Officially Open

“We’re here…”

This site has now gone official as the Staff Blog for MangaGamer. As you probably guessed, I am one of the translators for MangaGamer, and from what information I’ve gleaned, there are at least two of us. The projects I’ve worked on so far are Soul Link and Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia. I’m currently working on Kira Kira Curtain Call. If anyone has something they’d like to see me discuss here, feel free to ask. As a fan of these games myself, I enjoy the opportunity to discuss my work.

There are several things I want to address today. First, I want to thank Haeleth, for his hard work and forum which helped encourage me to become a professional translator, and zalas for helping me start my work on Soul Link. Without either of them, I might not be here today as a translator of eroge for MangaGamer. I hope that they both continue to help nurture and care for the community of English speaking eroge fans as I strive to produce quality translations true to the original work.

The second thing I’d like to discuss is the delay in Soul Link’s release. As some of you may know, Soul Link was supposed to be released the other day (11/30/09), but was not available on the website. After a last minute review of the revised scripts we noticed there were still some issues remaining. Once they have all been addressed, the game will be available for purchase. We want to ensure that a quality product is available to everyone.

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15 Comments

  1. I think you need to address the masses regarding the censorship. They are, as always, enraged and calling for blood. I also recommend you try and speak on their behalf regarding this.

  2. “As you probably guessed, I am one of the translators for MangaGamer, [u]and from what information I’ve gleaned[/u], there are only two of us at present.”

    While this comment isn’t exactly reassuring, implying as it does that “the left head doesn’t know what the right head is doing” in such a small organization, it’s good to see that someone associated with the company is making an effort to connect with the fanbase.

    Here’s my 2 cents: Mangagamer needs a PR person. Desperately. See if Mangagamer will employ you in that capacity at least part time. At the very least, see if you can gain enough of their confidence to be something of an unofficial spokesperson. MG needs a fully fluent English person with an understanding of the English eroge market managing highly visible aspects of the company, such as the website (particularly game synopses, news, and announcements). You’re so much more valuable to them as a liason for the English market than as a mere translator. As an English fan, your insight and connection with the community as an English fan is a valuable asset to a company that seems to be run entirely by Japanese people.

  3. I won’t purchase Soul Link if it is censored.

  4. Get them to re-insert the removed CGs, or this not going to be a buy.

  5. Posting this without saying a single word about the issue everyone cares about is pointless.

    If you release scene with cut CG, you don’t get my money.

    Period.

    I’m tired of fans outside Japan being treated like crap.

  6. Did they fire all their other translators or something? I worked with four translators for Suika, and from what I heard, Higurashi had pretty much the same people working on it.

    Something big must have happened if those people were removed from the project in the middle of it. That, or nobody really knows what’s going on within MG.

  7. Only two translators, seriously? With Higurashi being worked on by the oher guy(I assume), and with Koihime Musou and the Circus releases on schelude, I can’t believe that’s the case, or things are going to be very late.

    …In any case, good to have contact to one translator. Do you have estimate about how long translation of Curtain Call will take, and what you’ll be working on after it?

  8. Protip: if they don’t get money, they don’t get future titles to release.

    Yes it’s unfortunate there may end up being censorship, but threats don’t help the matter, ESPECIALLY if you want the execs to stop treating fans outside of Japan like crap. If you want to be helpful, go on the forums and organize an email campaign to the MG public email address and express your opinion in a CIVIL manner. Going around announcing that “censorship means no buy” is counter productive. A lot of these execs have dealt with 2ch, you think you can be persuasive without making it look like you’re just 2ch otaku complaining about missing boobs?

    @Dark_Shiki:
    I fully agree with you, but from what I can tell, MG is severely short on fluent English speaking staff and with their limited sales, they’ve been doing everything possible to recruit contractual staff to fill these areas without having to hire permanent staff. With this extreme shortage of people who “understand” the English market, they have a VERY Japanese way of thinking about a lot of these things, hence the tail between legs approach to possible complaints. This blog was designed as a means of giving some sort of interaction between the company and the fanbase, not in the chaotic, open-ended fashion that the forums do.

    Oh and just to give you all some idea that they are listening: “rumor” has it, there’s been discussion regarding working with a certain company that goes by the name of Key.

  9. Congratulations on snagging such a great job. Did you start as a fan translator or decide to follow your interests professionally? I haven’t seen any of your work yet, but your display of English is certainly much higher caliber than certain earlier titles’. Hopefully that trend continues…

    Is there any chance at all that Mangagamer could start selling hard-copies of their work?

  10. “Oh and just to give you all some idea that they are listening: “rumor” has it, there’s been discussion regarding working with a certain company that goes by the name of Key.”

    The newest version of Reallive (Key’s VN engine) was coded to prevent all non-japanese versions of windows from running it.
    Your “rumor” sounds more like “wishful thinking”.

    • what? I can run Little Busters! perfectly fine in my american windows vista…

      are you talking about ecstasy?

      • He must be talking about some update for Rewrite. Otherwise…

        I own the first print edition of “Little Busters Extasy!” and it works fine on my American Vista Ultimate PC. I do have it set to Japanese Locale so most things I run are in Japanese though.

  11. @ Dark_Shiki
    I suppose I should rephrase that to “There are at least two translators.” I joined the company later on, so I don’t know how many were involved in previous projects. I do intend to act as a liaison between the fans and MangaGamer as much as I can, but I know little about the technical aspects of things so I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to update the main site myself.

    @Vodka
    No, I don’t have an estimate on Curtain Call at this time. I can say that I have finished playing through the game and begun translation on it though. Once I finish, I will probably be working on Da Capo I.F.

    @Amketroe
    I started as a fan translator. I began my work on Soul Link while I was on study abroad in College. If you want to see samples of my work before I joined MangaGamer, you can search for a little thing called “Vifam”. After graduating from college, I decided to try and find a job doing professional translation. After a lucky break at Otakon, I joined this company. I’m still new to the company though, so I don’t know everything yet.

    As for hard-copies, there has been a lot of interest demonstrated at conventions and online, so they are under discussion. No decision has been made at this time.

    As for the missing CGs, I am still awaiting further information, but I assure you I have communicated the dissent voiced at this decision.

  12. @suomynonA
    Good thing all of Key’s games are on the newest version of Reallive!! Troll again, k thx!

  13. Keep up the good work! Looking forward to Kira Kira Curtain Call…

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