Red Sky of Japonesia (part 1) was released back in August in Gaku Gaku Animal Land with scans provided by Kefit from the copy that he bought. Needless to say, scans by almost anyone in the community are not as high a quality as the ones we usually get from an unknown source. What do I mean? Compare these pages:
The dimensions are a little off but you can compare them easier with Windows Picture and Fax viewer.
What I want to point out is the wing.
On the top is the scan that I found just today, and on the bottom is the edit that I did. As you can see, my join is not exactly perfect, but considering the raws I got, it went decently well. However, it doesn’t compare to the scans that came pre-joined which we’ve been seeing a lot lately in newer Touhou scans. See how smooth that the top scan is? I can reproduce the same quality (though with some variations on the wing outline depending on the scans), but this is practically flawless as far as joins go. Makes me wish I waited for these scans since the pre-joins make our work somewhat easier. I saw somewhat since there are other challenges that are more challenging the joins.
Slamming myself aside, I have been wondering about where the scans come from. One theory I’ve heard is that the circles themselves are the ones providing the copies and joining them after seeing some of Gaku’s editing work. I highly doubt this because I still feel, other than Wi-Z GARAGE who we should probably get in contact with more, that we’re nothing more than gaijin in their eyes who localize their work despite notes in their work saying to not reproduce them. If some of them are responsible for the scans, I’d really like to get in touch with them, and see if we can work something out.
Another theory is that some Japanese (it doesn’t have to be, but it seems plausible at the moment) visitors to the Touhou Image Board have seen the scanlation efforts and are providing the scans as well as the pre-joins. Granted, scans for other series have been available for a long time and also with good quality, but how many have you seen with pre-joins? I’m curious since I don’t spend my time looking at other series’ scans to know. If other series get the same treatment for pages that are supposed to go together (combined pages), then theory can get shot down.
Quite honestly, it could just some individuals who have a very good technique when it comes to producing scans. Commercial places like Toranoana and Melonbooks are likely candidates for scans too, but you know how people are when paying for stuff on the internet. Most people will avoid it if they can and only pay if they truly think it’s worth the cost.
Maybe we as Gaku should make a policy to just wait for scans or download them from the above commercial links. As much as I appreciate the community’s willingness to provide scans, some patience could be used since someone definitely can provide scans a whole lot better than ourselves unless that same technique that official scanners use is followed. It just makes the scanlation process a whole easier on the whole when good scans are acquired.
Sidetracking aside, we may never know who’s scanning these things.
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