My apologies for the extended delay

I’m sure quite a few of you may have been waiting for that Shinmai Maou update I said would be coming on the 9th, even though that was already pushed back a bit. Well, yes, I’ve finished translating it, and am still in the process of editing it. I don’t plan on uploading it until I’ve reviewed everything at least once and am satisfied with the quality. It is decently long with ~20k words, so that’s one reasons why it’s taking me a while, but I suppose the other reason is that I was planning to spend my Sunday evening going through it, but a few things popped up to stand in my way.

This next part is just me ranting a bit…so feel free to ignore it.
Working with others in a team or group is sometimes great…you’ll get along, have fun, and be productive. Unfortunately, when no one in a team is enthusiastic and no one communicates effectively with each other, everything falls apart. And that’s basically what happened today. I’m doing two courses this semester which heavily rely on teamwork, and one of those happened to have part of an assignment due on Monday. Three people in the team decided to do the same thing, but in three different ways, and on their own.

The task: A technical diagram (~3 hours of work).
Person 1: Drew up a draft on paper and sent a photo of it to the group early on, and then said they would finalise it later, but never did, and didn’t tell anyone until the day before.
Person 2: Drew the diagram up digitally, based on Person 1’s work, and then said it was complete and just wanted someone to look over it, the night before.
Person 3 (Me): Offered to finalise the draft digitally when Person 1 notified the group, and started to do so when no one gave any reply. Got halfway through before Person 2 shared their work. Discovered that Person 2’s work was more complete, but totally incorrect and only met one of the four marking criteria required. Scrambled to redo the entire diagram using their software instead.
Person 4: MIA.

Now, I’m just going to let this slide as a one-off. My team has been otherwise reliable so far. It’s just that I wish someone could’ve said that they only planned to do a draft or only that they were missing parts so that others would’ve been informed of the urgency of completion.

<!—End Rant—>

I’ll have the Shinmai chapter up in around 24 hours from now…I’ve checked over around 40% of it, so I’ll leave the rest for tomorrow. Also, regarding the translation of future Shinmai Maou content…I don’t think I’m going to continue with the project at this point. A while back, I found a few other translators willing to do the project together with me, but a few backed out after I told them about the status of the project and the ‘content’ it would involve, whilst a few also began to require more time for RL. Only one translator was willing to go forth with the project after a few weeks of planning, and at that point I just decided it wasn’t worth it. Now, given that both J2270A and I have now stated that we aren’t exactly interested in continuing, I suppose that means the project is likely to be abandoned and any future fan-translations are unlikely. While Nomi has done portions of volumes eight and nine, she has not expressed interest in doing anything but the parts which have been commissioned. This does leave a rather bad aftertaste with me for not being able to see this through to the end…and so I decided to leave it up to you.

High School DxD and Seikoku no Ryuu Kishi are my long-term projects. I plan to translate DxD content whenever it’s available, and Seikoku no Ryuu Kishi whenever I’m free.
On the other hand, I also plan to do another project concurrently to the aforementioned, or whenever I’m free. This is going to either be: Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha or Hagure Yuusha no Aesthetica. If the translation of either one ever catches up to the latest release, then I’ll switch back over to the other.

Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha or Hagure Yuusha no Aesthetica?

  • Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha (62%, 305 Votes)
  • Hagure Yuusha no Aesthetica (29%, 142 Votes)
  • Drop them both and focus on other translations (9%, 43 Votes)

Total Voters: 490

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Poll closes one week from now.

About zxzxzx

I'm an IT professional who likes computers, anime, tennis, travelling and photography among other things. I often read LNs, manga or watch anime in my spare time if I'm not translating something. I'm a strong supporter of freedom of speech, human rights, and I generally support a left-wing stance on most political subjects.
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17 Responses to My apologies for the extended delay

  1. daniel yang says:

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    yo great work so far. keep it up 🙂

    regarding your studies and team work. i agree, it’s pain to get people to co-operate with each other even if the work they are being assessed on relies heavily from team work. but i guess that’s all part of learning as well, to cope with situation like this. hang in there mate.
    P.s it looks like i spelled my name wrong… damn i need sleep

  2. BigRed says:

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    Probably what would be easiest is to focus on one book at a time and crank it out, then alternate series every book. It might make it easier to translate speedwise and help keep everyone happy.

    • zxzxzx says:

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      Thanks for the suggestion. I might do just that…

      • BigRed says:

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        Yeah. I was just thinking that it might be easier for you to just grind one book out at a time so that you are not constantly switching between chapters of different books, while switching series every book. It will probably help keep the readers happy as well. I know that for myself I hate reading books in parts so I like to wait for the entire thing. Also if you are looking to drop one for now, perhaps you could just grind out SMnK since there are only a little over two and a half to go, then you could drop it and focus on the others.

  3. Artemis says:

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    Wouldn’t it more sense to focus more on the two that you currently have? I know high school dxd is only one behind but the other one is 14 behind. Also currently at the right of your translations it’s going to take you at least two years if not more to get through them all. Also on top of that if you take one of those two new ones you are proposing then the time for both will be longer and longer. I personally am rooting for you and will go with anything you do as your doing a great job thoe I thought I should just point that out.

    • zxzxzx says:

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      Thanks for the suggestion. I feel like I can usually handle two at a time, or I could alternate if need be. High School DxD will likely be kept up to date, so there will usually be something that I work in between those volumes. True, it will take me a long time to finish the Seikoku no Ryuu Kishi series, but I knew what I was signing up and I plan to see it through to the end no matter how long it takes.

  4. 54IFU says:

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    Zxzxzx, thank you very much for translating Seikoku no Ryuu Kishi. I like the story after watching the anime, same as DxD.

    I has learned basic japanese like hiragana and katakana when in highschool but still not familiar with kanji. Do you know some good software that can translate it to romaji or hiragana? Free one is better. Also if it can translate from the PDF too.

    • zxzxzx says:

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      I don’t actually use any software to convert kanji to romaji or hiragana. As far as I know, Google Translate is capable of doing that, and so is this site and this site. I think you will find the second link particularly invaluable. I don’t know any software to translate directly from a PDF. If the PDF has highlightable text, then you can just copy and paste. If it doesn’t contain any highlightable text, then you will either have to use OCR software to scan it, or rewrite it yourself.

  5. Raze1313 says:

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    Tough call. Both good reads.

    But Shinmai Maou is what? 3 vols behind? and Aesthetica’s 6 vols behind?

    Love ’em both but go with the one that can be finished faster.

    BTW glad to see you won’t drop ’em completely. Keep up the hard work. We all appreciate it.

  6. Silivious says:

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    I’ll go with Shinmai, but also throw in a shameless plug for Hyouketsu Kyoukai no Eden. XD

  7. tits says:

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    there is one translator ‘bakapervert’ … can you ask him to translate the rest part?…….I asked him but he never answered

    • zxzxzx says:

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      Well, that sums the response then…more than a few people that I know of have asked him actually.

      • BITCHPLEASE says:

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        Just finish volume 7 and refer to the paid translation from Nomi. If 200-300 people spend $5 the last 2 volumes will be completely translated.

        • zxzxzx says:

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          Good job mate, why don’t you do that then? That way I don’t have to waste my time doing this for free.

          • Artemis says:

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            Sorry but really 1500$ for two short novels is a little pricey don’t you think? I mean you can buy the novel for 12$ I know it hasn’t been translated but still for one book I think 100$ would be enough of a payment to translate it

        • Beat says:

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          Last I checked, Nomi password protected their site haven’t they?  No reading anything from them now.