Ok, to start: Please tell us a little bit about yourself and why you decided to become a one person scanlation army.
_anq: I'm a Korean anthropomorphized penguin named _anq. With the underscore. Please remember the underscore.
I started reading manga at a very young age, since my mother ran a bookstore when I was a child. It didn't really stick with me throughout my teenage years though, and reading scanlated manga was a relatively recent development. It was probably about a year or so ago, around the time when Batoto shut down. Of course, I had close to no clue of how scanlation worked at the time, and I read all of them dodgy aggregator sites.
Fast forward to about half a year, and I discovered /r/manga, where I learned much more about scanlation and the communities surrounding it (I only really saw the tip of the iceberg, though). And, since I wanted to give back to the community, I decided that I'll give it a go at scanlating. I already had some experience with Photoshop, albeit elementary, so it was fairly straightforward... or at least, that's what I thought.
Truth was, the quality of the works I produced at the time was absolutely abysmal. Bad translations, bad typesetting, bad redrawing, bad raws. I offer my sincerest apologies to all of you who had to read my early releases. I even knew at the time that the quality was very poor, but despite that, all the readers still thanked me for my work, and the scanlators who contacted me were extremely helpful. It's possible that I wouldn't have continued scanlating to this day if the community wasn't so welcoming.
The reason I didn't join any groups was because I enjoyed the freedom of being able to work alone - and I'm sure almost every solo scanlator out there shares the same sentiment. On hindsight, I probably should have at least temporarily worked in a group so that I could learn the ropes more efficiently. I definitely wouldn't recommend anyone to work solo right off the bat... although, it's possible that I just sucked. I still technically work alone, but there are several people in the community who help me get the work done, e.g. a certain Mangadex staff who occasionally QCs for me (but never wants to be credited), Anata no Motokare when I need help with translations, as well as Das and Zeen, who acquires high quality raws for me. So really, despite working solo, I still get plenty of help from many people.
Why do you only work on series that have a backlog? Lots of readers, including myself, were dismayed when you announced that you were handing off Anjou to another group.
_anq: I guess this somewhat goes back to my previous answer regarding ‘freedom’ when working alone. When I work on things that already have a lot of chapters, I can pump them out whenever I want, however many I want. You don’t really have that laxity once you catch up with the raws, since you’re somewhat expected to release on schedule. Of course, I could just release them at a slow pace and most readers would still be happy with that, but I wouldn’t enjoy it myself. Obviously, the best-case scenario is that I don’t drop them at all, but when another group is willing to take over, I’d rather just move on to another series. I hope you guys understand.
If you could be any character from a manga, who would it be and why?
_anq: I was considering Seto from ‘
Yancha Gal no Anjou-san’, simply because that’d mean I’d be able to hang out with Anjou. But on second thought, I really don’t want his terrible hair. It’s so bad that even an Anjou in exchange might not be worth it. Since the majority of the male leads in the manga I release are also fairly pathetic, I think I’d rather not choose them either. With that being said, if I could change my hairstyle once I became Seto, I’m totally down for it.
(The real answer here is Yuu from ‘
Ane Naru Mono’. Don’t ask why. You know the answer.)
Which manga would you drop your most hated enemy into and why?
_anq: I’d probably put them in
Kengan Asura. And I’d drop them right in the middle of a tournament arc so they’d have to face any one of the inhumanely powerful fighters. Preferably against a character with a twisted personality, so that they’d suffer a long, painful death. I’m kidding. That’s way too harsh. I’d probably put them in one of the RomComs I’m translating - except make it so that they’re a background character. They’ll never have any dialogues and they’ll only be drawn as mere outlines for the most part (thumbs up if you know which one-shot I’m referencing to). They’ll forever yearn to interact with the super cute female lead, but to no avail. Now that I think about it, that might actually be a fate worse than death itself. Hm. Oh well.
You are fucking evil.
And yes, that's probably going into the interview.
_anq: >_>
How do you feel about being the darling of most of Reddit and MangaDex for your work on Anjou? Does having a reputation as a great scanlator pressure you to work harder?
_anq: Honestly, while it’s great to have so many people appreciate my work, I do feel a little iffy about it. I’m relatively new to the scanlation scene, and there are so many groups out there who produce higher quality works, yet don’t receive anywhere near as much recognition. I almost feel a little guilty for receiving this much acknowledgement, as silly as that may sound. Love you guys for all the support, but please send your appreciations to other groups, too!
There definitely is some sense of pressure from being recognized by so many readers, but I don’t think it’s significant enough to make me work harder. I enjoy scanlating, so it’s not like I need any more motivation to push myself further.
Also, unlike what some of you may think, I’m a penguin – not a god.
If you could change one thing about the scanlation community in general, what would it be?
_anq: Honestly, I think the scanlation community is great as it is. Sure, there’s the occasional drama here and there, but there’s not much that can be done about that. There’s bound to be disagreements and rivalry in such a big community. When I was new, I received a lot of help from other scanlators, but I also received a fair share of passive-aggressive comments regarding my quality of work. If you asked me this question a couple of months ago, I’d say that some of the members of the scanlation community are a little conceited. However, I’ve come to realise that they’re shitposting for the most part, and at the end of the day, they still pointed out why it was bad and what I can do to improve myself. Just some harsh love.
One thing I’d like to see is a collaborative effort to create some in-depth guides for the different aspects of scanlating. When I first started, the amount of resources I had access to was really sparse, and a lot of them weren’t very helpful either. I think more people would be willing to try it out if there were easily accessible guides online. In fact, even some advanced guides produced by some of the experienced members of the community would be great, for people who want to further improve themselves. (Fog, please make some redrawing tutorials. You’re amazing at what you do.)
Lastly, if you had to choose one manga to recommend to everyone reading this interview, what would it be and why?
_anq: I’d strongly recommend ‘
Kasane’. Be warned - this is nothing like the fluffy manga that I often translate, but if you can stomach drama and tragedy, this will probably be one of the best works you will ever read. I haven’t read the final volume yet, but what I’ve read so far is one of the most gripping stories I’ve seen in manga. It’s available
officially in English, so you can even support the industry. I’m actually a sucker for these kinds of stories, but good ones are hard to come by, so if anyone knows any other well-executed drama manga like ‘Kasane’, please recommend them to me!
