Akaiito (MIYASAKA Kaho)

Was it really up to 36.5 chapter only?

ciao l'ultimo capitolo caricato in lingua italiana dal Nihon no Manga 

dalla pagina 93 in poi non si vedono le immagini potete fare qualcosa? grazie mille

grazie per la traduzione!

@Usha & Bloodwork: Please refer to the forum thread. The comment section is not the place for any sort of discussion. I explained our stance on the thread. The stamps also aren't solely because of the hoster sites but out of fairness towards the publishers and mangakas. We DO offer the cleaner version of our scanlations to those that can prove they bought the manga.

Is there no way to read chapter 33 that is not pasted with obnoxious red text all over? I registered over at scanlator site and downloaded their linked files from both mirrors only to discover that they have the same watermark as here. I appreciate all the heavy work that goes into scanlation but why do you ruin that work yourselves? 

Dear readers,

I have updated Akaiito chapters 35-36.5 on our forum as a downloadable version. I cannot update the pages here without causing the chapters to bump the manga, ensuing that the hoster mafia sites will automatically scrape them again. The overall structure and words stay the same, but I did correct proofreading and type-setting errors that I unfortunately didn't notice prior to the release. If you want to read the revised edition, please download it from our forums. Please do not update it here on batoto. We don't want the locust sites to get the revised version, so unless someone from the forums steals the release, it's safe from them where it is. Please don't undermine our efforts and goodwill. Thank you very much.

-Aki (CRS)

PS: Please don't forget that this scanlation was brought to you by our entire group - not only me. So don't forget my team mates when you want to say thanks or they'll get sad.

thanks for bringing us this manga ^^

Nice.  There were some rough or annoying spots through there, but it's come to a nice conclusion and overall, pretty good.

One thing about this that shows off a fundamental thing I like on average about shoujo better than shounen:  Shoujo tends to have a beginning, middle, and end.  It starts the plot, introduces a few complications, does the story arcs about those complications while generally furthering the main relationship and plot arc, and brings things to a satisfying finish. 

Shounen has a nasty tendency to start with an interesting concept, pursue it for a few chapters and then shift into filler mode, in which complications are introduced but the main story stops advancing and the whole thing turns episodic; this then continues for as long as the manga remains popular, growing increasingly random until finally the publishers conclude they cant milk it any further and it gets brought to an end, ideally orderly and planned long ago, but all too often rushed and inadequate.  Typically the end doesn't come organically out of the story, it's just something designed to be able to tack on after whatever filler stuff might have been happening.  As a result, shounen manga are rarely as good as the opening makes it seem like they could have been, and at worst you're best off reading the first chunk of chapters and then the last few while skipping the middle three quarters.  Whatever one may say about shoujo, I am quite grateful that it very rarely pulls that kind of thing.

OMG its over ...feeling bittersweet. I thought Chihiro would loosen up a bit after they *ahem* did the deed..but that's the way she is..i feel she will always be overthinking and feeling very self-conscious. I really enjoyed this couple a lot; I loved how the author started them off on an unfriendly note to the couple that they have become.

A HUGE THANKS TO AKINA for completing this manga. Really appreciate your hard work and I hope to see more of your future work! Thanks again!!    

thanks for your hard work! I appreciate it!

Those two--FINALLY!!!

I'm getting Doko Demo Doa flashbacks.

THANKS AKINA!!!! I got the notification that 34 chap is up (yay) !! Thanks for your hard work! 

I've got a poorly phrased suggestion I guess:

Spoiler

I think it might work(or at least help) that let's say 2-3 months after you guys do this first release you send out a v2 with less intrusive watermarking. That way people are drawn to bato.to(and any other pages you approve of your scanlations being on) and are more likely to be made aware of why mangafox and other such portals are so scummy in the meantime.
 
Granted, once the less intrusively watermarked version is put up there's a good chance the 'locust' sites will steal them. Still, before that they'll have the choice between uploading the heavily watermarked version(which outright denounces them) or delay uploading chapters, which hurts them. I can vouch for watermarks denouncing aggregators as it's how I found myself here in the first place!
 
As I've just discovered by seeing that mangafox uploaded Chapter 33 as is there's pretty much nothing anyone can do to stop the uploaders: they don't give a rat's arse about watermarking clearly. What this delay of a few months could do is point readers towards bato.to and other approved sites while not damaging the quality of the scans as much in the end. It'd also mean that those in more direct communication with your group(here and on your forums) would be well aware that a cleaner release is on its way and would be less likely to kick up a fuss.
 
That said I'm probably not the first one who has brought this idea up and I can see some issues with it. It might be a good compromise, though.

Thank you for your suggestion. I've already thought about this too but so far put the idea at the end of the line because, as you think too, the locust sites will most likely update the cleaner version too once we make it available. The thing is, I always keep back-ups of the quality checked psd files, so it would not be a problem from our side to re-upload chapters intrusive-stamp-free. I do this because I sometimes go back and correct errors that have only been noticed after the release etc.
 
Continued:

In case others have suggestions too, please submit them via our forum or one of our chats or even per mail. I don't want to spam the entire comment section with this discussion.

Spoiler

No one forces you to read our stuff if you don't like it. If you rather "wait until another group picks it up" that's your prerogative. We're not keeping anyone else from scanlating this either. But guess what. My translations for lots of those chapters have been out there for over a year and no group has scanlated it anyways into English. We have warned people about what would happen if we were exploited to no-end. You can go on our forum and check the very first release announcement. This form of stamping was previously used by Sky of Snow (which I got the idea from) to keep people from stop friggin uploading what they did not give permission for. It worked in most cases for them.

 

We have been trying to please everyone by using 20-40% opacity see-through stamps that were more or less non-destructive and additionally published a version with only the group stamp every ~5 pages and maybe one extra stamp somewhere in between on the forum. One or multiple of the forum users betrayed this trust by uploading it to other aggregators. We have been closing both eyes towards them scraping the batoto version (which was stamped heavily exactly due to that reason). But when they used the forum version they have crossed a red line. 

 

As you can see on the release note, we are not happy with this either. In fact we would prefer doing it without. We are looking for a way to do it and are searching for someone who might be able to help us with the technical stuff. Anyone who has time to bitch about the stamps might as well use that to look for people that know how to do that traceable publishing stuff. Paperdollscans even went as far as paying someone to do that but got f*cked in the process with the person taking the money and running. So we take it that even paying would not ensue getting someone reliable to do it. So our best bet are people out there who love mangas like we do and have the knowledge we need to step up and help us out.

 

Right now we would have to make a thread for each chapter and give out the less-stamped version on a demand-basis. We'd have to stamp a traceable identification onto the pages by hand (because we have no idea how we could automate that). It takes a lot of time to do that. Now multiply that with the number of people who would want the download. Badummmm tsss~ We might be able to do that when we have a lot of time but right now we're running extremely low on active staff hours and (obviously) prefer to spend that time scanlating.

 

If you have a solution, you're always free to make the suggestion. But what I hate most are people who lament things but don't work on doing anything productive. And as I'm the last one in the chain of scanlation here, it's a bad idea to p*ss me off. The more hate-mails and messages I get, the more I feel like stamping a friggin elephant dancing pogo onto the pages with a 90% opacity. Try working with me on a solution rather than against me by nagging and moping. Go out there and ask people with forum administration knowledge and automation knowledge on how to get the nicknames stamped individually but automated. Ask them for ways to stop people from messing with our releases.

 

Oh, on a side note: Yes, this manga is Miyasaka Kaho's. And if you really want to see her beautiful artwork without any stamps or w/e, then I'll give you one hint: Buy the original work or, if available, the translation. I  know where to illegally read her stuff without buying it. But I buy it anyways because I respect her work. You want to start about scanlation and respect towards the original? You're not even on the same page yet to be in any position to discuss this. For anyone who really wants to see it without any form of stamp etc, there's always the original (or waiting an eternity for it to eventually get licensed). We even wrote down instructions and links directly to where you can buy the mangas we scanlate. Both in digital and paper form. So "I don't know how/where to buy it!" does not work.

 

You're afraid the manga won't be licensed ever? Pssssh, here's a secret: The higher the Japanese sales numbers, the higher the chances the manga will get licensed elsewhere. You could buy the original and look at it while reading along the scanlation. Heck, I've started learning Japanese because I am so in love with mangas. I also buy manhwas and manhuas which I would not understand anything from other than what beautiful images they have if it weren't for scanlations out there. I can't say the same about many others out there.

I've got a poorly phrased suggestion I guess:

EXCITED FOR THE NEW CHAP!! Thanks Akina!!! Is it possible to read it without the stamp here in Bato? 

We're trying to find a solution again to make it nicer for our good readers out there. Please bear with it for now and be patient. :x

No one forces you to read our stuff if you don't like it. If you rather "wait until another group picks it up" that's your prerogative. We're not keeping anyone else from scanlating this either. But guess what. My translations for lots of those chapters have been out there for over a year and no group has scanlated it anyways into English. We have warned people about what would happen if we were exploited to no-end. You can go on our forum and check the very first release announcement. This form of stamping was previously used by Sky of Snow (which I got the idea from) to keep people from stop friggin uploading what they did not give permission for. It worked in most cases for them.

Continued:

You're afraid the manga won't be licensed ever? Pssssh, here's a secret: The higher the Japanese sales numbers, the higher the chances the manga will get licensed elsewhere. You could buy the original and look at it while reading along the scanlation. Heck, I've started learning Japanese because I am so in love with mangas. I also buy manhwas and manhuas which I would not understand anything from other than what beautiful images they have if it weren't for scanlations out there. I can't say the same about many others out there.

I don't think it is fair to go against the translator like that...they are doing us, readers, a favour by providing this service and they should get the recognition for it. Yeah reading through the watermark is not the best experience but atleast you are getting the narration updates on your fav manga. 

On the other hand, we can take another extreme view that this is "desecrating" the mangaka's artwork, ruining the intended experience. The art of scanlation is to be an unobtrusive transmitter of the original work. Your goal as someone who adapts a mangaka's work to another audience should be to translate so naturally, present it so cleanly, that the reader forgets they're reading "ABC Scanlation Group's Translation and Cleanup Work on XYZ Manga" when they are reading. They are supposed to be reading XYZ Manga, just in a language they understand. Your ideal is to remove as many disruptions from the reading experience as possible.

Of course, fan scanlators can have fun, add some snarky commentary side jokes, make sure the reader knows how many Norwegian Krones is an onigiri worth, etc. That's OK. This is a hobby and a community contribution, not a professional work with strict requirements. Other scanlators like this group add watermarks to fight back against exploitative aggregators. They also have no obligation to do anything anybody else says, show it to anyone, change anything (except if there are requests or demands from the legal owners of the work...).

But the moment your work intrudes upon and intentionally harm the reading experience, to the point where many readers find the mangaka's work (NOT the scanlator's -- remember who created these characters, wrote the dialogue, and drew the pictures?) inaccessible, you are hurting access to the manga you gave so much hard work to bring to the community. You are, to use an old phrase, doing it wrong.

The watermarks here are very clearly distracting. After all the hard, dedicated effort to translate, clean, redraw, and typeset the work, to bring it to us ungrateful leechers or whatever you'd like to call the reading public, they make it unreadable. Not cool. This is not their manga. This is Miyasaka Kaho's.

God this entire thing is unreadable. Why spend all that time typesetting just to ruin it with obtrusive watermarking? Don't even translate, I'd prefer waiting for someone else than struggling through this mess

I don't think it is fair to go against the translator like that...they are doing us, readers, a favour by providing this service and they should get the recognition for it. Yeah reading through the watermark is not the best experience but atleast you are getting the narration updates on your fav manga. 

EXCITED FOR THE NEW CHAP!! Thanks Akina!!! Is it possible to read it without the stamp here in Bato?  

Blimey.  That, um, takes things to rather a whole new level.  La lucha continua, eh what?

Vol 9 translation...where art thou u??

lolol he actually said it 

yay new chapter!!! Things are heating up ;-)

Thanks translators!!