Feel free to mock and ridicule me if this is a stupid question-wait I take that back, I'm soft- but why are there so many groups scanlating Naruto at the moment?

If we look at chapter 476 from the last, last week, there were 3 different releases. But if we look at the last month of November, there were releases of Naruto (not all the same chapter) done by 7 different groups.

I tried visiting some of the group websites to figure it out but there aren't really any explanations. The only one I could really understand was MangaStream.

I mean from my point of view, it seems like a waste of time and effort for groups. I'm not trying to offend any of the groups or anyone else but I'm just really curious, and if anyone could shed some light on the situation I'd appreciate it.

Because they like it, I'd think.

I was happy with SleepyFans' scanalation, but now that Mangastream has started to pump out super-fast scans with their watermark all over every page, I must now go out of my way to find a good looking chapter.

Sure it's good to want a fanbase, but all these other groups could be putting their efforts towards good manga that have been dropped. Whatever though, I get my Naruto fix every week.

Because they suck?

Nah... I want to know that too... I know Naruto, Bleach and OnePiece are the most popular mangas out there, but if you don't have anything to offer (Speed/Quality) then don't do it, there are many more mangas that got dropped and are fairly popular...

Then again is a lot better to fight for the corpse of a cow, than to eat Kentucky fried chicken... at least in their eyes

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They probably figure that roughly 70% of the readers follow these series, so scanning it will pole vault them into the lime light. I'm part of the 30% who doesn't like Naruto, it became boring to me after the Sand guy lost his beast. I would prefer it if these new groups picked up series that were dropped because the other group stopped for some reason, or if they just picked up some of the newer series. Some good looking ones have popped up lately, but these guys keep scanning Naruto like it is some sort of bible or something. Most of these new groups self-destruct after a short while because they pick over scanlated series like Naruto. You can't stand out when several other, more experienced groups, are already working on the series.

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Never doubt your reasons.
Never doubt your cause.
-me

reasons
1.they like naruto
2.they do not like weird x=shit that the elitists think are ZA BEST EVAH
(there is a reason noone cares to translate it anymore]
3.they want to profit from idiots who come to their site and trick them to donate to keep servers up
4.it can be part of learning how this whole scanlating thing works

also
who cares

Because scanlating takes a lot of work and, in some cases, a fair amount of money. Groups want to attract committed, experienced staff members, and they want people to appreciate their work. That doesn't usually happen if they scanlate obscure series no one cares about. I assume new groups see which groups are already popular and decide the best way to get popular is to just do the same series they're already doing. (Either that or they dislike how all the previous groups are doing their favorite series and they form a group specifically to try to do better.) Naruto is the worst, but you see it with other popular series too.

My impression is that the releases my group does are read by maybe a half dozen people--a few dozen at best. I'm fine with those numbers. A lot of people starting new groups aren't.

Edited to add: And, yes, I translate weird shit that is totally ZA BEST EVAH. But if you work on that stuff, you have to just accept that it's not going to get a lot of attention.

Last edited by iyakuko at 7:17 am, Jan 15 2010

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More i than choku

Ha ha ha! I've never read Naruto, but reading this thread just gives me idea to scanlate a random chapter of Naruto just be in 'the limelight' (or whatever you call it). Perhaps this way, more people will check out other projects we do in my group(s). Or maybe not.

In one word: popularity.

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