4

There is a lot of great series translated by folks like Baka-Tsuki - so, why do series take forever to end up over here, and for that matter, once they're licensed - how come some releases are so spread apart?

  • Spice and Wolf used to be a 6-month release cycle from Yen Press - it has been reduced now but this is still quite long
  • The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, and others also find themselves on strange timelines.

Does it really take that long to translate or is there something else here? I've heard things like they're licensed one at a time and they gauge sales before going on.

|improve this question
  • 2
    Have you read anything translated by Baka-Tsuki? Most of it is unpolished barely-English rubbish that would never pass muster at an actual publishing company. Producing good translations of novel-length fiction is difficult, and so I'm not surprised that it takes a while. (Of course, there may be other factors; this is just one that immediately comes to mind.) – senshin♦ Nov 18 '13 at 22:34
  • Light Novels is a smaller market than Manga or the usual products, so companies are usually wary about licensing them unless their anime/manga counterparts are large hits – Toshinou Kyouko Nov 18 '13 at 23:19
  • Baka Tsuki only translates things legally by the way. That could be part of the reason. They get permission before they put it on their website. – krikara Nov 19 '13 at 9:05
  • 3
    That's not right, Baka-Tsuki does not translate really "legally", and they of course don't get permission of the original publishers. That said, they're not exactly "illegal" either, they're in a gray area. – Ikzer Nov 19 '13 at 9:54
6

Light Novels are indeed harder to translate, but that isn't the real cause for their delay. The market for LN is really small outside Japan for a number of reasons so companies aren't interested in publishing them unless they are for very famous franchises (like Haruhi), and even then it's very risky.

As I said, translations and edition arent the reason per se, but that also affects. Translations in sites like Baka-Tsuki, while being done with lots of effort and having lots of stages for correction and quality check, doesn't quite fit the quality expected for a commercial release. Even in Baka-Tsuki the translations takes lots of time to be published, corrected and polished, so you can imagine how long that would take for a commercial-quality release.

|improve this answer
  • 2
    +1. The author of Log Horizon said the sole issue with translating his LNs is profitability. Finding a good translator is merely a matter of price. – Lawton Dec 8 '13 at 2:31
  • Marketing is another issue. If you don't market your titles, who's (aside from people that are already fans) going to know you can get it? – кяαzєя♦ May 2 '14 at 17:52
  • I think the marketing aspect is probably what killed the US release of Nisio Isin's Zaregoto novels. They didn't have a famous anime behind them like Haruhi did, and even the Bakemonogatari anime hadn't been released over here at the time, so they had no marketing power at all. – Torisuda Nov 11 '14 at 22:30

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.