlankTranslations:

Can you translate Aiyoku no Eustia?

It seems you aren't so sure about that. You won't gain anything by half-assing something that is way beyond your abilities. But you can lose a lot - mainly your enthusiasm. If your Japanese isn't that good, you will have to put a lot of effort into deciphering sentences that are too advanced for you, and after releasing a crappy patch for such a popular VN as Eustia, you will be hit with a torrent of (now perfecly justified) criticism (with a fair dose of 4chan-esque trolling in the mix).

You are confident in your English? How about trying to edit something? You could check the original script and see how it was translated, consult stuff with the translator and improve your Japanese in the process. And we would get a well edited VN.

You have some semi-decent Japanese knowledge? How about trying to translate something short for starters? You'd see how it goes, which aspects of your Japanese still need some polishing, you could get an experienced translator to give it a quick TLC to point out your mistakes etc.. And we would get an actually finished project.

 

I'm not telling you to drop AnE. If you think you are up to the task, by all means go on an do it. But keep in mind that a translation of a 65k-line title is a huge project - make sure you aren't tackling something far beyond your abilities, otherwise you will quickly burn yourself out. And half-assed translation causes more harm than good.

Just my piece of advice.

 

 

As for the comments... Well, I mostly agree with what Hometown and Life said, but I'd add one thing.

You guys are conviniently ignoring an important issue. The vast majority of projects started by people with inadecuate abilities never gets finished, and those people end up discouraged for good and don't return to the VNTL scene ever again.

(I'm assuming a good will here, and I'm only talking about people who are actually trying. Copypasting machine translations and other blatant trolling doesn't count.)

 

People who stupidly encourage inexperienced translators to pick up stuff that might be far too hard for them, not only are showing their disrespect towards original work (by letting someone butcher it), entire English-speaking community (by practically preventing them from fully enjoying said work in English, ever), but most importantly - towards said translators themselves. And they don't even realize the harm such blind acceptance can cause. With your nice, encouraging words, you are telling them to struggle with something that is simply beyond their abilities. To spend a lot of their time and their energy on a project that will only quickly burn them out without producing any decent results. When your skills are insufficient, not only your TL quality suffers. It also takes much more effort to produce said TL, even if it's bad.

A person new to the TL scene is almost guaranteed to misjudge the amount of time and skill that such project will require. He has a lot of enthusiasm, but it won't keep him going for too long if the script is simply too advanced for his shaky Japanese. Most of the time this results in projects left dead in the water and burned out translators. And on the off chance such project actually gets finished, the team will end up rightfully bashed by every sensible person. That's where such "beggars", who swallow everything indiscriminately, are leading aspiring translators - quick burnout and wasted effort. Sure, occasionally you will get a finished translation, but it will be crappy and won't represent the original work too well anyway. And for that one bad TL, you are willing to sacrifice the time and effort of ~10 or more aspiring translators who will drop their projects and disappear from the scene forever. How nice.

 

You know what? That's even worse than 4chan trolls. They tell inexperienced translators that they should just kill themselves, while Fuwa-style blind supporters basically tell them to bleed themselves to death while struggling with an overly ambitious project.

 

Too bad that usually nobody tries to push aspiring translators in the right direction, give them some hints and point out their mistakes in a civilized manner. And if somebody does, his/her voice is drowned by the constant "woow, you iz awesome, good luck lol!" and "kill yourself faget, lol!" exchange.

 

Try encouraging people to tackle projects they actually can finish. Just that. Blind support causes people to waste their enthusiasm and produce nothing of value. Directing that enthusiasm in the right direction can help someone become a decent translator. If you don't respect the original work or the community, at the very least show some respect to the aspiring translators. Respect = constructive criticism and guidance (if you have some experience). Pushing someone forward for your own amusement, when you know he is heading towards a dead end is just cruel.

 

Oh, and don't take this post as complaining about this particualr project. It's a general comment. Personally, I'm not that concerned about this TL. If I find it inadequate, I will just read AnE in Japanese. Because I can. ┐( ̄- ̄)┌

However, since I like VNs, and I kinda care about this medium, I enjoy talking about them with friends and obviously I'd like to see them getiing more popular on the West. Pile of dead projects or mistranslated BS doesn't exactly help here.

 

As for everyone who claims that you have no right to criticize something you get for free - I will give you an arrow. For free. 100% charity. Well... actually I will shoot you in your knee with it. But hey, it's for free, so you can't complain. Who's first? :P

 

There is more merit in this post than many may realize at all. 

 

I have personal experience in attempting to take on a project that was more than I could handle simply because I wasn't prepared enough and didn't have enough knowledge to be capable of what I was trying to do. A lot of the stimulus behind this mistake was the feeling of wanting to do something, and a heavily misguided concept of "you get better at translating by translating" and "any translation is better than no translation". 

 

To cut the long story short, it was a complete waste of my time attempting to translate at that moment in time, incited by misguided notions and lack of understanding exactly what I was doing. Thankfully it was only about 5000 lines or so, but that was still lots of hours of wasted effort that I can't get back. For those wondering, yes, it was the Hoshimemo Eternal Heart project, and I pretty much had to completely redo the entire script after improving some. In fact, I still have to go over some portions to fix errors. 

 

Moral of story:

1. Be able to play games in Japanese before trying to translate a game from japanese to english

2. Play the game you want to translate and consider whether or not you can actually convey it properly

3. Don't disservice yourself by overestimating your abilities, if I had waited a few months or half a year, then I could've avoided wasting time. 

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It's honest to god amazing that the english audience is so desperate that they will make obscenely stupid and ridiculous arguments like 'lol you pirate games so you can't comment' or 'they're doing it for free so its beyond criticism!!!' just so that they can latch on like vultures to the first sign of an english translation, regardless of quality. It's honestly pathetic.

Nobody is criticising a project that hasn't released a patch yet. They are worried and rightfully so over this project a game a lot of people really like.

Blank may have selled himself short. Hell, maybe the patch will turn out fine. Then all these comments will go away, seem pointless, and everyone will have the game. Perfect. But denying that their are alot of red flags is silly. And saying that everyone should ignore these flags and that we can't call it out because they're doing it for free is dumb as shit.

Only time is going to tell how good it ends up being. Hell, these groups pop up all the time and disappear soon after. That's honestly more likely, but if BlankTranslations ends up releasing it, then it being bad-quality ruins Eustia in english forever.

So, yeah. I'm just gonna dip out and see what happens. As a fan of the original game I'm extremely curious.

 

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And saying that everyone should ignore these flags and that we can't call it out because they're doing it for free is dumb as shit.

 

That's honestly more likely, but if BlankTranslations ends up releasing it, then it being bad-quality ruins Eustia in english forever.

 

I'm not saying people should ignore the red flags. I'm just saying that there isn't much harm because we'll be releasing a partial patch towards the end of the summer. I honestly doubt that another group was planning to make a translation announcement during the time it will take us to translate.

 

Additionally, there's no way this will ruin Aiyoku no Eustia forever. People have suggested to us that we not use the Yandere patch. It's not as if we have to use their translation, we simply chose to. This is the same with all translation projects in my opinion. When a patch is released, there's always room for a better one. There were multiple translations for Air and it turned out fine (It just took a while). Except there's no one translating this at the same time. 

 

Mephisto made a good point though. I'll put up a poll on my site and include some other options for things we can translate, though I'll still include Aiyoku no Eustia. Whatever gets the most votes will be what I ultimately decide to translate.

 

Edit: Actually I'll do this the other way around. I'll create a thread asking for suggestions of things to translate, and then I'll talk it over with my team. 

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One serious question for BlankTranslations:

Can you translate Aiyoku no Eustia?

It seems you aren't so sure about that. You won't gain anything by half-assing something that is way beyond your abilities. But you can lose a lot - mainly your enthusiasm. If your Japanese isn't that good, you will have to put a lot of effort into deciphering sentences that are too advanced for you, and after releasing a crappy patch for such a popular VN as Eustia, you will be hit with a torrent of (now perfecly justified) criticism (with a fair dose of 4chan-esque trolling in the mix).

You are confident in your English? How about trying to edit something? You could check the original script and see how it was translated, consult stuff with the translator and improve your Japanese in the process. And we would get a well edited VN.

You have some semi-decent Japanese knowledge? How about trying to translate something short for starters? You'd see how it goes, which aspects of your Japanese still need some polishing, you could get an experienced translator to give it a quick TLC to point out your mistakes etc.. And we would get an actually finished project.

I'm not telling you to drop AnE. If you think you are up to the task, by all means go on an do it. But keep in mind that a translation of a 65k-line title is a huge project - make sure you aren't tackling something far beyond your abilities, otherwise you will quickly burn yourself out. And half-assed translation causes more harm than good.

Just my piece of advice.

As for the comments... Well, I mostly agree with what Hometown and Life said, but I'd add one thing.

You guys are conviniently ignoring an important issue. The vast majority of projects started by people with inadecuate abilities never gets finished, and those people end up discouraged for good and don't return to the VNTL scene ever again.

(I'm assuming a good will here, and I'm only talking about people who are actually trying. Copypasting machine translations and other blatant trolling doesn't count.)

People who stupidly encourage inexperienced translators to pick up stuff that might be far too hard for them, not only are showing their disrespect towards original work (by letting someone butcher it), entire English-speaking community (by practically preventing them from fully enjoying said work in English, ever), but most importantly - towards said translators themselves. And they don't even realize the harm such blind acceptance can cause. With your nice, encouraging words, you are telling them to struggle with something that is simply beyond their abilities. To spend a lot of their time and their energy on a project that will only quickly burn them out without producing any decent results. When your skills are insufficient, not only your TL quality suffers. It also takes much more effort to produce said TL, even if it's bad.

A person new to the TL scene is almost guaranteed to misjudge the amount of time and skill that such project will require. He has a lot of enthusiasm, but it won't keep him going for too long if the script is simply too advanced for his shaky Japanese. Most of the time this results in projects left dead in the water and burned out translators. And on the off chance such project actually gets finished, the team will end up rightfully bashed by every sensible person. That's where such "beggars", who swallow everything indiscriminately, are leading aspiring translators - quick burnout and wasted effort. Sure, occasionally you will get a finished translation, but it will be crappy and won't represent the original work too well anyway. And for that one bad TL, you are willing to sacrifice the time and effort of ~10 or more aspiring translators who will drop their projects and disappear from the scene forever. How nice.

You know what? That's even worse than 4chan trolls. They tell inexperienced translators that they should just kill themselves, while Fuwa-style blind supporters basically tell them to bleed themselves to death while struggling with an overly ambitious project.

Too bad that usually nobody tries to push aspiring translators in the right direction, give them some hints and point out their mistakes in a civilized manner. And if somebody does, his/her voice is drowned by the constant "woow, you iz awesome, good luck lol!" and "kill yourself faget, lol!" exchange.

Try encouraging people to tackle projects they actually can finish. Just that. Blind support causes people to waste their enthusiasm and produce nothing of value. Directing that enthusiasm in the right direction can help someone become a decent translator. If you don't respect the original work or the community, at the very least show some respect to the aspiring translators. Respect = constructive criticism and guidance (if you have some experience). Pushing someone forward for your own amusement, when you know he is heading towards a dead end is just cruel.

Oh, and don't take this post as complaining about this particualr project. It's a general comment. Personally, I'm not that concerned about this TL. If I find it inadequate, I will just read AnE in Japanese. Because I can. ┐( ̄- ̄)┌

However, since I like VNs, and I kinda care about this medium, I enjoy talking about them with friends and obviously I'd like to see them getiing more popular on the West. Pile of dead projects or mistranslated BS doesn't exactly help here.

As for everyone who claims that you have no right to criticize something you get for free - I will give you an arrow. For free. 100% charity. Well... actually I will shoot you in your knee with it. But hey, it's for free, so you can't complain. Who's first? :P

This is probably the most useful post I've read in a while. Actually made me rethink about some stuff I'm doing.

And although I'm more of encouraging people I can definitely see your point and I think encouraging in the right direction is more useful than blind encouragement. Props to you for giving useful tips.

Nonetheless I'll still personally wait for the partial just for the sake of waiting since they seem set on releasing it. Further judgement shall come after that. At least these are my thoughts regarding this project.

Regarding the topic in general I fully agree with you that you should only set yourself to do stuff you know you can do. Nothing more and nothing less. And before someone attacks me saying I'm contradicting myself, mind you my thoughts on this project are simply that I can't judge anything without empirical evidence. That's just how I am personally, sorry if this bothers you. But in general it shouldn't theoretically happen, however if someone sets themselves to do something they're not sure they can do I don't believe in completely discouraging them, i might be doubtful but at least I'd like to know how it turns out. Encouraging in the right direction is more useful here rather than discouragement.

Edit: well this project was abandoned now. I guess the team realized it might be for the best after all the discussion.

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