The spectrum

[*Kenji Murakami]

So, how is this going to be handled? Has there been a consensus, or are you guys still hashing things out? And, what about the VIP members? The scans will still be found in the downloads section, right?

[*Jess♥]

lost unit is learning how to do an html page, we'll be releasing that way.

as much as I'd like to say I trust VIP members, I don't. anyone can hand out $5 and they could be trustworthy or not. as such, it would defeat the whole object of doing an html version.

so no, there will not be a separate scanlation for VIP members.

Toku warrior, you need to catch up man! forget about money and feeding yourself and rent and all that, you know guyver is more important than life itself!

[*Kenji Murakami]

So, will the scans be available for download at all anymore? I liked having the option to save them to my harddrive where I can print them out, both so I don't get eyestrain from reading the collected volumes all at once, and so I can pick out images to save from the individual pages.

Have you lowered the price of a VIP membership since I joined? Last time I checked, it was $10.

[*Jess♥]

vip membership was always $5.

If you want manga that you can read comfortably on paper, we need to get it properly published in English.

[*Kenji Murakami]

If you want manga that you can read comfortably on paper, we need to get it properly published in English.

Yes, that's the ideal, but until that time, I like having the option to print the thing out.

[Toku Warrior]

I caught up on it. read all of books 28 and what is translated of book 29 so far. the Sho and Aptom thing made me nearlt fall out of my seat. Is it me, or does that form resemble a mix of Ultraman and Biorider?

But yeah, I'm all for the html coding.

[LordSpleach]

Dude, you should've seen my freakout on it

[*Kenji Murakami]

Yeah, that form was all kinds of awesome.

[Toku Warrior]

It is! I love the design. Takaya-sensei, even after almost 30 years, Ur designs for characters still amaze me. I just hope we're getting close to the endgame.

But seriously, the darn thing looks like an alien style Ultraman. Well, it's no surprise as Takaya-sensei was inspired by Kamen Rider when he first started Guyver.

[*Kenji Murakami]

It is! I love the design. Takaya-sensei, even after almost 30 years, Ur designs for characters still amaze me. I just hope we're getting close to the endgame.

But seriously, the darn thing looks like an alien style Ultraman. Well, it's no surprise as Takaya-sensei was inspired by Kamen Rider when he first started Guyver.

He really does think up the coolest stuff. I eagerly await seeing what he comes up with next.

[*Jess♥]

hey guys,

I'm bringing up fresh data that needs to be considered.

what happens if somebody just takes my or durendal's translation and creates a scanlation with it, and posts it to a manga aggregator site, leaving out any way to identify it as ours?

would this not be worse?

what are the chances of this?

 

what are your thoughts about this guys?

[Guyver Four]

... The only alternatives I can think of is either providing just the translations and telling members where they can get the raws if they want to do the editing themselves. ...

 

... The only thing someone could do with a watermarked page is take the translation and scanlate it themselves onto a raw chapter... Which VERY few would ever do. I have seen it, but it is rare. ...

 

hey guys,

I'm bringing up fresh data that needs to be considered.

what happens if somebody just takes my or durendal's translation and creates a scanlation with it, and posts it to a manga aggregator site, leaving out any way to identify it as ours?

would this not be worse?

what are the chances of this?

 

what are your thoughts about this guys?

 

Ryuki, this situation was already mentioned by both Guyver0 and Matt Bellamy in this thread.  The answer to this problem is simple.  Do not provide direct translations to the Guyver manga in the first place.  For as long as they will exist, publicly or privately, anyone, such as myself, will use them to scanlate the manga series, with or without the Guyver Advocacy group's consent.  However, my particular intention to scanlate the Guyver manga series is to include them as a part of my private Guyver collection.  

If the Guyver Advocacy group wishes to honestly support the Guyver manga series and its author, Yoshiki Takaya, the group must stop providing direct translations to the manga.  Scanlating, or directly translating, the Guyver manga and sharing it openly, not only contributes to substantial piracy, it does not give publishing and production companies any incentives to invest time and money in to translating the series, when groups such as Guyver Advocacy is already doing the work for them, for free (which is why that raw pages of the Guyver manga series only exist on my Web site). 

 

However, a great amount of damage has been done.  As the entire Guyver manga series, up to the time of this message, has already been scanlated/translated by the Guyver Advocacy group, the group must consider the notion of whether ending their scanlation endevours to encourage publishers to officially translate the manga series is hopeful, or is now lost.

[*Jess♥]

Are any of you aware that most of your stuff was posted on Manga Fox, Anime Reader,and Ultra Manga as well? Most of The Guyver has Advocacy written on its typo. Although you should be aware that if its on the net and 'Not Encrypted" to where anyone can steal it or take it. Its just like a Dvd or Blu Ray,there are programs that allow you to hack the encryption to where you can decrypt it and copy it.If people want something bad enough,they will take it. I figured you guys took precautions to keep this from happening.

 

this is the biggest source of upset. that we know full well that it isn't just one site.

when it comes to scanlation, you can produce it and have somebody steal it to increase the popularity of their own site,

or you can decide not to produce it.

you know, it doesn't even bother me if somebody wants to share our work, it bothers me when people try and profit from our work in some way.

it would be just as bad if somebody takes my translation and uses it to profit in some way.

"yes, come to our site, we have all the best manga, come here and click on our ads to make us money!"

I don't think there is anything wrong with a site using unobtrusive ads to help with server costs, but I have a big problem with a site that purposely steals other peoples work and plasters ads all over the place to make profit.

I mean, if the site had no intention of profiting from other people's hard work, they would be doing that mangaupdates does.

[*Jess♥]

Guyver Four,

your post is incredibly potent.

 

I'm really trumped right now.

I mean, as long as we did scanlations, there were people like kenji, who did print out our work, but also bought the original manga at the same time.

this kind of thing encourages current fans to remain with the series and enjoy it and also buy the books at the same time.

but if what you are saying is true, then stopping doing scanlations is not going to help takaya-sensei in any way, because any damage is already done.  all that we would achieve is protecting our own IP, while having damaged Yoshiki Takaya's IP.

this would be quite heinous and I certainly wouldn't want to put myself or the Guyver Advocacy Group in that kind of position.

 

I'm a bit befuddled right now so I'll wait to see what everyone else has to say.

[Aether]

when it comes down to it Ryuki it is not your job to promote guyver in the western world, you have no obligation to do so and i think you should take G4's comments with a pinch of salt

having the story translated thus far is not harming the Guyver or hindering the publication possibility, it pains me to say this but i think any chance of it ever being published in english went with the 2005 tv series

that was the perfect time for it to get picked up but alas it did not. does this now mean that you would stop Ryuki? if someone said i can 100% guarantee you Guyver will not be published in the west - would you shut down JL and stop the scanlations /translations??

why should you? to not transltae the manga would just be silly as nobody would benefit from it. i wouldnt buy the tankobons if i couldnt understand them, and people would be upset without there Guyver fix! also why should we be the only people in the world not to enjoy our favourite manga out of a sense of misplaced / dilusional morality? there are hunderds of manga out there that people scanlate with not asecond thought for IP or a thought of supporting the manga ka or the franchise... guyver fans are different - at least the ones around here are..

i think what we have to remember where we are.....on a forum - in a COMMUNITY

As such (usually) Ryuki and Durendal provide a translation. they do that out of a love of the series and a friendship to those people around here, otherwise they could just read it to themselves and not bother about the rest of us.but what good would that do?

there would be no japan legend , no community where we can share our otakuness of the Guyver.

Guyver is special, its not your average manga, its not picked up by 20 scanlation groups and read by teeny boppers, its special to a lot of us westerners because we had a little taste of it in our youths and hungered for more of it and hunger for the conclusion of the awesome story when hopefully Shou XD smashers Archanfel into oblivion or whatever... without the efforts of Ryuki et al. Guyver would be a distant memory for some of us

This is why i would push for a private translation / scanlation. sod everyone else

i understand all points made. i think it comes down to if we should treat the translation as a conduit for those people out there who dont know about guyver to get into it or to be just self satisfying and just let our community enjoy it.

unfortunately and ultimately only Ryuki can make that decision.

either that or just take a chill pill n keep doing what you were doing anyway.


i hope none of this forces you to decide to just give up, obviously i selfishly want to keep understanding the Guyver in english but if you do stop then i guess i'll be getting the italian books and trying to do the old translation engine effort. but i do hope it doesnt come to that!!!!!!!!

thats it im done good night and happy new year!!!!!!!!!!

[*PrimalNemesis]

I say continue with what you have been doing. There is no stopping now. Especially since all of the Guyver manga has been translated and uploaded. The damage has already been done. Stopping now would only rob Guyver fans and any potential new ones the chance of continuing with the story. See it to the end. Even before Guyver was scanlated the original English publishing had been long since abandoned. There has and never will be a guarantee that Guyver will ever make an English comeback. We all were very fortunate that we got a new Guyver anime and English adaption. We are even more lucky that it is very accessible thanks to  Funimation. It is my honest opinion that we all continue with what we have been doing and support Guyver anyway we can.

[LordSpleach]

I'm in agreement with Krucifer and Aether on this one. To me, stopping the scanlations or even translations would be doing a disservice to the fans. Unless if you knew the manga was going to published by major company, there is no point in stopping.

 

I think at this point stopping would only have the effect of upsetting a Wookie.

 

I say do what you feel needs to be done, but don't stop. If you really want to stop those sites from stealing your scanlations, then you want to consider hacking them because they have no code of honor.

[*Jess♥]

Sorry if I gave the impression I was thinking of stopping translating altogether.

that's not where I was coming from.

please put it out of your mind.

 

I wanted to get your input.

[Guyver Four]

If the Guyver Advocacy group's true intention is to help increase the popularity of the Guyver manga to English literate individuals, the group must carefully think about whom do they have absolute loyalty to, the public or Yoshiki Takaya.  In the situation of directly translating/scanlating the Guyver manga series, the Guyver Advocacy group cannot have their loyalty to the both of them.

 

Ending the direct translations/scanlations to the Guyver manga will help increase the probability that a English-based publisher will obtain the series for translation and publication.  Should the Guyver Advocacy group will continue to directly translate/scanlate the manga, the likelihood of an official Guyver translation and publication to come into existence will further decline.  It is up to the discretion of the translation group to determine what is more important to them, and whether or not that they will decide to do what is right and show what it is that they truly stand for.

[*Jess♥]

Mercury-8619, I read carefully and considered carefully.

it is not easy to hear things like that, I certainly appreciate the weight of your words and what it means.

I don't like to think that I have much influence, or that I am any different from the rest of you guys, but I have to concede certain things.

You are absolutely right that I do have a responsibility towards the people I have provided for with anything that I have done.

I will keep that firmly in mind.

I do consider takaya-sensei all the time. I guess this is why I strive to keep this project running because if it were left to somebody else to scanlate guyver, they may not have as much sympathy for the people who make guyver.

This is why I wanted to make it clear that I have no intention to pull the plug at this time. I have not had that intention since the start of this thread almost a month ago. The reason I revived this thread is because i am seeing weaknesses in the plan to do an html page as a translation device.

 

Guyver Four, once again a strong post. I am appreciating your views in this situation.

I need to respond to your post because i see a different point of view.

where you say that if we stop all translation, it would increase the chances of an official publication in english, I disagree. I would like to amend the statement to something more like this: if there were no translation of guyver at all from now on, the chances of a publication would be increased. but if we stop doing it, and if guyver were popular enough for a publisher to consider it, then somebody else would translate it.  if nobody else would consider translating it, then  doubt the publishers would see it as being popular enough for them to consider publishing it.  it's sort of a double edged sword.

I find it interesting what you said though. allegiance to takaya-sensei or allegiance to the fans.... is it really so hard and fast? it's an open question. I wonder if it is the fans opposed to the author, or is it possible to focus on one while also holding the other in highest regard? or is that what you meant anyway?

[lost unit]

what if this html works it would slow people down about ripping us off.

What if the translation was only seen by certain people then adapt that translation to html method were working on.That way if people did wanna scanlate it themselves they would have to write each line out not many people would do this compared to ripping a scanlated page.

[Aether]

Ending the direct translations/scanlations to the Guyver manga will help increase the probability that a English-based publisher will obtain the series for translation and publication.

i dont get why you think that no english translation would equal a publishing company starting to release Guyver??

where are you getting this idea from???

the last graphic novel Viz released was in november 1997

chuang yi , not even a western publisher, tried and got stopped by kadakowa, so....?...

since then like i said the prime time to have started to publish Guyver for any compnay would have been around 2007/8 when the tv series was released in english. that was four years ago. so why if the advocacy stopped would a company all of a sudden decide to start publishing it???

the thing is even a company did publish Guyver in english any time soon. where would they start?? - most probably at the beginning!! that means 30 books to be translated and released...

even at one a month (that would be VERY unlikely) that is over 3 years worth of books,. it would more likely be 2 a year if we were lucky, thats 15 years to catch up to where we are now, 3 a year 10 years, 4 a year around 7 years....

lets say guyver 4's argument was sound, and that the advocacy translations have hindered the chances of an english release in the past, and that the advocacy translations didnt exsist, and a company did try and release it - it would still take 1 to 5years for them to catch up to a point where the story continues from where the tv series left off and in this time sales would have to be steady and profitable to continue... the likely hood of it maintaining sales for 30 books is unlikely.

im sorry but it just wont work.

many titles dont get fully translated and published for those reasons so the fans just get left with no end to a story... which is crap. ive read a few titles that just get dropped and it sucks.

the only loyalty any of us can show to Takaya is to support exisiting merchandise and to but any future merchandise...

seeing as none of us really have access to buy shonen ace monthly then the best we can do is buy the tankobons from japan. that way we are not hurting Takaya we are supporting him and his sales and the chances of kadakowa letting him continue and finish the story.

as simple as that sounds i think that is the only practical thing that we can do, and to encourage that we need at least a translation.

this notion that guyver advocacy has hurt the chances of an english publication is bullshit.

viz gave it up 15 years ago

no one bothered 4 years ago.

chuang yi got stopped or couldnt continue.

anyone getting the message???.....

thats why advocacy bothers because if they dont no one would.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Aether

[Guyver Four]

A translation group that provides direct translations, leading in to scanlations, like Guyver Advocacy, cannot have their loyalty to both the author and the public simultaneously, as they have no authoritative right from the author expressing consent to the group for producing such work on the material.  If permission was granted by the author to allow for a translation group to provide direct translations of the author's work, then the group would be able to give loyalty to both the author and the general public at the same time.

By directly translating/scanlating the entire Guyver manga series, the Guyver Advocacy group is taking away the duties of what a publishing company is responsible for in distributing a manga, and is continuously limiting its basic selling point for a publisher, in this case, the language translation.  For as long as direct translations/scanlations will continue, a publisher would not have a legitimate reason to produce an official retail version when such works already exist.  As an old idiom goes, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?", the average consumer is not expected to purchase a legitimate product if a cost-effective alternative is already available.  Any business that happens between companies, concerning the Guyver manga series, is independent from the actions given by the Guyver Advocacy group toward the Guyver community.

[durendal]

And here I thought we're done discussing this issue. Doing a scanlation may have its merits and pitfalls. Doing scanlation without the express consent of the author may be bordering plagiarism and can be considered as piracy. The saying "why pay for something when you can get it for free" may be true to most of the fans, but this might not be necessarily true for retailers. Retailers gauge the marketability of the potential product based on fan reaction. I would cite Naruto as an example. Before it was licensed, there were already scanlations and fansubs of the franchise. When it was officially licensed in English, it further increased the popularity of the franchise to the point of spawning the derogatory term "Narutards". The purpose why companies license a certain products is to make a profit. And if enough market for the fan base is present, then companies will be more open to licensing it. This gives the company opportunity not only in converting the literature into english, but put out enough related merchandise to make a profit. To me, anime or manga is not the primary source of profit for a license, but other related product licensing. The reason why Naruto is so profitable despite the rampant scanlation and fansubs is because the license holders have been releasing a number of products to increase the marketability of the franchise. They have Naruto costumes, bags, accessories, and other toys that fans can physically own. Even this community can attest, that despite having the free manga right in front of their screen, they still opt to buy the Japanese books. In other words, the literature is only an advertisement used to sell toys. I don't know why most of the western companies don't see this trend.

 

Given the current situation, I don't think Guyver has enough merchandise to market to the public, which is probably the reason why it has not yet been picked up by any company out there. It may also be possible as to why Guyver has not yet reached critical mass in Japan is because Mr. Takaya has been very particular in taking care of his characters. He doesn't seem to want to let others handle his creations freely (as depicted in the interviews). You will notice that he is involved in all of the projects related to Guyver. So I guess you can say that it is Mr. Takaya himself that is preventing the license of the Guyver into english.

 

If we want Guyver to be licensed in English, all the fans have to do their share and be loud with their adoration of the series. I'm afraid that most of the readers of Guyver are closet fans. Proof enough that there are literally hundreds of readers in this site and yet only a handful of them ever posts anything. Thus, equally making it difficult to get companies to notice this series.

[Guyver Four]

... Retailers gauge the marketability of the potential product based on fan reaction. I would cite Naruto as an example. Before it was licensed, there were already scanlations and fansubs of the franchise. When it was officially licensed in English, it further increased the popularity of the franchise to the point of spawning the derogatory term "Narutards". The purpose why companies license a certain products is to make a profit. And if enough market for the fan base is present, then companies will be more open to licensing it. This gives the company opportunity not only in converting the literature into english, but put out enough related merchandise to make a profit. To me, anime or manga is not the primary source of profit for a license, but other related product licensing. The reason why Naruto is so profitable despite the rampant scanlation and fansubs is because the license holders have been releasing a number of products to increase the marketability of the franchise. They have Naruto costumes, bags, accessories, and other toys that fans can physically own. Even this community can attest, that despite having the free manga right in front of their screen, they still opt to buy the Japanese books. In other words, the literature is only an advertisement used to sell toys. I don't know why most of the western companies don't see this trend.

 

Given the current situation, I don't think Guyver has enough merchandise to market to the public, which is probably the reason why it has not yet been picked up by any company out there. It may also be possible as to why Guyver has not yet reached critical mass in Japan is because Mr. Takaya has been very particular in taking care of his characters. He doesn't seem to want to let others handle his creations freely (as depicted in the interviews). You will notice that he is involved in all of the projects related to Guyver. So I guess you can say that it is Mr. Takaya himself that is preventing the license of the Guyver into english. ...

 

Using the Naruto manga as an example for a marketing product is not an appropriate series to be used in the same context as the Guyver manga series.  The Guyver manga was created at around a different societal culture with a very unique storyline in the mid-1980s.  The Naruto manga, however, was created close to the year, 2000, where the storyline was developed for an evolved society in a genre that was geared to be much more relatable towards the general public.  Due to its uniqueness and aggressive nature of the Guyver series (i.e., extreme violence and brutality), developing creative merchandise for the manga and anime has been, and still is, difficult to produce, as opposed to a light and flexible series such as the Naruto series.  Yoshiki Takaya's Guyver and his manga was meant to be used not for the basis of product merchandise, but as his primary selling tool, as it has been seen in its past history.  By removing the fundamental selling point of the Guyver manga with direct translations/scanlations provided by the Guyver Advocacy group, a publishing company to release its own translated version of the Guyver manga can progressively move further away from turning into reality, if this should continue to occur.

Yoshiki Takaya also had expressed his disinterest in an interview regarding the continuation of the Guyver television series of 2005 to 2006.  From what that I was told, Yoshiki Takaya had cancelled the Guyver Project to his production company.  However, the reason for Yoshiki Takaya's discontinuation of the Guyver TV series was not known.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Guyver Four