Neechin.net

After months of overwork, a little something to show I’m still alive, the lyrics and translation to the ED theme from Light’s “Tapestry”, Futari.

Woo! In perhaps the most balanced move between fans of the Bungaku Shoujo series of light novels and the trend of animating light novel series, a film adaptation will be made!

I try to make it fairly clear that I keep development projects hidden from sight until I think there’s something worth showing. Add that to having a few creative friends scattered around the globe, and some interesting things fall out… like video.

Secretly under development within the Denpasoft labs for over months, using hundreds of hours of processing time to render successfully, Narcissu Side 2nd, Carry-on Edition is almost ready for launch to the masses. These exclusive photos speak for themselves!

Haeleth and I both firmly believe in the “it’s done when it’s done, so don’t bother us” style of projects, so we’ve kept a very tight lid on progress reports. However, I do occasionally provide subtle hints, and so continuing in the spirit of providing amusing, but oddly useless information about what’s going on in the project, I present you this puzzle in the form of a graph.

Wiki this, wiki that, it’s all the rage when it comes to ‘community efforts’ and VN translation is no different. But is it really the “next big thing”? If it is, I’d like someone to enlighten me, because I’m only seeing it as a relatively new competitor in a crowded marketplace of tools.

There are three things needed for the success of a VN translation, the obvious one is skill, but the other, equally important ones are often put far behind skill: passion, and good people.

Lawrence Venuti’s “The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation” is a tough book, a dense book, that challenges the notion that the best translations are transparent, where the translator is invisible. It does make a good case for why the alternatives should be considered. If you can find it in your library, give it a shot.

The human ability to find patterns in things where they don’t exist is truly amazing. For instance, take my latest treasure, a typical telephone card… except it has now traveled well over 21,000 miles, and has convinced a number of people that it is cursed. Join me in a lighthearted tale of chaos and shared travel woe.

Mmm. I kept wracking my brains for good material for one final end of year post on Neechin, and all my good material is bound up in comike 75, so that still will have to wait until next year. So, instead, I’ll put my head on the chopping block, and take a look at some highlights of the VN translation world in 2008.

Previously on Neechin, I’ve covered a few topics on project management, but mostly from the perspective of managing them from the cold management perspective. But you can’t forget that we’re dealing with people, and most importantly, it’s the people that will make or break a project, no amount of paying attention to processes, schedules, and other management tools will make up for when people fail.