Kusuriya no Hitorigoto ~Maomao no Koukyuu Nazotoki Techou~ - Vol. 11 Ch. 44 - The Empress Dowager

[MangaDex]

 

[Seryph3]

So, what happened? Early December 2024, a fellow group member from NGS suddenly introduced me to their friend who claimed they could clean, typeset and proofread things for us quickly, and asked if I was interested in having them join. Since we could always use the extra help to catch up on the manga, I asked this person to work on chapter 52 where we were at to gauge their purported skills and see how we could place them in our workflow, and NGS then gave them access to the gdrive to work on (which was the first major mistake we made).

They did finish quickly as claimed, however, we were not entirely impressed when we saw the work. While it was overall sufficient, they made too many liberal decisions (in particular SFX typesetting and font choices) that clashed with both the style of the manga and the vibe we have established for our scanlation, which would mess up our workflow down the line. We were vocal about this and made it clear that they needed to work together with us if we were going to give them a chance, so we asked that they go back and re-do it as close to the established style as possible so we could have a baseline to work with (in fact, one of us even suggested either they do that or we would have to release the chapters they worked on in isolation, hence the reason behind the “group name”: Isolation Scans).

Instead of doing that, they used the two weeks we were waiting for them to take the upcoming chapters that we’ve translated and cleaned from our gdrive, rework them in their style, and release them under the above “group name” before informing us they did it, making it clear that was done as an act of revenge against us.

They then claimed that they only intended to release it up to chapter 53, the one after they were asked to work on at the start, and that it would be honoured so we could take a break over the holidays. As a show of good faith, we went along with this promise, both because we wanted to reach a peaceful resolution since we did feel bad about how we asked them to fall in line, and because they already had access to our files so there was no point crying over spilt milk. With that, we waited for them to do as they promised while we moved to revoking all access and making our own gdrive to have total control of all future materials and works (which will be volume 19 and onward since we had raws up to vol 18 in the NGS gdrive).

At this point, however, not only have they released past chapter 53, the chapters also had its translations redone in ways that both diverged from our scripts that they had access to from the gdrive, as well as compromising the actual intended meanings presented in both the manga and KnH series as a whole, making it clear they were never going to be honest in any capacity. For that reason, we have decided to resume our work from where we left off as usual to both showcasing our releases as intended and not dirtying what we worked on any further.


TL;DR: Isolation Scans stole NGS' work, and NGS is continuing as usual.

 

[xyzzy]

So, what happened? [Explanation]

It would be nice if the scanslation community went one week without drama. Especially since the whole issue here was over font choices, of all things.

Thank you for all you do. I’m definitely going to read your releases too, if only because I’m reading Maomao from like three different sources now so it’s nice to reread anyway

 

[frenchiebreadie]

The pettiness is astounding.

If they dont want to follow the rules set by a group, they really could just leave and translate on their own. Maybe even buy their own set of raws (as a help to boost sales).

But they really had to steal a group’s copy and “rebrand” it so to speak 🥴

 

[Tych]

So, what happened? Early December 2024, a fellow group member from NGS suddenly introduced me to their friend who claimed they could clean, typeset and proofread things for us quickly, and asked if I was interested in having them join. Since we could always use the extra help to catch up on the manga, I asked this person to work on chapter 52 where we were at to gauge their purported skills and see how we could place them in our workflow, and NGS then gave them access to the gdrive to work on (which was the first major mistake we made).

They did finish quickly as claimed, however, we were not entirely impressed when we saw the work. While it was overall sufficient, they made too many liberal decisions (in particular SFX typesetting and font choices) that clashed with both the style of the manga and the vibe we have established for our scanlation, which would mess up our workflow down the line. We were vocal about this and made it clear that they needed to work together with us if we were going to give them a chance, so we asked that they go back and re-do it as close to the established style as possible so we could have a baseline to work with (in fact, one of us even suggested either they do that or we would have to release the chapters they worked on in isolation, hence the reason behind the “group name”: Isolation Scans).

Instead of doing that, they used the two weeks we were waiting for them to take the upcoming chapters that we’ve translated and cleaned from our gdrive, rework them in their style, and release them under the above “group name” before informing us they did it, making it clear that was done as an act of revenge against us.

They then claimed that they only intended to release it up to chapter 53, the one after they were asked to work on at the start, and that it would be honoured so we could take a break over the holidays. As a show of good faith, we went along with this promise, both because we wanted to reach a peaceful resolution since we did feel bad about how we asked them to fall in line, and because they already had access to our files so there was no point crying over spilt milk. With that, we waited for them to do as they promised while we moved to revoking all access and making our own gdrive to have total control of all future materials and works (which will be volume 19 and onward since we had raws up to vol 18 in the NGS gdrive).

At this point, however, not only have they released past chapter 53, the chapters also had its translations redone in ways that both diverged from our scripts that they had access to from the gdrive, as well as compromising the actual intended meanings presented in both the manga and KnH series as a whole, making it clear they were never going to be honest in any capacity. For that reason, we have decided to resume our work from where we left off as usual to both showcasing our releases as intended and not dirtying what we worked on any further.


TL;DR: Isolation Scans stole NGS' work, and NGS is continuing as usual.

so weird question was it them or you guys who translated Shi Sui as Zicui? I mean because if it was the thief then that tracks if it was you guys I have questions

 

[Seryph3]

so weird question was it them or you guys who translated Shi Sui as Zicui? I mean because if it was the thief then that tracks if it was you guys I have questions

Yeah, we've been translating the names with the Mandarin reading just so we have all the names consistent with one reading.

 

[Davpyu]

ah so thats why the character name is odd for some reason

 

[Sir_Epic]

At this point, however, not only have they released past chapter 53, the chapters also had its translations redone in ways that both diverged from our scripts that they had access to from the gdrive, as well as compromising the actual intended meanings presented in both the manga and KnH series as a whole, making it clear they were never going to be honest in any capacity.

The translation looks quite different, and one thing that sticks out to me is this obvious mistranslation in your version:

https://imgur.com/ggLlKI8

She never tried to sell it to him, she wanted to. The other guys got it right, even Kevin got that right. Normally I don't care about pointing stuff out, but you are pointing your finger around talking about translation this translation that in a bunch of posts and in reality your translation is likely full of issues.

 

[Seryph3]

ah so thats why the character name is odd for some reason

The decision was in part to deal with the inconsistent naming like Luomen and Rakan/Lakan. The references to historical and/or literary characters are clearer when we go with the Mandarin reading as well.

 

[Seryph3]

The translation looks quite different, and one thing that sticks out to me is this obvious mistranslation in your version:

https://imgur.com/ggLlKI8

She never tried to sell it to him, she wanted to. The other guys got it right, even Kevin got that right. Normally I don't care about pointing stuff out, but you are pointing your finger around talking about translation this translation that in a bunch of posts and in reality your translation is likely full of issues.

Thanks for pointing it out. I'll get that fixed as soon as I can.

I'm not saying that my translation is perfect, but what I'm iffy about if when someone basing it on my script introduces erroneous details to it. Fixes are fine. I appreciated fixes. It's the opposite that irks me.

 

[polarisunique]

I've felt like the scans have been using Jinshi instead of Renshi for a while now so I assumed they gave up on the Chinese name thing, lol

Edit: Ok it started in this chapter (by the other group) and I guess I was thinking of all the chapters after this one

 

[Seryph3]

The translation looks quite different, and one thing that sticks out to me is this obvious mistranslation in your version:

https://imgur.com/ggLlKI8

She never tried to sell it to him, she wanted to. The other guys got it right, even Kevin got that right. Normally I don't care about pointing stuff out, but you are pointing your finger around talking about translation this translation that in a bunch of posts and in reality your translation is likely full of issues.

Okay, I went to check back on the raws for that particular line to double check, and it's "やぶ辺りに売ろうとした"
So I wasn't wrong for this one, I don't think--at least for this manga adaptation.

 

[Sir_Epic]

Okay, I went to check back on the raws for that particular line to double check, and it's "やぶ辺りに売ろうとした"

I'm sorry but you're wrong here. First of all, you didn't type what the hand written text said properly.
It doesn't say "やぶ辺りに売ろうとした"

It actually says:

Which typed out says: "やぶ辺りに売ろうとしてた"


Which can be translated as "I wanted to sell it to the quack"

• やぶ could refer to a "quack" (often short for やぶ医者, meaning an incompetent doctor).
• 辺り in this case can imply "to that person" or "towards the quack".
• 売ろうとしてた means "wanted to sell." or "was trying to sell"

So I wasn't wrong for this one, I don't think--at least for this manga adaptation.

One aspect I find frustrating about the official translation is that Kevin often insists on interpreting each line in isolation, rather than considering the broader context. Translations should be viewed holistically. For example, if the source material—the light novel—explicitly states that her intention was to sell it, why alter the meaning to imply events that don’t canonically occur? She never tried to sell it to him; that interpretation is simply fabricated and inserted into the story. While, in this case, the change may be inconsequential, it is still inaccurate.

In short: please don’t be like Kevin.

 

[Seryph3]

I'm sorry but your wrong here. First of all, you didn't type what the hand written text said properly.
It doesn't say "やぶ辺りに売ろうとした"

It actually says:

Which typed out says: "やぶ辺りに売ろうとしてた" You miss read a few characters.


Which can be translated as "I wanted to sell it to the quack"

• やぶ could refer to a "quack" (often short for やぶ医者, meaning an incompetent doctor).
• 辺り in this case can imply "to that person" or "towards the quack".
• 売ろうとしてた means "wanted to sell." or "was trying to sell"

One aspect I find frustrating about the official translation is that Kevin often insists on interpreting each line in isolation, rather than considering the broader context. Translations should be viewed holistically. For example, if the source material—the light novel—explicitly states that her intention was to sell it, why alter the meaning to imply events that don’t canonically occur? She never tried to sell it to him; that interpretation is simply fabricated and inserted into the story. While, in this case, the change may be inconsequential, it is still inaccurate.

In short: please don’t be like Kevin.

I missed the て, my bad, but it shouldn't change the general meaning all too much.

I don't see myself as an expert in Japanese, but disagree with your translation in this case. If it was "wanted", the sentence would have something like 売りたがった
売ろうとする implies she tried or attempted to sell the towel to the quack. I don't see anything in that sentence that suggests that she had "wanted" to do this, instead it was that she had "made an effort" to do so. So, yes, "was trying..." could be a valid translation, but not "wanted to."

It would be great if anyone else who knows Japanese could help me confirm or deny my interpretation.
Yeah, I'm trying my best to not be a Kevin, so if you see anything other issues, please let me know. Thanks.

Edit: I also double-checked with this: https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/売ろうとしてた

I'll change it to "was trying" to account for the tensing.

 

[Gamma-0]

After thoroughly comparing both versions of this chapter, as well as the rest of the releases so far, I must say that certain aspects simply don’t add up, and your version of events appears highly questionable, making me wonder who the petty one here really is.

The release by Isolation Scans demonstrates fully cleaned SFX and—most notably—a far more polished reading experience. Unfortunately, it is quite evident that your translator and proofreader lack proficiency in English. The text comes across as awkward and stilted, as if translated word-for-word without consideration for flow or natural phrasing.

As an example:

Zicui/Shisui's response doesn't sound natural in your translation, and that is just one of many examples. Chapter 51 in particular reads extremely awkwardly.

Your translation also doesn't make sense in several cases. Just from this chapter alone:

What is it now? Is it officially run or unofficially run? It should be the latter considering the context. I find it ironic and hypocritical how you keep pointing out that they mistranslated things, when your own translation is flawed.

You need to quality check your text better. This conversation already happened in Chapter 39. Leaving aside the awkward phrasing and erroneous English ("operation to make a eunuch"), your own translation is not consistent.

Frankly, I see no real indication that they supposedly stole your work. Your release is so visibly different and inferior that your claim lacks credibility. What I also find very strange is starting this volume, after the other group translated the pharmacopoeia extra, you suddenly decided to do the same, which you've never done before. To me as an observer, it looks more like frustration at being sniped and outperformed by a different team, and now you're venting and trying to garner sympathies by claiming they stole your work.

I feel like we are missing a very crucial part of the story and just hearing from the one side that felt the urge to bring this drama to the public and point fingers at others makes me not believe you are telling us the whole truth.

 

[Archimedes5000]

So, what happened? Early December 2024, a fellow group member from NGS suddenly introduced me to their friend who claimed they could clean, typeset and proofread things for us quickly, and asked if I was interested in having them join. Since we could always use the extra help to catch up on the manga, I asked this person to work on chapter 52 where we were at to gauge their purported skills and see how we could place them in our workflow, and NGS then gave them access to the gdrive to work on (which was the first major mistake we made).

They did finish quickly as claimed, however, we were not entirely impressed when we saw the work. While it was overall sufficient, they made too many liberal decisions (in particular SFX typesetting and font choices) that clashed with both the style of the manga and the vibe we have established for our scanlation, which would mess up our workflow down the line. We were vocal about this and made it clear that they needed to work together with us if we were going to give them a chance, so we asked that they go back and re-do it as close to the established style as possible so we could have a baseline to work with (in fact, one of us even suggested either they do that or we would have to release the chapters they worked on in isolation, hence the reason behind the “group name”: Isolation Scans).

Instead of doing that, they used the two weeks we were waiting for them to take the upcoming chapters that we’ve translated and cleaned from our gdrive, rework them in their style, and release them under the above “group name” before informing us they did it, making it clear that was done as an act of revenge against us.

They then claimed that they only intended to release it up to chapter 53, the one after they were asked to work on at the start, and that it would be honoured so we could take a break over the holidays. As a show of good faith, we went along with this promise, both because we wanted to reach a peaceful resolution since we did feel bad about how we asked them to fall in line, and because they already had access to our files so there was no point crying over spilt milk. With that, we waited for them to do as they promised while we moved to revoking all access and making our own gdrive to have total control of all future materials and works (which will be volume 19 and onward since we had raws up to vol 18 in the NGS gdrive).

At this point, however, not only have they released past chapter 53, the chapters also had its translations redone in ways that both diverged from our scripts that they had access to from the gdrive, as well as compromising the actual intended meanings presented in both the manga and KnH series as a whole, making it clear they were never going to be honest in any capacity. For that reason, we have decided to resume our work from where we left off as usual to both showcasing our releases as intended and not dirtying what we worked on any further.


TL;DR: Isolation Scans stole NGS' work, and NGS is continuing as usual.

Wait what am I understanding this right:

1. One of the (new) staff members bulk released 4 chapters without permission, without credit and under a different group name

2. You asked him wtf is he doing and he replied "I'm going to release 8 only more chapters" (also without credit and under different group name)

3. You said "ok sure"

4. He released 12 chapters instead and edited the script in (some of?) them

Bizarre situation all around

 

[Seryph3]

After thoroughly comparing both versions of this chapter, as well as the rest of the releases so far, I must say that certain aspects simply don’t add up, and your version of events appears highly questionable, making me wonder who the petty one here really is.

The release by Isolation Scans demonstrates fully cleaned SFX and—most notably—a far more polished reading experience. Unfortunately, it is quite evident that your translator and proofreader lack proficiency in English. The text comes across as awkward and stilted, as if translated word-for-word without consideration for flow or natural phrasing.

As an example:

Zicui/Shisui's response doesn't sound natural in your translation, and that is just one of many examples. Chapter 51 in particular reads extremely awkwardly.

Your translation also doesn't make sense in several cases. Just from this chapter alone:

What is it now? Is it officially run or unofficially run? It should be the latter considering the context. I find it ironic and hypocritical how you keep pointing out that they mistranslated things, when your own translation is flawed.

You need to quality check your text better. This conversation already happened in Chapter 39. Leaving aside the awkward phrasing and erroneous English ("operation to make a eunuch"), your own translation is not consistent.

Frankly, I see no real indication that they supposedly stole your work. Your release is so visibly different and inferior that your claim lacks credibility. What I also find very strange is starting this volume, after the other group translated the pharmacopoeia extra, you suddenly decided to do the same, which you've never done before. To me as an observer, it looks more like frustration at being sniped and outperformed by a different team, and now you're venting and trying to garner sympathies by claiming they stole your work.

I feel like we are missing a very crucial part of the story and just hearing from the one side that felt the urge to bring this drama to the public and point fingers at others makes me not believe you are telling us the whole truth.

What they stole was our raws, our cleans (where we leave the bigger SFXs untouched since we liked how they looked and we had no good way to redraw them in a way that preserves their impact), and the first-pass translations of my script. The editing they did was expected, which was what I had them do when we had them trial out that one chapter in the first place, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had made additional edits and reworded the script into something that sounds much nicer. They also had the advantage of just needing to edit what's already in front of them rather than starting completely from scratch. I can still tell that they were basing it on my script since there were some translation choices I made that they preserved.

Completely redrawing the SFX was the issue that divided us, so I presume that was exactly why they decided to do this in the first place.

Anyway, we kind of did speed through these chapters that we normally would take a few more days to work on, so I apologise if we missed things like nuance and flow. I would have loved it if someone else could go thought the script to reword it in a way that sounds more natural, but I am limited in my capabilities since I do get heavily influenced by the raw text. Also, our proofreader only points out odd wording, so I assume that the language itself isn't too bad--but I guess not.

Edit: re: pharmacoepia. We only had them starting from the vol 11 raws.

 

[Seryph3]

Wait what am I understanding this right:

1. One of the (new) staff members bulk released 4 chapters without permission, without credit and under a different group name

2. You asked him wtf is he doing and he replied "I'm going to release 8 only more chapters" (also without credit and under different group name)

3. You said "ok sure"

4. He released 12 chapters instead and edited the script in (some of?) them

Bizarre situation all around

Yeah, guy was angry so we thought we let him let off some steam. We were initially going to just let him work to the chapter he wanted to work to and then continue from there, but we decided it wasn't worth it in the end, so here we are.

 

[Gamma-0]

What they stole was our raws, our cleans (where we leave the bigger SFXs untouched since we liked how they looked and we had no good way to redraw them in a way that preserves their impact), and the first-pass translations of my script. The editing they did was expected, which was what I had them do when we had them trial out that one chapter in the first place, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had made additional edits and reworded the script into something that sounds much nicer. They also had the advantage of just needing to edit what's already in front of them rather than starting completely from scratch. I can still tell that they were basing it on my script since there were some translation choices I made that they preserved.

Completely redrawing the SFX was the issue that divided us, so I presume that was exactly why they decided to do this in the first place.

Anyway, we kind of did speed through these chapters that we normally would take a few more days to work on, so I apologise if we missed things like nuance and flow. I would have loved it if someone else could go thought the script to reword it in a way that sounds more natural, but I am limited in my capabilities since I do get heavily influenced by the raw text. Also, our proofreader only points out odd wording, so I assume that the language itself isn't too bad--but I guess not.

Edit: re: pharmacoepia. We only had them starting from the vol 11 raws.

All in all, this appears to be a "he said, she said" situation in my eyes. The raws for the manga are readily available for download, or they could have purchased and ripped their own copies. You claim they stole your cleans, but I see no way to verify that. What I do see is that their version is significantly more cleaned than yours.

As for the translation, the quality speaks for itself. It bears no resemblance to your work to me. Frankly, it’s perplexing that you excuse your translation quality by citing time constraints, especially when you released after them (and thus had more time to fix your translation) and they managed to release more chapters in a single month than you typically produce in half a year. In the Chapter 54 discussion, Isolation Scans stated they translated from scratch, because editing your translation would have been more effort than starting anew. While I don’t have access to your initial drafts, the way The Hunt chapters read is so fundamentally different that I’m far more inclined to believe they employed their own translator who did it on their own.

My honest advice is that your proofreader needs to either significantly put more effort in this (I personally find there still is too much odd wording in your translation) or you get help from a native speaker.

 

[Archimedes5000]

All in all, this appears to be a "he said, she said" situation in my eyes. The raws for the manga are readily available for download, or they could have purchased and ripped their own copies. You claim they stole your cleans, but I see no way to verify that. What I do see is that their version is significantly more cleaned than yours.

As for the translation, the quality speaks for itself. It bears no resemblance to your work to me. Frankly, it’s perplexing that you excuse your translation quality by citing time constraints, especially when you released after them (and thus had more time to fix your translation) and they managed to release more chapters in a single month than you typically produce in half a year. In the Chapter 54 discussion, Isolation Scans stated they translated from scratch, because editing your translation would have been more effort than starting anew. While I don’t have access to your initial drafts, the way The Hunt chapters read is so fundamentally different that I’m far more inclined to believe they employed their own translator who did it on their own.

My honest advice is that your proofreader needs to either significantly put more effort in this (I personally find there still is too much odd wording in your translation) or you get help from a native speaker.

I agree that some things in the story don't make much sense, but if this is simply a sniper who took no content from NGS, then what reason would NGS have to wait a whole month before responding to the snipe and releasing in bulk?

Even for the time constraints you assumed that they started at the same time, in which case the quality difference obviously makes no sense, but the simpler explanation that NGS started rushing completion of the chapters only 6 days ago is right there