Another chapter of AntiMagic, another release post where I have no idea what to write.
All right, let's have a very short rant on licensing (the idea had come from one of the comments)
Basically, in my opinion a license is the best thing that can happen to a series, unless it's licensed by a publisher who not only shouldn't be taken seriously, but who doesn't take publishing seriously itself (Hi*an no A*ia). People tend to forget that it isn't just a fanfiction available to everyone for free. It's a type of literature that has author, publisher, investments, people who get paid for their work. Some leechers tend to forget that and think it's their divine right to read it for free. Well, you're wrong fellas. Even if everyone does it and there's almost never any consequences, at least in my opinion saying something like "screw publishers because they take our freebies" is unacceptable morally. It's an ethics issue (ikr, some of the leechers don't even know what ethics is :3). In case any of the series I do was licensed, I'll gladly take them down right that instant, happy that the franchise is alive and well. I'll just pick up something else and work hard to make that something else just as popular outside Japan.
Damn, that was slightly longer than a short rant, but oh well. Here we go with the link.
——Krytyk
I'm late I know!
I have no problems paying for it, in fact I even own half of DxD even tho I cant read a lick of Japanese yet. But I do take issues with what series Yen press targets, they target things with active translations almost exclusively which really makes the hate build up. I'm actually kind of curious if they've licensed anything that wasnt actively translated? If they've done so I'm more than willing to go out and buy the first volume of whatever the series is.
Also, no offense Krytyk but you've kinda been a dick in the comments, I sincerely thank you for the translations but nothing can give you the right to the attitude you've had here, tho I do understand that you're pretty damn annoyed with the excessive entitlement people on the internet are known for. You're argument here has pretty much been "Money rules the world" which factually is true no denying that and I agree with pretty much every comment about it you've made(minus the few insults), but you've also been denying any other view of it, including the actual reason why most authors write their stories in the first place, the desire to share the story in their heart with others. You think they decide to get a job as uncertain as being an Author for the mullah it provides? Nah, thats just what allows them to continue doing so as their actual job.
In all honesty if I had any talent for being an author, I'd do so in a heartbeat but all the stories I have are jumbled messes that I have no way to translate to actual text, but I can promise you now, barring a major family emergence I'd never place a higher value on the money than the enjoyment I spread.
Well Campione got liscensed by Shueisha. I hope they do a good job of it. It also looks like Shueisha is going to try to be a new comtender in the English LN market. Then again thsi is all speculation based on the fact that BT got a DMCA notice for Campione from Shueisha.
Apparently Kadokawa also wants to enter light novel market in US. And Kadokawa holds such titles as AntiMagic or OSO.
Actually I should correct my earlier statement because I found out that they just DMCAed every language and gave no explaination. So it could be it's getting liscensed or it could be that they are just doing it because of other reasons. I hope it's the former though. I realized my mistake after reading the BT Facebook post. Oh well we'll know what's really happening at some point.
Also I hope they do because Antimagic deserves it and OSO is good as well (it's just not my style so I only read 3 volumes). Plus it'll be nice to see what series you decide to pick up (assuming they are liscensed and you are still translating) because you all ways pick interesting ones.
He'll finish EB, of course. Then he'll ho mad from despair.
I wouldn't be so sure :3.
I'd buy OSO in english.
Honestly, I have no problem with the whole process. My issue is the fact that many processes only occur when there is a popular interest, therefore a guaranteed large profit. Profit is necessary, but when you deliberately go after pure profit, it grates against me. Just my opinion, though.
i dont really mind if they licensed the LN but . . . at least they release it fast . . . . mostly they release only 2 volume in 1 year !!
A Certain Magical Index 1 ---(November 18, 2014, ISBN 978-0-316-33912-4)
A Certain Magical Index 2 ---(February 24, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-25942-2)
A Certain Magical Index 3 ---(May 19, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-34040-3)
A Certain Magical Index 4 ---(August 18, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-34056-4)
A Certain Magical Index 5 ---(November 17, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-34059-5)
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Accel World, Vol. 2: The Red Storm Princess ---(November 18, 2014, ISBN 978-0-316-29636-6)
Accel World, Vol. 3: The Twilight Marauder ---(March 24, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-29637-3)
Accel World, Vol. 4: Flight Toward a Blue Sky ---(July 21, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-29638-0)
Accel World, Vol. 5: The Floating Starlight Bridge ---(November 17, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-29639-7)
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No Game No Life, Vol. 1: In This Fantasy World, Everything's a Game--And These Gamer Siblings Play to Win! ---(April 21, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-38311-0)
No Game No Life, Vol. 2: The Gamer Siblings Have Their Eyes on a New Target--The Land of the Animal Girls... ---(July 21, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-38517-6)
No Game No Life, Vol. 3 ---(October 27, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-38519-0)
No Game No Life, Vol. 4 ---(January 19, 2016, ISBN 978-0-316-38521-3)
No Game No Life, Vol. 5 ---(April 19, 2016, ISBN 978-0-316-38523-7)
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Sword Art Online, Vol. 1: Aincrad ---(April 22, 2014, ISBN 978-0-316-37124-7)
Sword Art Online, Vol. 2: Aincrad ---(August 26, 2014, ISBN 978-0-316-37681-5)
Sword Art Online, Vol. 3: Fairy Dance ---(December 16, 2014, ISBN 978-0-316-29642-7)
Sword Art Online, Vol. 4: Fairy Dance ---(April 21, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-29643-4)
(Plus progressive)
Sword Art Online: Progressive 1 --(March 24, 2015, ISBN 978-0-316-25936-1)
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All of the above are Yen Press english liscensed series and all are taken from 1 year periods. I even left out a couple (DanMachi, Hataraku Maou-sama, etc. because I'm lazy) but they would have similar results. If my math is not wrong that is 4-5 volumes in a one year period. Even if I did not take it from an exact year period that is still about 3-4 volumes a year. How did you come to the number 2 as how many they release a year? I'm pretty sure that 3-4 volumes is on par or ahead of how many volumes come out in 1 year in japan for an average LN.
I think you can say those things because you can understand Japanese. I bet you could say those if you can't speak the language and just so you know your English is terrible. I remember your first translations and the quality is not that good. So stop acting like a boss because you can read Japanese.
There he comes, the entitled guy. He reads what I translate in my own, private time, purchasing materials with my own private money and is still dissatisfied, hating on me :3.
Sigh. Just leave if you don't like it. Gtfo.
PS: You know what I did when I couldn't read Japanese? I didn't whine on anybody's blog on how pathetic I am. I went and friggin learned it, then immediately after, I started translating.
Umm... reading the creations of others for free when they make a living off it, labors for many hours authoring it, and demands to be paid for it is NOT one of your human rights. So quit acting like you have a right to unlicensed free works. You don't. Contrarily, they have a RIGHT to demand money from you whenever the original author/publisher choosing a localization company, because it's their effort that created it.
His english is terrible? Honestly I'd say when he started it was average and when he got better, above average. Sure he makes mistakes and flow or wording is not perfect but are you expecting someone who translates in their own free time to have their writing be at the same level as a published book? Also have you ever learned a language? If you have you'd know that you make a ton of mistakes while learning so isn't it expected that earlier translations would be of worse quality? Not all mistakes can even be attributed to a translator's english when it comes to a translated text. What happens when a term has no english equivilent? What happens when it uses an obscure sentence structure? What happens if it uses english inccorrectly in the original text. The fact that you said what you did just tells me you have absolutely no respect for what a translator does. My last question is what the hell are you doing here if you don't appreciate his translations in some way?
I agree with your rant. It can just be tough sometimes like with Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei when the fan translations have finished 14 volumes and now take everything down and stop continuing to translate the new stuff. Now we have to wait many years for the licensed version to be released and that is of course under the assumption that they take it seriously unlike with Hidan no Aria. Not many people have the patience to wait for years just for a series to catch up to what you've already read while you know that the series has continued many more volumes further
... I'm neutral on licensing.. It just makes me very sad to not be able to know what will happen next or what's the ending to the books I read..
Anyways, does anyone know how to get books from yen press in the Philippines? Amazon is for US only right? And if it's possible to get without using any cards (like paying through 7/11 or something with cash), because I don't have one. I'm just a neet. -.-
And will the book you bought in digital be gone if for example you delete kindle or your mobile got wrecked or something? I wanted the hard copy because I read somewhere that the books he bought disappeared when the app updated or something, but if getting the hard copy is impossible I'll try the digital if it doesn't have that much problem.
And thanks for the translation again krytyk-sama.
Honestly, books disapearing because an app udpated should not happen. What should happen is the data of which books you own should be stored with the account at their servers meaning when you log into any kindle app on any device (up to what ever limit they set for number of devices), you shoudl be able to redownload any kindle book you bought digitally. It's that same with basically any digital bookstore. That way if your device breaks you can still get the books. However if you add your own books to an app they will be lost if you only had them on one device and it broke. A work-around for that is store the files on a free cloud service: dropbox, icloud, google books, etc.
I'm still waiting on Hidan no Ar*a.
the licensing issue..
Here's my two cents in a view of a 'leecher' (pls don't dismiss my post though):
I know for some of its ever licensed by Yen press, it'll be 'I don't wanna support' nor buy either because it's costly.. Or as some know with NGNL, shitty translating.
But... Let me play the devils advocate and say it makes more sense to buy yen press books if they're licensed. Main thing is. LN market is small. Yen press holds the monopoly due to their persistence in willing to publish. Yet, if the LN market grows, other bigger/better companies might take a notice and jump onto bandwagon = quality translations might come into the picture. (Not dissing YP. I heard some series are done well... It's probably because they don't have a QC).
In other words, endure it if you dislike it. Consider the purchase an investment that things might change. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Or in the least purchase those figurines, or merchandise related to the series. It'll fund the Author(s). (Not sure if anime merchandise income goes to the creators of the series).
Many people in this comment section seem to be arguing with our lord and saviour Krytyk. In order to appease our mighty god we must pray with our fluffy feelings and thoughts of justice. Please send him your fluffiness.
I WOULD agree, except when, as you mentioned, companies like YP shelve shit for years, altogether mocking everyone
The bottom line is those "leechers" complain about licensing not because they are evil but because they can't afford to buy everything they want (be it books, music ...). I was a teenager living on allounce once and I can understand. They should be viewed as future customers. Anyway, even with licensing you can still legally read for free in a nice place called public library (there goes the argument on "supporting the author", huh). Well, at least in the US that have so many libraries.
Well, I don't mind licensing, people need to work to make money and writers, mangakas, publishers and co aren't exception, just for some their hobby is their job but I just hope AMA won't be licenced and consequently dropped by you till the end because it's unavailable in my region and I read your translation of AMA from the beginning.
First let me take the opportunity to thank you Krytyk for the work that you do. I really appreciate it.
I'm not against licensing. I buy the original Japanese works even though I don't understand them just to support the author. I feel that if I enjoy the book I should support the author. My beef is when a publisher picks up a title that has many volumes out and its nearing its too far along or nearing its end. Example: Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei. In Japan they're pushing for volume 18 to come out in November. Yen Press picked up the license last month and will release volume 1 in April 2016. Now I've bought every single Japanese LN for this series that I've read so far on fan translation sites (up to volume 15). I plan to buy 16 and 17 when the translators finish putting those up. I've been hearing that the translators will cease to translate once the first issue is published by YP. That means I'm looking to wait probably a minimum of 4 years just to catch up to where we are currently. This is the problem and the source of the hate towards YP. Don't get me wrong, I think their work is pretty good, in fact I've already preordered the english version of Danmachi vol.4. That series is not far from the Japanese releases so I can wait a couple of months on that one. To be 4 years behind....that's a little too much to ask of anyone to wait. I'm hoping that they release them faster than their standard 3-4 month period but I highly doubt it.
Anyway, thanks again for the hard work.
They owe it to fans to have the decency to translate at the very minimum 3 volumes before locensing, it sure as hell doesnt help their absolute dominance of the market save one or two minor competitors
Not how the market works. You license before you publish/translate. If a company stops translating it's usually because there weren't enough sales -- which in the end can only be blamed on the readership; because no publishing company will say no to a book that rakes in profits.
Now... crappy official translations... that's inexcusable xD
I think part of the reason for slow releases of translated light novels is due to the concern of censoring and altering much of the content, because they want to sell it to a broader audience, yet I've picked up a novel series when I was in Highschool and it was not a youth friendly story to say the least and had a lot of violent and sexual content.
*inahles* !!! Warning this will be a long read !!!
First and foremost my opinion. I am for licensing. After all if people work for something then they naturally should get paid for it. BUT! The way LNs are licensed is usually not the same way a "normal" book is licensed. This is something i will further explain below.
What is a License? A license is a "rented" right for the selling of a product where the license is given from one publisher to the other and the Author her/himself arent really of account in most cases.
1) The time span. A usual LN license time is 10 yrs after the complete translation and marketing of the series. Let's do a simple calculation. I will call the english publisher "P. E" and the original publisher "P. O". A series has for example 20 volumes and in the country of origin 4 volumes a year are published. If after 8 volumes "P. E" starts licenses the series and brings 2 Volumes a year then the license would be active for (8Vol / 2VpY) + ((12Vol * (4VpY * 0,5) + 10Yrs of complete series translation license = 4Yrs + 6Yrs + 10Yrs = 20Yrs. So the license would be effective for 20 years after licensiing for "P.E" . If the translated series is now not popular enough and the translation gets axed after, lets say 5 volumes, then the license would still be active for 18 years after the translation got aborted. Well noone can touch the series in these 18 years if "P.E" doesnt renounce their licensing rights, not even "P.O". Yeah, that's right not even the orginal publisher can allow others to work on the series if "P.E" doesn't allow it. And besides fantranslations no one would be interested in it anyway because it became for other publishers a "defective" product and would be a way to great business risk. Well usually after dropping the series "P.E" denounces the license after 1-2 years but well this would still be 3-4 years. And after 3-4 years the online popularity would have hit rock bottom already and most people would have gone their way and have forgotten the series or arent really interested anymore.
Conclusion 1) Yeah, patience is a virtue. But lets be realistic, besides the one's who want to "own" the books who would wait 4 years just to further read a good story if they can just take up another one? And if it got axed well, do you still remember your favourite story from 18 years ago?!
2) "Supporting the Author". Most LNs are aimed at students between 16 and 20 years old ( yadda yadda y i know we "leechers" are usually older). For this audience the price is set at an affordable but locrative margin. Its pretty much the maximum this audience CAN pay for it. So if the price is raised they will lose most of their customers. Normally licensed english translated books are in the same margin. I just looked it up with "Mahouka kouko no Rettousei" vol.1, in Japan its 616 Yen and in the US its about 6$. so the price is pretty much according to their respective countries the same. Now let us think. A Light Novel which costs round about 6$ in Japan costs in the USA exactly the same. But the work did increase for about 50%. Why does the english version then not cost 9$ instead? Easy anwser, the ones who make the most income with it are 1.) English Publishers because they have to calculate their cost for the translation, printing, storage, marketing and of course their own profit. 2.) the original Publishers because they selling the licensing rights to the others. 3) the bookstores who sell the translated books. 4.) the author? duh, the market is to small that the author gets a piece of the cake big enough that it could be called income. This is something I was told from a friend of mine who lives in Japan and got aquantinces within YN Press. its calculated something like this...
60% "P.E"
25% "P.O"
15% The Bookstores
The author gets something like 10.000$ one time payment for the agreement of his to the licensing. And that is only for the first language it gets licensed besides the original one. Any further translation is made with the english script in 99% of the cases and the deals are done between the publishers. Well 10.000 bucks arent peanuts you say? True, he at least gets a bit of money but lets look at reality again. If we really wanted to support the author then it would be enough if 1 penny also 0,01$ from every "leecher" for each volume would be donated directly to the author. If we would do that the author would probably get ten times the amount. At the normal market for literature the author remains a certain procentual right for revenue but because the risk for the LN market is higher this concept its put into use for the LN authors.
3) At last, populartiy = free advertisment = rising income. Like it was already descirbed in a comment above. If the free translation wouldnt be forced to shut down of a licensed series within months completly but could go on and the volumes who are about to be published in english would be the only ones which have to be taken down then the sales of the series could probably be much higher with the english translated books. I am pretty sure of this point because if you have to wait years to read a story further without being sure if it will even come so far and u can only re-read the old volumes which you maybe just read 3 months ago then the usual customer would get bored of it and stop after maybe 2 volumes if he/she even tries this endeavor. But if you can read the story on WHILE buying the licensed goods, finish it and think that it was a good series then you are most likely to finsih your already ongoing purchase too. That is most probably because you would have bought about half of the series and most improtant you already enjoed the WHOLE ride, you know now that the series is "worth" it and because you already read all of it and not just a part it a substantial amount of remorse is created which in turn will make people buy the books more likely too.
You probably want to protest now: "But leechers got no remorse so they will not buy the books anyway!" Sadly I can't completly deny that. But I can make make an educated guess. If a 16 year old starts a series and likes it and gets told 2 years later "well boy sorry for the inconvience but if u want to read on please buy the books" He will probably think something along the lines of "duh f*** this I want to know how it goes on. I already know how it started and i got not really the money to buy the books 'for nothing now' anyway" because lets face it the only places where the price for the english copies are reasonable are the US, Canada and Australia( do they deliever LNs there even?!) for other countris u have to pay ransomly high transporting costs or because he is still a student he doenst have the means to buy them via online bookstores because they want a credit card number or another joke along those lines and the translated books he can buy now are pretty much just something for collectors because the story is most likely still fresh in his mind. But if you can read it on then the start and the ups and downs of your beloved and glorified MCs faded out with time and you got immersed in the actual ark of the story so that the first volumes got now a new appeal. Furthermore the once 16 year old student is now maybe 22 and part of the working force and got the means to buy the translated books.
*exhale* wow this was longer than i expected. But well that is my uptake and information to the whole "licensing LNs" uproar. Took me 3 hours to write it down O_o
Ok time for a cig, a glass of whine and some LN chapters XD
Well I read this whole thing and It was very imformative. I just wanted to add a couple things though. In Canada LNs typically go for 15$ in bookstores although in certain specialty stores you can get them for less. Online the price fluctuates but it is at about 12-14 per volume. Also yes as far as I know LNs are available in Australia. Last time I was there they had some volumes of Spice and Wolf at a bookstore(can't remember the name it was 2 years ago).
Personally I buy any series that is worth buying to support the author. I usually keep PDFs of licensed series only so that I can bear to wait for it to come out. Also something to note for all those leechers out there. Although not quite up to the speed of the original release speed Yen Press has improved noticably in my opinion. A typical LN author will will do 2-5 volumes per year and Yen press is currently going at about 2-4 per year depending on the series. I hope that no series is picked up like a bad company (Hidan....) but if they it does not hurt to have a back up plan. For example it's stupidly easy to save web pages and PDFs to tide you over while you wait.
If you still can't bear waiting for them to translate one series start following another; I find that is the best way to cope with it. If you need reccomendations I can give them. Honestly speaking, I agree with Krytyk; licensing is the best thing that can happen to a series because the translation quality usually improves, for slow translating series (Accel world) and series that weren't too far (Strike the Blood, DanMachi, PsyCome) it honestly is an improvement. It will be 1 short year until DanMachi is caught up to where the fan translation left off.
Sure there are a few long series that will take 4 or more years to get caught up to where they left off but that's nothing compared to what you can do if you just say to yourself "this author deserves compensation for his hard work." or "If I wrote something this good wouldn't be nice to actually make a living off of it?". I mean I read manga online including One Piece but that has not stopped me from collecting the official english volumes (currently I have 1-75). That took way more than 4 years and most of it I had already read by the time I bought it.
As usual I can't manage to write a short comment so =P
Anyways if you've read this far and want a reccomendation feel free to ask me at yascob09@gmail.com. I'll get back to you as soon as I can with some unlicensed reccomendations.
While i do agree with you, i believe it's even more disrespectful to butcher something the author put her effort on. Let's focus on YP (DMG are dicks not even worth mentioning...). Have you read YP's No Game No Life translation? It's shit... It's not even a translation, you could say it is a fanfiction. I will not make a comparison with the fantranslation, but i definitely stick with the latter. And they even want you to pay for something that is not even close to the original work, something that is full of grammatical mistakes, badly edited, something that is not even TLC'd before being printed. I'm not even a native english speaker but i'm certain i can do a better job than what they did. SAO translation is awful, Accel World is lost in the limbo, Log Horizon at least is readable, Spice and Wolf was the best translation they had (up to vol. 9). I'm referring to their best sellers only because everything else is at NGNL level (sometimes even worse...)
I can read japanese but i'm not on a level where i can read it without a kanji chart (not yet...), so i know what i'm talking about. That's why i still read fantranslations.
Do i support the authors? Yes, i do. How? I purchase the books as soon as they get published in Japan. Being physical or digital. I can't read all of them though, my reading skills aren't that good yet.
If they license one of your series the final product will be shit (unless they hire you...). If YP's translators managed to butcher a book that even kids are able to read (NGNL), i don't know what will happen when they try to translate a novel like OSO or AMA.
So lets do this, start a .tor group donating to authors a little each on the condition they refuae to give intellectual rights,, saving our pastimes at large and wallets at small
By the way, sorry for the carpet comments, however, this issue has gnawed at me no small degree
Personally I don't mind it when a series gets licensed, since it means being able to support an official english release and encourage more LNs being localized.
Ya, it sucks having to wait a few years for YP to catch up, but unless its a long series like Mahouka or Index, they can do so in a couple years like with NGNL and Log Horizon.
I just wish they would do a digital release for all their series since I don't buy physical anymore due to space issues/convinence. I'm still holding out on some of their LN series in hopes that they will eventually get a digital release so I don't have to double dip.
That said, I'm also extremely worried about publishers just dropping series due to lack of sales.
I know YP hasn't done so yet, but Tokyopop didn't either until they started licensing so many series that when sales started dropping, they dropped over a dozen series I had been buying. That pissed me off beyond belief and made me extremely paranoid about supporting non-popular manga franchises. I just hope that same fate doesn't happen to YP with taking on more than they can handle.
If a series is dropped because of lack of sales, I would figure that their license would run out after a year or two.
Problem is most of the series they dropped were niched series without scanslations/group dropping it due to licensing and no one ever picked it back up.
Some of those series were just a couple volumes away from completion too :(
Niche series hardly ever get licensed, I doubt that would really happen. There's no point for major publishers to license niche series.
Maybe, just maybe, while I would want to support the author I may not want to support licensing since I feel the localization and the lack of explanation of many japanese terms that fan translations keep alive is something I don't approve of. Or the long waiting times until the translation catches up that make me just forget about the series and any interest I had on it. Also how it makes either costlier or just impossible to get a copy in the first place in places out of the US affects me and I don't feel it's fair. Basically, licensing provides a service I don't want while also removes the enjoyment I've been having so far.
So if the problem is "leeching", would a solution happen if those people got a japanese copy while mantaining translations made by fans? That way the "support the author" and "stop getting shit for free" problems would be solved, which seem to be the main arguments licensing has in its favor.
Of course, I know there will be people who in the first place won't want to pay anything either way, but that happens with everything. So I wish there an actual solution that all the fans can be content with and not a claim that licensing is the best thing that can happen to a series because you don't suffer or don't care about the consequences that other readers do.
Majority of the ones commenting here lack to notice the major point in this all.
A publisher PURCHASES the EXCLUSIVE RIGHT to publish a novel in their home country and on the internet (in most cases) in English language. The moment the publisher does that, the fan translations become a serious violation of intellectual property, as such they ought to be taken down. In short, it's blatant stealing - something ethically unacceptable. That's why fan translations are grey zone. Free reading? People are not entitled to anything like that, there's no basis for people to demand something like that. Nothing more annoying than people blindly believing they have the "right" to read anything.
While people line up excuses like "it's slow", "it's not as good as fan tl", "it's not available here", "I don't wanna wait", "I don't have money". None of them justify what you can call stealing intellectual property, enjoying something for free without paying. This isn't Save the Children, isn't Caritas and certainly not Red Cross.
Since we're in a grey zone, there are parts that can be compromised with, and there are also parts that cannot. Avoiding taking down a series upon licensing is certainly not.
That's another matter altogether, I agree with the guy tha there should be a better solution than relying on licenses that fans just don't want. I won't say fan translators have to break the law nor that people are entitled to reading. In fact, he was suggesting to pay a japanese copy. It's not "excuses" for stealing, it's "reasons", much different word, for which people don't want licenses in the first place. Don't try to redirect the matter to accommodate it to your point.
Who's accommodating what here, mate?
No one cares about what fans who want freebies on the net want. The one who invests the money can do whatever he wants and the law is on his side. I repeated it 3 times already in comments here, but 90% of the sales are physical copy sales all over US bookstores. Fans on the net are a niche that doesn't matter in the least.
Also, "reasons" for stealing, duh, duhhh.
You either didn't read the message or choose to ignore it:
"it's "reasons", much different word, for which people don't want licenses in the first place. "
Not for stealing. Reasons for NOT WANTING A LICENSE. Maybe caps makes it clearer.
Also " Fans on the net are a niche that doesn't matter in the least." yet if a license comes to be in the first place many times is because a fan translation made the series popular in the first place. Again I don't know if you're just being ignorant of it or choosing to be.
"It's not "excuses" for stealing, it's "reasons", much different word,"
At least I know how to read. And that's exactly what you wrote.
Fan translations do a good job popularizing novels and are a good way to measure the popularity. Publishers are all over and read everything, they put a lot of thought into analysing trends. But in the end, you have no right to tell a publisher what to do. People might not want licenses because reasons, but they have no say in all this.
The whole phrase, without the explanation which makes you so confused:
"It's not "excuses" for stealing, it's "reasons" for which people don't want licenses in the first place. "
It's not A for B, it's C for D.
Get it now, or do you need a drawing?
Haa.
I highly supports licensing of works authors, because it ensures that they earn something which they deserve. But Yen Press acquiring licenses is a big no for me. I hate how slow they work. I lost interest on some stories I'm following because it will take several years(maybe decades) to catch up. Ain't there any better publisher than Yen Press that do good quality of work but faster?
I'm currently trying to learn Japanese language but it will take more time and effort before I would be able to read raws. JPLT4 is still quite far from my reach yet, maybe even JPLT5. Haha!
Well, for my own opinion. I don't quite against the system of the Yen Press because it's their way of business, there's no other choice. But it'll way sad for me, as a free-reader. Just waiting for the completion in translator, like a kid waiting for food to cook and saying thank you and eat. :3 .. I live in Country Bumpkin, sucks that even one bookstore is nothing in place to buy. Online Shopping? Thank you.
I'm undecided about licensing.... on one hand I'm more then happy to buy an english copy of the book to go with the japanese copy I already have.... on the other hand.......... I'll have to wait several years for the licensing company to release the newest content.
Personally I prefer physical copies of my favorite books even if they're more expensive. If I can get my hands on them I would. Nothing can beat the feel of paper on your fingers as you flip the page or the scent of paper while you read. The reason I got into online reading in the first place was finding an uncensored version of my favorite manga, then I found an online version of one of my favorite LN and found out that the one on my shelf has been censored to be less *ehm* naughty too.
Though I still buy physical copies of my favorite books, for the translated ones that will likely be censored I also searched for the uncensored fan translated ones. But that's just me. FYI, they also censored kisses as well as lines that are considered sexual harassment.
Im just sad about licensing, not against it. I have no power to legally demolish the system. Mostly, im just sad cause yen press releases are not available locally, and I cant afford to buy online, even digital releases are expensive for me. A release from YP is roughly 10$ and thats 500 in my currency, enough to feed . Small family for a day. So really fan translations are my only hope on reading the stuff.
I both love and hate yen press. All other company are like ghost to me (they never exist)
Paying yen press for a hard copy (with the fresh book scent off the press) is fine and dandy and all, however!! Their timing sucks, SUCKS, SUCKS D@%K. Take yahari & mahouka for example, it's nearing it's end, just a little more for a resolution. Here comes yen press, with it's big C&D notification, so instead of waiting a few days, weeks (months, ok) we now wait for yen press pacing which is spaced 3, 4 or more months per volume - which is F$#< years to play catch up.
Why Instead of taking several titles all at once, why don't they finish each title by releasing it at 1 month spacing. I have been contacting them about this, no go, they're total D@%KS.
I don't know and care about you guys, but I want to finish my story as fast as possible. We don't know when the F#$%&G Muslim terrorist, Russian or the Chinese would drop nukes while we're sleeping. I at least want to die in my bed content at having finished my books.
On this notice, although some novels being translated are being let off, it's mainly due to profit. Translating novels, with the exception of web novels, are a gray area in the legal system. For example, a novel that's only average, is a good read, published as a light novel and won't give a hefty profit to the publishers, won't be licensed and even if translated, it will be ignored since it's considered barely legal. For a great novel like SAO that's sure to bring a large profit and has many great fans, well, it'll definitely be licensed. Those unlicensed ones weren't translated due to lack of popularity and the lack of potential for profit. In a certain sense, money makes anime and the like go round. But the main drive should be popularity. And for unlicensed novels, the fan translations brings them great popularity making it gain potential to bring a ton of profit. This is my opinion but it should be more or less like this right?
It's not wrong, I saw series that were licensed only because they were popular as fan-translations before.
Hahaha
Im a leecher and I dont really care for licencing of light novels anymore. Theyre what the japanese do, and the amount of novel out there are much more than the licenced.
I do get annoyed though. But im not that much invested in japs stories anymore.
Im moving to wuxia nowdays. Theyre as good or better than these japanese light novels.. and there isnt such things as licencing. Heck, the translator can even forced readers to fork them cash to translate the series for them without any issue..
Hmm it's not quite forced it's completely volentary though it does operate on the smae concept as a freemium product. I do have to agree Wuxia/Xianxia novels are nice but sometimes they can get repetative. I still read a lot of Japanese LNs but after fan translation slowed down a bit I haven't had much to read so tons of Wuxia/Xianxia novels (plus becoming ISSTH proofreader) should be enough to divert my attention for now. I'm not in any way complaining that Japanese LN translators are slow I'm just saying that as they are no longer at the height of their popularity they naturally have slowed down in translation speed comparitively.
I am of the same mind. Except for the part where they don't release anything... or have atrocious translations or edits (especially "localization", the worst thing you can do).
Other than that, I would definitely buy the actual novels, if they do get released, in a timely manner.
Its like this, some publishers release 1 to 2 volumes ever year, when the raws are released 3-4 times a year, making it exceedingly slow. While, for fun translators do it generally faster.
I mean, publishing is a great thing. More money to the author. Support the work. But the unholy slow *english* publishing rates are grueling. (I mean, if they release 1 volume every year, and the fan translations are already at volume 8 of a series, there is no way the fans can wait 8 freaking years to catch up to the part where it was left off). I would like it better if they just ask them to remove the fan translated volumes a year before the official release date of said volume.
In the end, the people who are going to buy it are going to buy it, and the people who aren't going to buy it, are never going to buy it regardless.
That being said, I did buy and pre-order all Tate no Yuusha releases though. Since I have both the Japanese and Chinese raws, I'll see if Yen Press does adequate translations.
On a side, side note, the Chinese version of the first volume had a free puffy sticker of Raphtalia, a book mark, and a mini poster. =D
Krytyk, I died a little reading this (and not the fun kind), you?
People who'll buy it will, and those who won't, won"t huh? According to that logic, why should people who'll never buy it be able to read it for free?
Actually one of the authors in Baen's Library had a discourse on this. He was encouraging open sourcing after a few years. His reasoning was that it was no different than getting a copy from a library or borrowing from a friend. People buy hard copies not because they want to read the story, they get hard copies because they want to *own* the story. Those that don't want or can't afford will borrow from somewhere, those that want will buy and the increased publicity generated by free exposure to more people will generate a much greater number of the later.
I used to be pro-licencing, still am, but upon further reflection of his reasoning, I have to agree it makes a bit of sense, especially as one of those who want to "own" the story.
Translations for samplers, licencing for life. That is the way I see it now.
If they can encorperate someway to support the authors and translators into open sourcing I'd be all for it but currently I see no viable way to do so without someone having to foot a massive bill. There is no way for open sourcing to compensate for how much a novel would make just purely on sales if it did not go that route. So by open sourcing a book we would be completely destroying someones livelyhood unless that problem can be overcome. I'm not saying it's impossible I'm just saying it's currently not viable.
The closest thing I can think of to a solution would be something like crowdsourcing the money to give to the author and translator initially then give them each a cut of advertisment on a particular ereader for such sources to continually support them as they would have with further sales. Honestly that's the only way I see it working but it woud be up to the author to buy into it, someone trustworthy would have to handle the crowdsourcing, there would have to be proper compensation goals met , there would have to be a way to handle series that never reached the threshold to go open source and there would have to be someone willing to Officially translate a series.
All in all there's probably more money in doing it the way they are now so I highly doubt that idea will and can even be executed.
Anyways I've made my opinion clear whether you choose to agree with it is up to you but you can't deny there are problems with open sourcing a series.
I don't like it when a series gets licensed, but only because I'll be reading fan translations of the latest volume and then I have to wait several years for the licensing group to catch up, years that I might not have. As far as supporting the author goes, I have no problem buying the untranslated work, in fact I actually prefer it since the author gets the same amount of money for less from my pocket meaning I can buy more volumes at a time and thus support the author more, and they take up less space on my bookshelves meaning I can fit more novels in less space.
I really don't understand why it takes licensing groups so long to get the volumes done either, fan translators that only translate in the little bit of free time they have outside their jobs and other obligations can get a volume translated in a matter of weeks, meanwhile these people that do translations as their job take months to get the same volume out.
Anime licensing might be the worst though. Fan subs are usually of decent quality and are out mere hours after the original airing with no cut content and best of all, it's SUBBED. Once an anime gets licensed you have to hope that the version that ends up getting aired is the subbed version because dubs have a tendency to convey the wrong amount of emotion for what's happening and sometimes they have to trim or pad the dialogue in order to make it fit, which can lead to information that'll end up being important in later seasons being cut, it can also make it very difficult to identify a character's personality/origins. At least those companies are getting better and have started to do both subs AND dubs on the media release (currently DVD and Blu-Ray)
Hate dubs..... you can tell there's a gigantic quality difference. Japanese seiyuus really put in a TON of effort that you just don't hear in the dub versions. My ears bled the first time I heard a dub.
I know... The japanese do better dubs than we do as well; have you heard the Official Japanese RWBY Dub? I now want to watch RWBY in japanese dub with english subtitles as wierd as it sounds. If people gave a shit about proper english dubs I'd actually watch them if it was not for the fact that I want to keep up my japanese by listening to people speak in anime.
I haven't seen this many people getting butt hurt over licensing in a while...
So Surreal.
Just got Vol 1 of "Strike the Blood". Makes me want to watch the whole show again.
*Snuggles with book*
It's really sad when you live just 4hrs away from Japan and it's still imposible to purchase any official relased L/N. So yeah, I mean it's good for American readers but I don't feel like supporting YenPress. Here in my country, they sell all types of crazy porn liturature but Light Novel? No!
There always is a way :3.
Getting a kindle and purchasing digital kindle releases is one of them.
Ugh.. in my country, i don't have any way to buy it... Because, they use credit card and paypal that i can't have.Why? I don't have any money..
It's not always that easy. More and more novels are being released digitally, but sometimes the one's we're interested in are either too old to have a digital version or just didn't have a digital version made. I, myself, would like to read the Suzumiya Haruhi LN series, but it would cost an arm and a leg to buy a copy plus even more for shipping, I checked at the library but the only copy of volume 1 that they had was checked out years ago and never returned, and last time I checked there were no digital releases of the series.
It's frustrating when a title gets licensed and then dropped after just a few volumes, but for me, what bothers me more is when they REALLY screw up with localization.
It's pretty rare enough that I think there's not too many examples I can pull from (Mostly cause I can't read the source and am only told second-hand) but the most recent example I heard of is from No Game No Life, where everyone's name was localized pretty much normally, except Kurami. Kurami somehow got changed to Chlammy. Hell, if Jibril's name was localized to Jibril, Sora to Sora, and Shiro to Shiro, WHY couldn't they have just gotten Kurami to Kurami!?
Regarding waiting, I don't mind waiting. It's like us waiting for the next translation from Krytyk, except it's material that's already been translated before. So I just say, another chance to catch up on the story.
I totally agree, people don't have the right to NOT purchase when you're capable of purchasing 'if' it's released in their region. I love supporting the things I love and putting food on their table is what we do same thing with whatever you buy that money goes to those people in their checks/contracts or whatever. Hope to see more series licensed in the future.
I agree with everything you said but I still have one problem with licensing and that is the concern that a series won't ever get finished. If a company licenses a series and it gets dropped a few volumes in then it's almost guaranteed that it wont ever be finished because A) It had bad sales and no other company will pick it up, and B) because its been licensed the fan translators drop it and won't pick it up again, leaving it forever unfinished. It's also incredibly irritating when you buy the volumes intent on being able to own and read this good story only to have half of it on your bookshelf.
i know how it feel.
We have one major LN publisher in the past. They do major series like Shana and Kino (also Kindaichi novel) and both quality and popular are peek at that time. But one day it mother company said japan novel and LN are not meet their profit target and closed the publisher.
Now we have series that stuck at 10 volumes that hardly to pick up by other. Due to it very risky for other publisher to continue as they need to buy LC on all volume.
As far as I'm aware the major published that is Yen Press for example doesn't really drop series unless there are serious reasons. Although they can be slow, they are serious about publishing :3.
I'm not going to comment on D*G though, very unprofessional.
I would love to support the author by buying licensed but what I hate is when a series has 15+ volumes and is still ongoing and the publisher only plans to release 1-2 volumes a year, and kills the translation groups who are working on fresh printed JP LNs I mean now I have to wait 7 yrs just to have the publisher catch up to what I have already read.
Such is life :3.
Remember that you read the stuff for free, in short, you enjoyed the book you didn't pay for. People tend to forget that. Way too spoiled.
Well you can read japanese and we can't so it's not at all convincing.
The difference lies elsewhere.
I actually purchase most of the stuff I read.
Just curious, is this prompted by the recent Overlord licensing leech rage a while ago?
Well, I'm grateful for any fans translation but also aware that it's actually borderline illegal on the law's point of view. I think raging over licensing is a bit too much since in the first place normal leechers won't be able to read it if they need to buy the japanese raw legally. And also licensing means more income for the author, which is a good thing; the idea of liking their stories but hating the means for the author's well-being somehow irked me a bit.
I'm not interested in overlord nor even read it (or watched it). I know it was licensed but I couldn't care less :3.
Oh I see, since a few days ago on the Overlord's translation blog a lot of leechers postin, well... improper posts. Because the timing is quite close I thought you see that posts. Sorry I made wrong assumption xD
It was a response to one of the comments in here, but they appear quite often... and I needed to fill post with something.
Well it was going to have to be addressed eventually so I guess you ended up killing 2 birds with one stone.
It's not so much leechers, but people in general that don't have ethics. :/
I understand what you mean though, and I agree to a point.
The only problem I ever had(besides being poor), which was with manga way back when I first started, was the translations.
I grew accustomed to fan translations, and there were quite a few series that I wanted to buy, until I browsed them.
It's been years, but there were some really craptacular releases from publishers.
I don't even remember what it was now, but I refused to the official release, even for free.
Who wants to pay for slow AND shitty translations? If it comes to that, I'd rather finish learning japanese and read it the old fashioned way, lol.
If I ever develop the motivation to get back to it..... *glances at school books* *refuses to make eye contact*
*runs away*
the reason why i dislike licensing was effin digital manga. fuck them mate. i thought it would be faster since its a digital copy, even if i would preferred a hard copy, then they drop the series in volume 2
Well it issue leecher around the world rant on.
But next week my lanquage version of AntiMagic 1st volume will be on sold and will buy it ASAP (along with no so good manga version).
Hope the quality will be in good level.
At best we will need 4-5 years to catch on the latest volume. (Fastest record is 12 volume of To aru Index in 4 year, same publisher)
Well, the big problem is that the LN bussiness in US is crawling. The only ones who risk licensing them is YP, the process of translation and publishing is horrendously difficult. The reader base still isn't big enough.
However, it is a fact that it's growing. Which is a good sign. As long as it keeps growing and people keep buying them, the LN publishing will gain momentum and speed up.
Yes and i hope it grow more in the future.
As some LN are very little chance to published in my country, like spice & wolf, due to not in major market trend.
YP is the only correct LC way i can read them apart from original Japan version.
you know I want to read that....I loved the anime so id like to read the source
About licensing: it's a great thing if it's done right, but sadly, half the time it's not. Either by abandoning the series without any warning while still keeping the license, or putting out a horrid translation, which is imo more direspectful to the author than reading it decently for free. I've seen Yen Press do these two things with a lot of titles, especially the latter. A lot of people who would want to support their favorite series but get that kinda shit are pissed about this, me being one of them.
There's no such thing as keeping license, as licenses by their nature are given for limited time. If a publisher wants to continue printing and selling the book, he has to renew a license. And it doesn't matter whether they finished the book or not.
Ah, ok, didn't know. Point is, they don't do anything with it once they have it. I know there's always the risk of sales failure causing them to drop a series, but it's still aggravating since after that it only very rarely gets picked up again by anyone. Officially or by fans.
Sorry, I don't really get too much into their manga, but was there a LN they've dropped? Not being sarcastic, I really can't recall any.
Though I do see where some of their localizations caused complaint, honestly I feel a lot of it is overblown. Most were somewhat reasonable, but while I have seen some rather cringeworthy ones, none were really dealbreakers (well, except for "Chlammy"). Well, that said. The only thing that would have actually had me up in arms, the issue regarding the S&W and Haruhi's covers had been largely resolved before I'd gotten to them. When I recall the rent shambles left in the wake of the cancer that was Tokyopop or more recently, the horrorshows DMI/DMG are... excreting, I'd go so far call YP a godsend.
Another complaint i hear others lodge against it are slow release rates and limited availibility outside the States. To the former I say that patience is a virtue, you have to wait it out. I can't really argue about lack of overseas availability and can only offer condolences.
All in all? YP may not be spectacular, but as far as their light novels go their releases are generally consistent in quality and frequency and I've yet to hear of them dropping a series. Feel free to prove me wrong on the last count though. I'd mind, but not about being wrong.
Yeah as far as I know YP ahs never dropped a series. It's the other companies you have to worry about (poor Hidan no Aria...).
i just want the companies that license things for an english translation
to actually translate and publish the fucking things
is that too much to ask?
They are. The translation and adaptation process in the publishing companies are very complex and take a lot of time. Moreover, they have more than just the translations to look out for.
I just want to point out that licensing Japanese LNs has not been as popular until now. If it's not popular who the hell is going to know how to do it right off the bat? Every company has to start somewhere and once it gets going the speed could get faster and releases will actually start coming out. What I'd like though is for companies to actually relaize that if they can't finish translating it they should give up their licensing rights to let someone else take a crack at it so they don't completely ruin a series chance at even being in english.
"Give up licensing rights".
They don't pay monies in order NOT to do stuff. Also, licenses are limited to a certain amount of time.
I am aware; I just want a sign of hope of for some of the series that will probably not get a proper english translation because of the company giving up but still having the rights to it for x years...
It isn't that leechers don't like licensing, its just that it takes them forever to catch up to to fan translations. Like for some, it could be years.
I think the leechers don't have the right to feel entitled though? It's not like they pay for stuff. I'm painfully aware of the fact that the people who read light novels on the web hardly ever purchase any of them.
The fact is, that the western publishers' income comes in 90% out of physical copies (despite the fact they're selling them also digitally). Which proves just that.
If only western publisher translates as much as the chinese ones... I'd be very happy. And it sucks how the Kino here has no LN at all. Shipping is hella expensive... Digital copies are... meep.