I thought you guys deserved to know what's going on right now since the scanlation of this series has been plagued with a lack of information in the past. Imperial Scans, a group that is in the process of shutting down, had been apparently working on Maken-Ki! chapters up to Chapter 53. Kiss Scans decided to let them use their translations and take over the scanlation of the series until they release all chapters they have been working on.
Imperial released the next new chapter, Chapter 48, yesterday. You can read it on their site.
I can't really say I fully approve of this.
I'm going to continue my collaboration with Oppai Scans to release high quality volume scanlations. DeathsUncleBob actually bought and scanned Volume 9 himself, so the quality will be much much higher than any of his previous releases or Imperial's releases. At the very least, we will put chapters out a short time after Imperial, giving readers a high quality option. If Imperial lags and the translations are made available to us, we may just release before them. As much as I would hate to "steal" another group's project, I think you guys deserve to read new chapters as often as possible. After all, there is a long way to go still to catch up to the Japanese releases.
For now, we'll wait and see if Imperial Scans is really serious.
Being a fan of Maken-Ki! and seeing how much disrespect it got, I'm glad it's finally getting respect.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird that Imperial is motivated all of a sudden. Where was this motivation when they releases were months apart? Maken-Ki! is a good manga and it's been a real downer we had to wait so long for such releases.
What I don't get is how work has been done up to chapter 53? Why not devote the time to actual releases instead of holding them all up.
Oh, and you can download their releases. If you hit the reader in the top navigation between next page and previous page is a download link.
The work you do with Oppai Scans is incredible. The quality is amazing compared to the old releases and I really enjoyed rereading the series.
I didn't notice the DL tab. That's embarrassing...
DeleteApparently, only the founder is still working there trying to finish a lot of projects they started working on but never finished. It makes no sense to me that they would get so far ahead of themselves, but whatever. If he's alone, I would expect releases will still be sparse. We're working on Volume 9 and we will release new chapters, regardless of whether Imperial has released them yet or not. I'm not going to wait on something that could take months.
That's good news. With the action going on now, volume 9 is much anticipated. Especially knowing how the chapters for volume 9 are not yet released. It would be great to read the uncensored volume chapters before the actual monthly release chapters. :)
DeleteTurambar, you or DeathsUncleBob should edit your releases on mangaupdates.com
ReplyDeleteMaken-Ki is one of the series I have on my reading list but haven't started yet, but since I mostly use MangaUpdates to check for new releases, I would have never known about your HQ releases if I hadn't come here now. I would most likely just end up reading Hidoi's releases. Editing your latest releases on mangaupdates would help more people know about the awesomeness.
I'll probably end up downloading them first to check, but if you happen to see this before, are all the volumes in Oppai Scans the Tankoubon versions, or the first ones are just magazine versions collected into a volume for easier donwload?
I'm asking this because in the home page it says something about revising volume 2. I would ask this in Oppai's site but I don't think he has a comment option.
As of now, all releases with Oppai have been using another group's script, so I'm not sure if Manga Updates would allow them to be listed as actual releases. Maybe they still count. I'm not really sure. I didn't add them because he hadn't added any before we started our joint effort. If none of the chapters have shown up there, maybe someone has tried and MU didn't allow it. Maybe I'll try adding Volume 8 and see what happens. In any case, I think I will definitely start adding them for Volume 9 because I have permission from the translator of most of the chapters.
DeleteThey are all volume scans, but all current volumes use raws found online. Sometimes, the quality isn't as high as it could be because not all online raws are good. There are revisions because I guess DeathsUncleBob has more experience now and wants to correct mistakes.
Well, as I said, I downloaded them all to check the quality.
ReplyDeleteI didn't read the whole thing, but the few pages I cross checked with the version on Japanzai Reader, do seem to be a bit better and at least have an higher resolution, besides in a few occasions I noticed that some typos were corrected, so overall they should be better.
Although there was at least 1 page in volume 6, not sure if there are more in this or other volumes, where some kind of attack is being shouted, and instead of removing the Japanese words, a translucent black panel was put on top of them, and then the words on top of that, which Japanzai doesn't have.
Hopefully he'll end up doing a revision of all volumes and correcting that, otherwise I'll have to see if there are more occasions where that occurs, and decide if the quality improvement really out-weights those, unless the volumes are filled with those, I think it's fair to say they do.
Either way, thanks for pointing out his blog, otherwise I don't think I would have find it, and with him planning on releasing Blade Play and Monster Musume as well, I'm really happy I did.
One more thing, now more Scans of the Dead related, are you planning on translating Highschool of the Dead once it resumes? I'm asking because on TorpedoTits it said you were also working on Triage X, but since nothing has been released after volume 4, it's possible that you won't release HotD either.
Now, you probably already know what I'm about to say, but still.
I'm saying this because people have been asking Renzokusei scans to pick it up once it comes back. I'm not sure if they do plan on picking it up or not, but if they do and you're still interested in working on it, probably making arrangements for a collaboration would benefit both parts.
This is a post where they take suggestions on which series they'll pick up next:
http://www.batoto.net/forums/topic/11191-the-readers-choice-ii-feb-15/
Since I mentioned Triage X, is there any plans on further releases? And, do you happen to have a torrent or dll for XLG releases like you have for HotD? It's just that, since they released a v2 at some point, I'm not sure if the site where I download my manga is up to date on that.
Sorry for being such a pain in the ass.
I think he was learning how to redraw as he went along. He probably decided it was best to leave the original text than do a poor job. The early releases there are more for the high-res and being uncensored.
DeleteYes, we will pick HOTD back up when it resumes. Unless other groups have people living in Japan, I doubt they'll be able to release it as fast as us. Keep in mind both this blog and Torpedo Tits started solely for HOTD. Everything else, including Triage X, was just to pass the time during the hiatus. I know Triage has become a near travesty (something I am sincerely sorry about), but I am certain HOTD will be back here with the same quality and punctuality as on Torpedo Tits before the hiatus.
If another group picks up Triage X and releases new chapters before we can, that's fine. I would like to read new chapters in any case. As far as I know, though, we are still planning to release Volume 5. I'm going to do all I can to speed along the process.
I don't really want to host the torrent with XLG's releases. If someone else wants to, I can send them by another method and they can take care of the seeding.
lol did not read
DeleteI sent DeathsUncleBob an email through the site yesterday to thank him for the releases as well as ask him about that, he told me he didn't have much time back then and so couldn't do a better job at the time, although, he also told me that eventually all Volumes will suffer a revision to fix any mistakes, that one included, so I'll just wait for that.
ReplyDeleteMy point was more about the workload than how fast it gets released. If another team ends picking it up and you're still working on it, we'll have 2 teams working on the same project and doing different releases, when they could possibly work together to have less workload and possible providing even faster and higher quality releases.
I'm all about the love, I always find it dumb when 2 teams keep working on the same project on their own, instead of working together and making everything easier, for them and the reader who doesn't have to choose.
I started reading HotD something like 1 week before it got licensed and XLG removed their releases, so I discovered TorpedoTits pretty much as soon as it opened, so yea I know that it was created mostly with HotD in mind.
I'll be waiting for Volume 5 then, hopefully someone will pick it up if you decide not to release, or even if you do but don't plan on keep going, someone will keep this series.
I believe the version I have available to download is the latest, but if you could send me yours by that other method I wouldn't have any doubts.