So first and foremost, thank you for all the hard work so far! You guys did an amazing translation of this series and I'm sad to see it go.
Second, I really am not happy about the current state of Transactions vs Scanlations. I fully understand the idea of dropping a series when an official release comes out. It is to help support the author and protect the scan group from any potential legal issues from the EN publisher. Totally understandable.
However, to me that only really applies to releases that are actually out or like, a week away or something. The most recent series that comes to mind like this is "Tsumiki Oogami's not so ordinary life" (Yes, I used the Viz title for this, don't hate me lol). When it was announced that Viz would be doing official translations starting with the next chapter, the scan group that had been translating it made that announcement and dropped the full chapters in favor of only covering volume extras that get left by the wayside with digital releases. This is absolutely the right call, and I don't blame them.
But in this example, the official release was less than a week away, and they weren't starting from chapter 1, but rather continuing right where the recent scan chapter had left off. From what I gather about this series, the official release is over a year away (Minimum of 7 months), will be full volume release only (Correct me if this is wrong though), and is going to be done by an infamously bad publisher that has a track record of botching official releases so bad the JP Publisher and authors have to step in and demand they fix things... This is not a good sign...
Again, I understand the reason for dropping this series from a legal standpoint, and I do agree with the sentiment of supporting the author with the official release. But to do it this far out, while knowing the kind of quality we are likely to see from the official release, I can't really agree with. I don't blame you, but I don't have to agree with you either...
Granted, I imagine if the official release turns out to be shittier than expected, I'm sure SOMEONE will pick this up again. But I'd rather it not have come to that...
Also, as a whole, I do support a lot of official releases, because the quality is sometimes indistinguishable from the scans. But I'm also not blind to the absurd changes of some series from the original work with official releases, that can really destroy a good story. It can be about as hit or miss as fan translations really.
