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Of zoom909 and the rest of the VN community


zoom909

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I don't like to use the term visual novel.  It's too darn serious.

 

The words visual novel have an oddly formal ring to them.  When someone says visual novel, I immediately think of all the discussions about elevating visual novels to an art form (as it were), how to improve them by separating them from anime tropes, how important it is to have a serious, epic storyline, and so forth.  (The thought might also cross my mind of statements made about ero scenes gaining legitimacy by being "crucial to the story", but that is another kettle of fish.)

 

But I'm personally going back to "galgame" (or just "game" in context).  For me, this conjures up thoughts of, for example, cute, moe 2D girls all holding out chopsticks trying to feed you an octopus sausage or tamagoyaki simultaneously (yes I say "you" because I always think in terms of the player character so whether I say "you", or Tatsuya or whatever his name is, in describing a scene, it makes no difference in my mind.).  In other words, I think more in terms of entertainment, and accept any mild cheesiness as part of the fun, as I do with anime.

 

 

I don't like to use the term project for translations.

 

Now I'm very serious-minded about translation accuracy/transparency.  You see, even though I don't fret over the actual narrative value of the game I might be playing, I sure don't want jumbled up, goofy text in a game that is primarily text-based, like a you-know-what.  I don't want to be reminded of those Hong Kong anime bootlegs people used to watch.  I know I have certainly seen comments to the contrary, a sort of who-cares-how-it's-translated-if-it's-just-moege attitude (And if a game gets labeled a "nukige", you may as well forget about it, regardless of what kind of content the game has besides ero-scenes).  I happen to be fanatical enough think that translations are worth getting right even if it only lets you get to know some cute 2D girls a little better.  I must be nuts.

 

Nevertheless, I've discovered a few things since Mikukisu etc.  After trying to move up to the big league, I found out that just being able to translate Japanese to English does not make you a fan translator.  You need a lot of determination.  You need (appallingly) people skills.  And most of all, you need time.  I don't have these things.  I don't know if and when I will get these things.  So from now on, instead of "projects" it will simply be "stuff I translated."

 

Look at all the stuff that people on "projects" have to deal with.  "Is this something people are really going to want to play?  Will we really be able to complete this before we get sick of it?  What if people or patch files suddenly disappear?  Is someone else working on the same game in secret and will beat us to a release?"  And so on.  It's just too much. 

 

But if I just do "stuff", then it's different.  I can relax.  I'll translate things that happen to interest me personally, in whatever spare moments I happen to have.  No promises or unfurl-the-banner announcements will be made.  If something is going to become a project, I want it to do so of its own volition.  That's what happened with Mikukisu--it didn't start out as a "project", it became one.  So no projects from now on.  Just seedlings that I or perhaps someone else can raise into a project if fortune smiles on us. 

 

Oh well, I don't usually make long posts like this.  So please put up with it one time...

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If you are not translating for yourself in the first place then there is no point in doing so, yes it sounds selfish but you need to enjoy it because in the end it's not a job and you are not being paid for doing it so if you are not enjoy the whole process and still you do it then you are some kind of masochist :P and probably the translation is going to be really bad.

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Being a translator myself, I can only imagine how much courage it took to publicly announce that you were no longer going to work on Lamune. I respect your decision, and I look forward to your mini "projects" in the future.

As far as Lamune goes, the main reason to announce it was to check if some other person capable of translating would be willing to work on it.

Otherwise, I probably would've gone the usual route and let it just slowly fall off the VNTS due to lack of updates ;-)

But if someone else ever works on it, then it won't seem so hopeless and I will try my best to finish the 2nd route I'm on at least...

 

If you are not translating for yourself in the first place then there is no point in doing so, yes it sounds selfish but you need to enjoy it because in the end it's not a job and you are not being paid for doing it so if you are not enjoy the whole process and still you do it then you are some kind of masochist :P and probably the translation is going to be really bad.

I did enjoy it when I had the available time to go at it at a decent pace.  But if your time shrinks like mine did, you start to wonder if it's really worth doing the entire thing.  Especially since Lamune is now basically a retro game, and I think not many people bothered to look at the partial patch.

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^

The unseen tit is the sexiest.

Or something along those lines. Don't misattribute this to me though.
 
I wholeheartedly agree with your paragraph on "projects", coming from a programmer's standpoint in my case. Nowadays people should ask "what have you contributed to", with what being as ambiguous as possible since a lot of us sometimes even contribute in much smaller amounts than we used to - I know, hardly the case for a translator -, but I'd rather be judged, or praised, or loathed for that matter for my contribution itself than whatever project I've contributed to. If that makes sense.

 

Your proposal sounds like a really healthy and sane solution to the burnout a lot of people experience especially in fan <insert type of work here> work.

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But I'm personally going back to "galgame" (or just "game" in context).  For me, this conjures up thoughts of, for example, cute, moe 2D girls all holding out chopsticks trying to feed you an octopus sausage or tamagoyaki simultaneously (yes I say "you" because I always think in terms of the player character so whether I say "you", or Tatsuya or whatever his name is, in describing a scene, it makes no difference in my mind.).  In other words, I think more in terms of entertainment, and accept any mild cheesiness as part of the fun, as I do with anime.

I've made this decision long ago, it was great. Why can't one just be entertained by cute 2D girls doing cute things?

 

Thanks for all the work you've done Zoom, I've experienced something similar to you where the whole "official project" thing was just burning me out and making me feel like absolute crap because I felt the need to live up to expectations and it wasn't even fun anymore at some point, and I know how much better it feels to just stop being "official" and doing "projects" and just go back to your hobby and doing whatever you want whenever you want, I 100% support you and wish you good luck in the future :)

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Best of luck to your endeavors Zoom; It's really unfortunate that you have less free time due to what I assume as trying to live in the real world. (Am I right there?).

 

I myself, had taken High school and College free time for granted. In retrospect, I'm appalled at how much time I wasted...

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I'm here for ya.

 

Anyway, I might've not been able to see any of zoom-chan's projects, but hey.

I'm looking forward to you picking up things you're interested in.

Hmm?  Not sure what you mean by "can't see them."  ("Zoom-chan"??)

 

 

Best of luck to your endeavors Zoom; It's really unfortunate that you have less free time due to what I assume as trying to live in the real world. (Am I right there?).

Heck no, I've been trying to avoid it.  It's just that apparently the real world won't let me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So your going out huh? Well just let me tell you i apreciate that you translated the MikuKisu games so good luck with real life stuff.

Thanks, and yeah, it would be hard to find another game like that one anyway.  It was short and yet I liked it very much.  It was popular because of the Vocaloid fans, though, not because of the English VN community--they have to have either significant seriousity*, or hentai.  MikuKisu had neither.

 

*The degree to which something pretty heavy goes down in the story, that's outside of your regular anime-style romance/comedy/slice-of-life antics.

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