Acquisitions Speculation - General
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@pleco_breeder Dark Horse has been caught up with the Japanese release of Berserk, but they always take on average of 13 months to release the newest volumes in English after the come out in Japan. Which is very infuriating, as manga doesn’t have a whole lot to translate.
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@legitpancake I'd think manga actually takes quite a bit of time, while not because there's a lot to translate but there's also typesetting and redrawing and other steps (forgive me as I'm not very proficient in the translation process of manga) all of which can take quite a bit of time to get to a satisfactory level
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@cibastian The difference with manga is that you don't need one person to do all of it, you can split the work between translation and image editing.
Also, it shouldn't take months to do all that work either. Amateurs/non-professionals can easily scanlate a manga chapter in 24 hours, so even if you gave a professional team 48 hours per 18 pages, that still results in less than a month per volume.
Basically, given the 6-month lead time necessary to publish a book in North America, there's no way a given team shouldn't be able to send that book to the printers within 2 months. That means, based on Pancake's numbers, there's another 7 months tacked on there for reasons unrelated to actually getting the book ready for print.
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@myskaros The thing I'm hearing on the gaming side of English localization of Japanese products is that it is starting to get to be really difficult to get contract translators with experience due to how many jobs are currently available.
Not certain how much that is hurting LN releases but I could see it causing slowdowns if there is a delay in having the same translator/editor working on an existing series. Each book coming out needs something like 4-6 passes to hit a point where it's releasable, (possibly more if its an inexperienced team) there would be massive delays if the final edit pass by a senior editor is delayed by said editor having 6+ books to check before going gold and then falls ill.
So I can see a more traditional publisher like Yen holding the dates further out if their backend is at risk. For them it's probably safer to put the brakes on than to risk failing to meet delivery dates, as distributors can get viscious if contracts aren't met.
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@jampodevral The fact that JNC is still able to get their books out on time with no significant delays due to translation slowdown (their only delay troubles have been on the licensing side) leads me to still believe that what you're talking about is probably an issue unrelated to the translation workflow. Also, video game translation is a much lengthier process than light novel/manga/VN translation, so I don't think it's really applicable to explain why a single volume of Berserk takes 13 months to release.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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When a new vol of a LN gets released in English there is a minimum of 6 months wait for when we get it in English (for print). Now add the time it takes to license the LN then translation. I think 8 months is a reasonable time to wait for a print of a LN. I doubt any sane publisher will set the release date exactly 6 months after the JP release or even 6 months after it gets licensed. It seems much better to set a release date when most of the translation is done and JNC takes about 2 months to translate and release volumes so again 8 months seems very reasonable.
Edit: I think Sam even said for the print releases that once caught up they should release 6 months after the Ebook release. Anyone can correct if I'm wrong.
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@myskaros You might argue that JNC has "hired" dozens of people to review translations between the "first" and "final" edits, so there is a difference in "staff" between JNC and other outlets.
The fact that it seems like about 20 of them post under the ID "Terabyte" is just an illusion. :)
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@drone205 six months after the eBook is getting pretty close to twelve months after initial Japanese release. I think Seven Seas and JNC doing digital first makes the length between releases look faster but once the print happens I’m not sure if it’s really that much faster comparing simply print release to print release, though this is just me spitballing and someone correct me if I’m wrong.
P.S. I’m fine with this as I prefer digital and wouldn’t be sad if everything was released digital first
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@the-green-death I have begun moving all my physical over to ebook purchases so I have more room for my other hobbies in my apartment.
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Seven Seas Licensing Event next week:
https://twitter.com/gomanga/status/1116821680339521538?s=20
(Nothing mentioned about light novels yet afaik, so keeping expectations low until we hear otherwise).
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I'm looking forward to whatever the ghost ship titles will be, since they havn't announced too much stuff for that line lately. Besides a new mascot apparantly. I hope we get some light novels this time as well.
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Oh yeah, forgot about the mascot reveal. Should be fun. Here's hoping for at least one LN. =]
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We got 5 novel announcements coming this Sunday.
as for the lns, we have another rescue (start your bets now!) and then 2 that are part of my new push into a new genre, 1 that's my "answer" to do you love your mom, and 1 that's got a title format that's very common in light novels that we don't have one yet.
What I'm really curious about is that other license rescue.
It's probably another series Tokyopop used to have. Possible contenders include:My money's on Gosick personally.
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I think series with too many volumes are gonna be a difficult rescue until Sam has more data on it. I bet it's gonna be another short/medium series that gets rescued. For example Gosick or Slayers or The Twelve Kingdoms have too many volumes to be considered right now imo.
Let's remember also that Sam usually licenses volume by volume, but with FMP he confirmed having licensed all 12 at once (I guess because it was a rescue?).
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@terabyte Gosick isn't very long, it only has 9 volumes in the main series, but I suppose if you count the 4 GosickS side volumes, and 4 volume "New Continent" sequel series. But 9 volumes isn't too bad, and I believe the fan translation ended after 3 volumes, so it should be ripe for the taking. Not to mention Sam has connections with Fujimi now.
Also 12 kingdoms is only 8 volumes long.
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Some other possible rescues are Shakugan no Shana and Hidan no Aria (or Hentai Prince, if you bend the definition of a rescue). But I do think one of the Tokyo Pop rescues is much much more likely.
I'd be more inclined to put my money on Scrapped Princess or Slayers, though. 12 Kingdoms has the advantage of being shorter, but I don't really have any recognition for it, so it's hard for me to judge.
For Sam's other hints, I feel like "answer" should be guessable, but I don't have any good ideas. For the 2 in a new genre, I'm hoping for Altina and Alderamin (is that "senki" they'd fall under?); but that's more wishful thinking than strong reasoning.
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@hatguy12 Hidan no Aria is way too long (30+ volumes), same for Shana (26).
Scrapped Princess is already guaranteed a license somewhere down the line. Could be now, but I still think it's Gosick, since it's less than 10 volumes long. -
Oh, I saw it had 21 volumes on LNDB which is why I excluded it. But if the main series is ~10 volumes then it might indeed be an option.
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@terabyte said in New Acquisitions Speculation General [9 NEW AQUISITIONS ANNOUNCED (5 MANGA, 4 LNs) 1 LN Unconfirmed!]:
Oh, I saw it had 21 volumes on LNDB which is why I excluded it. But if the main series is ~10 volumes then it might indeed be an option.
Unfortunately, LNDB counts re-releases to the total volume count...
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@doublemangekyo
I'll add The Crest of the Stars (first series is complete at 3 volumes) as a possibility since JNC has a relationship with Hayakawa. There's also the possibility of Dirty Pair (4 volumes, also Hayakawa, and Seven Seas just announced the manga). They may not be as popular as some of the others, but I can still hope.
