So I'm a relatively new Japanese to English translator with only about 15 chapters under my belt as of now. One topic I never really thought about, but that has been brought up a couple of times is the motivation of scanlators. So I'm curious. What are your motivations scanlators?

As for me, I get great Japanese practice out of it. I also get people to discuss the manga with. It's hard to find a Japanese person who has read some of the series I randomly picked, and English only speakers can't read it, so it's kind of like creating a fanbase so I have someone to talk to about it.



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The best translator around: @Koru_tan for updates

Sometimes I wonder, honestly. Especially when people go demanding chapters on the daily and I want to scream "I don't get f**king paid for this!"

I do it sort of as a community service sort of thing for the online communities I belong to, and therefore go entirely at my own pace. At first, I told myself that it was good practice for Japanese, but I have my doubts (especially with the series that I tend to pick up, haha). There are a lot of things that can't be translated properly, but I know the feeling when I hear/read it, so that can be super frustrating. I guess I like the transformation process? It always feels nice when someone says that I've captured the scene really well, considering how much time I put into translating not just the bare meaning, but the context/tension/etc.

I agree with you on the community point. Some of the series that I do are based on my desire to make other people read them so I can have someone (other than my best friend, who's better at Japanese than I am) to discuss them with.

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Shoujo is a waste of time that makes me happy.

I started because I wanted to give back to the community, but I continue because 1. I like the people I work with (and I've made some great friends along the way) and 2. I've learnt so many new things in Photoshop that I've been able to apply outside of scanlation.

I've also been cleaning Freezing for too long and I will see this damn manga through until the bitter end.

Well, for me... I cringe every time I see typos. Shocking I know since on the forums here it's typos galore. XD So if I can help out with the flow, and well... get the author's words out properly, I'm happy to help.
Plus it helps me out, since I'm an aspiring novelist, it's practice on how to phrase things and such.

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Yes yes, I know I make longwinded comments, but that's just me >.<
I should proof read my comments more, but I won't...
So keep in mind I'm filled with typos

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Don´t "aspire". Just start publishing (on the web) if you have been doing it for more than a year or so. No successful author ever needed permission from anyone and Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez may be about film making but it should be worth your time. Especially due to the highly insightful chapters on (first try) scriptwriting.
I only look after databases, sorry.

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

Heh.......because it's fun of course

Yup, reading manga and then talking about it with your friends is a hobby just like any other....then add in actually being able to be part of creating the subject of your hobby? Oh yeah, things just got even more fun when you can tell your friends "oh yeah, by the way, there's my entry over there". \o/\o/

Speaking of which, any interest in translating a little hentai? I'm an editor and always looking for translators to collaborate with

https://www.mangaupdates.com/groups.html?id=6187

I do it for fun as I only work on the series I really like! (I'm an editor and English > Arabic translator).

most of manga genres are pretty left out of the community other than the typical Shounen mangas (like One Piece, Naruto, etc) and the heavy censorship and false translation (twisting sentences because of religious reasons in Islam and such).

that's why I mostly work on Seinen and Adult mangas with nudity in it, because nudity doesn't always mean erotic, some mangas are really cool but the nudity ruins it for the poor muslim readers who can't or don't understand English.

+ I'm looking for translator for Delivery Cinderella, J>E translator of course. pm me if interested.

I don't want to quote everyone and make this super long lol. But everyone said such interesting things~ so I'm just going to put a name first.

Jeshia: I have yet to have people demand chapters, let alone daily chapters. So far everyone has been enjoying the chapters I've translated so far, not that I haven't seen it before. Of course I don't really fear it happening, because I'll bite back.

tactics: I've met some great people already and hope I continue to in the future as well. I think I might not be able to quit even if I wanted to just because I'd want to keep working with them. Also that really resonates with me. "4 volumes, 89 chapters? That's nothing." <- Naive Koru

kitty1826x: Oh I hate typos as well... and I work off the theory that the author's intention is more important than staying true to the original language. I also agree with residentgrigo, I don't even know what genre you write and I already want to read your writing lol.

svines85: That's true it's the funnest hobby I've had in years. I feel like I've got some small kind of gangster fame now, like yeah I infringe on copyrights and some people hate the general community I belong to

anas2012: I always love hearing from translators who work from English~ Most I meet are Japanese to English, Chinese to English, and English to Spanish. I think religions are good, but there's never an excuse for censorship. Fight the power

And to all those interested in collaboration (or whatever you want to call it) please go to my site in my signature, and make the request through there. Thanks~

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The best translator around: @Koru_tan for updates

When I started as editor, I just wanna get in trend.

But when I started as translator, is another story...
There are 2 series that I've translated:
1) Series X
I love it. No one scanlated it yet. I got it complete in my native language. So I thought "whew...". So to put it, it started translating because I want people reading and might be liking that series that I love.
2) Series Y
I click random button on an online manga reader. I reached this series, which last update was around 2~3 years ago. I knew I d it, and after looking at it in my bookshelf, I do have some, started exactly from where the scanlation hold off. "whew...". So for this one, it's just that I happened to have the book.




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THANK YOU SO MUCH. I live in the USA, and have been reading translated mange for about 6 years. Censorship is creeping up here. Many ecchi manga have been dropped by their scanlators. I didn't know it was creeping INTO translations.

I wish you luck with "Delivery Cinderella"! That was one I hated to see dropped.

It just happened. One day I decided to just start translating.

No, but seriously. I've been translating for years now. I don't even really read manga anymore, ironically. Translating has gotten me to stop reading manga.

Why do I do it? I don't know. It's a skill I have but don't want to see wasted. That's about it.

It keeps my knowledge of Japanese active. Besides, I like it when I come across stuff that doesn't even have an English equivalent, and I have to interpret it solely in Japanese. It's quite a fun challenge.

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Founder of Kirei Cake. We're always looking for new members regardless of experience, so if you're interested, seek us out @ http://KireiCake.com!

Too many reasons, I'll share some :

1.) Giving back to community.
2.) When I see "Dropped Manga Series", it hurts me a lot, because it hurts when you can't read the story ahead because you don't understand the language.
3.) To learn and grasp more experience and knowledge in PhotoShop.
4.) To kill some time.
5.) To get e-penis, lel.

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Thank You,
Saiko Scans

This would be a great poll topic. I don't scanlate per say, but I do make Prince Revolution's PDFs for the volumes of Yu Wo's light novels. Nobody else was making the PDFs anymore and I wanted to give back to the community. Also, at this point in time my Chinese skills are too poor to be much use with translation, maybe someday I will get to a high enough level

I started scanlating in November 2005, so 10 & a half years ago. At first it was to give back to the community like a lot of people, but the more time I spent in the world of scanlations, the less and less it became about giving back to the community. The vast, vast majority of leechers don't give a single shit about the people producing manga for them, they just care about getting more & more content on their favorite aggregate site. Now I couldn't give less of a shit about this rotten, patronizing and rather worthless community.

I now scanlate because, in no specific order:

1- It's a hobby of mine that I've invested a lot of money in - Scanners & books mostly. I've bought three scanners since I've started and I've bought 600-700, probably more, volumes in Japanese.

2- I've gotten to know & have somewhat grown up in a way with some really cool people. There are people in my group that I've talked to almost on an every day basis for 5 to 8 years.

3- I still enjoy the process of making scanlations with other cool people. If it was purely a solo job to do on my own, I never would have lasted long in this.

4- Not really related, but I still do take a little pride in putting out scanlations that are better than publishers. Then again, some of the publishers look like such amateurs sometimes, it isn't overly hard... Here's looking at you, Vertical, with your terrible fonts.

As for when I'm going to stop, I don't really have any plans to stop yet. I do know there are certain things I need to accomplish before I move on to other things, but maybe I'll just go for bigger goals after those are done.

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-GGpX

I run Illuminati-Manga. You're welcome.

I start to do scanlation as no one covered many popular webtoons ( korean adult niche )