Saturday, June 2, 2012

When will the next chapter be out?... Information?

God gave us the ability to read, why won't you use it?

This post is dedicated to some clueless people out there about what the people behind the scene went through to give your favorite series dose.

1. Raws. Of course, the raws. You can start nothing if you don't have the raws. Where you can find the raws? Well, there are lots of sites but the raws for 07-Ghost and Ookami Heika no Hanayome here were provided by respective raw providers, and I believe I haven't erased links to the raws in some of the comment in this blog. You wan't it? Find it yourself. Raws for other series? Someone once said to me, if you know where to look, you'll find the raws in no time. She was right. So, the key here is, make an effort to find it yourself first and then bug other people if you still can't find it. Google really helped me a lot by the way. Utilize Google to the fullest! 

2. Cleaning. Do I need to explain this? Of course you'll have to clean the raws first, mainly erasing the original Japanese words before you can put the English translation on the it. Only idiots will think everything is automatically done. There are more that need to be done other than erasing the words, but I'll keep it simple here.

3. Translating. In 07-Ghost case, after I got the raws, I'll send them to my editors first, and then I will start on translating the chapter. I make sure the typesetters won't have to wait for me before they can get on their job. Is it hard? Hard is not the problem here. Time is. I don't need much time to get the translation done, but I do need time to sit down and get on with it. 

4. Proofreading. Wonderful people are behind me fixing the translations. Love them! Typesetters can continue their job without worries.

5. Typesetting. You got the cleans, you got the translations. You can start typeset. IE putting the words into the bubbles.

6. Quality Check. Check for fonts, color, size and some missing translations and misplacement. 

There you go. Now you get a glimpse of what happened behind the scene. Next, I want to talk about people. People. People. People. What do you think of scanlators? Some people or group who exist to bring your favorite series to you? Well, you got that 1/3 right. Well, for the other 2/3, scanlators are people, just like you. We have our own life going on, we have other hobbies we would like to spend our time on, and most importantly, we do no exist just to bring you the chapters! We certainly do not spend all our time editing the chapters. I think most of us here just started on the job when we feel like it. People, know this. WE are doing this out of fun. It is NOT our obligation to bring the chapter to you. 

This is a simple logic. You should be able to guess bits of it if you have a normally functional brain. However, when I visit some forums, namely mangafox forum, I was always left speechless about how ignorant some of the users are. 
"I wanna read the next chapter!" "I'm impatient!" "No updates for a million years!"
Seriously, I always wonder how old they are, the one who usually posted these kind of messages. I got mixed feeling when I read this kind of post. Pity, and annoyed. I pity them for their ignorance, and I'm annoyed on how they assumed they'll get the chapter whenever they want, or as if it's the reader who bring the chapters to them. I do not own the chapter myself. Oh, no wonder a lot of scanlators are pissed to some of the fans. Do not misunderstand me here. It's good to have some fellow fans to share the series with, we just don't like idiotic fan. Fanatic is okay. Think about what the idiotic here means. Well, with how you can easily get to read the manga out there, I guess you're so used to being a consumer that you think you'll get everything handed down to you on silver plates. It's the mangaka who created the series, we are just sharing some of our knowledges about the series with you. So be patient!

And finally, understanding and support. We'll get the work done faster if we are motivated enough to do it. And for that, you are priceless!

I usually write about when will the next chapter of 07-Ghost will be published in Japan in the translations I posted on this blog, so you can guess yourself about how long it will take for us to finish editing the chapter.