Bloodline - Vol. 11 Ch. 70 - Evil's Ask

[MangaDex]

 

[Azuholy]

So yeah, we are dropping this series.
Dust is one of our members and he's gonna continue scanlation from now on.
He has a busy irl job so future updates depends when he has spare time. (may take months or so)
If anyone is willing to help out (typesetting, redraw, QC, PR) please contact him in the Bloodline Discord. https://discord.gg/vtayjqpkaP

 

[Tobithecomic]

Your reasons for dropping it are perfectly valid
Don't know if y'all will work on any other series but I wish you the best regardless and thanks for all the work up until now

 

[UXLZ]

So yeah, we are dropping this series.
Dust is one of our members and he's gonna continue scanlation from now on.
He has a busy irl job so future updates depends when he has spare time. (may take months or so)
If anyone is willing to help out (typesetting, redraw, QC, PR) please contact him in the Bloodline Discord. https://discord.gg/vtayjqpkaP

Yeah, thanks for everything up to this point. It's a shame the author turned out to be such a problem. If you ever find interest in TLing any sort of other Manhua in the future that would be really cool, because the one thing I've noticed is that they tend to have pretty poor translations - at least the ones I've looked at. Chinese stuff in general, I think, is difficult to find really good TLs for, and I reckon you and your team ended up doing a very excellent job with Bloodline once you got your feet planted.

My impression of this story overall is that it might be starting to get real good but is also kind of carried by its art, Erutia's recent appearances are really cute at least. But the actual story and writing feel like some kid's playground fever dream, throwing in a billion and one random things at the wall to see if anything sticks while constantly uppng the stakes into insanity (and also ripping things off... Like the magic system is more than just heavily inspired by DnD, the goddess of magic has literally the same name - Mystra.)

I mean if we think about what we've gotten in just 70 relatively short chapters (14-20 pages iirc) we've gone from some Chuuni and his ghost sister meeting a vampire princess, the sister was immediately written out of the story, the chuuni's best friend got a bunch of random spotlight chapters doing his own Sasuke side-plot but then also disappeared, yet after that we've been running into fucking flying battleships and fighting random individual dudes to basically entire army battallions in just a couple fights. Basically someone throwing action figures together. There have been very few moments to just breathe with the seeming two main characters (Lilo and Yeren.) If you put together Lon and Glasses Dude I'm pretty sure they've barely had anything to do with like 40% of the existing runtime.

It kinda feels like we're going for a Deus Ex Machina style powerup for Lilo (again) or maybe Yeren this time, where after dying she gets some vision from her dad or something, but it barely feels like we've been around these characters enough for those sort of tipping-point style situations to really mean much. They've been pushed to the brink for pretty much the entire Manhua. It's like if Naruto had his first Kyuubi moment fighting Zabuza on the road or something, and even for him he at least had that situation built up by his entire character foundationa and history.

 

[Azuholy]

Yeah, thanks for everything up to this point. It's a shame the author turned out to be such a problem. If you ever find interest in TLing any sort of other Manhua in the future that would be really cool, because the one thing I've noticed is that they tend to have pretty poor translations - at least the ones I've looked at. Chinese stuff in general, I think, is difficult to find really good TLs for, and I reckon you and your team ended up doing a very excellent job with Bloodline once you got your feet planted.

My impression of this story overall is that it might be starting to get real good but is also kind of carried by its art, Erutia's recent appearances are really cute at least. But the actual story and writing feel like some kid's playground fever dream, throwing in a billion and one random things at the wall to see if anything sticks while constantly uppng the stakes into insanity (and also ripping things off... Like the magic system is more than just heavily inspired by DnD, the goddess of magic has literally the same name - Mystra.)

I mean if we think about what we've gotten in just 70 relatively short chapters (14-20 pages iirc) we've gone from some Chuuni and his ghost sister meeting a vampire princess, the sister was immediately written out of the story, the chuuni's best friend got a bunch of random spotlight chapters doing his own Sasuke side-plot but then also disappeared, yet after that we've been running into fucking flying battleships and fighting random individual dudes to basically entire army battallions in just a couple fights. Basically someone throwing action figures together. There have been very few moments to just breathe with the seeming two main characters (Lilo and Yeren.) If you put together Lon and Glasses Dude I'm pretty sure they've barely had anything to do with like 40% of the existing runtime.

It kinda feels like we're going for a Deus Ex Machina style powerup for Lilo (again) or maybe Yeren this time, where after dying she gets some vision from her dad or something, but it barely feels like we've been around these characters enough for those sort of tipping-point style situations to really mean much. They've been pushed to the brink for pretty much the entire Manhua. It's like if Naruto had his first Kyuubi moment fighting Zabuza on the road or something, and even for him he at least had that situation built up by his entire character foundationa and history.

Lmao, I'm happy that you like the translations. Tbh, my early writing wasn’t great either. It’s just that I took the time to remake all the chapters as my skills improved. The first revision was a year ago, and the second revision was last fall. Fixing volumes 1-5 more than twice was truly tormenting.

Also, about your comments on the story, I totally agree. And trust me, it won’t be the last time Aiou uses

Spoiler

deus ex machina

in his writing.

The reason Bloodline gained its popularity was because it was in a shonen magazine, and that was one of the few comics we Chinese kids had access to in the 2010s. The CN fanbase has always been really lenient on all of Aiou’s actions and dismissive of any criticism. Most of us believed we should give him another chance. Since Bloodline was one of the earliest series we read, we kinda romanticized it and praised it to a level it never deserved. It’s a damn cult. People will buy any trash merch from Aiou no matter how high the price or how bad the quality is. Most of the good-looking merch was reused art drawn by his old employees, and the new stuff he draws himself looks horrible. Btw, spoilers for Chapter 117.

Spoiler

That chapter was the worst. The CN community was outraged, and some of Aiou’s most loyal supporters turned into die-hard haters. It was absurd. I used to think he was sincere enough to deserve a chance for redemption, but damn, when I saw the new villain get an abrupt special ability that can basically "cyberbully" Lilo Ai, I gave up on the series. At this point, I’m convinced Lilo is his new self-insert.

Man is in his mid-40s and still can’t get over how his employees exposed him on Weibo and the community backlash he got for it (it happened like in 2018, drama from 7 years ago).

As for the DnD part, I was quite shocked by the sheer amount of overlap. Almost 90% of the spells in Bloodline can be found in 4E. Also, "Disciplines" and Holy Land's "Edge" were actually concepts Aiou took from World of Darkness, so even those weren’t original. I’m really disappointed by this because, back in the day, Aiou was famous for his "unique setting and worldbuilding," "outstanding magic system," and "fantastic art." Yet in the end, none of it came from him.

 

[UXLZ]

It is rather a shame, for all its faults I do feel like there could at least be something entertaining in Bloodline, in a very 'throw a bunch of action figures' kind of way as I noted. Really, the artist treatment is the worst thing, I can forgive ripping off all the other stuff since I can at least just view it like fanfiction or a custom setting and China isn't huge on copyright anyway (and I also personally hate much of copyright law too.)

Yet in the end, none of it came from him.

Ah, yeah, I suppose that's true... Like to me it was immediately obvious where he was taking all of his magic stuff from and I just took it as 'okay we can mash all these together and maybe get something interesting.' Like I do think it's cool to have DnD style magic with spells per day in a manga setting, but I can definitely see the disillusionment from the perspective of someone who wasn't already very familiar with DnD like I am and believed the author was actually creating all of it himself. That being said the fact that he seems to literally just be copying all the names too is a bit silly. It can't have been much effort to come up with a new name for the goddess of magic, even if it was still an obvious reference to Mystra. Though I don't know if it's direct copying in Chinese or part of the translation. I know he's using at least some of the DnD spell names like unseen servant and dimension door.

The pacing and powerscaling is so strange. Not powerscaling in the traditional sense of how one character relates to another, but in the sense of what we're actually seeing in the stroy. In RPG terms, you start around level one, then you work up through that, level 10 areas, level 20 areas, etc. You might encounter superbosses or very powerful characters early (Erutia) or through flashbacks (Lilo's dad... also they literally named him last??? Cause he's the last vampire??? but he aint?). Bloodline starts everyone at level 1 and then randomly jumps up into the 60s, is the feeling I get, while also overusing heavy hitter characters (like the super holy woman that forced them into the tower in the first place, she didn't need to be there.) And it stands out so much when it's contrasted against something like 'a guy wins a duel by the slightest of inches because he's actually ambidextrous and it lets him move really slightly faster against a blind guy who's used to different swing speeds because he was hiding his ambidexterity by holding a weight and catch the other guy off guard.'

I didn't know that Edge was from WoD too though, lol. I assume it must be from Hunter or something.

 

[Azuholy]

Though I don't know if it's direct copying in Chinese or part of the translation. I know he's using at least some of the DnD spell names like unseen servant and dimension door.

Well, basically every spell in Bloodline has a smaller Greek alphabet version of itself.
For example, stuff like this:

Those were actually 4E spells written in a Greek font, which Aiou used to make the magic fights look fancy, lol. My English translations are based on those. For others like Mystra and Lolth, it was also pretty obvious in the Chinese raws that they come from DnD. He basically just swapped some of the kanji, so it's only a “Mystra” to “Mistra”-type difference in Chinese.

Lilo's dad... also they literally named him last??? Cause he's the last vampire??? but he aint?

yep it's Last lol. Also Lilo Ai's name is a pun. if you rearrange its order it becomes Ai Loli, meaning Love Loli in chinese.

Really, the artist treatment is the worst thing

I haven’t gone into much detail about it either. The manhua industry is terrible. Here’s a brief example: one of Aiou’s old pals, Jileniao, was part of the ASOUL group --a communist mangaka cult, where the artists lived in pig barns (see the article). Aiou was never as extreme (no cult, no physical abuse, no pig barns), but the workload he put on his artists were similar. They were young passionate artists who joined the studio to chase their Manga dreams, but was only met with manipulation and lies. When they left, they deleted all their Bloodline “fan art” on their socials (over a hundred pieces), cut ties completely, and never mentioned Bloodline again. You can’t bring up anything related to Bloodline around them without provoking a defensive reaction. I think just that alone tells a lot.

If you ever find interest in TLing any sort of other Manhua in the future that would be really cool, because the one thing I've noticed is that they tend to have pretty poor translations - at least the ones I've looked at. Chinese stuff in general, I think, is difficult to find really good TLs for, and I reckon you and your team ended up doing a very excellent job with Bloodline once you got your feet planted.

Unfortunately, I won't be doing any more scanlations. Honestly, it was a bad experience for me. I poured a ton of effort into Bloodline (even slacking on my schoolwork, which has now caught up with me), and in the end I was only met with extreme disappointment. I'm done with manhuas for now.

 

[UXLZ]

Ah, that makes sense. I do think the greek is a cool touch so he at least made the right choice there, lol. And yeah, honestly I think taking the system isn't the worst thing, like personally I've tried to think of how to write a Dungeon Master light novel and it's very difficult to come up with something that isn't very similar to Lazy Dungeon Master's system, since it does a lot of things that seem like natural conclusions when you think about them. (For instance, monsters created by dungeon powers are kind of hollow and less lively than 'natural' monsters, or how the dungeon generating power by living people inside its territory encourages a city building story in a very natural way.) But stuff like that Mystra and Lolth, that's not a systemic thing, those are just character names, it would be almost easier to not rip them off.

Does Ai mean love in both Chinese and Japanese? Interesting.

Unfortunately, I won't be doing any more scanlations. Honestly, it was a bad experience for me. I poured a ton of effort into Bloodline (even slacking on my schoolwork, which has now caught up with me), and in the end I was only met with extreme disappointment. I'm done with manhuas for now.

Truly a shame. Is it because of the reception of this work you were translating yourself in terms of viewership or engagement, or because of the author of a work you loved a lot disillusioning you and leaving a very sour taste? And as to the cult stuff, absolutely insane. I guess that's maybe another reason to not want to translate stuff, if this is common industry practice.

 

[friggmen]

Unfortunate 😕

 

[Azuholy]

Truly a shame. Is it because of the reception of this work you were translating yourself in terms of viewership or engagement, or because of the author of a work you loved a lot disillusioning you and leaving a very sour taste? And as to the cult stuff, absolutely insane. I guess that's maybe another reason to not want to translate stuff, if this is common industry practice.

Aiou dosen't deserve any extra attention and Azu scans free labour. Best option is to not support him. He's been decieving his fans for ages. He is a wealthy man yet still acting like he's broke and begging for money. Best ending for this series is to bury and never mention it again.

 

[UXLZ]

Aiou dosen't deserve any extra attention and Azu scans free labour. Best option is to not support him. He's been decieving his fans for ages. He is a wealthy man yet still acting like he's broke and begging for money. Best ending for this series is to bury and never mention it again.

Yeah yeah, I know that there's big problems with Bloodline, I was asking more in regards to manhua in general. As a westerner it's hard for me to know what to think of Chinese media because the majority of my experiences with it are marred by poor translations.