As far as I can tell, I'm still the only game in town for this so here's the next chapter. I'm surprised that the author worked Unit 731 and Manchukuo into the story but a little history worked into fiction does spice it up a bit.
http://www.mediafire.com/?f5eznkk8l9s4mi4
RE your comment: I'm still the only game in town for this....
ReplyDeleteIt was generally accepted practice that after a title is claimed and worked upon by a scanlator, that other translators or scanlation groups leave that title alone. If a title is abandoned, then others may pick it up. This used to be nearly an ironclad principle (but isn't anymore) a few years back, but then the profit-motivated aggregator reader sites appeared. Others have called them "piracy for profit" sites and I have to agree this is the case with them.
The breakdown in scanlation "morals" about claiming titles seems related to rise of profiteering aggregator sites such as mangahere, mangafox, etc, which deliberately supported acted upon anti-fan principles behind the scenes.
One such behind_the_scenes activity was where the aggregator site paid $1000 to a scanlator group to stop scanlating a certain title (one of the top 5 manga titles) so that a different scanlator group being paid by the aggregator would then be the only one doing it with no competition, thus forcing everyone to get it from the aggregator's preferred scanlator group (which also eventually merged into the aggregator's regular staff). Various other cases also occurred, in particular with anti-profiteering groups such as A-Team, Odd Squad, and Japanzai which strongly detested the piracy for profit methods of certain aggregators and the scanlator groups that worked with aggregators for profit (payola). In return, the aggregators attacked their critics by sponsoring scanlators to "take over" the biggest titles being scanlated by the critics; if those scanlators had nothing left, they wouldn't have credibility with the casual fans.
This bitter and profit-oriented struggle brought to light one of the most ugly truths of today's manga "fandom"; the vast majority of manga consumers don't care about the morality of the piracy for profit struggle and side with the pirates on a "de facto" basis. Many casual consumers also attacked and mocked the scanlators such as A-Team, Japanzai, and others, for standing up against the profit-oriented Mangahere, Mangafox, etc. Eventually, many titles were "stolen away" from the anti-profit scanlators by supporters of aggegator sites. The struggle still goes on as aggregators still make monetary offers to susceptible scanlators for specific titles being made by scanlators that have been a thorn in the side of the profiteering aggregator sites. But since the vast majority of casual manga consumers supports profiteering aggregators (hurray for capitalism?), the piracy for profit sites have won the war except for the lingering battle between Odd Squad (very anti profit) and Easy Going Scans which makes things available to the aggregators. Odd Squad to fight the aggregators, used an online reader as well, so both sides backed online reading for convenience. So, the continued struggle was clearly not about online reading, but about where the fans would get their material. Odd Squad's reader was non-profit and supported by the author, so that is about as officially good as online piracy can get, but then again, Odd Squad had received emails on other titles from authors allowing them to continue scanlating. Easy Going Scans had their version used by profiteers. Of note is that one of A-Team's scanlation works was also lauded by the author who wrote that he would continue to allow the scanlation as long as it remained not-for-profit.
I liked how both Odd Squad and A-Team respected the authors' wishes, were being observed by the authors, and had both stated that they would drop titles upon the author's request. It's the high road and much better than the low road advocated by people who say that since scanlation is already immoral, the scanlators might as well be totally immoral and ignore the authors and scanlate for profit.
Some interesting information you posted that I was not aware of. My statement above was in reference to the possibility that this manga had been licensed for an english language printing. Unfortunately, I have been unable to confirm this so I released the next chapter. If anyone finds that it has, please let me know.
ReplyDeleteAs for relations between scanlators and sites, I have been contacted by the group I picked this up from and they approved of it. Also, I have never been offered or received money from anyone to continue or stop this scanlation.
The plot thickens! I should pay more attention to who is reposting my releases. Mangafox and Mangahere are owned by the same entity and yet Mangafox's Birdy page claims it is no longer available due to being licensed and yet everything is still available on their sister site, Mangahere. Hmmm...
ReplyDeleteLiked this one as well. I appreciate all the hard work on this series. Glad that someone who liked it picked this series up. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteRonin, if Birdy gets licensed, would you continue to scanlate it?
ReplyDelete@Ronin Ixioran
ReplyDeleteSo was my comment a few days ago on another update. I tried an internet search for english language birdy, but could only find this site, so I figure, even if it's "licensed" it's still not available.
Btw, I only found out about Ronin's work by searching MangaFox. Those sites have their uses.
Yeah, but Mangafox was better i the past. It showed who the scanlator is. Now you have to go all the way to MangaUpdates to check it out or use Google. It doesn't take much time to check it, but it's annoying.
ReplyDeleteMangafox just makes big cash on scanlators work and pisses them off... really, don't use it..
DeleteThanks for release very much!
I mostly use it to see what was released and what's new. Then I usually go to the scanlator's website and download it from there (or use MangaTraders if the only way to download would be chapter by chapter (if I want to download a lot of chapters) or using IRC - still haven't learned how to download from bots). Also, I sometimes check the first chapter there to see if it's worth it. And if you bookmark something, you can use it to see if something new was released.
DeleteMangafox is pretty handy when you use it the right way. But it really pissed me of when they removed the scanlator's data in the chapters. Now you have to search inside the chapter (thank God they don't remove it from there!) or go to MangaUpdates and search there.
Yeah, they were up to shenanigans. I'll put it this way, I know exactly how many people download my releases. It's not an impressive number. I forsee working on this manga for quite some time without the possibility of a licensed release.
ReplyDeletesorry ronin, i come here to keep up with the you... but i have this iphone app that lets me read fox, reader, and eden anywhere... so i dont even read manga on the computer anymore...
DeleteI've been reading it all online instead of downloading. I've been planning to download them all at some point though, I've just been too lazy.
ReplyDeleteI just looked on Manga Fox though, it removed the licensing warning on Birdy and is back. I wonder what happened?
they probably locked it on their site because they 'thought' it might be licensed (they got in trouble about the big three, and locked those, i think they took heat for other licensed manga and locked those they thought might be licensed,(possibly, just a small amount of psychology knowledge)) but unlocked it because either they confirmed it wasnt licensed, got the pressure taken off the, or stopped caring.
Deleteagain, this is only a possibility
Doesn't matter. As long as Ronin continues to scanlate the manga. I even begun to come here quite regularly, so even if Mangafox doesn't remind me there is a new chapter of Birdy, I'll see it eventually.
DeleteI recommend reminding by mangaupdates.com :)
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