I'm Japanese and didn't know there was a word “scanlation” in the world until a few years ago.

I'm wondering,
1- what kind of people are (were) doing scanlation (Is there any tendency for age group?),
2- if there is anyone in the website drawing original manga in her/his own language (no matter if it's only personal fun) while reading scanlation.

I only ask out of curiosity. Because it felt rather weird; even though manga have always been present in my life (more or less) and a lot of material for scanlation is in Japanese, “scanlation” as their half sibling remains unknown topic to me and maybe many Japanese people. So I thought I'd try to ask.

The following is just personal story about how I became curious about scanlation : ).

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I grew up reading manga like other Japanese children. When I was about 8 years old (finished learning hiragana, katakana, enough basic kanji), my older sister, my friends and I were buying different comic magazines for girls and lending all copies each other. I think we're reading 2-4 magazines each month during elementary school.

My parents had also a few classic titles (like “Hi no tori (Phoenix)”, ”Ribon no kishi” by Tezuka Osamu, “Saibogu 009” by Ishinomori Shotaro, “Tensai Bakabon” by Akatsuka Fujio, “Poe no ichizoku” by Hagio Moto etc.) on their bookshelves. And my grandmother was a big fan of “Sazae-san” by Hasegawa Machiko.

I read all of them and borrowed some authors' (like Ikeda Riyoko, Ymagishi Ryoko, Kihara Toshie etc.) works from public library. My friends let me read their copies from “Budda” by Tezuka Osamu, “Ashita no Joe” by Chiba Tetsuya to “Dragon ball”, ”Slam dank”, “Cat's eye”, “Patariro” and many many girls' comics that I can't remember all anymore. I myself bought almost every title by Kawahara Izumi (it's a pity many her works seem to be unavailable in English), Hagio Moto and other authors' works (mostly for girls like “Hanasakeru seishonen” although I've got a set of “Chinmoku no kantai” by Kawaguchi Kaiji somehow).

But I reduced reading manga when I was in high school (because of studying to enter university) and after that I've never bought a comic magazin, just read less than 20 titles (like “Onmyoji” by Okano Reiko, “Honey and clover”, “Nodame cantabile”, “Yuyu hakusho”, “Death note” “Naruto” etc.) in my student days. I preferred reading novel or other books then.

After I've started working, manga have hardly its space in my life (although my coworker forced me to read her copies of “Shingeki no kyojin (Attack on titan)” by Isayama Hajime). Now and then I've got a few new volumes and titles from my favorite authors (like Okano Reiko, Umino Chika, Ima Ichiko, Kawahara Izumi etc.) for old time sake, maybe 1-3 copy(ies) each year through e-book reader. It's not that I ceased to read comics but there is no passion in the old days anymore...

Recently reading various slash fiction in English (my guilty pleasure : )), I wondered why so often Japanese males or Japanese culture appeared from multiple authors (It should be no problem if they're from other nationality or culture as minor roles they were). Even some novels depicted Japanese society itself...a big surprise to me. So I researched reader's review and checked titles they're talking and quoting. In the process, I noticed many manga are spreading online by scanlation (I'm not sure if those authors have really read manga or not though).

One day watching an English scanlation website, at first, I thought a long list of titles must include a lot of works originally drawn outside Japan (like in USA, France etc.) and also written in English (I had no idea of the meaning “-lation” of scanlation then) or other languages. Actually comics in Chinese and Korean were also there, but mostly in Japanese as I could read the title and author's name on book cover in my own language. That fact and huge number truly astonished me.

Next I felt horrible because comics for young children were mixed with other adult contents and everything showed so randomly. It never occurs in Japanese book store where they display comics separately for each audience and by each publisher. I think some manga have really good quality like reading them become one's treasure/culture/a good experience but some manga are simply awful, not worth reading or translating. I only wish there would be no young overseas people to get hurt by reading some explicit contents.

Finally, I've gradually wondered what kind of people are (were) doing scanlation. High school students? College students? Young people in their 20s or 30s having job? Consisting of all those people? Younger or older than them? In my case I lost interest in comics in my late teens, but some readers in Japan might keep their passion much longer too. I'm amazed at a lot of effort they made but I also feel “scanlation work” must take a lot of time. So I'm curious about whether there is any tendency for age group to do scanlation.

Also, I'd like to know if there's anyone in the website drawing manga in her/his own language (no matter if it's only personal enjoyment) while reading scanlation. My classmate, I remember, boys in elementary school used to be copying characters from comics (their favorite were Son Goku and Vegeta of “Dragon ball”), girls in high school drawing their original manga in our classroom. I think it (i.e. drawing manga) is wonderful thing because it means manga are really appreciated and casually accepted around the world.
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Well, I'm just curious about people doing scanlation and reading them : ).
Any information is welcome, since I've general knowledge of comics as average Japanese but nothing about scanlation.

Hi! Well, um.. How do I say this?
I can only read and writing in one language (and I'm not even good at it), so well I started reading manga in scanlation form something during earlier elementary school to my middle school years, because there isn't that much out in hard-copy that's in English already (at the time). And I began wanting to help out scanlation groups during my late middle school years. I'd help for a little while, then I'd drop it, and then get kicked out of the groups (sorry). And now, in college, I'm still cleaning/typesetting things every so often, helping around in my free time (which is more than I expected, for now). So, that's the age range that I generally associate with scanlation groups. Early elementary to middle when you get used to doing thing on your 'own' computer, to college. I'm not sure about older, though I know of some people... But that was a few years back, so I'm not sure if they're still around. It all depends on how much passion and time you want to dedicate.

P.S To tell you the truth, I don't think scanlation is a real word in the English dictionary. It's more internet slang (I used it before when I was younger when talking to my teacher, and she looked at me funny XD). That's why it's no surprise that you haven't heard of it.

.

Last edited by silkfish at 2:40 pm, Jul 13 2022

Most people in scanlation are college kids or somewhere around that age group. However, translators (as opposed to other positions in a scanlation group) tend to be older since it requires more time to acquire those skills.

I don't know of anyone who's involved in scanlation and also draws his own manga. I don't think drawing manga in general is popular because with so much available from Japan, it feels somewhat pointless. If anything, they would draw a western style comic.

Japanese understanding of what is age appropriate definitely differs from that in the west. For example, Shingeki no Kyojin contains graphic violence, and yet is technically a shounen demographic. To Love Ru Darkness is nearly porn, and also a shounen. Either would be entirely scandalous outside of Japan if marketed to teenagers. But the assumption is that young children do not read scanlations. Everyone here is at least in their late teens, but most readers are twenty-something or even older. The real question is, why anyone even bothers to scanlate series clearly aimed at young children.

In any case, if you want to know more about scanlation, you should join a group as a translator. Most groups would welcome you.

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Since you asked about the age of people involved in scanlation and have some concerns about what children may be reading, here are the results of a poll taken last year:



As you can see, the vast majority of readers are teenagers or adults, with very few young children.


There's a fairly well known scanlator who turned 60 this year, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few yaoi scanlators in their 40s-50s.

(Also, wasn't one of the men arrested for working with MangaPanda 69 years old? If you count them as a scanlation group...)

I would like to add my two cents to this topic, as well, if that's okay. (:
If you poke around more, you will start noticing that there are a lot of different groups that don't always mix children's books and adult books. That there you will recognize that groups that are more new, and haven't been "in business" for a long time, tend to focus on shoujo and cutesy, young manga, and they primarily have younger staff members, high school kids or around that age group, while the older groups, who tend to be college students or older (and some high school kids every now and then), that have been around for quite some time tend to focus more on josei, seinen, or more serious works (often stuff that even our parents would read), and put a lot of emphasis on quality rather than speed (not always, of course). Now, I don't say that all groups do that, but most of them do.
Sometimes, you will come across a group that has a variety of all kinds of manga, manhwa, and manhua that's basically catered to all sorts of demographics. I remember one group that I was in charge of had a few kids aged 10, 12, and 13 respectively, but also in that same group, I had a couple of translators that were college kids, or have already finished college, and they were the ones working on josei and seinen, horror stuff, and could easily read manga without furigana, so I had to balance their workload.
The ones I'm working with right now are all older groups, and all admin staff are people who already finished college and work, so it's a relief for me when I can't finish my scanlation stuff on time because of my own job I notified them about that and they're a lot more understanding. I try to do the same thing with my own groups.

As for your question about other people that draw their own comics, I do not know anyone specifically that draws a real manga comic (not since I left Japan), but I know several people that draw their own comics in their own style, be that western style, or manga-influenced style, or some other style, so if you're interested in that too, I can show you where you can find them.

EDIT:
Oh, I also came across a really neat site some time back, that explains scanlation and that process behind it - http://wikilation.n-u-l-l.net/index.php?title=Scanlation.


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Thank you everyone for your responses.
I think I've much better knowledge about scanlation now.

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> F_J

The age range overlap with the time when I were reading manga, but someone in early elementary school is performing some process for changing material in your groups? ... wow, I didn't expect it.

>F_J

Now I understood why my spell checker has always rejected "scanlation" with "manga" : ).

>JakeeDylan

I can imagine about people loving manga in France as I saw a lot of manga being sold at a book store near Louvre Museum when I've been to Paris. I'm also glad many people are drawing original manga and maybe enjoy it : ).

> cmertb

I see your point. And your suggestion of joining a group as translator sounds… well, interesting : ).

>cmertb

>hahhah42

I feel much better hearing you two said.
Honestly, when I saw the scanlation website, I felt slight responsibility for that some people in Japanese society created such explicit contents that are spreading online by scanlation in the end. Of course scanlations aren't official publication, but many original comics were drawn in Japan anyway. And illegal or not, adult contents or not, people read them and judge us and our culture through the material beyond our control. Come to think of it, things about scanlation felt pretty scarey. Even though I can imagine feeling of people who really want to read comics written in foreign language.

>MaiNina
Your explanation and URL are very informative.
I could understand the various aspects of scanlation and its groups.
It's a trivial thing, but It sounds interesting about that: "...a couple of translators...could easily read manga without furigana". By any chance, are there any translators who can't read original Japanese with kanji and anyone add furigana for them? Since I've never seriously thought about furigana of comics, it's a little surprise to me.

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Again, thank you all for useful comments.

This is very informative:
http://www.insidescanlation.com/history/index.html

And I agree, you could join a scanlation group to help spread the love.
I can never find a translator~

As for you worrying about kids being exposed to adult content, well, it's all clearly marked.
Besides, it's the internet, where everything is very easily accessible. ;p

Scanlation is actually a combination of the words "scan" and "translate".


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Agreed with NightSwan here. It's the Internet, so it's pretty much anything goes -- with scanlations, videos, literature, etc. It's the parents' responsibility to monitor what their kids are accessing online.

As for scanlators drawing their own original manga, that tends not to happen. Scanlators by "profession" are graphic artists (not necessarily comic artists), translators, and writers (not necessarily creative writers). They get together and form groups for the express purpose of providing manga/manhwa/other Asian comics for an audience who reads their own language. People who create their own original content tend to be part of a different crowd or else have their own work distinct from their scanlation work. It's not that Westerners aren't creating their own manga (they are) -- it's just that scanlation is a pretty distinct

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I'm a scanlator; I'm in my mid-20s, but am still in education, so I have enough free time to spend on translating manga.

I think what has drawn me towards manga and scanlation as a non-Japanese person is the Japanese concept of "cute", which is exemplified in manga art and story writing. Of course not all manga have cute elements, but I avoid those

I think this is the main difference between Western comics and Japanese comics. American comics for example are anything but cute. I feel like Western culture in general does not value cute things, or at least has a vastly different concept of what "cute" entails than Japanese culture.

The bottom line is: I don't like Western culture, so by spreading Japanese culture (through scanlation) I feel like I'm making the world around me a little bit better.

Also, I agree with you that pornographic comics should not be displayed next to family-friendly ones, but unfortunately many people here think that's okay (in real life as well: many comic stores in the West are small, so they often put childrens' comics next to adult comics).

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Actually, I just remembered a few examples of scanlators who draw their own comics, though not necessarily in manga style. Most of them only did a few releases before quitting scanlation...

Neggie, KommieKomics, and Nina Matsumoto are all comic artists who did one or more scanlations on the side. (Nina Matsumoto scanlated the oneshot Minotaurus's Plate, the scanlations by the other two are clearly labeled on the linked sites.)

StudioRobb started out as a scanlator before becoming a comic artist, and was a more prolific scanlator than the three listed above.

Just in case you decide to try it, this is the subforum where scanlation groups advertise looking for staff: http://www.mangaupdates.com/topics.php?fid=3974

You can either respond to ads from any group you like, or you can make your own post to offer your services and see who responds.

Translators are always in demand.

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Scanlations (or fansubs) can reach a wider readership that any official release. Piracy is free after all. A translator could thus put a fingerprint on a certain series and become the definitive voice of a character. A lot of you can quote the Jump Trinity but it´s not the one that got officially translated way after the fact.
The world of scanlation was never just a phenomenon relegated to manga. I read tons of European comics that were scanlated by fans in the same way manga are too but these mostly live on dedicated forums and not on online readers. (License holders would murder them if they did that on a big scale as the west is way more up to date with digital rights matters.) US comics also get scanlated into all sorts of languages.

And about why people reader scans: They are free and most of us a have no conscience for one but i have zero interest in mastering half a dozen languages to keep up with my comics or games (Policenauts!) or movies.


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I agree with every word quoted above, and that's why I, at age 67, read manga.

(Plus I admire Japanese culture, and I think it can be understood very well through its main popular fiction form, manga.

Yes, there are a lot of them that have trouble with that. That's why cmertb also mentioned that translators tend to be older folks who studied the language much longer than some other people.
As there is an increasing demand for faster releases of manga, more people give up on waiting and sit down and learn the language themselves in order to translate the chapters and release them to the public. Well, due to the focus on speed a lot more than on the quality, future and wannabe translators focus on mastering the basics of Japanese language, as that pretty much helps them get through the chapters without the need to focus on kanji. Kanji in itself is very complex and needs more mastering than hiragana and katakana, as you yourself probably know too, so various applications and scripts are used to help translate kanji without any furigana.
Since translators are not found around very often, I have not met someone who spends time adding furigana for a fellow translator. If the group only does josei/seinen and similar works that do not contain furigana, then they will only seek out translators that know enough kanji to be able to translate the chapters without any additional help.
Since, I mention once more, the focus is primarily shifted on just translating the chapters rather than learning the language from bottoms up, finding shorcuts to avoid learning kanji is very common. Which also shows that a vast majority of translators in the scanlation world are not actually Japanese, but just manga fans who learned the language by themselves or in school.

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