[whsie]

Originally Posted by larethian

WTH, why do they have so many Jp->Ch translators? And they only have volume 1 done just a month ago? And this is no easy stuff to translate. But from that alone, it's easy to see that this will be one of the next big things. Anyway, I'm retired.

Well, part of that is simply because of the raw population of China. The US has 300 million while China has 1.3 billion. That's a 1 billion population difference.

One also has to remember that the Chinese language is a much closer language to Japanese than English and Japanese. The syntax, sentence structure, grammar, idiom, and diction are similar enough to make the translations quicker. In English, oh my god, it's like rewriting the whole entire novel. You have to read it, choose the appropriate word choice and choose the appropriate structure to express the meaning in the original work. I first started translating the Jin Yong novels back in ~ 03, 04. Did it for a while and never wanted to be part of translating again. I briefly considered doing High School DxD (before na@om started) and Campione (did a part of volume 7) and I quickly remembered why I never entered the translation community in the first place.

As for the big three (manga, anime, light novel), the US has a great and slightly superior manga translation community. For animes, they're roughly on par in both speed and quality.

Where the US lags way behind is the light novels. As far as I'm aware of, the US only has baka tsuki. The Chinese has a FAR more vibrant and expansive lightnovel translation community. They even have sites specifically for translation

Spoiler for site:

the biggest and most famous among them is lightnovel.cn

They had the likes of Hidan no Aria, Infinite Stratos completely updated before the animes came out. I know Legend of the Legendary Heroes is completely done (including part 2), Chromed Shelled Regios is up to volume 17. The only anime that they didn't catch up to before it came out was High School DxD, which is now at volume 8 chapter 4.

EDIT: I felt like adding some information about the power levels in this novel. That said, there will be heavy spoilers so you're warned

Spoiler for spoiler:

Spoiler for Tatsuya's specific abilities:

Tatsuya's ability sounds pretty simple- "disintegration/decomposition" and "regeneration." Disintegration includes evaporation, explosion, and physical disintegration. The scale of such an attack depends on the CAD supplementing him. Regeneration is simple as it is. If you only read up to here, it sounds simple. However think about this for a second. Tatsuya can disintegrate anything organic or non-organic. This includes human, flesh, metal, fire, water, magic, etc. In volume 2, he simply decomposed two hundred guns at his will (if he wanted to, he could decompose the human body too). This type of attack is outside the boundaries of conventional thinking and as such easily causes fear and panic from opponents who have witnessed such an attack. Further, regeneration is automatic when he suffers a fatal injury. This is one ability that we see in the "Past Arc" as a young Tatsuya had always had abnormal recovery ability.

Aside from the two basic abilities, his others abilities include
- a nearly inexhaustible supply of magic- elite by world standards.
- he has a special eye for analyzing magic scripts. Along with his decomposition ability, he can interfere in the magic process and make the CAD crash, resulting in no magic.
- his skills in magic manipulation- elite by world standards.
- his martial arts- elite by world standards.
- his battle tactics- elite.
- he has incredible speed at releasing magic- elite of the elite by world standards. Even if you exclude his other abilities, this alone makes him a force to be reckoned with. For all intents and purposes, he can essentially eliminate the buffer time completely. Even if his opponent is conjuring up a A level magic, it's useless if he or she is already knocked out.
- finally, he is operated on by his family with a computer chip that allows him to process and release magic even faster. The side effect is that he lost his emotions. It's only in the current timeline that he's slowly recovering his emotions.

The most powerful of Tatsuya's attacks is essentially a large scale disintegration (needs the proper CAD equipment) that is the equivalent of a bomb that will instantaneously destroy a city.

If Tatsuya is so strong, then why is he a weed? For one, the tests doesn't allow the use of high level CAD, he needs to hide his two special abilities due to family reasons, and finally as the vice president would say, the test doesn't test the finer aspects of magic manipulation. Furthermore, Tatsuya's two abilities doesn't create anything "new" like all the other top magicians are able to. Tatsuya's abilities works with what he has and disintegrates or restores them. Of course, the vice president would be the first to witness this as he gets defeated in five seconds with Tatsuya revealing less than a tenth of his true ability.

Spoiler for Tatsuya's combat level classification:

Because of his abilities, he is a War-level magician- a magician capable of destroying a country. There were 13 such publicly recognized magicians. Now, there is only 12 because 1 of them was killed by Tatsuya in combat. Amongst the "Number" families, the head of the "Five" family is one such publicly recognized magician. In total, there are roughly 50 such magicians since a lot of them (Tatsuya included) keep their abilities hidden. In the novel, the only real threats to Tatsuya are other War-level magicians as these are the very elite of the elite. Eventually, Tatsuya faces off against Lina and defeats her as well, making Tatsuya 2-0 against War-level magicians.

Spoiler for combat level of the students in the first 4 volumes:

For the record, the top 3 in the school+Miyuki+Crimson Prince are only at the Combat-level. Whereas a War-level magician can destroy cities, a Combat-level magician is far lower on the military scale and is only capable of destroying large groups of people and squads. In other words, if Tatsuya is serious, he can easily destroy all of them. The only reason Tatsuya abilities seemed close in those volumes is because he constantly keeps his real abilities under the wrap. Heck, if he was serious against the vice president, he should have just disintegrated him on the spot rather than show off his martial arts and magical skills. But he obviously couldn't kill the vice president in front of the other student council members.

Spoiler for family information:

He is extremely low key throughout the beginning because he needs to avoid detection of his background. Why? Because he and Miyuki are part of the "Four" family- the most mysterious, dangerous of the ten "Number" families. The "Four" family may be small, but the most dangerous because they control CAD manufacturing and because all their magicians are at least at Combat-level. Generally, "Four" = "Death" (makes sense if you read the phonetics sounds in Japanese and Chinese because they are similar). In particular, their step-mother- The Queen of the Night- is the head of "Four" family. She, too, is recognized as one of the greatest magicians in the world. In volume 4, we know that Tatsuya is confident in defeating her (primarily because his abilities counters hers), but killing her would do little because he still can't control the "Four" family or find out who is the person pulling the strings.

As for Miyuki, she is the next in line to succeed the "Four" family. Originally, their two cousins were supposed to be next in line, but Miyuki is given the priority because the "Four" family needs to use Miyuki to keep Tatsuya in check.