Am I being too sensitive or should I call this scanlation group out?

[Luoir]

Hello, everynyan! My online alias is SAVI. I am currently one of the three main translators still alive and serve as a sort of supervisor for a scanlation group.

On December 26th, 2023—about 15 months ago—we uploaded a chapter of a well-received story before ultimately dropping it. I wasn't part of the team back then, so I don’t know all the details, but from what I’ve heard, it had something to do with the translator quitting.

Fast forward to November 9th, 2024. No group had picked up the story, so some fans asked us to pick it back up. I got approval from our group leader and made an official announcement on Discord that we’d be resuming the translation.

However, two members from another group (let's call them A-Group) joined our Discord and claimed they had stockpiled 22 chapters. A-Group went as far as saying, and I quote, "This would be more of a massacre than a war" if we dared to upload our chapters and compete with them.

We hadn’t reached any agreements yet—I was asleep at the time, and we had planned to wait until morning for our leader to come online. But before that could happen, they uploaded a chapter. Then another the next day. Given the situation, we decided to back off and told fans, "Hey, this group is picking up the story, so you can follow them for updates."

Then… time passed.

One month.
Another month.
Yet another.
And another.

Now, it's March 2nd, 2025—about four months later. A fan of the story recently returned to our Discord and said, "Hey, the A-Group isn't responding."

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused but with my toes intact.

They explained, "On their Discord’s Reaction Role channel, the story isn’t even listed there. And when I asked about it, someone just vaguely replied, ‘I'm curious too, but the LN is better...’"

So, what happened here? Did this group hoard the story with only two ready chapters and then abandon it right after? Or do they actually have ~20 chapters stockpiled but refuse to upload them, only releasing if another group tries to take over? Either way, I personally think this is a bad practice. No one benefits from this—except maybe them—while the readers are left waiting indefinitely.

So, am I in the wrong here? Am I just being overly sensitive, and this is normal? Or should I call them out?

 

[TGN]

Galaxy?

 

[Luoir]

Galaxy?

I've been told that they did something similar but fortunately not them. Though it doesn't matter actually, I'm just asking about the action itself and not the scanlation group

 

[Data_Gold]

A-Group sounds like wants to do the 20+ chapter response if someones uploads. I mean "This would be more of a massacre than a war" sounds like a egotistical child with a power fantasy to me ૮ －‸ლა

A-Group could've just also been lying about having a stockpile, and that series was something they wanted to translate so they pretended they could 'strike back' ૮o.oა

There are also some groups that stockpile chapters and drip feed them to "keep" the manga "theirs", but this doesn't sound like such a group ૮ .ᆺ. ა

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In my opinion, translate a chapter anyway with a message on the first page explaining this situation, that A-Group claimed it had 22 chapters stockpiled in 2024, but since they haven't uploaded anything, your team will be translating it anyway ૮.ᆺ. ა

if they do upload the stockpile, just start translating from where they left off (if their translation is any good) ૮ oᴗ<ა
if people are aware that A-Group has a massive stockpile and never uploaded it until someone else tried to translate that series, people would want someone else to translate it ૮^ᆺ^ა

no one likes translation squatters ૮-ᆺ- ა

another option is to create your own stockpile of the currently released chapters and then upload it all at once, something that i've seen work against GD scans ૮ .ᆺ. ა

 

[Luoir]

Thank you for the advice and insights.

translate a chapter anyway with a message on the first page explaining this situation

I've told my boss about it, but we agreed that our resources is not available to pick up another story, considering there's a big risk of it being not worth it, I'm very eager to translate a chapter of my own and edit it on my own w/o any help from the group just to get the story across to the audience like you mentioned. Maybe I'll do just that, even if I was proven wrong and they unleash 20+ chapters right after mine, then that's still a good thing for the audiences so why not.

Just gotta find myself someone that knows how to TS