In regards to Baka-Tsuki, We certainly do not deny that our Translations are not of \professional\ quality.

But at the same we actively cultivate our \Fan Quality\ as we value our translation community as we like to focus more on the ability to promote Japanese light novels to the wider community then to actually aim for any sense of professional quality.

As we feel this will undermine the desire to see an official release and quality gap between an employed paid professional translators and a weekend hobby novice.

We applaud A.F.K/Stratos achievement to advance to professional status and we all admired his accurate translation at Baka-Tsuki and hope some of our own home grown Translators will find the interest of Japanese though our translated novels to take it to the next level and graduate to a more professional source and perhaps a career.

Please continue to support Baka-Tsuki as we hope to bring more word worth Japanese Novel to surface of popular Japan eccentric culture to the western world……..beyond!

best regards,

Onizuka-GTO
(Editor-in-Chief of Baka-Tsuki.org)

I got old copies of the Strato translation on hand and side by side line by line it is almost the exact same. This is by no means a bad think Strato and a.f.k.’s work in general is considered gospel among fans on the internet myself included so I couldn’t be happier with the situation so long as everyone got their just deserts.

For those that think it is natural for 2 translations of the same work to sound the same then I urge you to compare BakaTsuki’s translation of the novels. There are 2 extremes in translation the “literal” and “correct” and Strato is somewhere inbetween both. There are always debates and “fansub” drama between the two schools of thought and when 2 translators look at the same script it is rarely alike let alone almost line-per-line similar.

Japanese doesn’t have English 1:1 equivelents and their sentence strcuture is different so a lot is held in the editor and translator’s judgment. I do typesetting in doujin scanlations and one of my translator friends used to be an editor for BakaTsuki and from the stories I have heard when you put 5 people who know Japanese in the same room, reading the same script, and tell them to turn it into English all 5 will have a different approach. Partly the reason he quit was ’cause that translation drama and the enternal “literal” or “correct” debate.

I’m going to have to agree with HawkEye on this matter. While fan translations of light novels, scanlations, and scanlations are all undoubtedly illegal, it does provide a whole lot of free advertising. I certainly wouldn’t be able to read a fraction of the manga that I do read simply because it isn’t available in my area/is yet to be released in the U.S. Because of scanlations, I am able to become a fan of things I probably never would’ve otherwise seen, and when I love something, you can bet I buy it. (I own an obscene amount of manga…) While not all fans go out and purchase the product when it is finally, (if ever), released in their area, they do spread word of mouth towards other potential buyers. Not to mention, companies can see the popularity of unlicensed material that has become well-known via illegal fan translation and thus decide to license it. So while the whole deal is illegal, I don’t think it’s been hurting anyone too much, if the recent boom for love of anything Japanese over here in the U.S. is anything to go by.

Anyway, I’m very excited to hear about the official release, and will be buying ASAP.

He wouldn’t be the first, and certainly not the last, fan translator to go pro. I would call this a non-story.