Blue Lock - Vol. 4 Ch. 31 - Awakening

[Kruk]

A new group, huh?

I won't be talking about that whole sniping (altho I totally uderstand the feelings. Somebody starts translating what I've been translating. It happened to me, but because the other group didn't know about my work and then they dropped the project).

The new group said something I don't agree with. The true is - The more hands in a group, the quicker they working.

Tbh, I also translate Blue Lock - and only I. The lack of time and sometimes truly hellish redraws makes me realase about one-two chapters per month. And let's imagine that, for example 6 people in a group. So many possibilities... Now I'd like to have 5 more people. We could divide and even work simultaneously on two chapters...
Please, do not say that joining forces wouldn't change anything!

And well, I saw that the new group do not redraw. I think that Blue Lock is a manga that looks much better with redraws, and so quality is more important that speed. And let's be honest. Mono Scans and the rest are doing great job and the chapters are realased really quickly! We do not wait a whole month, but just about a week. How the hell can anybody think that this is a long time?!

But that's only my opinion.

 

[vkj3]

@WillLi For someone who takes such offense to the word 'sniping', you sure don't mind throwing around the word 'dumb' either. And before you clarify you're not calling me 'dumb', you're oversimplyfing my opinions so you can say they're dumb (I never said they had to start from ch.1 as their only choice, and I explained what I consider sniping to be, whether you agree with it or not).

Also, because you're clearly talking about things you don't know now:
1. "I don't see you redrawing the entire manga by hand to convey it to the English audience":
Actually, we have. Because we've been working on HQ releases since Chapter 1, and every single one of them is redrawn (and it is known for being a particularly redraw-heavy manga). Props to our redrawing team for that.
2. "And a less extreme one, are you going to japan and buying the mangas and cutting out the pages and scanning them yourself?":
Actually, our team leader sheep1 buys every single volume to have the best quality possible with the raws. This release has magazine releases which, unless they bought the specific issue and scanned it themselves, probably come from a 3rd party.
3. You keep saying that "on your experience" we can't go beyond the pace of a chapter per week (because you've experience moderating roleplay forums??), and I keep saying that is not true by explaining our former pace and current trend. You seem to have forgotten about backlogs as well (more people = more work done beforehand).

In general, it sounds like you don't know the work behind this series, and you don't have to, but I might as well clarify it before you go assuming things that're not.

@TehSDragon Appreciate it!

 

[zeldukes]

I'm prefer faster release, tbh. Scanlation is illegal anyway, unless the group has author's permission. The series is only own by the author, so, truthfully, I can't understand why the term snipping exist.

 

[idle_af]

Who gives a shit about retards who want shit-tier scans just to consume the content as fast as possible? @vkj3
At least they created their own group so it's easily blocked as opposed to opting for the "no group" one. Now they can easily be reported for deliberately evading the block function since they started with it, if their sole purpose is just to piss you off or make you go faster.

 

[WillLi]

@vkj3 The only point that really stands in your post just now is 2.

First, I'm not oversimplifying your opinion. You think that because you're not actually looking at what I'm asserting, because you literally just repeated a statement that I said isn't the topic of my concern. My concern is not over "What is sniping" I don't care about what your definition of sniping is. My concern is over the fact that we should not be using insulting terms to describe the actions of this group, because what they're doing isn't shameful.

Now for the point you labeled as '1' this is why 'knowing too much' gets in the way. When I say "redrawing the entire work" I do not mean the scanlating 'job' called 'redrawing' I mean you aren't grabbing a blank sheet of paper and trying to recreate the manga art. In other words, you're working off someone elses work from teh get go. (The art and story) So you can't really complain if someone uses your work as a starting point, just as long as they don't steal it.

For point '2' kudos to you for getting the raws yourself, but that also means that this group isn't likely using your raws, and since you're doing the volume releases we'll have another kinda situation similar to iManga scans, which even more makes me think there's no reason to complain. You do volume releases, and make high quality chapters, and get the omakes and all that good stuff. They work on speed, and keep us upto date so that the people who want to join international communities about this series can go in actually caught up.

For point '3' I haven't forgotten about the backlog or anything. But you're oversimplifying workflow. You're not talking about an assembly line. You're talking about distributing work among people possibly across the world. Yeah if you have lots of people, lots of work can get done. But also each one of those people has a life and a schedule. Let's say the translating of a chapter gets done and it needs to go to the next step. It needs to be sent to the next person in line. What if when it's sent that person is busy? No work is getting done until that person gets back from whatever they are doing. And this can end up happening at every step of the process. Also let's assume you have 4 people working on the chapter, this other group has 2. So if we assume you're both trying to put out the same product, and all parties have the same 'level' of skill. 2 will actually be faster than 4, because you can't really work on multiple steps at once in a single chapter. You can, but you will likely have to go back after you recieve the finalization and make small changes. So with a group of 4 you have to 'deliver' the work 3 times in the process, where as with a group of 2, you have to 'deliver' the work once. That means there is only one chance for the other person to be busy on reception. that means statistically if we assume same level of skill and motivation, it would average out to 2 people being faster than 4.

That is not even mentioning the fact that these two guys have already come together and worked out their schedules with each other so that they can propose this project. There is no guarantee that whoever you get to work with you actually has a schedule that allows you to streamline the process. For all you know the first and last person in the chain might actually only be available at the same time as eachother each day. Which would mean that if the first person finishes near the end of their available time. Then by time it gets tot the last person, they won't be able to start till at least the next day because they're not available till then.

So yes, it is possible for you to go faster, but to think "more people guarantees we can go faster" shows you're being unrealistically optimistic. Now this doesn't mean I think it's certain you would fail to pick up speed either. But it's unrealistic to assume you can match the proposed speed of this group without already knowing the schedules of the people working, and thus already having said people. You just simply can't predict what the schedules of people who join you will be, so you can't be sure where your 'speed' will be at.

 

[2hot4you]

Begone snipers

 

[vkj3]

@WillLi If you feel that saying this group has sniped the project is offensive in any way, feel free to report my comments to the MDex staff. I believe it is not offensive but descriptive, since I understand scanlations are already a grey area as it is. I haven't said that what they're doing is shameful either, that's an extra you have added, it's an action I personally disagree with since I'd prefer a collab, but that's just me.

In general, I believe we have two opposite takes on this matter, and I don't believe we'll reach an agreement anytime soon. Considering my initial comment was about discussing the pace and yours about my definition of sniping, we've strayed enough from the topic at hand. I don't even agree with your idea of the workflow as an assembly line because you believe these positions to be fixed and can't be solved by someone else stepping in or reorganizing like we usually do when a slump has happened. Feel free to enjoy their version of their scans if you prefer it, that's all there's to it.

 

[Mihailbatkovich]

i`m buying digital raws because of art and i want to read translation(i don`t speak jp). So i`m glad to see fast translation and i have beautiful art from raws. In future i`m going to buy licensed paper version hope it don`t get shitty licensed translation as haikyuu.

About snipping - value of this discussion near 0. If u want do good product join english publisher or get funding -> buy license -> sell books. that`s all

 

[EmbraceNuggets]

Guys i appreciate the attempt to provide a quicker release but the quality really suffers because of it. Overall the grammar and quality of this translation is really poor. This can be fixed easily by having someone proofread it.

 

[WillLi]

@vkj3 if you think you're not calling what they do shameful by using the term 'sniped' then you don't fully understand what it means. The term was coined -specifically- with the intention to imply shamefulness in context of scanlating. And when scanlation groups start using the term, other people do as well. I don't think you realize what the word you're using really means. The problem isn't what you are 'trying' to say. The problem is you're using a word that means something negative. "Sniped" Is not a word with neutral connotation in this. You should be able to see that by reading any of the post others have in this chapter that mention sniping, like the post right above your's. It's not at the same level, but it's similar to trying to be polite to someone while using a racial slur that you don't realize is super rude.

 

[MisaKomine]

This is just me; but if you love the quality of Mono Scans & Tonari no Scanlation as much as your say you do; why don't you just go to their discord & ask to actually help work on it with them? Especially when they are specifically asking for more people to join & help them to make releases even faster. Just saying, 'ah well, they'll never be able to catch up even if they had more people helping them', doesn't really make any sense at all. Because just by looking at the decrease in days from their first release of this series to their most recent chapter, proves you wrong on that point.

And like others have pointed out, there are some obvious quality, grammar and translation problems here and in #32, which goes against your whole statement of you 'love the quality'. when you yourselves are seemingly favoring speed over that quality.

 

[TheLonelyCabbage]

Thanks for the update!