For a while I've started to notice some popular titles being scanlated by more than one team at the same time, and I wonder what's really the point of having, like, five different versions of the same chapter released in the same week? For example, the latest Naruto chapters have been brought by NBST, Japflap, NarutoBuzz, kokotas, bludshock (and that's just to name a few!). Same with Air Gear, which is currently scanlated by Sora scans and Kuu scans. If there's so many people interested, wouldn't it be smarter to work together? Bigger team, faster scans and everyone is happy. I just think it doesn't make a lot of sense, regardless of style/translation issues. I may sound naive but I bring the topic since I'm curious about why it happens and what the people think about it.

well different groups have different quality and different lettering.And the chapter are mostly released the next day(or faster) after the japan release and I don't think a bigger team would make it faster.

Also each fan has his or hers favorite group so that's maybe also one point.

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its really about comptition the faster group gets the dl and then give donations and that increses production and speed quality like japflap used to do it faster for naruto now naruto buzz does then in anime if you have seen dattebayo is pretty much number 1 for the newest naruto japflap tried to sub some eps. of naruto but dattebayo has a firm strangle hold on the subing of naruto sorry for misspellings im tired and have school in the moring hope i could help

jus like the dilemma between anime and modern funsubbers...

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You overlook the circumstances for mainstream series like Naruto where we have a public RAW even before the magazine is sold in Japan and hundreds of people "RAW camping" in the forums, waiting for translations and scanlations within a few minutes. It's indeed an interessting phenomenon.

Kokotas and bludshock are speedscanners. Their goal is to bring a scanlation as soon as a public translation is out (sometimes within half an hour after the RAW came out).

Japflap is the regular HQ group, their release need time and usually get published a week or more after the RAW chapter. After all, people will keep Japflap's release and not the speedscans.

Basically you can say, that here's a huge difference in the way Naruto (and other WSJ series) reaches the community compared to manga where the group has to organize the RAWs. Most series with one group don't have a public RAW 'cause it's not easy to get or the group scanned it themself (group-bounded scanners/translators). Naruto&Co have a public RAW on the same day every week, plus they're easy to translate for beginners and easy to work on for cleaners. Many people start with them before moving to a "real" group with "own" projects.

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it's all about competition and pride. you've got the subbers, then you've got the other subbers that want to beat them. what you get is a bunch of different subs since each group wants to become 'popular'. it's like a micro-world of business among the anime community. 'speed-subbing' and 'high-quality subs' are simply different groups that appeal to different people, they are still pitting themselves against each other in the hopes of becoming more famous than the other.

the same applies to scanlation groups. even if one group has called a series, there will undoubtedly be another to try and overtake them, either by faster scans or better quality scans, sometimes both. every group wants to be the 'king' or 'alpha-male' of their series. that's how human pride works. hahaha~

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Thanx for the answers! Wow I really hadn't thought about it that way hehe. It's interesting to see so much effort and pride about something you don't get paid for, so it's not just about translating any given anime/manga.

the more scanlators for your loved series the better, think about it, that way you get the best scanlation quality, and if they decide to join forces then you get your manga faster!
On the other hand, some group seem to mistake a manga they scanlate as their manga, and would childishly fight with the other scanlating group, which is pretty useless, they should make it a join after all they are but people intrested in scanlating the same manga

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I know right, competetion keeps all the groups working harder and faster. Whats there to complain about?

but, it's nice when some groups share a series and do like alternating chapters or something. Brings a series that's already out faster and they both get alot of traffic to their sites.

Don't forget some groups enjoy scanlating manga, they do it for fun xD
Or well... used to.

IMO, if you're not self-motivated (and need the competition of other groups), then I don't see why you're doing it in the first place.
If some other group would start doing a project I work on, I'd rather have them stop doing it, or stop myself. Same thing with a license. I refuse to do double work; there's enough left unscanlated that people don't need to go around and pick up already taken series.

The styling is different for the way the translate.

Still, they should think about the readers (after all that's the purpose). Ok, so far we have speed-low/med quality scans and high quality scans. Bringing in more than two versions is pretty much useless, since (correct me if I'm wrong) most leechers won't care a lot to download again a manga they've already read.



I agree.

Last edited by sakura1083 at 5:58 pm, Jul 18 2007

mmm, this is where we put in the 'free-will' factor that makes people do unreasonable things =P that's how it works, especially with people as young as 14 or 15 on scanlation teams.

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Hey, I was 15 when I joined my first scanlation team...and look how I turned out!

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