Visual Novels

It seems like everyone used to have a lot more free time. Time to dedicate to fan translation groups, for example. Groups with enough stability, rooted in members with free time, could pull off projects as complex as games. Even games as lengthy as Visual Novels. Of course, you could get by without time if you had enough dedication, but who is to say someone more dedicated won’t make the time?

These projects increasingly cannot stand the test of time. As their length rolls into the years, they fall apart. So something was created to try addressing this problem. To make it easier for more people to become involved with projects, TLWiki was born. Now you’re taking that daunting length of Japanese text and putting it into a multi-player notepad. Add several domesticated translators and you’ve got progress, right? In theory making it easy for translators to work completely at leisure, popping in bits of work here and there, would attract more translators. Now that anyone can pop in and help out, you’ve got a world of translators at your disposal.

For obvious reasons, which have probably been debated endlessly already, this has a few flaws. For example, translation consistency. Translators have their own styles and keeping a consistent feel in a work is important if you have production values. And perhaps not so obvious was, among the rise of popularity in western fans, was notice from the Japanese industry. In the past when it was a small, unprofitable and more importantly: harmless, niche it might of been welcomed. Now companies are worried about the potential responsibility that might come from an unauthorized foreign release. Perhaps a release where content of their games may be illegal. Other companies might worry that their efforts would devalue their work and hurt their image in the eyes of fans and foreign companies interested in licenses.

What happens when a fan project is asked to stop? Doesn’t it seem to work out well enough for fan-sub groups? While many fan-sub groups drop a title when asked, these are generally quick turn-around projects without as much dedication involved. It’s a lot easier to put down a magazine than a good book. As such, you start seeing groups who refuse to stop when asked by their creators. There may be other reasons involved, but it seems to come down to this: They’re contributing this translation as fans as charity. So, wouldn’t their actions now refute their beliefs?
For example: NNL was asked by minori to stop working on ef, but they released it covertly instead. TLWiki has removed works such as eden, but the majority of their projects have no known permission and could be halted at anytime. They also link to projects such as AIR, which was asked to cease by Visual Art’s, parent company of Key.

According to Agilis, who recently completed the English Narcissu 2 release, you can solve these problems. Agilis launched Proper-Permission.org today, which aims to eliminate the legal grey area for projects. The site gives groups a safe harbor for their projects, while giving them web-based collaboration tools. Furthermore, it claims to solve issues with web-collaboration that TLWiki has with its platform, targeting translation quality and concurrency. It offers an integrated wiki, file hosting, bug/issue tracking, and SVN integration to name a few. Not to mention the ability to keep your project private or share it publicly.

Agilis also launched a new project on this new site. Project “T0rama,” short for Translation Matsuri (festival), hopes to translate Kisaragi no Hougyoku with a group to build a community among translators. Based on the ideas of al|together, but doing more to promote more interaction between translators. The project has full cooperation with the author, with the benefit of new content to go along with the English release.

For more information, Agilis explains his motivations in his own reports:
Proper-Permission.org Announcement
Project T0rama Announcement
Proper Permission Homepage