Fanscan Community

[babbito2k]

I've been reading fanscanned manga for at least 1 1/2 years. There were far fewer groups back then. It seems to me that back then it was easier to figure out what was worth reading. Of course, with fewer groups and less manga it was easier to at least try out most of the titles, but IIRC most of the the groups had websites providing some description of the titles they were working on. I find it less appealing to download manga I know nothing about if the group translating it does not maintain an informative website - and I find this to be the case more often lately.

Of the manga I read back then a lot of them were older titles and a lot of titles got licensed. The recent and frantic proliferation of American publishing companies has something to do with this. On the other hand, I think a lot of throwaway manga are being translated nowadays just for the sake of doing them. Whether or not they get licensed, some mangaka's 8th-best work or the 5th-most popular title in a monthly digest tend to be weak.

The result is that in a time when a very large quantity of manga is being translated and made available, I have no way of distinguishing a lot of it as being worth reading. I can't download and try it all out, so I just have to pass a lot of it up sight unseen.

I am not interested in boosting or bashing any particular group, which is why I am not naming names. I would just like to know what other people think about these matters.

[MasafumiGotoh]

Manga? I bet half the people wouldnt want to read manga. They all want the action and animation and they dont care about the story period. I am not saying its a bad idea but I dont think this wouldnt work out well. Mainly people who watched the anime would want to read the manga here. Its all in reverse in Japan i believe.

[snoopy]

*cough*narutards*cough*

Anyway. The manga community is a WONDERFUL internet family. At least those of us who have been here for a while are. We poke fun at each other, share group members across as many as 3 or 4 groups at a time, and generally get along really well. That leads to things like MangaJouhou which is run by multiple people from just about every background the community has to offer and is fully endorsed by the rest of us. It's almost like a sanctioned clubhouse of sorts for the scanslating community (who are, just so you know, far more intelligent on average than the anime community *glances at Naruto board*... also older and more mature). If we could somehow set up something like Jouhou full of series reviews and recommendations, then that would fix the problem of not knowing what you'd like. As it stands, the only difinitive source for any of this is the limited reviews at Jouhou (not like they aren't trying of course, but there are other things to do). There are many anime sites based solely on reviews that have gathered quite a following, yet there are no such manga sites even though their are exponentially more seires available in the manga format than there are animated. I think it'd be great for us to make a good site with reviews and recommendations for people new to the community as well as people lost by all of these worthless new groups.


Now, speaking of worthless new groups. There are far too many groups preying on established groups' projects in order to gain fan support. There really must be some kind of check in place against this shit. I mean, we made a community based on mutual respect and the young guns either don't know or don't care and the fans are retards regardless. Meh, there's no way to do it and I'm ranting since it pisses me off, but it's still true. Then there are the new groups with an editor 'seeking scanner and translator for shonen jump titles' and those go without comment as people that need to be banished from the community entirely. Hell, when I mentioned the 'unwritten rules of the manga community' in the channel the only guys who knew what I was talking about were the older editors. There's so much crap going on now that not even the new blood knows that's going on anymore. There need to be initiations of some kind to inform new groups what is and is not considered acceptable along with some kind of punishment (or perhaps lack of support from the rest of us) when those codes of conduct are ignored.

Anyway, sorry for the rantings. But I just wanted to get it off my chest~

[zalas]

Originally Posted by snoopy

Now, speaking of worthless new groups. There are far too many groups preying on established groups' projects in order to gain fan support. There really must be some kind of check in place against this shit. I mean, we made a community based on mutual respect and the young guns either don't know or don't care and the fans are retards regardless. Meh, there's no way to do it and I'm ranting since it pisses me off, but it's still true. Then there are the new groups with an editor 'seeking scanner and translator for shonen jump titles' and those go without comment as people that need to be banished from the community entirely. Hell, when I mentioned the 'unwritten rules of the manga community' in the channel the only guys who knew what I was talking about were the older editors. There's so much crap going on now that not even the new blood knows that's going on anymore. There need to be initiations of some kind to inform new groups what is and is not considered acceptable along with some kind of punishment (or perhaps lack of support from the rest of us) when those codes of conduct are ignored.

I think this phenomenon is simply an extension of all the crap fansub groups that are building up (all those extra Naruto fansubbers etc.) Scanslations are nowhere as popular as digisubs, but now that it's getting more recognition, more and more people develop this tendency to want to try doing it themselves. Furthermore, there's a lot of people out there who think they can edit manga, because it looks easy.

[Ookla The Mok]

Amen, brother snoopy.

[hanlerris]

I could understand why many of the people who have been involved with manga translation are grumbling about the new wave of groups which are popping out. However with new age comes new ways. Anime and now manga have finally become extremely popular and gained a large following. It is only natural for the new groups to be formed. In my view it is better for the readers, because at the end it would promote wider choice of manga available.
As for the original post, some sort of a site that contains unbiased reviews for manga series is the only answer to culling the good series from the bad.

[snoopy]

The only complaint I have with new groups (besides their blatant lack of respect for the people that began the community they're enjoying right now) is that they're the reason we have to cull the good from the bad to begin with. It used to be that everything translated was good. There may be genres that you didn't like, but you knew to avoid them, and you knew that if someone took the time to scan, translate, and edit it, then it would be worth reading. That is no longer the case. Series that are worthless crap are seeping into the community and mixing in with truly wonderful stories that most people won't ever read simply because they can't find them and get turned off by the loads of gardbage before they stumble onto the gem. The fans should have some place where they can read a general unbiased description (I bold it so that no one reads it as 'review'. The first thing they'd see shouldn't be a 'this is good, this is bad' statement, rather a 'this is about') and then see a list of reviews and rankings written by other fans so they know if the series is worth reading.

[jennwenn]

The fact is that a lot of crap is published in Japan. Maybe its good for us to get to see some of this bad manga so we can fully appreciate the good ones. I use scanlations to shop around so I know what is the good stuff to buy from Sasuga bookstore. I can download crap and not worry about wasting money.

As for knowing what series are good, I find that the scanlators I trust tend to pick up quality series that I would like. These are groups like Snoopy, Omanga, Toriyama's World, MangaScreener, JimenJuushin, SakuraCrisis, MangaProject, etc. Other than that, I follow series by a certain mangaka whose past works I have enjoyed.

Every now and then, I try a random group and random manga that has an interesting title or picture or description. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised. Usually not but there's always the chance so I keep at it. It does annoy me when a website has next to zero pictures and information on their site. Um, advertise?

I never really noticed the popularity-leecher problem in the scan community. There are so many titles to cover that over-coverage of a certain series doesn't seem like much of an issue. Scanreaders tend to get their manga from the same source (IRC, direct download w/the site bookmarked) so its not like Animesuki where they can immediately pounce on the next thing they see, regardless of where its from.

I don't see much to complain about.

And btw, being a Naruto fan is not mutually exclusive with liking quality manga (or anime for that matter). I like to consider myself a fan of both.

[Quarkboy]

I've only recently tried reading manga scanlations, and I really did find a bewildering array of choices out there.

What I find amusing is how you seem to be saying that the scanlation community has the opposite problem of the fansub community: Instead of all the groups picking only the "popular" or "best" series, and less popular ones being left out (like with fansubs), you are complaining that too broad a spectrum of manga is being translated, so it's difficult to figure out what is or isn't worth your time.

The reasons behind this difference I beleive are clear: Fansubs are much harder to distribute, therefore more emphasis/ego's are affected by something's popularity. BT has only increased this, by giving a sort of real time measure of a series popularity (Seeds/Leechers count). Also scanlations are not nearly as popular as fansubs overall anyway. So what we need is sites like Manga-jouhou or maybe others to have some kind of measure of popularity or a series, thus giving incentive to groups to work on projects people might actually like. I sound like a republican: "Let the market-forces decide what will and won't be scanlated, by giving the consumer information about his/her choices".

[babbito2k]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

I've only recently tried reading manga scanlations, and I really did find a bewildering array of choices out there.

"Bewildering" is a good word for it.

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

What I find amusing is how you seem to be saying that the scanlation community has the opposite problem of the fansub community: Instead of all the groups picking only the "popular" or "best" series, and less popular ones being left out (like with fansubs), you are complaining that too broad a spectrum of manga is being translated, so it's difficult to figure out what is or isn't worth your time.

Who, me? I go back to the old school when everything was on tape; there were fewer groups, most fansubbed titles were worth watching etc. It seems to me that the fansub scene is subbing everything in sight, not just the popular series - is there anything being shown in Japan this season that you don't have a chance to see? I have no gripes about this - it's very democratic and interesting. But it's also easy to get some idea about the current anime as far as what it's like and so on.

Also, anime is derived from popular manga or popular games whereas 2nd- or 3rd-rate manga might just be filling up pages in a monthly digest with only marginal interest from the digest's readers. So there is already a bit of filtering there.

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

The reasons behind this difference I beleive are clear: Fansubs are much harder to distribute, therefore more emphasis/ego's are affected by something's popularity. BT has only increased this, by giving a sort of real time measure of a series popularity (Seeds/Leechers count). Also scanlations are not nearly as popular as fansubs overall anyway. So what we need is sites like Manga-jouhou or maybe others to have some kind of measure of popularity or a series, thus giving incentive to groups to work on projects people might actually like. I sound like a republican: "Let the market-forces decide what will and won't be scanlated, by giving the consumer information about his/her choices".

I really don't care what's popular, and I don't want to see scanlating turned into some kind of popularity contest. It's easy enough to do a tie-in manga for an original anime to attract people - but there's no guarantee that that sort of manga is any good.

I think the difference is the lack of information. The people who know the manga best are the translating groups and other people who are reading the monthly digests and tankubons. There have been some nice sites from a few readers. The translators can also give some idea about the manga by maintaining an informative website about their own projects but not all of them do.

I think the idea of a one-stop information site as mentioned by others is worth trying. With enough manga readers, even a small contribution from each would add up to a worthwhile project. And the groups would have some feedback they may be interested in.

Originally Posted by jennwenn

The fact is that a lot of crap is published in Japan. Maybe its good for us to get to see some of this bad manga so we can fully appreciate the good ones...

...and then you go on to say that you are limited in what you even try to read, which is where I started off. I also refrained from mentioning any particular groups because I don't really want to get into voting on them here.

What I am "complaining" about is that if more information was available, any group's project could be better evaluated, which could lead to people finding more titles they liked. This is the possibility which interests me.

[ubb]

I don't understand what the topic starter is arguing about. The smaller scanlation groups that reside in yahoo most likely does not have the manpower to make a website and provide an archive of description of what they are doing. The sites I go to(snoopy, mangaproject, da gurlz, etc.) all give a tidbit of what the manga series they're translating is about. I think your complaint was that there are too many manga and you do not have the source to identify the good ones from the bad ones. If you want info you can go to dailymanga.org(although I tried translating the french site into english using google toolbar, it never worked for me, maybe babelfish would work). Or if you still have any doubt, scanlation sites, contrary to your belief, does provide information on their active projects.

/me scanlates yaki from vol 8-10 just to piss snoopy off.

[Quarkboy]

I think in the end you (we) just need to be paitient. There is clearly a need for a decent web-database of scanlated manga, with genre/user rating/edited reviews and links to scalator groups. With the growth in popularity scalated manga is going to get from the recent anime shows like Midori no Hibi and Tenjou Tenge is going to cause, I would be surprised if someplace doesn't pop up that fullfills this need.
It's a difficult job, however, and would probably be best implemented as a new function of one of the well established manga sites.

As a stop gap, however, I wonder if there is a lively forum discussion somewhere, much like animesuki's fansubs forum? I know that I get a decent idea of what's good and what's not by looking there; is there any decent forum for manga?

[bluemist]

ubb: dailymanga has an english version, just click the USA flag icon near the top.

Maybe today, if a person is the ultimate manga scanlation collector, he may have a series listing bigger than anime fansubs. There's really a HUGE variety of manga series that are being done by hundreds of groups it's really impossible to track.

But I think it still has the anime fansub logic there. Look for info on the series first before getting it. Just as anime fansubs has a lot of good releases, manga releases have loads of good stuff as well, and vice versa. Sometimes one can find a rose among the thorns. Well I did hear about Aishiteruze Baby because of scanslations, long before the anime...

[snoopy]

hahah, if you did that I'd crush you, ubb.

The fact that we have 3rd rate series being translated by 1 man groups doesn't bother me in the least. What does bother me is that the sheer number of these little groups is washing out the community. Hell, I've been asked by countless people in the channel "What the hell is this 20thcb thingy everyone's talking about...?" and that's just sad. I know that as the fans start to pile up in the community that people will come looking for ego boosts and so forth. But those of us who have been doing this ever since we were lucky to get 300 people reading our work regularly care more about sharing incredible stories with other fans than we do about getting the most seeds for our bit torrent files. That's why it pains me to see people getting turned off from the community because they choose 5 random series that all suck and then never read the wonderful mangas that will never be made into anime.

And there really isn't a single forum for every manga like what we have here for anime. Every group has their own forum where people talk about their projects and maybe a small number of other series. Then there are a few independant general manga boards... but there's nothing that really brings together people from every background together for discussions.

[jennwenn]

Originally Posted by babbito2k

jennwenn: The fact is that a lot of crap is published in Japan. Maybe its good for us to get to see some of this bad manga so we can fully appreciate the good ones...

...and then you go on to say that you are limited in what you even try to read, which is where I started off. I also refrained from mentioning any particular groups because I don't really want to get into voting on them here.

What I mean is that I approach the scan community like I would a bookstore. I trust certain publishers and certain authors. I explore every now and then what looks pretty, what has a pretty "cover". Isn't this how consumer choice has always been? You could miss something amazing, catch something amazing. Its like shopping. The more choice the merrier to me, but its obvious I can't have it all.

I mentioned groups not to boost someone's ego but because I thought it could be helpful to someone who wants to find good manga. (Keeping in mind that this is just as illegal, if not more so, than fansubs. But hey I'm guilty.) I like hearing other people's suggestions, so mentioned mine. But knowing forums, this could turn into a group bashing thread so I won't mention any more names either.

What I am "complaining" about is that if more information was available, any group's project could be better evaluated, which could lead to people finding more titles they liked. This is the possibility which interests me.

Oh, well I can totally agree with that. The more information the better. I think everyone wonders if there are good things that they are missing out on, and with that sentiment I can agree. Sure, if every series had a detailed description somewhere, I could feel more at ease about possibly missing something cool. I hate the feeling that I can't watch all the anime out now for instance. However, I don't think we should blame the increased supply of scanlations for that feeling, no matter how crappy some of these new groups may be.

I guess I just can't understand how more choice is a bad thing.

[yadonashi]

I don't like it when there's no picture of it somewhere on the site. Jeez, let me prejudge it before I read it...
maybe one of the reasons a lot of "bad" titles get scanlated is because half the time the person buying the manga can't read japanese and when I go to uwaji the manga is shrink wrapped(so us dirty american devils wont grease up the pages with our filthy little hands XP) so it's hard to find a good manga

-

[Bullsquat]

I kind of agree with your sentiments babbito. There was a time when the only mangas I read are stuff coming out of three or four certain scanlation groups. But over the past year, the number of groups have grown exponentially and rapidly. The thing is, out of the hundreds of titles being released by the many obscure groups, there are always those one or two gems, good quality manga waiting to be recognized. The problem now is finding them.

For a while, I was downloading mangas without knowing much about them except from the short synopsis that is provided to me. Often times these titles do turn out to be 3rd rate series and they do dissapoint. I think its obvious that a lot of these mangas are lacking in information and they are being released just for the sake of releasing them.

But I also agree though that having more scanlation groups emerge should really be a good thing because you are given a lot more choices. I also find that scanlation groups have a more close-knit relationship with each other in which they would sometimes lend their hands to other group's projects and even freely promote other groups.

I just think that unlike the digisub anime community, the manga scan community has only recently grown and it is growing so rapidly that there are too few information to cover all the new happenings around the community. Although, I found websites like Manga Jouhou and Daily Manga to be helpful sites, they are still a far cry from anidb and animenfo (although animenfo has gotten a little weird lately with decent reviews getting deleted for no reason) in terms of being informative. Only a few titles have reviews on them while most titles were given very little details except for the name of the groups scanlating them. Perhaps in the future, the scan community will become even more established and information will become more accessible to fans.

Nowadays, I rely mostly on word of mouth to decide which manga to read. Once in a while browsing randomly still has its rewards *cough* Kagome, Kagome *cough* *cough*. Its usually a waste of time though.

[zalas]

Originally Posted by Bullsquat

But I also agree though that having more scanlation groups emerge should really be a good thing because you are given a lot more choices. I also find that scanlation groups have a more close-knit relationship with each other in which they would sometimes lend their hands to other group's projects and even freely promote other groups.

This only helps if the groups improve. I'd love to see a lot of new manga groups putting out quality releases. However, if their motivation is to simply to fanscan because "it's the cool thing to do" then they're not likely to get better.

[hobobaggins]

Originally Posted by zalas

This only helps if the groups improve. I'd love to see a lot of new manga groups putting out quality releases. However, if their motivation is to simply to fanscan because "it's the cool thing to do" then they're not likely to get better.

how come i have never ever seen you before, and you have 600+ posts?

i dont think anyone fanscans because they think it is cool...

the proliferation of scanlation groups are mainly due to the increase in anime popularity... it just cant be helped.

i just hope everyone is having fun.

[Megane]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

I've only recently tried reading manga scanlations, and I really did find a bewildering array of choices out there.

I'm in the same boat, in fact I was only very recently made aware of how expansive the fanscan scene is because of the Good manga that many may not know about? thread. I was overwhelmed when I first visited Manga Jouhou, from the sheer number of different groups and titles available.

What I find amusing is how you seem to be saying that the scanlation community has the opposite problem of the fansub community: Instead of all the groups picking only the "popular" or "best" series, and less popular ones being left out (like with fansubs), you are complaining that too broad a spectrum of manga is being translated, so it's difficult to figure out what is or isn't worth your time.

At the moment I'm just picking out the odd title or two I've been recommended by word-of-mouth, and I like the idea of a "Manga of the Week", but I've yet to try any of those. Is a new title every week too frequent? Is this an example of the flood of mediocrity that has been mentioned?

The reasons behind this difference I beleive are clear: Fansubs are much harder to distribute, therefore more emphasis/ego's are affected by something's popularity. BT has only increased this, by giving a sort of real time measure of a series popularity (Seeds/Leechers count). Also scanlations are not nearly as popular as fansubs overall anyway. So what we need is sites like Manga-jouhou or maybe others to have some kind of measure of popularity or a series, thus giving incentive to groups to work on projects people might actually like. I sound like a republican: "Let the market-forces decide what will and won't be scanlated, by giving the consumer information about his/her choices".

Now I don't want to belittle any of the hard work that the fanscan groups have put into their projects, but I feel that perhaps the rise in the number of groups might be because of the relative difficulties involved in producing a fansub or a fanscan. Even I, a total beginner to the scene, have done my own fanscanning (although it was only for fun). So it's attitudes like mine that create a lot of new groups, instead of lending talent to the already established greats.

I think in the end you (we) just need to be paitient. There is clearly a need for a decent web-database of scanlated manga, with genre/user rating/edited reviews and links to scalator groups. With the growth in popularity scalated manga is going to get from the recent anime shows like Midori no Hibi and Tenjou Tenge is going to cause, I would be surprised if someplace doesn't pop up that fullfills this need.
It's a difficult job, however, and would probably be best implemented as a new function of one of the well established manga sites.

Agreed. I've noticed that Animenfo have a manga section, but it seems incredibly lacking (for some reason, I couldn't even find Azumanga in there...). Also, if Animenfo's anime reviews are anything to go by, I don't think it can be used as a bias-free source of manga info... I think Snoopy is on to something when he says we need more unbiased descriptions. Most of the fanscan groups' sites that I visited had their own descriptions, but the big database sites like Manga Joujou lacked these.