Posted by: Chara
« on: January 30, 2012, 12:05:36 AM »This might be kinda long, boring, hold little meaning to you, but i have to say something to BWYS, it's sad that i could only really say this after drinking a little too much, a little too late into the night and after reading this chapter. The truth is, i've missed this manga. I missed it so much i purposefully forced myself to forget it existed so i wouldn't have to feel the wait for the next chapter.
But this manga, in a way saved my life. Is that a little dramatic? Yeah, it is. But what the hell, a little truth on the internet is something good every once in awhile. I'm an old manga reader, and i read many, many manga, and i've grown so tired of the battles and the friendships and the fan service. Fifteen years ago manga did not look as it does today (i don't just mean the art) but nothing has a real and true substance. It feels as if most mangaka's are clamoring for number 1 and as such all of the manga today is all surface. It's shocking, abhorred, and all so terribly boring.
But March Comes in Like a Lion in the antitheses to modern day manga, it ranks up there with Yoshihiro Tatsumi's "Abandon the Old in Tokyo", Asano Inio's "Solanin" or Yoshida Motoi's "Natsu no Zenjitsu". It's bold, real life, without too much angst and overly burdened "life is pain" motif.
And you guys handle the manga fantastically. You actually seem to care for the "free work" you guys put into it. So for that i can't thank you enough. I don't want to exclude anyone but i want to thank Kiwiish the proofreader, since i've proofread for other manga i have a small understanding of the daunting task proofreading can be, and i think they handle the words with a wonderful flare, as well does the translator Blazing_ice. But who am i kidding everyone did an awesome job with this manga.
I'll cut this off since this is getting kinda long; i didn't want to leave a simple "thank you" and then ask for the next chapter like a commonplace leecher, i wanted to express my true gratitude for the work you guys but in here. And to thank you for seeing this manga as worthy for your time to work on it.
Thank you again.
Thank you. Your feedback and encouragement really do mean a lot to the BWYS team and I. March Comes in Like a Lion is by far my favourite project to work on because I like it the most, and I know much of the team feels the same way. I too am very antsy to be able to read future chapters, and am frustrated that it is taking us months to get to the next release. I know that entire seasons sometimes pass between our chapters.
I promise you though I'm doing everything I can to speed up the process. We're up to date with raws with Japan, and when they aren't up to snuff Maris generously purchases, debinds, and scans volumes. Although this manga is of quite high level difficulty to edit and redraw (not to mention the frequency of redraws...), chapters are typically cleaned and restored well in advance. I usually complete typesetting within 24 hours of receiving the script from blazing_ice. I currently have scripts up to chapter 25.
The step where everything halts is consistently proofreading and quality control. kiwiish, and Foxfire as well do a phenomenal job with the writing. The prose in March Lion is much more complex than the average manga, and there is a lot of it. They are very conscientious about preserving beauty and articulating meaning in their work. If I copy a round of PR/QC into Word... it can be as much as 10 pages, 2000+ words worth of revisions, all pertaining to prose and sound effects. Even so I know there's still room for improvement, especially if we had the resources of a legitimate publication. But I'll only release a chapter if it's good enough to me, and I hope for BWYS to be a high watermark among scanlations.
Lastly on the low down, most BWYS staff are older scanlators in higher education or full time jobs. A hobby like scanlation is obviously secondary so when kiwiish and sometimes myself are being swamped at work... yeah.
I'll always support dialogue between those who read scanlations and those who create them. Thank you again, for being a reader who bothered to know who scanlated something they've read, to have visited their website or channel, and to have taken the time to express what you think about them and the work. That someone out there will read our release of March Comes in Like a Lion, like it, and care about it is what gives all of this meaning to me.
I only use the website to download as IRC is restricted here but i do understand the difficulties you face and won't mind if you only distribute through IRC. Good luck!