Otoyomegatari - Vol. 12 Ch. 84 - A Letter

[AlmostFabulousFox]

Thank you for your hard work on this series

 

[Pachka84]

Considering the poor quality of most manga, people who read them on sites like these should actually be paid for doing so by the authors and publishers. But in the legendary rare instances that a manga is worth reading I do buy an English translation if possible. There is little other way to support the few artists who want to be creative than to do so, but if there was I would use any other means to support real creativity.
However, I wouldn't be able to know the existence of a good manga if I couldn't read it here on mangadex or another site.
What's more, I flat out refuse to buy English translations of a series that has been good if I can't read the new chapters first. And this for the simple reason that there are mangas that start out good but later on turn to crap. That is a bait and switch I will not fund. So, in my humble opinion, the decision to stop translating this title is not a wise one.
But that's just my opinion.

 

[usagiaddict]

Either someone else will pick it up or I'll wait for scans. Even if it's on my on-hold list indefinitely it's ok, backlog never dies. There is always something else. Thanks for translating it up to this point, @Duralumin, though.

 

[TSP]

We were going to pick it up, but we found a group who is gearing up to do just that, so we wish them the best!​

We were going to NOT pick it up, but due to a few circumstances, we have changed our minds.

 

[Dudette]

@TSP OH REALLY! Oh goodness that's good, I really love this manga. I hope someone can pick it up again!

 

[beeqwop]

Hey Duralumin, thanks for your hard work! I’ve been buying the printed volumes so I can enjoy the art in a bigger format. I appreciate your translations and free labor you put in for six years and I’m happy to support the mangaka and everyone who works to publish his story in English. It’s not easy! Sorry about anyone trying to shade you for your decision.

 

[Rud4n]

cant read shit

 

[SotiCoto]

Well, it is their choice...
But the justification given for it is retarded.
I mean if Dura had just said "I'm not translating any more because I got bored of it", that is one thing... and perfectly fine, I might add...
But what they're basically saying is "I'm not translating any more because I think everyone should be obligated to pay for an inferior paper copy, which I assume everyone has access to"... which is completely retarded.

I don't buy manga... generally. I've bought a few in the dim and distant past (ironically in a time when they were even more difficult to get hold of than now), and been given others (ended up with the first GON collection this way)... But they were almost always one-shots or independent stories because bookshops never had full series, often missing bits (like fuck I'd ever buy some pick-and-mix collection of incomplete content), and they were only ever the most popular series since who could be bothered to import American translations of Japanese manga to the UK? And given how inordinately expensive manga is here, anything on a larger scale was always beyond my pay-grade in the past.
These days I don't deal with physical books at all. For written fiction, I default to listening to audiobooks via Audible. The only reason I read manga at all is because it is easily accessible through my laptop. I wouldn't bother otherwise. Trying to handle with official licensed releases means dealing with lower accessibility, obscene costs, frequently lower quality, and is just an all-round bad time.
So basically if someone stops translating or... worse yet... redacts chapters they've already translated (a few manga have suffered this fate already)... all that happens on my end is that I don't read that manga...
Nobody is getting my money either way... because sites like this don't charge... and because the "licensed" hardcopy versions aren't worth it. Ironically if there were a site like this that charged for membership and guaranteed higher quality than the free stuff... I'd pay for it... but no... we're expected to go try and order bundles of printed low-quality paper off amazon for like £20 per chapter or whatever... Fuck that.

It isn't like the mangaka would give a shit about international sales anyway. How many content producers in Japan even give a single flying fuck about sales outside Japan? Not many.


So really... quit with the deranged excuses. If you don't want to translate any more because you're tired of it... just fuckin well say so. Or just vanish into the aether. Even dropping it and running without a single word to anyone is better than making up these excuses about licensed crap.

 

[ViEmlleSzDias]

@SotiCoto
This manga clearly isn't for you, anyway. So whatever.

 

[alex3715]

they took away mah translator....can't have shit in Detroit

 

[v1m]

Catching up with this one after years.

Like another user here, I've bought the original tankoubons even though my Japanese is only good enough to get me through a Japan vacation without having to starve.

The official English releases of this manga though are not worth buying in terms of quality.

Thanks Dura for showing this manga to me. He should be paid for his PR efforts.

 

[vinccc]

Thank you so much for your hard work, Duralumin!!