Demon Lord Retry publication

Bian Zoldark

is Demon Lord Retry still going to be publish by j-novel club or not ? because there has been quite some time pass since volume 9 published in japan. thanks for the answers.

GeorgeMTO

@Bian-Zoldark 3 months is not an unusually long gap between a volume coming out in Japan and prepubs starting up, especially when the series has been caught up for an extended period of time (in this case over a year) and the translator/editor may have other commitments to their schedules that is inconvenient for a single volume to displace.

I'd definitely still expect them to be working on the series, sometimes longer delays than this occur even when the series wasn't caught up to the Japanese release.

Bian Zoldark

yeah i know, i was asking this because i once saw a question regarding this on the net. is it possible that a case like this happened? i.e. a series dropped.

GeorgeMTO

@Bian-Zoldark I would consider it highly unlikely. 3 months is certainly not when I'd worry about that being the case. Maybe if there's been no news by the end of 2024, but even then it's no guarantee.

jpwong

How long licensing takes is also somewhat dependent on the Japanese publisher. Some are fast, some are not nearly as fast when dealing with their international relationships.

I normally put 6-8 months as a fairly standard time frame for a new volume on a caught up series from the release date in Japan, but there have even been issues with not caught up series running into delays completely beyond JNC's control.

Do keep in mind that JNC has never dropped a series mid-publication with the sole exception of the one they were asked to pull by the Japanese publisher.

Valanduin

To give an example of how long it can take, this example is from a different publisher, but with A certain magical index released the last volume of the English translation of the old testament arc on March 24th, 2020, then they released two side story compilations in November 2020 and March 2021, them just released the first volume of the new testament arc earlier this month in December 2023, well over 3 years since the latest main series volume and almost 3 years since the latest volume counting side story compilations a certain magical index is one of the biggest selling and linear timing light novel series out there, and even it can have gaps that long.

Shiny

My understanding is that one of the reasons caught up series can take longer is that while for existing volumes they can do a contract for multiple volumes, Japanese publishers are understandably reluctant to sign a contract for a volume that isn't published yet. This means that for such volumes JNC will have to wait until the next time they are in Japan doing a deal with the publisher to get the rights for it after it has been published (or at least when publication in Japan is set in stone). JNC then might have to wait for the digital files with all the text and art to be sent over.

I also assume that there is a stronger incentive for JNC to be prompt for series where Japan is several volumes ahead to maintain momentum on a series where them being prompt allows JNC to publish more volumes in a year, especially as it means less time for translators and editors having to re-read past volumes to help ensure consistency. *

This also presumably means that when you have translators and editors busy with series that have multiple volumes to translate the series with single volumes have a lower priority and have to wait for their original translator and editor to become free or a new one to be found. Some translators work for multiple publishers so their availability might not even be in JNC's control. The longer the series, the more work it is to bring a new translator or editor on board, so waiting several months for people to be free can make a lot of sense.

(* There might also be higher priority for series that JNC knows or suspects is just about to have an anime adaptation, but I can only remember one instance where this was obvious, which if I am not mistaken was Smartphone where they translated at least 3 volumes without a pause.)