I should’ve announced this ages ago, but… the Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko light novel has been licensed by Digital Manga Publishing. It was never formally announced on their website as far as I can see, but you can see it on the upcoming titles list under the title of The Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat. No release date has been given yet. Hopefully, it’ll actually get published, and when it does, I’ll give you the heads up.
Of course, for those of you following the English translation on Nano Desu, this means the project has been formally ceased. If you haven’t, you’d better go read the translation while you still can. I worked on volume 1. The PDF/ePub versions are being taken down later today, but if you ask nicely, I might email you a copy on the strict condition you don’t go around distributing it.
At any rate, I’m honoured that a novel I worked on is getting an English release. I’m also grateful to Nurin and Shingetsu (the translators of volume 2) for their hard work, along with the rest of the Nano Desu staff. Henneko was the first light novel I ever translated and I’m still pretty proud of my work. Of course, since it was a first-time translation project, it’s plagued with minor accuracy errors, so I’m looking forward to the official release to settle the score.
I hope you choose to support the series, especially if you enjoyed reading the fan translation!
Speaking of translations, I still haven’t started on Qualidea. But I will soon. I promise!
See, the thing is, I actually haven’t had a break from translating light novels since I started Henneko around this time last year. Hard to believe it’s already been a year. Well, actually, it’s not that hard to believe, since translating sucks up a lot of hours in your day. Before I knew it, I ended up getting kind of burnt out, so now I’ve been taking an extended break.
You know, when I first started translating Henneko, I actually had no idea I would end up translating multiple book-length projects. I honestly just intended the whole translation gig as a fun project to do alongside my blogging, like writing a fanfiction or something. It ended up consuming all my free time, though. I miss watching anime and blogging about it, so I think from now on I’ll refocus my attention on those two things. Qualidea will get done, but at a leisurely pace.
As for my translation work after that, who knows. I definitely enjoy translation, but I can’t justify the time commitment for big projects without monetary compensation anymore. And I don’t accept donations on principle. Of course, I’m still really passionate about light novels, so I’ll definitely write about them if given half an excuse. In particular, I’d like to post more detailed summaries of untranslated works, like the Moeyo Pen post from last week. I’m also thinking of posting more translations of Japanese blog posts and maybe some interviews. Gotta put those translator skills to good use.
But for now… more anime posts, yes! If there’s anything in particular you’d like me to write about, feel free to leave a suggestion here. I’ve been slowly getting through the titles on the recommendations thread, so if there are any series you think I should check out, I’d be happy to hear about them.
Right, that’s all for now, folks. Hope you take care!
Frogkun.com 
Hurhur….
I enjoyed reading the Henneko. And you did good, even the unedited ver is nice. Well there are errors but none fatals ( Reading the docx is fun! )
Well, I do hope you will continue TLing LNs after Qualidea…
There are lots and I mean LOTS of LN out there that deserve attention but got little to none …
Anyways, have fun with the animes!
Thanks!
I’d still like to translate LNs after Qualidea, but nothing too long or hardcore. We’ll see how I feel after my break.
And I agree, there are lots of great LNs out there that need more exposure!
I had seen Henneko on someone’s licensed LNs list last summer or so, but I still haven’t found any specific announcement for it. Similarly, I have to wonder if Aria the Scarlet Ammo is still being translated, since there hasn’t been any word on vol 3? Will just have to notice if/when these Digital Manga titles suddenly appear I suppose.
Good luck with all your future projects, Frog-kun! And have a nice break. :>
Yeah, I was hesitant to mention the licensing because of the lack of formal announcement. DMP did license the Henneko manga and they’ve done light novel releases before, so we’ll just have to trust their word on it, I guess. They’re obviously not expecting too much out of the title and that’s a real shame.
By the way, they never contacted Nano Desu to take down the translation. I figured we’d be better off taking it down after a release date was announced, but eh. That’s the Nano Desu policy.
Anyway, thanks for the well wishes!
Very cool to see that Henneko is getting an official release; here’s hoping the adaptation gets some more time as well.
I’m pretty keen to get into translation myself at some point (far, far in the future, judging by my current knowledge of Japanese) so it’s cool to see that your project has been so successful. I know that many VN translations have a team consisting of a translator, editor and translation checker…did you do all of these steps yourself or were some others working with you?
And what was the biggest obstacle to your translation work? Were there any resources you found particularly helpful in overcoming those obstacles, or for translation work in general?
With Henneko, I had an editor. No translation checker. So whenever the edits came in, I had to crosscheck with the Japanese to make sure the proposed changes were true to the spirit of the original.
The biggest obstacles would be puns, idioms and cultural references. How much should I prioritise readability over literal accuracy? Sometimes, it’s really hard just spotting references. If you don’t understand the text the way it comes across to a Japanese reader, you can’t translate it correctly.
Generally, when I came across a phrase I didn’t recognise, I plugged it into Google to see if it was some obscure reference to something. I didn’t rely on anything besides Google, a dictionary and occasionally the help of my Japanese teachers.
If you’re interested, I’ve talked about the translation process in a few other posts:
https://fantasticmemes.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/whats-it-like-to-translate-a-light-novel/
http://englishlightnovels.com/2014/07/18/interview-henneko-discussion-with-frog-kun/
Seems like more and more light novels are getting licensed. Is the market really that strong? I cannot help but feel it’ll fizzle out as more titles become available. But then again, I’d be happy to be proven wrong.
As for blog posts, you know where to find me!
Well, there are lots of factors. The LN market had a mini-bubble a couple of years ago, around when Tokyopop went under. Besides Haruhi, not many LNs were selling well, so they weren’t worth licensing. These days, the market is more profitable, thanks to more big LN series like SAO becoming popular. Also, the rise of eBooks does make it easier to publish books these days at a lower staple cost.
Still, it’s a young market and there are lots of pitfalls. I don’t see Henneko in particular selling well, especially not with Digital Manga Publishing’s abysmal marketing (not even a formal announcement on the website?)
Overall, it’s nice that LNs are getting more exposure, though!
Hi, I would like to thanks you for your work, bisides I want to know if you can send me your copy of the first volume? pls.
All right, I’ve sent you an email. Let me know if you didn’t receive it.
I didn’t receive your email,could you send me another at this email, erik.tali.18@gmail.com, please
I have no idea that the anime has been doing this good…
At least neither Kino’s Journey nor I.S have been touched…
Oh, and now I realize that Moeyo Pen and… not-the-anime Moeyo Ken?
Why none has translated Ryotaro Shiba’s works???
Kino’s Journey was licensed a while ago by Tokyopop, but it’s been discontinued. Not sure if another publisher will ever pick it up.
Ore to Kanojo no Moeyo Pen is actually a reference to a 1991 shonen manga also called “Moeyo Pen”. The ‘moe’ part is just spelt differently. (萌え as opposed to 燃え.)
Ryotaro Shiba isn’t a light novel author. A few of his works have, in fact, been translated. Look here: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ARyotaro%20Shiba
all i need to know is if tsukushi ever finds out that yoto doesnt have a younger brother! It’s driving me crazy >.<
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Hi, Is it possible to ask for your email address?
You can find it on my About page.