92 replies to this topic

[kendama]

Great. Now, not only has an applicant for redrawing Sprite not shown up, but we also need one for Destroy and Revolution! My woes never seem to end…

 

Destroy and Revolution is very close to conclusion, either of the current season or the entire series, I'm not sure yet because I haven't translated the latest chapter, 71.

 

You need to be very good. This series is not quite as hard as Sprite, but it's hard enough. Redraws are not that numerous, but they are tough. You can do just the Destroy and Revolution folder of our General test: https://goo.gl/pv6ZKI .

 

More details on how to apply and the requirements for Sprite on post #54.

 

And on that note I take my leave for now. Five lines is more than this recruitment section deserves.

[kendama]

Yadda yadda yadda redrawers needed yadda yadda Destroy and Revolution and Sprite yadda yadda yadda details on posts #54 for Sprite and #59 for DxR yadda yadda yadda wait till you drop dead if no one applies yadda!

Edited by kendama, 11 September 2016 - 10:14 PM.

[kendama]

Oh, well, Monday isn't exactly the best day to bump this thing up, but whatever, it's not as if anyone who reads this is actually considering help us, right? You probably just have Restless Fingers Syndrome or something.

 

But I can just appeal to your better natures - haha, as if! - and say that we still need a redrawer as per post # 54 above, and a cleaner for God, you bastard, I wanna kill you! The latter has a slow release pace and the raws are easy to clean, so just take our cleaning test here and submit it to us: https://goo.gl/lCT27tv

 

Or not, just keep coming here for your weekly dose of sadism at the expense of scanlators. *sticks tongue out*

[kendama]

Bump!

 

And for now, "bump" is all you are going to get from me. The previous post (#63) and references therein tell you all you need to know.

[kendama]

Bump!

 

We need a redrawer for Sprite and one for Deathtopia.

 

Our Head Redrawer, who did Deathtopia, Destroy and Revolution, Teizokurei Monophobia and God, you bastard, I wanna kill you! is going on an extended break. Since God, you bastard… also lacks a cleaner and the translator is MIA, I'm putting it on hold and calling off the recruitment for a cleaner. We have a stack of redrawn chapters for Monophobia, so it will continue to be scanlated normally. And I got a redrawer for Destroy. So of his projects, only Deathtopia is left orphan. Fortunately, it's not a hard series, and you only need to pass our general test: https://goo.gl/KIuWmE

 

Sprite is another story. I won't really waste my fingers detailing again how hard it is. You can read all about that on post #54. Suffice it to say that you need to pass our full redrawing test, including extra difficulty pages: https://goo.gl/qfnsc6

 

We're contemplating unredrawn chapters if no one applies, but it's more likely that you will have to wait for the next Ice Age to read a chapter if no one applies.

[kendama]

Bump!

 

Let me see, what haven't I tried yet?

 

Redrawer needed. Sprite. Very hard, sizeable backlog. Test: https://goo.gl/qfnsc6. Submit application however the hell you want so long as I see it. More details on post #54.

 

Or, you know, look at the raws and try to imagine what the characters are saying.

[midotchii]

are you still recruiting cleaners?

[kendama]

are you still recruiting cleaners?

 

Well… not in principle. However, I could get you in for Suicide island if you:

 

i. Know how to straighten, crop and resize.

 

ii. Know how to dust and decide when some levelling is needed (it won't be most of the time).

 

iii. Can deal with mild bleedthrough.

 

iv. Know how to work with spectacular tankoubon raws (1200 dpi, very little dust).

 

v. Do all of that in Photoshop (no one in the team uses GIMP and I don't want the hassle of incompatibility issues).

 

vi. Can do a chapter a week (20 pages), but not take the whole week to do it. I mean do a chapter in a couple of days and then be at rest for the remainder of the week.

 

I'm willing to give you a couple of pages of this manga to try your hand on instead of taking our test if you answer in the affirmative to all of the above.

[midotchii]

ohh okie sure thing! 

[kendama]

Bump!

 

You know, I should say I stopped thinking of this as a recruitment thread.

 

Other than a few people who probably don't even know what they are doing, it's not as if anyone applies to join us after visiting this place.

 

The rest are mountebanks who waltz into here for who knows which reason and then depart again, probably enjoying a good chortle on our predicament. Sadists. All sadists.

 

So from now on I'll re-orient my goals. I'll make this into a place for meaningless rambling and incoherent thoughts. Later I may be able to parade it to friends as an exercise in surrealism or something.

 

By the way, did you check out the Wikipedia article on the discovery of Neptune in the 19th century? Don't miss it, it's a great read!

 

Ahem. In any case, a secondary goal will be to maintain a ratio of 100 views per reply or better, not counting the original post. And a tertiary goal will be to beat Phoenix Serenade in number of views. After all, since I get nothing from posting here, at least I can aim at being the king of nothing! \o/

 

MUAHAHAHAHA!

 

Ahem.

 

Ah, yes. In case you clicked this by accident and happen to be a Photoshop deity, we need a redrawer for Sprite. It's an obscure series apparently no one who can redraw reads. And we happen to have a whole volume translated. More details on post #54. Whatever.

Edited by kendama, 28 October 2016 - 01:44 AM.

[kendama]

Now, have you ever heard of the Great Vowel Shift? It's an amazing development in English phonetics that took place beginning in the 14th century. Do check it on Wikipedia. I had never heard of it until reading Chaucer. Be sure to google audio files of Chaucer's tales being read aloud in Middle English by Literature professors. I have to say… I kinda like how English sounded then more than how it sounds now?

 

The random thought of the week being over, let's do some personal reflections on scanlation. At the end of them, there will be a blurb about our open recruiting position.

 

Death Toll, like many other teams, has a selection of tests for applicants. We're described as a high-quality group, and we try our best, but I feel we're above average at best. Our typesetting and cleaning tests are average: we don't test for SFX typesetting (because we never do SFX) and we don't ask cleaning applicants to be able to clean difficult magazine raws (because we hardly ever do series using maggies).

 

Our proofreading and translation tests are hard. However, because translators are always in short supply, we have had translators who joined by invitation or otherwise bypassed it.

 

The one test we take pride of is our redrawing test. I mean, anyone can choose a bunch of extremely hard pages and make a test that is as tough as or tougher than ours. But very few groups do that, because the harder the test, the fewer applicants you get. However, Death Toll opted for a very, very difficult test (and series-tailored variations of it!) because most series we do are very hard, and for different reasons. We don't test for colour redrawing, because we leave colour covers untouched and don't do webtoons or manhua; if we stumbled upon an occasional double colour spread that needs stitching (unlikely with volume raws), we'd probably outsource its redrawing.

 

The result of this very selective test is that in the past four months since when I made goo.gl version of the link to our full redrawing test, it has been downloaded 532 times and we haven't received one application yet. I assume most of these are from people who are just curious, but I cannot help thinking that it is leaving a trail of defeated wannabe redrawers who gave up or not even tried.

 

I don't derive any personal pride off that. I didn't design the test, it was done by the great Sarrymast, our former Head Redrawer. Neither am I particularly happy at the score above: after all, we are constantly plagued by a shortage of redrawers. But there are compensations: the few people who do pass (and they exist), are invariably skilled enough that we can put anything on their hands and they will take care of it.

 

We allow experienced redrawers to bypass the test, as I announce in our recruitment ads. To achieve that, they need to show us an impressive sample of past PSDs. Of course, because we're used to extremely hard redraws and equally skilled redrawers, we're not easily impressed, and reserve the right to reject samples that don't seem proof of skill enough to do our projects.

 

Some recent experiences with applicants who bypassed the test have made me even more reluctant to accept this route for joining the group. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say that not a single one of recent "experienced" applicants showed themselves satisfactory as members of the team, for various reasons. Whereas every single one of the applicants who passed the test (or at least a sample of pages in need of redrawing of series of ours) revealed themselves to be committed, reliable, enthusiastic scanlators. I take immense joy off our team of active redrawers: Green Demon, Pok, ILikeTurtles, Mii, æmiz and Bala are all rookies, but it's an honour to work with them. Our Redrawing Department is always understaffed, but the redrawing of series that do have someone working on them is almost always aboveboard.

 

So I'm beggining to think that people who are willing to be tested end up proving something about themselves we wouldn't be able to select for otherwise: namely, that they are modest, devoid of notions of entitlement and willing to pass the ritual of acceptance to be acknowledged as fellow Death Toll scanlators. And all of that regardless of their actual skill; they are actually willing to learn more things and take on harder challenges. They are also very resourceful: being a small group, Death Toll's Redrawing Department doesn't follow the common division of junior and senior redrawers, the former being essentially cleaners that can do Clone-Stamp, Content-Aware Filling and some line work. We don't have people to do the easier redraws and leave the hard ones to the hardcore team. Each series is taken care of by one redrawer, or two equally skilled ones (like Ouroboros). It may not be very efficient skill management, but it works for our purposes. The upside is that once you take a test appropriate for the series you want to work on, you will be able to do everything on it. We don't have to spend effort managing human resources to redraw a chapter: we give it to the redrawer in charge and he does everything. I have only once needed to ask a "senior" to do the work of a redrawer - the person in question had bypassed the test.

 

I'll never forget that Sarrymast, who had extensive redrawing experience at a big, high-profile group, took our test like everyone else. In the period he was with us, he never gave himself airs and we had a lot of fun with him around.

 

I'm not saying that everyone who tries to bypass the test just by presenting samples of their past work demands preferential treatment, or thinks themselves good enough not to have to be tested: just that those who do are more likely to try to join us that way.

 

Thus, as of now, and much as it pains me to tighten the screws even more, we won't be taking in applicants who want to submit samples of past work without any form of testing. I might give them a chapter as probation and to test their speed and reliability, or at least a few pages, but you will have to put in some real work before you can join us for good. I apologise to potential applicants who may have very good reasons not to devote their time to doing a redrawing test - like an unwillingness to work hard on something that won't be actually used - and I'll try to find ways of accomodating the needs of experienced applicants. However, I am trying to find a way to keep primae donnae out, and this is the best I can think of.

 

And if you are inexperienced, don't even bother asking: I won't give you an actual chapter or a selection of pages that will be used. No matter if you have a diploma in graphic arts (we've had these before): you must take a test. Consider it your rite of passage, if you will.

 

That being said, we need a redrawer for Sprite. The tets is here: https://goo.gl/qfnsc6(This is our full test, the hardest one we have. You need to do all pages.)

Edited by kendama, 12 November 2016 - 02:04 AM.

[kendama]

I'm not sure that I'll make a routine of defining the random thought of the turn (if it is to become a fixture of these posts at all) as a Wiki article, but… I was reading about submarine communication there a couple of days ago. I didn't know that, because ordinary radio waves don't penetrate deep into the water, submarines become vulnerable when they have to surface to communicate. There are several solutions to that, but the most amazing one is the use of ultra-long waves, which can penetrate hundreds of metres into the water. The catch is the antenna: the solution found by the US and the Soviet Union was to make a small section of the whole EARTH into an antenna. Submarine communcation facilities are tens of kilometres long. The submarines can only receive the transmissions, they cannot send messages. And only short messages are possible because the transmission is incredibly slow.

 

Now, some thoughts on scanlation, after which there will be another blurb on our open positions. Not that anyone who comes here cares, right?

 

Last time I mused about problems with recruiting redrawers. However, these are more issues of how you do it. The great conundrum of scanlation, at least for me, is how to recruit translators.

 

I've been admin for two years now. In all this period, I was not once able to recruit a translator who would remain with us for an extended period. Other admins I've talked with have similar problems. I consider myself a pretty aggressive recruiter, but maybe there's some sorcery I have been unable to figure out. Or maybe translators are really hard to find. If the latter, why?

 

Reasons may include the following.

 

i. I'm looking in the wrong places. For editors, in my experience, the most effective recruitment technique are the ads that run with actual chapters. However, translators tend to read the originals, so chances are low that they will ever see my ads. That's why I also try recruiting in manga aggregator boards and occasionally at Mangaupdates and Mangahelpers. I have tried JCafé as well, since there are always people exchanging raws there (meaning at least some must have the raws because they read them). Results have been dismal. Either translators don't visit these places as often as I expected, or they are simply not interested. (Or both.)

 

ii. Translators nowadays are interested in other things. Other than manga, I mean. I have noticed a trend towards light and webnovels. (I'm not sure, though, as I myself have little interest in them.) It's possible that many translators have decided novels are more interesting, or more challenging for those who want to increase their skills, and that it's something they can do solo or with only the help of a proofreader.

 

iii. Translators have grown to prefer being kings of an island to vassals in a continent. Let's admit it, translators are the cornerstones of scanlation groups. The make or kill a project. If you turn that around, translators can much more easily create their own groups than other editors. And on average, it's easier to learn edition skills than it is to learn a foreign language, especially nowadays that the quality of raws has increased and webraws have become more common. So why would a translator bother to adapt to an existing group if they can simply create their own group or scanlate solo? I have noticed an atomisation of scanlation in recent times: big groups are dying out, small groups become dependent on a very small set of translators, sometimes just one person doing several projects, whereas new groups pop out every week. Veterans in scanlation tell me that this is related to periodic raids by publishers against the scanlation community (which mainly affect bigger groups) and that scanlation indeed has a cyclic behaviour: groups are born, some become big and the field concentrates a little around these, then comes a phase during which the big groups collapse and the cycle begins anew with several smaller groups appearing.

 

In the end, it must be a combination of all of the above, plus other causes. Still, the fact remains that some groups do get translators. Is the trick having at least one popular series that will draw staff towards you? Or maybe I'm just not talented enough to network effectively.

 

Maybe I should start stalking people in Japanese language boards…

 

Well, whatever. We have two redrawer positions available, for Sprite (as usual) and The moon is beautiful tonight, but first, die. Both are hard and have several chapters waiting for a redrawer. For both, the test will be our full one: https://goo.gl/qfnsc6 .

[kendama]

Have you ever heard of the Collatz conjecture? It's an unsolved problem in mathematics, a very interesting one from the point of view of mathematics as entertainment. To formulate it, pick any positive, non-fractionary number (that is, an integer) other than 1 (it works with 1, too, but it's boring). If the number is odd, multiply it by 3 and subtract 1 from the result. If the number is even, halve it. In either case, take the result and apply the same instructions to it again, and so on with the result. You get what happens by now, right? Multiplying an odd number by 3 and adding 1 results in an even number. And halving an even number successively will eventually give you an odd number (in the case of powers of 2, the number will be 1). Well, the conjecture says that, no matter which number you choose, after a number of iterations you will reach 1. Sometimes, a seemingly innocent number will take a large amount of steps to reach 1, and there's no way to predict how long it will take. Don't believe me? Try doing it with 26, and then 27. Personally, I find this mental exercise very useful to while away time when I don't have a book or my tablet with me (in a queue or long bus trip, for example). I pick a three-digit number at random and let my mind run away with it. It keeps the mind busy with a non-repetitive task (the calculations are only of two kinds, but the input numbers change constantly and you have no control over the process). The interesting thing is that despite being easy to formulate (arguably easier than Fermat's Last Theorem), mathematicians don't seem to even have an idea of how to approach the problem!

 

OK, random thought of the week accomplished. This time I won't do a reflection about scanlation because I have some recruitment to do. Not that anyone will apply from here, but I cannot help myself.

 

We have a redrawing position available, for Saru Lock. The test is the full one (https://goo.gl/qfnsc6), but you don't need to do the extra-hard pages (the three marked DIFFICULT).

 

And because our core projects are all properly staffed now, I'd like to list things we are interested in but lack translation personnel to take up. The numbers in brackets are Mangaupdate identifiers. To read a summary of the series, just add the number to the end of this: https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id= .

 

(A couple of them are things that are stalled in other groups. Perhaps listing our interest here will cause them or someone else to buckle down and resume releases. I don't mind if this happens, the important things is that we all get chapters of the manga we like. With one exception, duly justified, I'm not listing anything that isn't stalled for more than three months, in respect for scanlation etiquette.)

- Psychic Odagiri Kyouko's Lies (25564) - seinen mystery comedy by the author of Liar Game. Seven volumes published, only five chapters translated so far. Wordy, and the author is brainy, so be prepared to translate complicated schemes on a variety of subjects. We have a chapter cleaned and redrawn and a willing proofreader.

- Shounen Y (86787) - supernatural shounen that dabbles in metaphysical and ethics matters. Three chapters were scanlated at low quality, so we'd like to begin from scratch. Finished at eight volumes. Chapters aren't too wordy or hard to translate.

- God, you bastard, I wanna kill you! (103720) - a seinen dark comedy. We lost the translator for this one. On hiatus after four volumes. Long chapters, but not very wordy or hard to translate. If no one shows up, I may take this one up.

- Impossibility defence (96029) - another seinen dark comedy, darker than God, you bastard…. We also lost the translator for this one. It's ongoing, and the current backlog is of four volumes. Long chapters, but not very wordy or hard to translate.

- Underdog (30213) - one of our early survival manga which was axed at three volumes. Seinen. Everyone asks why I don't finish this myself since it's only two chapters and an epilogue to completion. I might end up doing it, but for now I can try at least to use it as bait for new blood, can't I? The next chapter, 15, is cleaned and I think redrawn, too.

- Revenge classroom (105505) - a horror shounen, currently stalled at the original scanlators. A bit of a dark comedy, too. The current backlog is of three volumes, and it is finished in Japan.

- Broken Blade (13176) - a seinen mecha manga. Technically not stalled, but the current scanlators have said with all words that we are free to start our own scanlations if we're not pleased with theirs. And quite a few people, myself included, aren't. So I consider ourselves or anyone else officially excused for not minding etiquette for this one. We got their permission after all.

If you are a translator, and interested in any of the above, this is our test: https://i.imgur.com/THUEuuk.jpg

You can do it and send it to me here or in our home page, deathtollscans.net, as a PM to Wraith. You can also post it in the "Join us" section there, as a thread in "Translation".

If you are experienced, you can bypass the translation test, but please talk to me first. And if you have other projects in mind, we're happy to hear your suggestions. (Just read the mood: by taking a look at Death Toll's record of projects, you can tell which genres we are more interested in.)

Let me add that once we get the translators, we’ll have to strive to find editors. We can ensure the release of bait chapters to fish for new staff once we get scripts. But don’t worry, we won’t ask you to translate more than one chapter initially, and will make sure that script doesn’t go to waste. Only if we get new editors will we ask you to fire away at translating.

[kendama]

Let me interrupt my usual routine of random thoughts to tell a very interesting tale of scanlation recruitment, something that happened to us recently. Those of you who read the ad that ran with chapter 08 of The moon is beautiful tonight, but first, die will be already familiar with it.

 

I was recruiting, as I always do, for translators. Lo and behold, a certain person by the nick of Kaiemon registered in our site and submitted a very good application. Some mistakes in wording, but they got the meaning perfectly.

Excited as a child with a new toy, I wrote the welcome message and… silence. I grew slightly weary, and after a week I wrote a message asking whether they had changed their mind.

This is what I got:

 

 

Now, is this cool or what!? I bet you are jealous!

I mean, to think a person who is skilled enough to translate a literary excerpt actually used that skill to play a prank, on us of all people!

I was amazed. It was so, so cool, even more so because I had never been trolled before, so now I can tell I am a fully fledged netizen. My fellow scanlators, too, we all had a good laugh. I showed that to Everath of Silent Sky and it caused him no little mirth. The Head Translator of our team was a little baffled, as in "They had more work translating and making this GIF than we had assessing his application!" (Our test is very short, though, and maybe they re-used the GIF, who knows.)

Not that the trolling itself was particularly clever. I mean, come on, I have watched Shut up and dance in the third season of Black Mirror! But I must say, I felt a little flattered that someone could choose us, among all those big groups doing popular series, to give way to their very personal nastiness. In a sense, we caught their attention even in our chronic obscurity, didn't we?

Now, if we analyse this under post-modern deconstructivism according to Derrida… but I digress.

Being trolled once is nice and all, but I realised I cannot use this test anymore. I mean, who is to say we won't be faced with copycats from now on?

So we updated our selection policy for translators. Instead of a fixed test, we'll have a moving one. Applicants have to contact me (Wraith in deathtollscans.net, Kendama at bato.to, Dreverhaven at Mangaupdates) requesting a test. I'll give them a short, untranslated chapter of something we happen to be working on. Most likely, Suicide Island, always the next untranslated chapter. That way, even if they only take the test to troll us, we'll at least end up with a script we can use. SI is a good series to do it with, too, as chapters are no longer than 20 pages and we don't need to share our high-quality raws as we have public ones that are suitable for translation. And since I am the one translating it, I can tell whether the script is a canard just by giving it a cursory look.

The troll must be chortling now. After all, causing a reaction is all they want, especially if said reaction is something they perceive as making things harder for us. But you see, it doesn't matter, because even with that simple test, Kaiemon and another applicant were the first ones we had in more than a year. It's not as if using a full chapter to test people will make things worse than they already are.

What follows is just a partial list of things that have crossed our minds:

(I'm writing a personal summary of each one, but you can find chapters of them here in Batoto. The links are for Mangaupdates series profiles.)

(A few of them are things that are stalled in other groups. Perhaps listing our interest here will cause them or someone else to buckle down and resume releases. I don't mind if this happens, the important thing is that we all get chapters of the manga we like. With one exception, duly justified, I'm not listing anything that isn't stalled for more than three months, in respect for scanlation etiquette.)

- Psychic Odagiri Kyouko's Lies - seinen mystery comedy by the author of Liar Game. Seven volumes published, only five chapters translated so far. Wordy, and the author is brainy, so be prepared to translate complicated schemes on a variety of subjects.

- Shounen Y - supernatural shounen that dabbles in metaphysical and ethics matters. Three chapters were scanlated at low quality, so we'd like to begin from scratch. Finished at eight volumes. Chapters aren't too wordy or hard to translate.

- Impossibility defence - another seinen dark comedy, darker than God, you bastard…. We also lost the translator for this one. It's ongoing, and the current backlog is of four volumes. Long chapters, but not very wordy or hard to translate.

- Revenge classroom - a horror shounen, currently stalled at the original scanlators. A bit of a dark comedy, too. The current backlog is of three volumes, and it is finished in Japan.

If you have other projects in mind, we're happy to hear your suggestions. (Just read the mood: by taking a look at Death Toll's record of projects, you can tell which genres we are more interested in.)

Let me add that once we get the translators, we’ll have to strive to find editors. We can ensure the release of bait chapters to fish for new staff once we get scripts. But don’t worry, we won’t ask you to translate more than one chapter initially, and will make sure that script doesn’t go to waste. Only if we get new editors will we ask you to fire away at translating.

 

Ah, yes… we also need a redrawer for Saru Lock.

Edited by kendama, 31 January 2017 - 09:46 PM.

[kendama]

Have you ever heard of maitotoxin? Well, this one came to me after reading about ciguatera poisoning while translating a chapter of The moon is beautiful tonight, but first, die.

 

Ciguatera is caused by a process of biomagnification, whereby toxins produced by organism at the lower levels of the food chain are accumulated in the flesh of organisms in the upper levels through predation. Unicellular organisms that produce the toxins are eaten alongside the algae they adhere to normally, and the fish that eat them are eaten by carnivore fish. Over time, the toxin reaches higher concentrations in the predators, until some apex predator is unfortunate enough to eat them - like, ourselves.

 

Ciguatera rarely kills, because the toxins don't reach lethal levels in the fish meat, but the symptoms can require medical treatment. As for maitotoxin - it's the most powerful non-proteic toxin known to man. It beats batrachotoxin from melyrid beetles and the venom of the box jellyfish. Among organic substances, only botox, a protein, beats it. It has also defied organic chemists trying to synthesise it from scratch. Cool, eh?

 

Now, some musings on scanlation.

 

People who advocate concepts of natural law might be on to something. I am no historian of scanlation, have taken an interest in manga well into adulthood, so I don't know how it arose, but the three-month rule of etiquette is quite an amazing accomplishment if you think of it.

 

How often do we see a rule command such a degree of respect without an enforcement body? Thousands of scanlation groups, and the only cases people violate it are series that can be potentially monetised, or are so popular demand is very high. That's when ugly scanlation races happen, but that's a story for another day.

 

The fact is that the three-month rule, as far as I can tell, wasn't enacted by anyone. It could have been agreed between first-generation groups and spread as received law as new groups appeared, but I find it unlikely. The impression I had when I joined scanlation is that it had always been there - like not asking the age or weight of adult women in some cultures.

 

It appears to me that people spontaneouly, and not quite gradually but by an amazing convergence of perceptions, decided three months were a good interval to ensure balance between avoiding counter-productive scanlation disputes and preventing huge backlogs from accumulating for series the original scanlators of which have been neglecting.

 

And because no one pronounced it a rule, it commands almost global acquiescence. Some groups may observe longer intervals, but I know of none - speedscanners and blockbuster hunters excepted, and these often overlap - that observe shorter ones.

 

However, even rules can have loopholes, and I've often found myself wondering how to put a toe across the line.

 

Does it violate the rule, to post a teaser script instead of a scanlated chapter?

 

What about an unredrawn chapter in PSD format at one's own blog?

 

Do you find the latter one unlikely? Well, we have this rookie translator who needs practice. We want to give him something to practise on, something that is easier, has a modest backlog but not a too small one, and something nobody in the team cares about so we can do it at low-quality without feeling bad for it. In that case, it is arguably better to work on something another group is working on, because otherwise the readers will be stuck with the low-quality chapters.

 

I happen to know one series - just one - that fits the description, so I was thinking of asking the rookie to work on it, and so that his work wouldn't go to waste, to release it inconpicuously in our site, as flattened PSDs to prevent someone from cleaning it and reduce the likelihood of someone posting it in an aggregator. We want the rookie to gain experience quickly so he can work on our projects, and thus we thought speedscanning would be the best way to accomplish that, as edition would defeat the purpose of translating fast.

 

Would that be sticking a hand into a hornet's nest? We try to be gentlemen at Death Toll, but how would such a thing be received by the wider community?

 

Now, consider this: a team's project falls in violation of the rule (like, for example, our series God, you bastard, I wanna kill you!, which is stalled since August), and another team decides to pick it up. They put a chapter together, but before they can release it, out of the blue comes the original group with a release. It happens all the time. Would it be impolite for them to release their version just because they have put so much effort into it? And who would be to blame if they decided "Ah, screw it, now we started this we'll fight for it!"

 

And what about the greyest of the grey areas, series that have regular releases but actually they are so distant from each other the backlog in Japan is growing, not falling? That covers 80% of all series, I daresay.

 

I wonder whether the rule shouldn't evolve into "series at three months without releases, or that are released slower than the ones in Japan, are fair game". Finished series would be exempted from the latter part.

 

Of course, this is wishful thinking. We would be in violation of it for almost everything we did recently, Deathtopia and Ouroboros excepted. And it's not as if anyone can enforce it. But I suspect it would increase efficiency.

 

Oh, well, whatever.

 

We need translators for the projects listed in the previous post.

 

We could do with extra redrawers for Saru Lock.

 

We need a cleaner for Suicide Island. This one is to increase release speed. We could also do with more cleaners overall.

 

We need a typesetter for God, you bastard, I wanna kill you!

 

People who want to translate for us should contact me to receive a test. As for editors, you can find our tests here: https://www.deathtollscans.net/viewforum.php?f=26Suicide Island applicants will receive a few pages from an actual chapter to clean in addition to the test.

Edited by kendama, 31 January 2017 - 09:43 PM.

[kendama]

This week's random topic is not random. You might have heard about black swan theory. I had, but I still went to Wikipedia. Black swan events are profoundly transformational, unforeseen by observers, and often rationalised in hindsight.

 

Well, a black swan flew into Death Toll. We have suddenly gotten a new translator that's hyperactive, accurate and fast. In the first three days, he translated nine chapters of God, you bastard, I wanna kill you! and is also interested in doing other things with us. So, we need to find editors to cope with his output. More specifically:

 

Impossibility Defence (http://bit.ly/2kqD10S) - we'll need a cleaner, a typesetter and a redrawer for it. Perhaps a proofreader, too, but I'll know that when we're closer to releasing the first chapter.

Ichigeki (http://bit.ly/2k5dSYE) - I'm not sure about this one. We have a proofreader and a cleaner, and I'm waiting for a response from one of our typesetters as to whether they wanna do it. As for a redrawer… hard to say. The first chapter had no redraws. But we might need one for the future chapters.

Saru Lock - the rest of the team is complete, and we have a temporary redrawer. But we'll need a replacement for him eventually.

Suicide Island - we need a cleaner to speed releases up. The rest of the team is complete.

Sprite - we need a temporary cleaner to fill in for bubbub while he's caught up in real life.

Impossibility Defence and Suicide Island will take a few weeks to launch because we're waiting for raws. So successful applicants will have to wait a while before having chapters to work on.

This is our typesetting test: https://goo.gl/wv7KcU

This is our cleaning test: https://goo.gl/K8b9ON

For brave souls, we have a test that combines the two above: https://goo.gl/f6x0va

Applicants for redrawing Saru Lock can do the full test but leave out the pages marked "DIFFICULT": https://goo.gl/qfnsc6 .

If you want to redraw Impossibility Defence, I’m afraid you’ll have to take the same test, including the “DIFFICULT” pages. Sorry, but even though the redraws in that series aren’t very abundant, they can be very tough.

Applicants for redrawing Ichigeki, well… as I said before, the chapters we looked at are really easy, so not to have people pointlessly overworked, our general test should do: https://goo.gl/KIuWmE. A good piece of news is that there’s only one volume out for that, so the workload wil be light, and we’l be working with collected volume webraws (meaning, it’s a piece of cake to clean, too).

If you want to clean Sprite, please contact me (information on contact follows below), we have a specialised test for that one.

Applicants should bundle their tests in a compressed file (ZIP, RAR, 7Z, whatever), upload it to a cloud service and and either post the link in our home page (http://bit.ly/2kC40Zk) or send it to me as a PM (Wraith at deathtollscans.net, Kendama at Bato.to). We expect them to be able to do a chapter in a week (though there are no control freaks here, we understand real life issues as well as anyone). Cleaners can use GIMP, redrawers can use it as well if they know how to export as PSD and not lose text boxes in the process. Typesetters must use Photoshop due to compatibility issues and we will give preference to Photoshop users in case there are multiple applicants to the same position (ha, ha, as if).

People with experience who want to bypass the test on account of having samples of past work will have the test replaced by an actual chapter of the series they want to work on. This still means it is a test: if you fail, the chapter edited by you won’t be used. It’s high risk (having an entire chapter discarded because you didn’t pass), high gain (working on something that will actually be used instead of a test). People without experience can’t take that route.

No loss in reminding: apart from Saru Lock, Ichigeki and Sprite, on which successful applicants will begin immediately, you may have to wait a little until you have chapters to work on, okay?

I was going to suspend the invitation to new translators, in fear that we could see ourselves overwhelmed with scripts and unable to cope, but you know what? The chances of another hyperactive translator waltzing into our group are next to zero, so I'll list now the remaining projects we have in mind:

(I'm writing a personal summary of each one, but you can find chapters of them in Batoto and elsewhere. The links are for Mangaupdates series profiles.)

(A few of them are things that are stalled in other groups. Perhaps listing our interest here will cause them or someone else to buckle down and resume releases. I don't mind if this happens, the important thing is that we all get chapters of the manga we like.)

- Psychic Odagiri Kyouko's Lies (http://bit.ly/2kqZX0d) - seinen mystery comedy by the author of Liar Game. Seven volumes published, only five chapters translated so far. Wordy, and the author is brainy, so be prepared to translate complicated schemes on a variety of subjects.

- Shounen Y (http://bit.ly/2l6OMZB) - supernatural shounen that dabbles in metaphysical and ethics matters. Three chapters were scanlated at low quality, so we'd like to begin from scratch. Finished at eight volumes. Chapters aren't too wordy or hard to translate.

- Revenge classroom (http://bit.ly/2l21sow) - a horror shounen, currently stalled at the original scanlators. A bit of a dark comedy, too. The current backlog is of three volumes, and it is finished in Japan.

We don't have staff for these. They are prospective projects. The first thing is to get translators. Once we get them, we can use existing staff to put together a bait chapter so we can fish for editors. So we won't ask successful applicants to fire away at redrawing before we can make sure we can get steady releases. The pace in the beginning will be irregular.

Applicants can take this test: https://i.imgur.com/THUEuuk.jpgYou can alternatively ask to translate a chapter of Suicide Island, or we may ask you to do one depending on the result of the test. Don't worry, it will be an untranslated chapter, so the script will be used. And chapters are short, 20 pages max.

[kendama]

Did you know that Cardinal Richelieu was no villain? The Wiki on him is fascinating. He was the architect of centralised France and instrumental in paving the way for Louis XIV to make it into the most powerful country in Europe in the late 17th century. The cardinal managed to manoeuvre in one of the most intrigue-ridden courts in Europe and secure France important victories in the Counter-Reformation wars, like the Siege of La Rochelle. He was also one of the central figures in the birth of the modern civil service. The way states formed and organised themselves in the West owes much to the reforms he introduced in the French state.

I haven't read it to confirm, but I was once told that in his Political Testament, the cardinal said (I paraphrase): "Corruption is not the worst thing that can happen in a state. Corruption has limits. The worst thing that can happen in a state is prodigality, for prodigality knows no limits." Intriguing, eh?

Now, something about scanlation.

How to calibrate QC'ing?

This is something that's been nagging me. At Death Toll, we're lean on QC'ing. Basically, I give every chapter that's finished edition a cursory look. I read it casually as a reader would, and if any mistakes are so conspicuous that they distract me from reading, I correct them. I don't obsessively look for tiny faux pas 90% of readers wouldn't notice. I try to focus on the idea that "if I notice, so will readers; if I don't, neither will they".

The result is that while our releases have a reputation for being polished, they have a number of small mistakes that can be annoying to look back on. It helps that our tests are demanding: successful applicants normally know what they are doing from the outset, so the chapters come from edition with few, sometimes no mistakes. But nobody is infallible and some form of final check is necessary before release.

Then again, I know groups where QC is serious business. They have dedicated QC'ers for each project, sometimes veterans who can both translate and edit and will do any corrections themselves.

The thing is, I know stories from these same groups about releases that get stuck at the QC step, because the QC'er cannot find the time to do the chapter (due to real life issues etc.). That's simply unthinkable at Death Toll. Because I am not strongly focused on detail but on ensuring a smooth reading experience for most readers, I normally QC a chapter in 15 minutes.

Well, to each group its own, so what's the deal?

The thing is, I've been puzzled about the issue of how to recruit QC'ers. I cannot find a good formula.

Death Toll is expanding just a little bit, and I am thinking of letting go of QC to concentrate on admin stuff and translating, but how to do it?

- Some groups reserve QC posts to their veteran members and only do internal recruitment. Well, we're too small for that. Veterans and newcomers, everyone in DT has edition, proofreading or translation assignments and I can't really put anyone in charge of just QC'ing.

- Some groups say they accept as QC'ers people who pass a combination of tests or a general edition test. Something like PR+TS, or RD+TS. If I hardly get editors that pass one test, I can wait for QC'ers until I croak if I choose this route.

I imagine I could test for people who can find and correct small mistakes in an otherwise finished chapter. I thought of this, but… how to assess the application. If they get everything right, we can still be stuck with someone who is horribly nitpicking, or a freak who tries to redo the whole chapter from scratch (I've heard stories that such people do exist).

The ideal QC'er, at least for Death Toll, whose editors are already very good, is someone who knows basic Photoshop, is sharp enough to see a text box that hides part of the speech in a bubble, or a small pattern that wasn't redrawn, but who won't bother to scour a chapter several times to correct the smallest mistake conceivable. More importantly, someone who knows the difference between correcting a mistake and changing an aesthetical choice. A QC'er should do the former, but never the latter: touching the typesetting when it's not wrong, or redoing the cleaning from scratch without talking with the cleaner can lead to unnecessary drama and that's something Death Toll has been mercifully free of and I want to keep that way.

In a word, the good QC'er for Death Toll is someone who doesn't let their own preferences get in the way and who won't put finding every last mistake above releasing the chapter in a timely manner. Maybe I should give applicants a chapter and fault them not only for big mistakes that pass uncorrected, but unimportant mistakes that caused a delay because the QC'er was hunting them down to last one. However, where to draw the line?

I don't know, unfortunately.

Well, to the recruitment part, now. The bit ly links are for MU summaries of the less well known series.

(This part may look similar to the previous post, but it was updated, so don't skip it if you are interested in joining us.)

Impossibility Defence (http://bit.ly/2kqD10S) - we'll need a cleaner and a redrawer for it. Perhaps a proofreader, too, but I'll know that when we're closer to releasing the first chapter.

Ichigeki (http://bit.ly/2k5dSYE) - I'm not sure about this one. We have a proofreader, a typesetter and a cleaner. As for a redrawer… hard to say. The first chapter had no redraws. But we might need one for the future chapters.

Saru Lock - the rest of the team is complete, and we have a temporary redrawer. But we'll need a replacement for him eventually.

Suicide Island - we need a cleaner to speed releases up. The rest of the team is complete.

Sprite - we need a temporary cleaner to fill in for bubbub while he's caught up in real life.

Nanba MG5 (http://bit.ly/2l3Fr8t) - we need a redrawer and perhaps a typesetter.

Impossibility Defence and Suicide Island will take a few weeks to launch because we're waiting for raws. So successful applicants will have to wait a while before having chapters to work on.

This is our typesetting test: https://goo.gl/wv7KcU

This is our cleaning test (not for Sprite): https://goo.gl/K8b9ON

For brave souls, we have a test that combines the two above: https://goo.gl/f6x0va

Applicants for redrawing Saru Lock and/or Nanba MG5 can do the full test but leave out the pages marked "DIFFICULT": https://goo.gl/qfnsc6 .

If you want to redraw Impossibility Defence, I’m afraid you’ll have to take the same test, including the “DIFFICULT” pages. Sorry, but even though the redraws in that series aren’t very abundant, they can be very tough.

Applicants for redrawing Ichigeki, well… as I said before, the chapters we looked at are really easy, so not to have people pointlessly overworked, our general test should do: https://goo.gl/KIuWmE. A good piece of news is that there’s only one volume out for that, so the workload wil be light, and we’l be working with collected volume webraws (meaning, it’s a piece of cake to clean, too).

If you want to clean Sprite, please contact me (information on contact follows below), we have a specialised test for that one.

Applicants should bundle their tests in a compressed file (ZIP, RAR, 7Z, whatever), upload it to a cloud service and and either post the link in our home page (http://bit.ly/2kC40Zk) or send it to me as a PM (Wraith at deathtollscans.net, Kendama at Bato.to). We expect them to be able to do a chapter in a week (though there are no control freaks here, we understand real life issues as well as anyone). Cleaners can use GIMP, redrawers can use it as well if they know how to export as PSD and not lose text boxes in the process. Typesetters must use Photoshop due to compatibility issues and we will give preference to Photoshop users in case there are multiple applicants to the same position (ha, ha, as if).

People with experience who want to bypass the test on account of having samples of past work will have the test replaced by an actual chapter of the series they want to work on. This still means it is a test: if you fail, the chapter edited by you won’t be used. It’s high risk (having an entire chapter discarded because you didn’t pass), high gain (working on something that will actually be used instead of a test). People without experience can’t take that route.

No loss in reminding: apart from Saru Lock, Ichigeki, Nanba MG5 and Sprite, on which successful applicants will begin immediately, you may have to wait a little until you have chapters to work on, okay?

I was going to suspend the invitation to new translators, in fear that we could see ourselves overwhelmed with scripts and unable to cope, but you know what? The chances of another hyperactive translator waltzing into our group are next to zero, so I'll list now the remaining projects we have in mind:

(I'm writing a personal summary of each one, but you can find chapters of them in Batoto and elsewhere. The links are for Mangaupdates series profiles.)

(A few of them are things that are stalled in other groups. Perhaps listing our interest here will cause them or someone else to buckle down and resume releases. I don't mind if this happens, the important thing is that we all get chapters of the manga we like.)

- Psychic Odagiri Kyouko's Lies (http://bit.ly/2kqZX0d) - seinen mystery comedy by the author of Liar Game. Seven volumes published, only five chapters translated so far. Wordy, and the author is brainy, so be prepared to translate complicated schemes on a variety of subjects.

- Shounen Y (http://bit.ly/2l6OMZB) - supernatural shounen that dabbles in metaphysical and ethics matters. Three chapters were scanlated at low quality, so we'd like to begin from scratch. Finished at eight volumes. Chapters aren't too wordy or hard to translate.

- Revenge classroom (http://bit.ly/2l21sow) - a horror shounen, currently stalled at the original scanlators. A bit of a dark comedy, too. The current backlog is of three volumes, and it is finished in Japan.

We don't have staff for these. They are prospective projects. The first thing is to get translators. Once we get them, we can use existing staff to put together a bait chapter so we can fish for editors. So we won't ask successful applicants to fire away at redrawing before we can make sure we can get steady releases. The pace in the beginning will be irregular.

Applicants can take this test: https://i.imgur.com/THUEuuk.jpg You can alternatively ask to translate a chapter of Suicide Island, or we may ask you to do one depending on the result of the test. Don't worry, it will be an untranslated chapter, so the script will be used. And chapters are short, 20 pages max.

Edited by kendama, 16 February 2017 - 05:50 PM.

[kendama]

Have you ever heard of aneutronic fusion? It's a theoretical way of generating energy from the fusion of subatomic particles and nuclei that does not generate significant amounts of neutrons. One of the difficulties of creating working fusion reactors (though not the main one at the current point, as there are other significant hurdles to be overcome) is that the traditional fusion scheme - deuterium plus tritium - generates most of the energy in the form of neutrons. The problem is that the neutron can be absorbed by the nuclei of other atoms - including the walls of the reactor, for example - and turn them into radioactive isotopes themselves. So the entire reactor could, in principle, become a source of dangerous ionising radiation. And because neutrons don't have charge, they cannot be restrained by magnetic confinement.

The solution conceived by theoreticians is to replace deuterium-tritium by a combination of particles and nuclei that fuses without generating significant amounts of neutrons as a byproduct. The best candidate seems to be bombarding a boron-11 nucleus with a proton. The product of the fusion are helium-4 nuclei, which are charged and can thus be used to generate energy by making them work against an electromagnetic field. Neutrons can still be produced at negligible amounts, but they would pose next to no danger.

Of course, this is all theoretical. There are no methods to confine the boron plasma so it can reach the densities needed for the fusion to occur, and only minuscule amounts of fusion events have been made possible for research purposes, using lasers.

I don't have any thoughts on scanlation this week, so I'll make the post shorter, only noting that since this has no other use than as a place for posting random thoughts, at least we are third-placed in the Batoto recruitment section, behind Chibi Manga and Phoenix Serenade. The sky is the limit! As for recruiting… it's easier for truck-kun to really send someone into a fantasy world than for someone to apply to us via this forsaken place.

The bit ly links are for MU summaries of the less well known series. Other than Nanba MG5, all have chapters here at Batoto.

(This part may look similar to the previous post, but it was updated, so don't skip it if you are interested in joining us.)

Impossibility Defence (http://bit.ly/2kqD10S) - we'll need a cleaner, a typesetter and a redrawer for it. Perhaps a proofreader, too, but I'll know that when we're closer to resuming releases.

Ichigeki (http://bit.ly/2k5dSYE) - I'm not sure about this one. We have a proofreader, a typesetter and a cleaner. As for a redrawer… hard to say. The first chapter had no redraws. But we might need one for the future chapters.

Saru Lock - the rest of the team is complete, and we have a temporary redrawer. But we'll need a replacement for him eventually.

Sprite - we need a temporary cleaner to fill in for bubbub while he's caught up in real life.

Nanba MG5 (http://bit.ly/2l3Fr8t) - we need a redrawer and perhaps a typesetter.

Impossibility Defence will take a few weeks to launch because we're waiting for raws. So successful applicants will have to wait a while before having chapters to work on.

This is our typesetting test: https://goo.gl/wv7KcU

This is our cleaning test (not for Sprite): https://goo.gl/K8b9ON

For brave souls, we have a test that combines the two above: https://goo.gl/f6x0va

The cleaning test for Sprite is this one: https://goo.gl/0koujB You have to follow the instructions and use the action correctly. You also have to find any double spreads and pre-join them, adjusting the gap properly for the redrawer so that the halves are aligned and they only

Applicants for redrawing Saru Lock can do the full test but leave out the pages marked "DIFFICULT": https://goo.gl/qfnsc6 .

If you want to redraw Impossibility Defence, I’m afraid you’ll have to take the same test, including the “DIFFICULT” pages. Sorry, but even though the redraws in that series aren’t very abundant, they can be very tough.

Applicants for redrawing Nanba MG5 can make do with just our general test: https://goo.gl/KIuWmE

Successful redrawing applicants should expect being occasionally asked to redraw Ichigeki (http://bit.ly/2k5dSYE). We won't recruit a dedicated redrawer for this series because, as far as we can tell, the chapters have very few, very easy redraws, sometimes none at all. A further good piece of news is that there’s only one volume out for this series, so the workload wil be negligible.

Applicants should bundle their tests in a compressed file (ZIP, RAR, 7Z, whatever), upload it to a cloud service and and either post the link in our home page (http://bit.ly/2kC40Zk) or send it to me as a PM (Wraith at deathtollscans.net, Kendama at Bato.to). We expect them to be able to do a chapter in a week (though there are no control freaks here, we understand real life issues as well as anyone). Cleaners can use GIMP, redrawers can use it as well if they know how to export as PSD and not lose text boxes in the process. Typesetters must use Photoshop due to compatibility issues and we will give preference to Photoshop users in case there are multiple applicants to the same position (ha, ha, as if).

People with experience who want to bypass the test on account of having samples of past work will have the test replaced by an actual chapter of the series they want to work on. This still means it is a test: if you fail, the chapter edited by you won’t be used. It’s high risk (having an entire chapter discarded because you didn’t pass), high gain (working on something that will actually be used instead of a test). People without experience can’t take that route, at least in principle. (If you contact me and I am in a good mood, I may let you have a try at your own risk, but don't count on it.)

I was going to suspend the invitation to new translators, in fear that we could see ourselves overwhelmed with scripts and unable to cope, but you know what? The chances of another hyperactive translator waltzing into our group are next to zero, so I'll list now the remaining projects we have in mind:

(I'm writing a personal summary of each one, but you can find chapters of them in Batoto and elsewhere. The links are for Mangaupdates series profiles.)

(A few of them are things that are stalled in other groups. Perhaps listing our interest here will cause them or someone else to buckle down and resume releases. I don't mind if this happens, the important thing is that we all get chapters of the manga we like.)

- Psychic Odagiri Kyouko's Lies (http://bit.ly/2kqZX0d) - seinen mystery comedy by the author of Liar Game. Seven volumes published, only five chapters translated so far. Wordy, and the author is brainy, so be prepared to translate complicated schemes on a variety of subjects.

- Shounen Y (http://bit.ly/2l6OMZB) - supernatural shounen that dabbles in metaphysical and ethics matters. Three chapters were scanlated at low quality, so we'd like to begin from scratch. Finished at eight volumes. Chapters aren't too wordy or hard to translate.

- Revenge classroom (http://bit.ly/2l21sow) - a horror shounen, currently stalled at the original scanlators. A bit of a dark comedy, too. The current backlog is of three volumes, and it is finished in Japan.

We don't have staff for these. They are prospective projects. The first thing is to get translators. Once we get them, we can use existing staff to put together a bait chapter so we can fish for editors. So we won't ask successful applicants to fire away at redrawing before we can make sure we can get steady releases. The pace in the beginning will be irregular.

Applicants can take this test: https://i.imgur.com/THUEuuk.jpg You can alternatively ask to translate a chapter of Suicide Island, or we may ask you to do one depending on the result of the test. Don't worry, it will be an untranslated chapter, so the script will be used. And chapters are short, 20 pages max.

Edited by kendama, 22 February 2017 - 06:36 PM.

[kendama]

I was shocked to find in Wikipedia that naked mole rats don't normally develop cancer. You may remember them from the occasional appearance in animanga like From the New World.

 

Well, it turns out that they are an object of research interest because of that, as one might expect. From what has been found so far, their ribosomes are less error-prone than the average for this molecular machine. As a consequence, there are fewer misfolded or mistranslated proteins in their cells. How this connects to low cancer rates is a matter of debate. I would surmise that if the cell has fewer proteins to recycle (misfolding rates can reach 50% in a human endoplasmic reticulum, if memory serves), it doesn't have to cope with so many byproducts of the recycling process, like reactive oxygen species that can damage DNA and produce cancer. But that's just my speculation.

 

The explanation, again according to the Wiki, may be simpler. Naked mole rats live in hypoxic colonies under conditions that would almost certainly kill us. However, less oxygen also means fewer reactive oxygen species, less DNA damage… less cancer, by that train of thought. Tellingly, cancer has been detected in two mole rats kept in zoos, presumably because they were living with normal oxygen concentrations of atmospheric air.

 

Now, speaking of scanlation, I have been thinking about advantages of doing popular stuff.

 

The disadvantages are obvious: if you do popular series, readers want chapters as fast as you can churn out, and other groups may be waiting in ambush to steal the series at the slightest sign of weakness. This can be quite stressful. There are other problems, like the spectre of licensing followed by a C&D letter, as well as the threat of monetisation.

 

Death Toll has a non-attrition policy. We don't fight for series, which really means we don't do blockbusters

 

Still, one cannot tell in advance whether something will be popular or not. I don't think Gantz Waiting Room could tell with certainty that Attack on Titan would become that big when they started. So I always wonder whether, just by pursuing the tastes of our team members, we wouldn't stumble upon something big one day.

 

Would that be a boon or a bane?

 

We have already had a series stolen because it was moderately popular. Cage of Eden, stolen by - whom else - Mangastream. In the end, they had it stolen from them, too, and the series imploded soon afterwards as Yamada Yoshinobu's works normally do.

 

So given this stress, unless you like taking the fast lane in everything you do - in other words, unless you thrive on stress - I think the only advantage of popular series is that they can draw staff you can co-opt to do other things.

 

So sometimes, as an admin in constant search for applicants, I caught myself wishing we could strike (fool's?) gold one day and get a project going that would get us staff for the projects we like, but not that many people do. A little cynical, I know, but a dose of cynicism is de rigueur for admins, I think.

 

That being said, recruitment remains as it was in the previous post. We're growing a little desperate, to be honest, because we have just received our high-quality raws for Impossibility Defence and the translator has produced the first script. This means we're running on fumes here.

 

Will we pull through, or will the translator we worked so hard to find leave in disgust because we can't turn his scripts into releases? Stay tuned to find out!

Edited by kendama, 27 February 2017 - 12:54 AM.

[kendama]

Did you know that K-type main sequence stars are more abundant and more long-lasting than G-type main sequence stars, the group to which the Sun belongs? I didn't know a thing about K-type stars until I read about them in Wikipedia…

Their more "affectionate" name is "orange dwarfs". The Sun, by the way, is a yellow dwarf. The "dwarf" part refers to the main sequence, the period in the life of a star when its size and light emission are stable, before they become giants and proceed to dying.

G-stars stay in the main sequence for about 10 billion years. This doesn't mean they can sustain life in their planetary system for this entire period, but the habitability interval is more or less proportional to the main sequence period.

Well, the main sequence period of K-type stars is 15-30 billion years. This means they can sustain life in their orbiting planets for twice as long as our Sun will. They also produce less UV light.

Stretching this into the realm of science fiction, chances are that advanced civilisations are much more common, and older, in those stars than in the solar twins our media obsess over.

Oh, well, not that we will ever be able to contact, much less visit, any of such civilisations anyway, given how far they are. That's one reason I dislike space opera manga. (But I have nothing against Death Toll doing a space opera if a translator and editors so wish.)

Our staff needs and wants remain as in post #78.

Edited by kendama, 12 March 2017 - 03:01 PM.