Scanlation
Encyclopedia
Scanlation is the scanning
, translation
and editing
of a graphic novel
from a foreign language into a different language. Scanlation is done as an amateur
work and is nearly always done without express permission from the copyright holder. The word scanlation is a portmanteau of scan and translation. The term is most often used for Japanese graphic novels (manga
), Korean graphic novels (manhwa
), and Chinese graphic novels (manhua
). Scanlations may be viewed at websites or as sets of image files downloaded via the Internet
.
releases outside of Japan. Manga fans cooperated and shared translation efforts since importing manga directly from Japan was often expensive, and a knowledge of the language was required to understand the originals. Similar to video fansub
bing, scanlation began as small individual efforts between fans connected by telephone modems and postal mail. With the advent of the Internet, both the size of audience served as well as the methods used in both scanlation and distribution of scanlated works changed dramatically.
Scanlation is older than its anime counterpart, fansubbing. Manga fans coordinated, translated and shared efforts via postal mail well before fansubs. The amateur press association
(APA) was the first formally organized form of manga scanlation. Their major period of activity occurred during the late 1970s through the early 90's. The professional magazine Mangajin
resembled scanlation efforts but went beyond that. It used authorized manga excerpts and professional translations to introduce contemporary Japanese language and culture to an English audience. Mangajin was first published in 1990. As internet access became more widespread, the popularity of postal mail APAs declined in favour of internet-based efforts. Eventually, these efforts became more organized and coalesced into various groups of people forming their own communities. This approach to scanlation became dominant after the year 2000. Examples of the earliest organized scanlation groups are Mangaproject, Mangascreener, Manga-Sketchbook, and Omanga.
While early official translations of manga focussed on localising the manga to an Anglophone culture, scanlations retained the cultural differences, for example, leaving in forms of address
, romanising sound effects and onomatopoeia instead of translating them, and providing the manga unflipped.
. IRC is an important part of the community aspect, as they allow for real-time interaction between the group staff and the target audience. IRC also allows the groups to recruit new staff. Releases are often made through IRC rather via a centralized website, as it means the burden of bandwidth is distributed among multiple users, something especially important given the lack of funding of most groups.
However, some groups do release downloads from their websites, as well as via torrents or download providers such as MegaUpload or RapidShare. Some sites also exist which do not make their own releases, but instead serve as a repository for releases from other groups: this sort of centralized, direct download approach is popular among users who are unfamiliar with IRC.
Typesetting is the next step. This may seem easy in principle, but it can be quite difficult considering the different fonts that need to be used for specially formatted text. While many cleaners are also capable of typesetting, scanlation groups usually have a few dedicated typesetters just in case.
While every department is essential in producing a complete manga release, it is fair to say that the release schedule of most projects rests in the hands of the translation department. It is usually the case that a project will be fully cleaned before it is translated, and proofreaders obviously have nothing to work with without a translation. Therefore, the speed of many projects often depends specifically on the speed of the translator. Ironically, while many people imagine that most translators live in Japan and fit the same profile, this is actually rarely the case.
Finally, the translated, edited and "cleaned" manga is sent to the group's proofreader. After copyediting, the manga is finally published on the scanlation group's own website then usually on a larger manga hosting website.
In addition to the groups who release scanlations of graphic novels which are unreleased outside of their country of origin, there are groups who release comics which have already been made commercially available. In some cases, this is due to perceived or actual censorship
or shortcomings in the commercial release of the graphic novel.
Another motivation is the quantity of new graphic novel series that are created. Most new anime
series are fansub
bed, and many are licensed for distribution by companies around the world. However, the quantity of manga series which are released in Japan (which has the largest market for comics in the world) and other markets makes this eventual commercial release unlikely for graphic novels. Scanlators often release projects because they want to give it wider exposure.
The quality of commercial offerings is a common complaint. Localization is also a common complaint among supporters of scanlations. Commercial releases often have titles, names, puns, and cultural references changed to make more sense to their target audience. The act of horizontally 'flipping' the pages of commercial releases has also received criticism from fans of manga. The reason for this change is that the Japanese language
reads from right-to-left, and Western languages such as English
, Spanish
, and French
read from left-to-right. However, due to large-scale fan complaints that this 'flipping' has changed the finished product from the original (e.g. A flipped manga image will keep the speech translations legible, while any graphics such as the wording on clothes or buildings will be reversed and confusing), this practice has largely diminished.
The cost and speed of commercial releases remains an issue with some fans. Imported comics from the original countries' markets sometimes cost less than the commercially released version, despite the high cost of shipping. Despite weekly or monthly serialized releases in the country of origin, translated editions often take longer to release due to the necessity of translating and repackaging the product before release.
In the yaoi fandom, commercially published explicit titles are often restricted to readers aged 18 or above, and there is a tendency for booksellers to stock BL, but also insist that more of it is shrink-wrapped and labeled for adult readers. Andrea Wood has suggested that teenage yaoi fans seek out more explicit titles using scanlations.
Another possible reason is to gain access to graphic novels that would otherwise not be available outside its native country. Also this practice is common for some manga which are given a release in a country then discontinued due to lack of popularity or sales in the target area; fans of the manga wanting to see a conclusion or for other reasons will attempt to find translators as well as scanlators for the manga. Another reason readers may prefer scanlations is that translations of the works to their native language often change terminology or names to make the works more commercially available in exchange for loss of cultural meaning.
A more recent phenomenon amongst scanlation readers is the emergence of Ereaders. Software such as Mangle allows users to more easily read scanlations on their Amazon Kindle
. Since most scanlations are distributed as a series of images, many e-book readers already have the capability to read scanlations without additional software. Most, if not all, manga is not released in a digital format that is compatible with e-book readers, so downloading scanlations is the only way to do this.
Historically, copyright holders have not requested scanlators to stop distribution before a work is licensed in the translated language. Thus, scanlators usually feel it is relatively 'safe' to scanlate series which have not been commercially released in their country.
However, this view is not necessarily shared among the industry, as some Japanese publishers have threatened scanlation groups with legal action. Since the 1990s, publishers have sent cease and desist
letters to various scanlation groups and websites
Due to manga's popularity steadily increasing in the overseas market, copyright holders felt that scanlators were intruding on their sales and in 2010, a group of Japanese publishers and US publishers banded together into a coalition to "combat" scanlations, especially mentioning scanlation aggregator websites. They have threatened to take legal action against at least thirty, unnamed websites.
So far, the coalition has achieved some degree of success. On July 2010, Scanlation aggregator site OneManga, "one of the top 1000 sites on the whole internet" announced its closure due to their respect towards the displeasure expressed by the publishers. As of August 1, 2010 it has officially shut down its online reader.
, scanlations are illegal. However, since many scanlators stop distributing commercially licensed series and advise fans to buy the official translation, most groups view their releases as occupying a 'gray area' of legality.
Some licensing companies, such as Del Rey Manga
, TOKYOPOP
, and VIZ Media
, have used the response to various scanlations as a factor in deciding which manga to license for translation and commercial release.
However, some translators feel differently:
Image scanner
In computing, an image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting, or an object, and converts it to a digital image. Common examples found in offices are variations of the desktop scanner where the document is placed on a glass...
, translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
and editing
Image editing
Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they be digital photographs, traditional analog photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such as an airbrush to modify photographs, or editing illustrations with any...
of a graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
from a foreign language into a different language. Scanlation is done as an amateur
Amateur
An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....
work and is nearly always done without express permission from the copyright holder. The word scanlation is a portmanteau of scan and translation. The term is most often used for Japanese graphic novels (manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
), Korean graphic novels (manhwa
Manhwa
Manhwa is the general Korean term for comics and print cartoons . Outside of Korea, the term usually refers specifically to South Korean comics. The term, along with manga, is a cognate of the Chinese manhua...
), and Chinese graphic novels (manhua
Manhua
Manhua are Chinese comics originally produced in China. Possibly due to their greater degree of artistic freedom of expression and closer international ties with Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan have been the places of publication of most manhua thus far, often including Chinese translations of...
). Scanlations may be viewed at websites or as sets of image files downloaded via the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
Origins
Scanlations got their start due to a lack of translated Japanese mangaManga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
releases outside of Japan. Manga fans cooperated and shared translation efforts since importing manga directly from Japan was often expensive, and a knowledge of the language was required to understand the originals. Similar to video fansub
Fansub
A fansub is a version of a foreign film or foreign television program which has been translated by fans and subtitled into a language other than that of the original.-History:...
bing, scanlation began as small individual efforts between fans connected by telephone modems and postal mail. With the advent of the Internet, both the size of audience served as well as the methods used in both scanlation and distribution of scanlated works changed dramatically.
Scanlation is older than its anime counterpart, fansubbing. Manga fans coordinated, translated and shared efforts via postal mail well before fansubs. The amateur press association
Amateur press association
An amateur press association is a group of people who produce individual pages or magazines that are sent to a Central Mailer for collation and distribution to all members of the group.-Organisation:...
(APA) was the first formally organized form of manga scanlation. Their major period of activity occurred during the late 1970s through the early 90's. The professional magazine Mangajin
Mangajin
Mangajin was a monthly English-language magazine for students of Japanese language and culture. It was distinct from many other magazines of its type in that it unabashedly embraced Japanese popular culture as a learning tool and a route towards rapid acclimation into Japanese society...
resembled scanlation efforts but went beyond that. It used authorized manga excerpts and professional translations to introduce contemporary Japanese language and culture to an English audience. Mangajin was first published in 1990. As internet access became more widespread, the popularity of postal mail APAs declined in favour of internet-based efforts. Eventually, these efforts became more organized and coalesced into various groups of people forming their own communities. This approach to scanlation became dominant after the year 2000. Examples of the earliest organized scanlation groups are Mangaproject, Mangascreener, Manga-Sketchbook, and Omanga.
While early official translations of manga focussed on localising the manga to an Anglophone culture, scanlations retained the cultural differences, for example, leaving in forms of address
Japanese honorifics
The Japanese language has many honorifics, parts of speech which show respect, and their use is mandatory in many social situations. Honorifics in Japanese may be used to emphasize social distance or disparity in rank, or to emphasize social intimacy or similarity in rank.The system of honorifics...
, romanising sound effects and onomatopoeia instead of translating them, and providing the manga unflipped.
Current practices
Many groups have their own webpage as well as an IRC channelInternet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
. IRC is an important part of the community aspect, as they allow for real-time interaction between the group staff and the target audience. IRC also allows the groups to recruit new staff. Releases are often made through IRC rather via a centralized website, as it means the burden of bandwidth is distributed among multiple users, something especially important given the lack of funding of most groups.
However, some groups do release downloads from their websites, as well as via torrents or download providers such as MegaUpload or RapidShare. Some sites also exist which do not make their own releases, but instead serve as a repository for releases from other groups: this sort of centralized, direct download approach is popular among users who are unfamiliar with IRC.
Process
Scanlation is not an easy process. Scanlation team members are often located in different parts of the world. The first step in scanlation is to obtain the "raws" (original manga) from the country of publication (typically Japan). Since Japanese manga magazines often use recycled paper, the "cleaner" uses image editing software to fix imperfections in the "raw" version to produce a "cleaned" version.Typesetting is the next step. This may seem easy in principle, but it can be quite difficult considering the different fonts that need to be used for specially formatted text. While many cleaners are also capable of typesetting, scanlation groups usually have a few dedicated typesetters just in case.
While every department is essential in producing a complete manga release, it is fair to say that the release schedule of most projects rests in the hands of the translation department. It is usually the case that a project will be fully cleaned before it is translated, and proofreaders obviously have nothing to work with without a translation. Therefore, the speed of many projects often depends specifically on the speed of the translator. Ironically, while many people imagine that most translators live in Japan and fit the same profile, this is actually rarely the case.
Finally, the translated, edited and "cleaned" manga is sent to the group's proofreader. After copyediting, the manga is finally published on the scanlation group's own website then usually on a larger manga hosting website.
Reason for scanlating
Douglass, Huber and Manovich say that enthusiasm by fans about a particular series, coupled with delays in official translations lead to the formation of scanlation groups. Scanlators say that they scanlate to promote the series or the author in their own language, but Hope Donovan suggests that the scanlator's goal is more along the lines of "self-promotion", and argues that it is prestigious for a scanlator to have many fans.In addition to the groups who release scanlations of graphic novels which are unreleased outside of their country of origin, there are groups who release comics which have already been made commercially available. In some cases, this is due to perceived or actual censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
or shortcomings in the commercial release of the graphic novel.
Another motivation is the quantity of new graphic novel series that are created. Most new anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
series are fansub
Fansub
A fansub is a version of a foreign film or foreign television program which has been translated by fans and subtitled into a language other than that of the original.-History:...
bed, and many are licensed for distribution by companies around the world. However, the quantity of manga series which are released in Japan (which has the largest market for comics in the world) and other markets makes this eventual commercial release unlikely for graphic novels. Scanlators often release projects because they want to give it wider exposure.
The quality of commercial offerings is a common complaint. Localization is also a common complaint among supporters of scanlations. Commercial releases often have titles, names, puns, and cultural references changed to make more sense to their target audience. The act of horizontally 'flipping' the pages of commercial releases has also received criticism from fans of manga. The reason for this change is that the Japanese language
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
reads from right-to-left, and Western languages such as English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
read from left-to-right. However, due to large-scale fan complaints that this 'flipping' has changed the finished product from the original (e.g. A flipped manga image will keep the speech translations legible, while any graphics such as the wording on clothes or buildings will be reversed and confusing), this practice has largely diminished.
The cost and speed of commercial releases remains an issue with some fans. Imported comics from the original countries' markets sometimes cost less than the commercially released version, despite the high cost of shipping. Despite weekly or monthly serialized releases in the country of origin, translated editions often take longer to release due to the necessity of translating and repackaging the product before release.
Reasons for downloading scanlations
Johanna Draper Carlson says that some readers of scanlations do not wish to spend money, or that they have limited mobility or funds, or that they are choosy about which series they wish to follow. Carlson feels that the readers of scanlations "do not care" that scanlations are illegal.In the yaoi fandom, commercially published explicit titles are often restricted to readers aged 18 or above, and there is a tendency for booksellers to stock BL, but also insist that more of it is shrink-wrapped and labeled for adult readers. Andrea Wood has suggested that teenage yaoi fans seek out more explicit titles using scanlations.
Another possible reason is to gain access to graphic novels that would otherwise not be available outside its native country. Also this practice is common for some manga which are given a release in a country then discontinued due to lack of popularity or sales in the target area; fans of the manga wanting to see a conclusion or for other reasons will attempt to find translators as well as scanlators for the manga. Another reason readers may prefer scanlations is that translations of the works to their native language often change terminology or names to make the works more commercially available in exchange for loss of cultural meaning.
A more recent phenomenon amongst scanlation readers is the emergence of Ereaders. Software such as Mangle allows users to more easily read scanlations on their Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
. Since most scanlations are distributed as a series of images, many e-book readers already have the capability to read scanlations without additional software. Most, if not all, manga is not released in a digital format that is compatible with e-book readers, so downloading scanlations is the only way to do this.
Legal action
According to a 2009 study, Japanese publishers felt that scanlation was "an overseas phenomenon", and no "coordinated action" had taken place against scanlation.Historically, copyright holders have not requested scanlators to stop distribution before a work is licensed in the translated language. Thus, scanlators usually feel it is relatively 'safe' to scanlate series which have not been commercially released in their country.
However, this view is not necessarily shared among the industry, as some Japanese publishers have threatened scanlation groups with legal action. Since the 1990s, publishers have sent cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
letters to various scanlation groups and websites
Due to manga's popularity steadily increasing in the overseas market, copyright holders felt that scanlators were intruding on their sales and in 2010, a group of Japanese publishers and US publishers banded together into a coalition to "combat" scanlations, especially mentioning scanlation aggregator websites. They have threatened to take legal action against at least thirty, unnamed websites.
So far, the coalition has achieved some degree of success. On July 2010, Scanlation aggregator site OneManga, "one of the top 1000 sites on the whole internet" announced its closure due to their respect towards the displeasure expressed by the publishers. As of August 1, 2010 it has officially shut down its online reader.
Reception
Scanlations are often viewed by fans as the only way to read graphic novels that have not been licensed for release in their area. According to international copyright law, such as the Berne ConventionBerne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland in 1886.- Content :...
, scanlations are illegal. However, since many scanlators stop distributing commercially licensed series and advise fans to buy the official translation, most groups view their releases as occupying a 'gray area' of legality.
Some licensing companies, such as Del Rey Manga
Del Rey Manga
was the manga-publishing imprint of Del Rey Books, a branch of Ballantine Books, which in turn is part of Random House, the publishing division of Bertelsmann. It was formed as part of a cross-publishing relationship with Japanese publisher Kodansha. Some of the Del Rey titles, such as Tsubasa...
, TOKYOPOP
Tokyopop
Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
, and VIZ Media
VIZ Media
VIZ Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga, and Japanese entertainment company. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ Media LLC, which is jointly owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and...
, have used the response to various scanlations as a factor in deciding which manga to license for translation and commercial release.
However, some translators feel differently: