School Rumble manga (raw discussion only)

[Roots]

Originally Posted by _yeah

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Spoiler:

And that's just ONE PANEL.

Of course, it's my translation against theirs, but I'm betting you can find a lot more people who would agree with mine than theirs.

Yup. Your translation is a heck of a lot more accurate. You should re-translate School Rumble for us. I would, but I'm too busy with my personal life right now, and I already agreed to be a translator for Ichigo 100% recently.

[nubby]

You all can suck my left nutt. I didn't hear any complaints when this manga was yet to be animated. And now that it is, we have a bunch of flies sw4rming on it like hot smelly shit. We have wannabe translators taking shots and thinking they can do a better job but have yet to release a single chapter. How about you complaining leechers get together and release a couple volumes before you open yours mouths again? Go ahead and type out the script. Go ahead and clean the scan. Go ahead and text the scan. Go ahead and release a couple volumes for a couple months. Do you really have the dedication? It takes more than just words. Well, whatever, appreciate it for what it is, a free scanlation.

[burrowowl]

Originally Posted by nubby

And now that it is, we have a bunch of flies sworming on it like hot smelly shit.

It's spelled "swarming," FYI.

[mangainc]

There I quit!! And it's all your fault!! happy now, asshats!?

:fingers:

[mangatron]

Originally Posted by nubby

You all can suck my left nutt. I didn't hear any complaints when this manga was yet to be animated. And now that it is, we have a bunch of flies sw4rming on it like hot smelly shit. We have wannabe translators taking shots and thinking they can do a better job but have yet to release a single chapter. How about you complaining leechers get together and release a couple volumes before you open yours mouths again? Go ahead and type out the script. Go ahead and clean the scan. Go ahead and text the scan. Go ahead and release a couple volumes for a couple months. Do you really have the dedication? It takes more than just words. Well, whatever, appreciate it for what it is, a free scanlation.

lol


I know how bad the scans are, and how hard it would be to clean em out. Lots of black loss, thaz for sure

[_yeah]

Originally Posted by burrowowl

So I take it you'll be translating the series from scratch for the leeching public?

That's actually one project I've been meaning to do for a while, but it's been put on the back burner while I get some other stuff out of the way first. Meh. Maybe when I finish up some other stuff. I did one chapter, but as I'm going to explain below it was used more as a tool for shopping around interest more than something I was doing for the leeching public.

Originally Posted by nubby

You all can suck my left nutt. I didn't hear any complaints when this manga was yet to be animated. And now that it is, we have a bunch of flies sw4rming on it like hot smelly shit. We have wannabe translators taking shots and thinking they can do a better job but have yet to release a single chapter. How about you complaining leechers get together and release a couple volumes before you open yours mouths again? Go ahead and type out the script. Go ahead and clean the scan. Go ahead and text the scan. Go ahead and release a couple volumes for a couple months. Do you really have the dedication? It takes more than just words. Well, whatever, appreciate it for what it is, a free scanlation.

Where was I when the manga was yet to be animated? Let's see, I was talking to people I already knew about the translation quality. And I was asking people I knew if they wanted to do the upcoming anime with me, with this:

-rw-r--r-- 2 1000 1000 2815981 Aug 20 01:08 [rustyspork]schoolrumble_v01_c01_PRIVATE_RELEASE_ONLY.zip

Shoddily tossed together in one sitting using GMAO back in August. First time trying to use that program. Meh. And in the end I didn't exactly get a landslide of interest, but oh well.

You've never seen it, of course, because... well... I didn't care about the leechers enough to release it to them. I handed it out to various people I knew in the community as a treat because I was putting it together to see if anybody wanted to do the anime with me anyway. If I made it a public release, people would have asked for more, and I've got enough projects on my plate already.

I might toss it out into the open eventually, but I guess I should clean it up a bit first. I've got other anime and manga projects to worry about for now.

Did you actually have an argument other than "it's free, stop complaining"?

Originally Posted by mangainc

There I quit!! And it's all your fault!! happy now, asshats!?

:fingers:

I'm sorry, are you expecting me to now come back begging for you to continue? Or are you, like, ACTUALLY stopping?


Anyway, I didn't come here to start a flamewar - I came here to give supporting evidence on what I think was wrong with your translation. Take it or leave it.

[Burner of Anime]

I'm minded of the words that a person's quality of work is in direct purportion of it's quality of effort. So while a translation is appreciated for this gem, a bit more effort could have gone into 3 areas:

1 Grammer and spelling. Be it Queen's or American English, a reader of the language at it's most basic level will know when something doesn't make sense. Is it so hard to flip open a dictionary or better yet use an auto-check program in the draft? Granted it's a chore to translate from one language to the next, but some of the sentences look like it's been run through Babblefish- only with spelling errors.

2 Structure of sentences. This isn't about grammer, this part is about presenting the text in a manner that is clear and cohesive to it's reader. There are a number of instances in the translations when an entire sentence is split between 2-3 text bubbles. I'd be reading through a page when I'm suddenly forced to stop and look for the next word in a sentence. Common sense tells you a direct translation isn't going to work, people are programed to read English in a straight line or within a text bubble before moving on. So use your discretion to keep the story in flow.

3 Wherever possible, keep things simple. The majority of blokes who are going to read this after leaching it off your servers are admittedly even poorer in the Japanese language than yourself. For the benifit of these poor unfortunate fools [like myself] a more expansive set of translation footnotes for the jokes and cultural references would be helpful.

Last bit, change your attitude. An answer like this:

You all can suck my left nutt. I didn't hear any complaints when this manga was yet to be animated. And now that it is, we have a bunch of flies sw4rming on it like hot smelly shit. We have wannabe translators taking shots and thinking they can do a better job but have yet to release a single chapter. How about you complaining leechers get together and release a couple volumes before you open yours mouths again? Go ahead and type out the script. Go ahead and clean the scan. Go ahead and text the scan. Go ahead and release a couple volumes for a couple months. Do you really have the dedication? It takes more than just words. Well, whatever, appreciate it for what it is, a free scanlation.

everyone will just write off as lazy, arrant and self serving. We'd give you the respect due for exercising a skill in language by translating from Japanese to English. And that's only because this is something many here just can't do. Is it so wrong to say that it's going to defeat the purpose of the translation when your English needs exercising as well? 5 translated volumes and no clear improvement in all 3 areas mentioned above throughtout reflects badly on the command of the language. So screw perfection because people here aren't looking for that, only the minimum expectation of the work done.

[mangatron]

ok, so now that everything is settled, can we get back to SR? I mean, we all supposed to be laughing when reading SR, not getting pissed off about translation quality. ( not that I'm saying you all were pissed off)

So uh, what latest chapter [translated]? lol I'm real busy, have lots of manga to read, and i get mixed up so much...*sigh* thaz what i got a PDA for...

[nubby]

Is it high quality? No. Does it have perfect translation? No. Does it get the general idea across? Yes. Has the overall quality improved since vol 1? Yes. Have we admitted that we're not perfect? Yes. Are we shoving the releases down your throats? No.

Originally Posted by _yeah

Did you actually have an argument other than "it's free, stop complaining"?

Do you actually have an argument other than "I could do a better job if I had the time?"
I could buy a porsche if I had the money. So what?!

----
BTW, we're looking for japanese translators. If you think you have what it takes, drop by #mangainc on irc.highway.net, and burrow will reward you with a free BJ.

[burrowowl]

Originally Posted by Burner of Anime

1 Grammer and spelling. Be it Queen's or American English, a reader of the language at it's most basic level will know when something doesn't make sense. Is it so hard to flip open a dictionary or better yet use an auto-check program in the draft? Granted it's a chore to translate from one language to the next, but some of the sentences look like it's been run through Babblefish- only with spelling errors.

I hope the irony isn't lost upon you that you misspelled "grammar" and used the contraction "it's" incorrectly here.

Other than that, I largely agree with your sentiments. The original tagline for Manga! Inc. was "some sloppily scanslated manga" back when the School Rumble translation was started. To my knowledge the only person proofing the scripts, inputting the text, and doing final quality assurance on the earlier chapters (and most of the later chapters) was the translator himself.

From my conversations with the translator on the manga project, this has been simply an exercise in reading a fun little manga and sharing the results of his translation with folks that may be interested. I don't think anybody should be surprised that there are some errors (especially in the first few chapters, at the beginning of his experience as a translator) and the lack of stringent QA standards, and I certainly don't think anybody should be getting as worked up as Nubby appears to be over this.

Back to the topic of the manga itself: my main problem with SR these days is that it seems to have degenerated into a formulaic romantic comedy, with about as much hope for significant forward progress in the plotline as One Piece (which I love, but dear God, are they ever going to find the dang treasure?). The way that the plot is failing to progress leaves me with some small expectation that this title will stretch on and on, with new stories fueled simply by a compulsive need to create a popular product instead of actually telling a story to its resolution. I'm hoping the mangaka will wrap it up in the next volume or so.

[burrowowl]

Originally Posted by nubby

Do you actually have an argument other than "I could do a better job if I had the time?"
I could buy a porsche if I had the money. So what?!

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

[nubby]

What did you say?!!! IM DOING TO KILL YOU BURROWOWL!!!!!!!!!!! RAAAWWWRRRRR AAAAHHHHHHHHH

ah-hem....sorry about the random violent rage...

[poisonfrog8]

Wow, lots of tension >_>

BTW, where can I find the raws for 70+? Will anyone help a School Rumble fan =(

[burrowowl]

Originally Posted by poisonfrog8

Wow, lots of tension >_>

BTW, where can I find the raws for 70+? Will anyone help a School Rumble fan =(

School Rumble raws covering chapter 1 through 103 (including the b chapters, if I recall correctly) were recently put up in a torrent on http://www.mirkx.com/. I'd give a direct link, but it's my understanding that linking to raws isn't permitted in this forum.

Regarding the tension... I don't think it's really as bad as it looks. Mangainc was considering ending his career as a translator before the SR anime came out, and it shouldn't have come as a big surprise to regulars in the #mangainc channel. We received an offer for supplemental translation service this afternoon, so it is entirely possible that the title will see revised versions of the earlier chapters, possibly complete with some editorial constraint (sanity-checking on the English text, etc).

Nothing is really firmed up right now other than that Inky has disappeared off IRC and has posted elsewhere that he won't be scanslating anymore. Apparently he's jumping off a building somewhere.

[Burner of Anime]

Originally Posted by burrowowl

I hope the irony isn't lost upon you that you misspelled "grammar" and used the contraction "it's" incorrectly here.

Not an excuse Still, this should be an object lesson that you should never type anything at 2 a.m in the morning with the lights off

For the manga plotline, I am worried about where it is heading. Most people here have read up to chapter 70 for the translation, the main object to Tenma's affection has disappeared [we still don't know too much about him] and maybe 3 girls have unclear feeling for Harima >_<

Spoiler:

Eri probably wants to beat him with a large stick. Unfortunately, the girl has a real big streak of green so it's likely she want to be the 'Only' one to do it. Their 'encounters' have been the really funny point of the manga thus far.

Yakumo can't mind-read this guy [damned dangerous ability to have btw], and it's only much later when I figured out her abilities are limited to dirty minded fools who love her [I blame the translation ] and her sister. He's either too dense, or really is a nice and straight guy [or all the above ]. She is probably curious on finally meeting a guy who doesn't think of her as a sex object, like 99% of the male population.

I'd add the older girl who keeps showing up, but I don't know her name and she's pretty much underdeveloped

The thing is, the manga is going to end the moment:
a Tenma hooks up properly with someone [can be Ouji, the wimp or the poor suffering fool above]
b Or when the Harima finally does.

Till then, the writer has to milk the side stories and franchise until blood comes out and this dies a natural death.

[burrowowl]

Originally Posted by Burner of Anime

Spoiler:

Yakumo can't mind-read this guy [damned dangerous ability to have btw], and it's only much later when I figured out her abilities are limited to dirty minded fools who love her [I blame the translation ] and her sister. He's either too dense, or really is a nice and straight guy [or all the above ]. She is probably curious on finally meeting a guy who doesn't think of her as a sex object, like 99% of the male population.

Spoiler:

I somewhat disagree with the interpretation about who Yakumo's abilities do and do not work with. She seemed genuinely surprised when she couldn't read Kenji. She can't read that cat's mind, either, so I suspect that Kenji's own telepathic abilities are involved in her inability to read him.

Note that she was able to read her sister when playing ro-sham-bo. She lost because her Tsukamoto is so scatterbrained that there was no clear read to get.

But that's just a matter of interpretation, and probably doesn't have a heck of a lot to do with the ultimate resolution of the storyline, if a resolution will ever actually come.

[Burner of Anime]

Originally Posted by burrowowl

Spoiler:

Note that she was able to read her sister when playing ro-sham-bo. She lost because her Tsukamoto is so scatterbrained that there was no clear read to get.

I still don't get this one, she lost? I thought she could do the read but decided to please Tenma instead?. You know, Little sister makes way for elder?

[poisonfrog8]

Originally Posted by burrowowl

School Rumble raws covering chapter 1 through 103 (including the b chapters, if I recall correctly) were recently put up in a torrent on http://www.mirkx.com/. I'd give a direct link, but it's my understanding that linking to raws isn't permitted in this forum.

Thank you very much ^_^

[burrowowl]

So... it's been a few weeks, and there's still no translator for this title any more. Any takers? I would be happy to provide an English -> English translation, but alas, the raws are in Japanese

[aldw]

Does the anime follow the manga, or are they different stories?