Brief Update

Update: Slow train coming down the line | 3 full, long scenes left in Emiko's route.

Currently working on Emiko's route, with roughly 8 scenes left to translate. Regarding the relationship between Kei and his mother, all I have to say is goodness, well that escalated quickly. I know Swaneye tends to ignore/gloss over blood relationships in their games, but seriously. Meanwhile, Harapara is still on hold while I focus on Emiko's route, if only because I think it'll feel it'll feel so awesome to finally have fully completed Mamankyoushitsu. It's nice and all, but man, I really want to have more time for less erotic works.

In regards to Heisei Era Inari War, I'm continuing with it at an entirely too slow of pace (though I don't feel there's many with too much demand for it). I do kinda wonder how other translation projects cope with scans so low quality you can't really read what the kanji in the speech bubbles are, however. Speaking of kitsune and kitsunemimi things, I would like to ask if there's anyone able/willing/interested in making a translation patch for Chorus's "Okitsune-sama no Koisuru Omajinai". Sarasarasasara could be cool, too. Though of course, it would be a long time before I could start on either.

In other other news, it has been a year since I started this translation blog! And in that time, it has gotten over 43,000 views! Man, if I had, like, fifty cents for each of those views, I could almost pay off college. Oh well. I'd post some thank you fan art or something, though I don't think people are too interested in my jawesome Open Canvas skills.

What's On the Menu

So, quick update of what's all going on now, LQT wise

Working on Emiko's route for Mamankyoushitsu
Kukuri's route for HaraPara
The main story route for HaraKano (very slow pace)
Batta's Record of the Heisei Era Inari War manga series
Other.

And, as always, looking for official work as translator/localization. Future plans include applying for South Korea's EpiK program, Japan's JET program, Grad School, etc.

In regards to Other, I cannot say what it is due to various concerns, however a certain group has asked me to translate a certain game for them, and provided all the tools necessary for it to be done in full. It may take precedence over Mamankyoushitsu, though that does not mean work on Emiko's Route will stop. As for HaraPara and Harakano, they will remain side projects like always.

Non-ero update and a problem?

Of the various Japanese things I keep an eye on, one of them is actually the blog of Batta, an aspiring manga artist/author of kitsunemimi/kemonomimi and weaponry/combat related works, who posts a lot of his stuff for free on his blog, Canzume Quality. Of course, it's all in Japanese, but I like Batta's work and art, so I really would like him to get more love. Though it's doubtful any english translation of his stuff would generate any attention for him in Japan, I figure it might at least get him some wider readership, so I've begun to translate all of his free-to-download stuff.  I've finished the first one: 'The Fox Girl and Miss History' a really short (non-erotic) 7 page 4 koma story about a childlike fox spirit and the archeology grad student who's helping her, which really seems only the introduction to a wider story rather than any stand alone work, but whatever. I'll work on his longer series next; this one just had the easiest to read text. To anyone that reads the blog for information related to the games I've been translating or the Tensei-kun doujin, Batta's work probably holds absolutely no interest to you, so feel free to skip it. For anyone else, you can download a .zip of  'The Fox Girl and Miss History' here:

The Fox Girl and Miss History [ENG], by Batta

...Uhh, does anyone know where to post just regular manga and stuff? I feel this doesn't really belong on g.e or ex.


Meanwhile, for people that are interested in those games I've been working on (and Mamankyoushitsu in particular), a reader posted in the Mimeri update post that they were having a problem where some of the animated scenes have a graphical error that makes the images kinda sorta broke. Clearly this is a problem for nukige games (and anything other than a text adventure), but it is not one caused by the translation patch. Apparently, according to another reader, the problem is actually caused by a recent windows update for Windows 7 and Windows XP. Phillip Armenta wrote that the windows update KB2803821 for Windows 7 or windows update KB2834904 for Windows XP is what is breaking these scenes in a number of games. If you delete these from your computer, everything should display properly again. Thanks to Phillip Armenta for pointing this out.


I believe the next update for Mamankyoushitsu will most likely be the Emiko route just for hilarity's sake, and I'll also work on the next part of HaraPara, though I can give no estimated time of release. However, it looks like I might have a lot of time offline soon, which means I'll have more than enough time to do some work on something extra maybe... something special. Relatedly, if anyone knows of any guide on how to extract scripts from different visual novels (and then repack translated versions), I would like to learn how to do it so I can working on other, non-swan titles.

Mimeri Route 100% Translation Patch

After over half a year, it's done! The Mimeri translation patch is complete and uploaded to drop box, converting all of Mimeri's route into English (unrevised and unedited, cause that's not really important right now). If you have the game, you can just download the new patch via Dropbox.com at the following link:

Mimeri Translation Patch-
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zlyl86w6e7nhisw/patch.rar

Just download the rar and extract the files into your Mamankyoushitsu folder, overwriting all older ones.

If you don't have the game, you can find it via different various means (including legal download via DMM.co.jp/en). Just install the game, download the rar, and extract the files (via winrar or 7zip) into the game's install folder. When you run the game, you should find that Honoka, Saera, and Mimeri's routes are now entirely translated into english (albeit it with some textual errors and grammar problems; it's unedited.)

I tried a different, less literal translation with Mimeri's route that probably made a couple lines translate better into english than they would before, and go at a bit faster pace. Tell me what you think. Meanwhile, of course, if you're a translation company looking to hire freelance work (I won't ask why you're here if you don't ask why I am), I am currently available. If you're a person that just happens to enjoy the translations and want to help out, feel free to donate if you so choose. Mamankyoushitsu is being translated free of charge, for everyone to download. Thanks again to Bonzaimonkey for his help with the patch to make it all possible.

I'm going to begin working on other things, now, in the interim, so I'll have a bit less niche portfolio when it comes to samples of my translation work. Right now, anything I show of feels as though it would be awkward to show to people. Not going to give any definitive titles or anything, but I just hope everyone likes kitsunemimi as much as I do.

Thanks to everyone that has shown an interest and kept with this project; your words have given me the impetus to keep at it.

Let's set a goal.

Eleven scenes until Mimeri's Route is done. Imma try and see if I can get it done by next weekend. Meanwhile, one page until the Batta mini-manga is done, but that can wait.

Quick Update before any Real Update

Mimeri's Route is currently around 50% complete overall. I plan on dedicating more time to it this and next week, so hopefully I will be able to get the full patch out soon (unedited and unrevised like the others). Meanwhile, I'm going to be posting a quick, twelve page 4koma story by Batta of Canzume Quality as soon as I finish the last two pages of it. It's a short, cute, and totally work safe story about a Photographer/Archeologist grad student and her Fox Spirit friend/roommate that Batta posted for free online awhile ago. I figure I can translate and edit myself easy enough and post it in english for anyone interested and, for whatever end, get some western support for Batta and his work (and add more to my portfolio. I can do more than just ero, you know.)

However, speaking of ero, one thing I could do to make the translation process go faster is more or less leave hentai scenes untranslated. I don't know how people would feel about this, but as it stands (for Swan titles, at least) hardly anything important to the story happens during the erotic scenes, and they are so full of stock phrases and sounds that translating them usually feels like a waste of time. I wouldn't cut them out of the game, of course, but I would just not bother to translate every time someone's hips were moving on their own. Would people be okay with this? Are there people interested in these games for the plot in addition to the erotic content? Let me know how you feel.

Meanwhile, I am still looking for work. If anyone knows any companies which could use a capable Japanese to English translator for various projects, I'd probably be pretty down for that. However, on the topic of translation work, People keep requesting I do these different games which have come out (which will understandably probably never seen any real translation offered ever), even offering commissions for them. As much as I would like to give these and other games the time of day, please realize that I do not know how to extract a game's script for translation, then repack the translation into the game so the text will be in english. This means unless someone can offer a tutorial on how to do that with various VN file formats, I am limited in what I can do translations of, limited to whatever novels people have already extracted said scripts from and/or made patches for. The only reason I can do all this Swan work is thanks to BonzaiMonkey's help, and much thanks to him for making this all possible. I also would like to thank everyone that has recommended me to different projects that I might be able to help with, and especially like to thank the people that have donated money to my paypal. It helps.

Only semi related to that, though, did you all know that DMM.co.jp (a major digital distributor of Japanese erotic works) has added an English version of their website, which works with Western Credit cards? This actually gives the western audience a viable way of purchasing a lot of Japanese works which were before totally unavailable before other than via torrenting/download. For people interested in erotic works, this includes VNs, JAV, Doujin, and more. Kinda neat for some of them harder to 'aquire' things (though the pages and registration might be a bit difficult to navigate, due to DMMs less than stellar english translation). Just a cool story, bro.

-Loe

News.

I've graduated! Yaaay.

I've got more time to work on these projects now! Yaaay.

I've got a problem where that this new operating system I was forced to get on this computer (I backed up all the translation projects beforehand, of course) can't quite seem to figure out how to run visual novels. It's unfortunately Windows Vista, and though it looks like it has the eastern languages pack, it can't even run the official demo to Mamankyoushitsu without getting an error. I'm going to try and see if I can fix this problem, though if not I'm going to go and buy Windows 7 (what I'd been using earlier) so I can actually use all this time now to work on these projects. The Mimeri patch had to be put on hold for the last semester at Uni, though it should move much faster once I figure out this problem and can get to working on it. Same with the Kukuri patch for Harapara. Then, it's on to some less erotic works, with maybe Harakano on the side. In the meantime, so... uh... anyone looking to hire a translator?