The Machineguns

[MangaDex]

 

[NV25R]

Hello, thanks for traslating these chapters The Machineguns! You are doing a favor to our community.

Although that said, cant help but feel a bit confused in some regards...

First off, why you randomly upload chapters out of order? I guess you work based on the RAWs you were able to get, but its quite weird and even a bit annoying to upload the last chapter and then a chapter from the volume 13. Working based on volumes, uploading an entire volume, would be recommended.

Also, when Buffaloman said 10.000 powers in the second chapter you uploaded, he didnt meant the 20 million powers? If you need a proofreader of sorts I would gladly help

 

[Machineguns]

we are just working on chapters for practise. we thought the last chapter would help people most. the other chapter was just fun. we hope to post more chapters in order soon, but with better quality. it will be a while, be hope for regular updates when we start. this was our first attempt.

i am sorry for that mistake. we do struggle with numbers at times, especially with the japanese numbering system. we will edit that now and post the correction momentarily. thank you for alerting us.

 

[Morris98]

Are you gonna translate the missing chapters in the Ultime Choujin Tag Hen since there's a gap after 66?Anyway,you're doing an amazing work, I love you!

 

[Machineguns]

@Morris98

we are working on main chapters of 28.

i think hercules factory is working on 7.

we plan to do other whole volumes. but more volumes that interest us.

this will fill in some of the gap. but we can not say which volumes yet.

thank you very much for liking our work.

~ terry

 

[Planetman]

Is there any reason why you're working on the same Nisei series I am, All Out Assault? I don't want to gatekeep but I thought you had a policy of not crossing into stuff other groups are working on.

 

[Machineguns]

It'd been over a year, so we thought you'd given up on it, @Planetman

We did check Twitter, Tumblr, and tried to search the server, but couldn't find any word on if you were still working on it or not. There's such a demand for it, we thought we'd help out.

If you're still working on it, though, I'm sure the rest of the team will be excited to see your work.

~ Natsu

 

[Planetman]

So I guess you were lying about not wanting to step on any group's toes before, @Machineguns , I already messaged you that I was working on AOA 4 while trying to deal with important uni matters and you're still going on ahead with working on it. I'm really disappointed that you not only withhold raws but that you also lie about checking with other groups, ignore what they have to say and render their work in vain.

I know this is just fan translation and it's not up to anyone who translates what, but I was expecting better behaviour from a group that's done so much for the Kinnikuman scene, to not lie about taking over projects other people are working on.
But hey, you decide what you want to do, you're ultimately free to do this and my disappointment basically means nothing, I'm just a bit sad that you kinda lied to everyone and took a project I liked without really confirming things with me, not even directly messaging me on Discord.
And I would've thought already working on two large Nisei series would be enough to take on, so I don't know why you'd want to make that 3 projects and spread yourself thin.

Also, classy move blocking me so I couldn't directly message you on Mangadex instead.

 

[Machineguns]

We never withheld raws, @Planetman , but just chose not to share raws for one chapter gifted to us by Alkaid with their own money. We gave you other raws before.

You also said you were fine with other teams working on the same stuff, and it's been two weeks with no further word. I didn't want to wait another year, when I can churn out a chapter in a couple of hours with Sora's help.

It was also my choice to block you, which seems a good call by your tone here. We work on the series because we love it and it's fun. With two translators, it's not that difficult to flit between works, either. I know I don't owe anyone anything, and I've decided I'm going to do what I want, what's fun, and what the fandom needs. No one owns the fandom, which is how you made it feel.

I won't speak for Sora and Terry, especially as Terry wants no part of things, but you never keep anyone updated, have long hiatuses, and often fail to respond. You don't owe anyone to tell them your schedule, but we're not psychic either.

We just want to do our own thing, especially me. If I could block all messages on this site, I would, as the fandom isn't fun and I don't want to interact with people in it anymore. It's like you said before, the more teams the merrier, and if paths cross then people have more choice. I'm not being told to not do something I love, which hasn't been updated in 13 months, because someone else called dibs. I'm done.

~ Natsu

 

[Planetman]

Well hello there Natsu of The @Machineguns.

We never withheld raws, but just chose not to share raws for one chapter gifted to us by Alkaid with their own money

How is that not an example of witholding raws? Besides, the only other raw you gave me was for the Terryman introduction remake, which I decided refusing and not working on considering the source.

You also said you were fine with other teams working on the same stuff, and it's been two weeks with no further word. I didn't want to wait another year, when I can churn out a chapter in a couple of hours with Sora's help.

I only said that about U.Tag and UM, series I had no interest in and were fine with you taking on, but I'm personally invested in AOA 4 and work's been slow on it due to my own circumstances. And again, I think you could probably focus your efforts better on those series than on a mini-series like AOA.

It was also my choice to block you, which seems a good call by your tone here. We work on the series because we love it and it's fun. With two translators, it's not that difficult to flit between works, either. I know I don't owe anyone anything, and I've decided I'm going to do what I want, what's fun, and what the fandom needs. No one owns the fandom, which is how you made it feel.

That was a very rude choice, I don't know what it is with my tone that came off as so hostile that you were threatened to both nuke your Tumblr and block me on Mangadex. I'm not trying to come across as an asshole, I was just a bit hurt from how you sort of lied to my face about not crossing toes, especially with how you crossed me first a while ago by accusing me of not using my own translations for the 2011 run.

I'm not exactly sure how you find fan translation "fun" when it takes a lot of thankless work. Also also, I don't think it matters how many translators you have when your team coordination is so jumbled, you have different people managing and reacting on one account and you can't decide on a series to focus all your efforts on completing. And no, I'm not acting like I own the fandom, I'm just wondering why you've decided to be so unresponsive and start all this trouble.

I won't speak for Sora and Terry, especially as Terry wants no part of things, but you never keep anyone updated, have long hiatuses, and often fail to respond. You don't owe anyone to tell them your schedule, but we're not psychic either.

Again, you had two good options to message me, Discord and Mangadex. I've only been on hiatus due to personal troubles and the only member of your group to message me, Terry, failed to mention anything about working on AOA. I'm a bit freed up now but you can't act like you tried every option when you barely tried one.

We just want to do our own thing, especially me. If I could block all messages on this site, I would, as the fandom isn't fun and I don't want to interact with people in it anymore. It's like you said before, the more teams the merrier, and if paths cross then people have more choice. I'm not being told to not do something I love, which hasn't been updated in 13 months, because someone else called dibs.

It's fine that you want to do your own thing, but you don't have to be so insular and snobby about it, dancing around saying "it's what the fanbase wants" while making mistakes left and right, when you could do what you're doing know and just say "I want to work on it because". If you just want to work on it and don't care what anyone else has to say, that's fine, but to act this offended over someone wondering what happened to keeping your word just seems a bit immature.

I suppose I'll upload my work when it's done then, although I feel you might want to work on other things such as team coordination and translation quality instead of being ignorant of others around you.

 

[Machineguns]

"I'm not exactly sure how you find fan translation "fun" when it takes a lot of thankless work."

I'm equally not sure why you would fan translate, if you don't find it fun, @Planetman. It seems like a waste of time, when you say yourself that you have more important stuff going on, but different strokes for different folks.

~Natsu

 

[Planetman]

I only do it because I feel Kinnikuman deserves more representation in the west, @Machineguns , since it is a unique series that's seldom seen. Having to learn all the confusing jargon and systems of the Japanese language and wrestling with graphics programs to typeset decently is not a fun process but seeing people enjoy and read Kinnikuman makes it worth it. Translating it for "fun" just seems to end up with the admittedly half-baked results you've churned out, where the typesetting is awkward to read and the translation is clunky and has mistakes throughout it. My personal situations just left me unable to focus more on other stuff, and now those restrictions might just be finally letting up.

 

[Machineguns]

That makes sense. As for us, we weren't learning Japanese for the manga, but were already learning/learnt it anyway, and Terry is a very quick learner, so that his part one stuff should be spot on. Our mistake seems to have been just using the same credits for all stuff. The type-setting and redrawing is pretty easy, too, especially as it's not hard to learn. We also don't leave random bits of Japanese font behind the new text.

If you think our work's inaccurate, though, then you're more than welcome to do your own version. It'd give the fandom more material and more choice, and we'd love to read it, especially Terry and Sora who love your work. It's funny you mention typesetting though, when yours is so difficult to read, including attack names reading left to right on right to left work and very angular fonts. I think the font Sora uses is the same one as the published manga, and they had no issues selling copies, so yeah.

It's convenient your restrictions are lifting up. It'll be good to see you update after so long, @Planetman.

~ Natsu

 

[Planetman]

I'd really reconsider your level of understanding of Japanese, @Machineguns , because I can count at least four or five major translation mistakes in your new AOA chapter, it's important to step back and consider how well you can understand Japanese, as I'm still constantly learning and finding things I had incredible difficulty with in the past to be easy to understand now. It does no one any good to stay at a sub-par level and leave others to pick up the slack.

And I would really question your judgement of quality control when you consider your credits page to be your biggest mistake, when I can several flaws in your typesetting, like using completely vertical text that's hard to read instead of diagonal, leaving ellipses as separate lines, never using diagonal text to make text in small bubbles fit, often not using puncuation, et cetera. As for the "random bits of Japanese font", that's from my early days when I didn't even think of redrawing overlaid text but soon came to learn about and put to the test.

Attack names reading left to right was another newbie mistake I made in the past as I thought for some reason people would see the image first on the left then read the text seamlessly to the right, which again was in vertical text which is a big no-no. I now know text that reads down diagonally is a more preferred method. As for the fonts, while I may make a few stink choices, I still like to mix and match specific fonts for specific characters to add some visual variety, and I think it worked well for the most part and made things look less amateurish. Also I don't see how comparing yourself to legal published manga's methods make yours valid, when published manga editing and translations are often shoddy and clunky, like Viz's work. I'd rather hold myself up to a higher standard than go with the one that's had no pressure to improve itself.

 

[Machineguns]

when I can several flaws in your typesetting, like using completely vertical text that's hard to read instead of diagonal, leaving ellipses as separate lines, never using diagonal text to make text in small bubbles fit, often not using puncuation, et cetera.

Those are a matter of personal preference. I don't know what punctuation we're supposed to not use, either. We also have similar issues with your work using diagonal lines, @Planetman, as we consider those far harder to read, and many manga series use vertical, which is what the fans preferred when we asked them some months back what they'd like us to use.

because I can count at least four or five major translation mistakes in your new AOA chapter

I know I struggled. As I said, Terry didn't want to work on it because you said you were, and he's the better translator. If another team were willing to work on things, instead of leaving it on an indefinite hiatus, I could have maybe focused on different works.

~Natsu

 

[Planetman]

I highly doubt diagonal text that naturally slopes down left to right is harder to read than completely vertical text, @Machineguns, because it just doesn't work with English letters. I've made the same mistake of using vertical text before and I've come to learn that it's rather amateurish to use, as English isn't the same as Japanese in that it's only read from left to right. Diagonal text is a sensible workaround that can be used in vertical text boxes without sacrificing readability. I'm not sure if your preference comes from just being so used to vertical text or not but it just doesn't look aesthetically pleasing, and again, just because other series and teams do it, that doesn't make it any more of a valid method, and maybe you could've considered asking other teams or consulting other resources on how to improve your typesetting instead of relying on unchallenging feedback from supporters.

I'm incredibly sorry I lagged behind on Volume 4, my slowness came from a mix of absent mindedness and school-related circumstances, but (hopefully) those troubles are over and I can focus on other obligations. Also, you might want to focus on working on you team unity if you're this jumbled about things.

 

[Machineguns]

You're really confrontational about your work and like to put down others to feel better, huh? We never claimed to be perfect, and we can argue all day about whose preferences are better, although it seems like anything that doesn't correspond with your own is just "wrong", so probably no point. I'll just say that we're happy as a team. We work on what we want, when we want. If you can't be happy translating and don't think it's fun, that's not our problem. We're not going to be made to feel it's a chore or wrong to enjoy it, just because you think it should be a boring chore and only work because you feel obligated.

Terry's work on part one seems spot on, and my work could be better, but I think I'm improving as I go along, as you yourself improved. All this time shitting on us, could be better spent, and you could just go "I don't like your work, I don't like you did an AOA chapter" and be done. On that note, I'm done, too. I'm sorry that you were so delayed by real life, and I'm sorry if you don't like our work. We'll continue to do it our way, just as you'll continue to do it your way, and we can both be happy with our own works. Good luck in future, @Planetman !

~ Natsu

 

[Planetman]

I didn't mean to come off as confrontational or try to punch down, @Machineguns , it's just that I find that "it's a matter of preference" is a weak reason for anything if you've got nothing to back it up with as to why you prefer it. All I did was say why I think the method I developed works really well and why I think you could stand to improve yours from what I've learned doing what you've done. I've calmly addressed the flaws you found in my work, like vertical text reading left to right and weird font choices and I agreed on those points, which I've either fixed or will try to take more into account in the future. If anything, saying "we never claimed to be perfect" comes off as more confrontational and defensive than anything I've said. I never said you had to be, I only said you could stand to make things look a bit better.

And sure, you don't have to translate for anyone or see it as a job/chore, but that doesn't excuse you from criticism all the same. If you publish what you do, it's in the open for anyone to judge, and not all critiques can be shut out with "it's a matter of preference". Also, if I was as undescriptive as "I didn't like it", that'd be truly pointless, when it'd be more helpful to point out the flaws that need fixing.
I'm very worried about this confrontational attitude of yours, just because Kinnikuman is a lonely series doesn't mean you work in a vacuum.

 

[Machineguns]

I'm very worried about this confrontational attitude of yours, just because Kinnikuman is a lonely series doesn't mean you work in a vacuum.

This is very ironic, when you seem to surround yourself by fans that don't dare speak against you, and came at us very aggressively earlier on, only now changing your tone dramatically when called out on matters, after outright insulting our work. We don't mind fixing objective errors, but we won't be changing things that are subjective, such as font choice or vertical as opposed to diagonal. I also don't feel like arguing on what is subjective; we both said what we like and don't like, which should be enough.

I closed down my Discord, but in the time in your server, @Planetman , I saw more confrontational attitudes than anywhere else. I was shocked how quickly the server stopped being fun when you came back, because of how mean you were and how much you complained. It's part of why I decided to just close everything down, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's why Terry decided to lock own his stuff to just Sora and a few trusted others.

You say your method works really well? Compared to what? Who says? Again, it just sounds like you've been doing it longer, like your way of doing it, and want us to just copy you, but we don't want to copy you. We want to do it our way. You can criticise all you want, sure. Just because you can, doesn't mean we have to listen or not call you on being rude. There's a big difference between politely calling out a mistake and calling us half-baked, sub-par, immature, liars, and such. All we ask is that we're please left alone just to upload stuff we find fun and enjoy, and be allowed to find it fun and enjoy it in peace. If you don't like our work, you don't have to read our work, but we shouldn't be insulted and made to feel like we're bad people or doing a bad thing by sharing it.

 

[Planetman]

People spot mistakes I make in my work all the time, @Machineguns, like how recently someone pointed out that I misspelled "Commandment" as "Commandements", I don't just turn around and go "it's a matter of preference", I acknowledge my mistakes and fix them when possible. I only came to confront you today on how your impatience made you turn on a policy you yourself professed.
Also, I don't think you have any right to say I surround myself with uncritical people when you weren't in my server for any substantial amount of time or know who I hang out with, I only assumed you didn't get any challenging advice because you said you got feed back from "fans". All you've called me out on is my lack of speed which I've admitted to, but I haven't dropped my stance that you've pulled an insincere, inconsiderate and rude move with what you've done recently.

You can call things subjective all you want, but even subjective matters need evidence or at least opinions on why they're preferred, and so far, you've offered none except the same excuse of subjective stuff not needing anything to support it over and over and that other people have done it. You've never explained why you think small text or vertical text are good, you just said you "preferred" it with no further elaboration. I don't know how you can say you don't want to protect your stance while still replying and keeping to it.

I don't remember you really participating on the server more than Terry so I'd doubt your recollection of things on my server, in fact, I only remember you being there to address our first kerfuffle of misinformation. And I'm pretty sure the "complaints" I had back then are just the ones I'm bringing up now, now that you can't just willfully shut me out like a yapping dog. As for Terry, I'm not exactly sure what made him leave, I was on hiatus when he did. I'm not going to say my server's the best but he seemed to fit in fine.

And again, I've found through my own experimentation and advice from others that what I've got now works better than what I did in the past, which contained many of the same things you're doing. I can compare my work to yours because it used to follow the same conventions that didn't work for others, and when I took their advice on and tried other new things, I found the results to be far better than what I used to do. You have a point in that you don't have to do exactly as I do, but it couldn't hurt to try different methods to try and improve the look of your work, because you can't just tell everyone who doesn't like the look of your work that it's all subjective and immune to critique. You can try things your way but that doesn't magically mean other people can't comment on how you could improve. And I only called you liars because you did lie about not crossing over with other projects, I called you sub-par because you refuse to consider that there can be better ways of doing things, I called you immature because I've provided reasons for every accusation I've made and all you've done is deflect them with barely anything.

It's pretty weak to pull out the "don't like it, don't read it" excuse when we're working on the same thing. We're in the same franchise so you can't just tell me to go elsewhere to read something as obscure as this. I highly disapprove that you think you can just do what you want without anyone calling you out for it. People have been calling me out for my odd translation choices or pace but I own up to it, and here you are, moaning that I don't find your "subjective" work perfect.