This is a repost of what I wrote up in my old blog. Moved it here for completion and as a reminder.
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I’m not sure if people read some of the things we work on, but it feels really rewarding and worth it whenever people do read and enjoy them. It’s practically the first of two reasons why I still edit despite the current madness (the other is because I get to work on some neat stuff like Advent Cirno #0!). The madness also seems to calm down a bit more whenever a good story gets scantlated. By good I don’t necessarily mean funny or deep. Sure doujins made by The Hole of Yago and Tohonifun have that effect, but even ones with slice-of-life themes like FLIPFLOPs somehow attract people. Quite frankly, I tend to lean towards slice-of-life myself even if it’s just characters eating and talking around a kotatsu for the whole 16 pages.
This entry wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the work that gets put into scantlating the doujins.
Personally, I like to think that we editors bring the story to life. At least, the ones who put enough effort into editing bring the story to life. Honestly, some of guys would give up after going through some of things we’ve gone through. Anyone remember page 11 of Kaguya? (see: Tohonifun’s Kaguya) Try cleaning up a page with text on screentone on text. I had to ask help from Gaku’s best, Madcat, to give that page justice! Also on a related note, 158 pages of terrible scans from Wriggle vs SDM took (and is taking) 3 editors just to clean it up! If one person did all that, their brains would be fried and exhausted from the sheer amount of pages alone. All of that, time, and deciding how to best edit the story (plus maybe some sleepless nights though I don’t know who does that) makes me wonder sometimes if we’re actually doing a job rather than a hobby! I’d still like to think of it as a hobby. I don’t think I can handle this as a job with the added pressure from bosses. I rather work directly with the fans that read the works since that’s what it’s all about. (Though these days I’m actually thinking it would be an option in case the scientific/medical community doesn’t want me.)
While editors seem to be under appreciated most of the time, our translators are even more under appreciate. They deserve the same gratitude and respect for getting the whole process going. We editors have our challenges, and translators have theirs, but above that, we can’t do anything without them, and that’s a fact no matter how some of us may deny it. Reading the small prints, the research they have to pull up, making the translations as readable as possible, and just the basic knowledge of knowing how to read make them essential to the whole process.
Thank you for everthing you guys have done. We can’t do it without you. It’s that simple.
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