#bootleg discourse

[personinthepalace]

Lost Footage: Laura Bell Bundy as Elle Woods in the 1st US National Tour of Legally Blonde the Musical

This is the last 22 mins of the show and the only known video footage of LBB playing Elle in the US tour!

What is of particular interest to me is that this includes LBB's performance of the ballad without the door. I personally believe that there should be a door (a physical barrier) between Elle and Emmett when this song is performed so that Elle can't hear Emmett confess his love for her (the way it was played on Broadway). In the US tour version, Emmett confesses directly to Elle in the room, and she hears him.

However, I think that LBB's performance of this doorless version is quite beautiful. There are two distinct pauses she make during this piece (the music even stops with her). The first time is to touch D.B. Bonds' face (Emmett) with one hand (similar to how she touches Christian Borle's face before escaping into her room in the Broadway version). The second pause is to cradle his face with both of her hands before pulling him into a hug.

Even though I will always be a proponent of having the door during the ballad, I really love LBB's take in this performance. It is truly the only version of it that I like so far, and I actually kinda wish we could see her do this specific performance with Christian Borle.

[myfandomrealitea]

Bootleg trans merch is the only acceptable Harry Potter merch, btw. I'm not taking questions or criticism at this time.

[sofastuffing]

i have a headache

[dragonkeeper19600]

Palworld players: It's like Pokemon with guns, lol! Other gamers: Hey, these designs look like they were ripped off from Pokemon. Palworld players: NO. THEY'RE TOTALLY ORIGINAL. THIS GAME IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM POKEMON! YOU POKEFREAKS ARE SO TOXIC!

[vonlipvig]

gonna watch cabaret tonight!

[mantisgodsdomain]

"oh, yeah," we think, "we could probably cross this over into Li nked Uni verse if we actually draw out the canon for long enough, smacking different versions of the same character into each other is always fun especially when it has the potential for massive cultural differences and shit like running into things where the thing that has been forgotten has significance beyond the things that are remembered. Hey, we should probably check the comic in order to comply with the six-month rule, we don't think we ever finished-"

We return from the reference images. We have remembered why we didn't finish looking into the base comic.

[halfmouse]

Nah-bric is fabric that makes you say, “Nah!” Often used in the production of bootleg plush toys, but not exclusively. Essentially what makes a fabric nah-bric is that nah-bric looks and feels terrible, it’s low-quality, it’s not soft, it doesn’t look how it should, in some cases it might even be hazardous in some way (bootleg plush toys are often toxic and/or a fire hazard), it’s not durable, it’s just really extremely crappy fabric. The essence of nah-bric is that anyone who knows decent fabric will say, “Nah!”

[tricksterlatte]

ngl this is just a silly post I made while goofing around, but finding out the two sides to this newfound issue are either "Akechi is a Norse mythology nerd and goes online to write essays on how badly Marvel messed everything up" or "Akechi actually kins MCU Loki due to his own relationship with Shido and his mother versus MCU Loki with Odin and Frigga" is actually hilarious.

If Persona 5 begins during 2016, this would mean Akechi previously awakened to Loki during the prime time of MCU Loki being a tumblr sexyman. Do whatever you’d like with that information

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

do you have a list of recommended musicals for someone whose knowledge of them begins and ends at the animated disney ones (and pretty much knows nothing about theatre in general)? I want to try a few and see if it's a genre I'd be interested in, since a lot of my friends are way more into it than I am

Well, there are plenty of musical adaptations of Disney films. Lion King is a standout, but Beauty and the Beast is also really really good and Hunchback of Notre Dame has some KILLER music. There's also a Finding Nemo musical that only plays at Disney Parks but which is REALLY good– try to find a bootleg from BEFORE the recent "The Big Blue and Beyond" revamp, it sucks so bad and it's abridged.

If you want something in your comfort zone so you can wade in slowly, I'd look at Annie, Matilda, Hairspray, The Lightning Thief, Little Women, or Shrek. Wicked and The Wiz are both stellar Wizard of Oz adaptations, Wonderland is my favorite Alice musical, and Roger & Hammerstein's Cinderella is not just a classic, but the basis of the 90s Brandy film (also Disney). You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is also very cute, and Newsies is based on a live-action Disney property but FAR outshines its film version– the proshot is also on Disney+!

As for classic musicals, well. Wicked of course. Cats is good for if you like dance and costume design (which also has a proshot instead of the shitty movie.) And unfortunately Phantom of the Opera also fucks severely (you win this round ALW...) You know what else fucks severely, though? Hadestown. Also, Chicago is one of my favorites, and Fiddler on the Roof is a core memory for me. Then there's Les Misérables, Little Shop of Horrors, Mamma Mia, Ragtime, The Sound of Music, Cabaret, Guys and Dolls. Hamilton has plenty of discourse and cringe which is probably deserved but if you're looking for lyric composition and set design, it has an available proshot. Beetlejuice is a FUN ride and I honestly prefer it to the movie (don't @ me). And of course, my FAVORITE musical ever, Next to Normal... though that is VERY far from a Disney movie, so make sure to check appropriate trigger warnings lol.

Edit: As the notes said: how the FUCK did i forget Into the Woods and Footloose?? but also dont watch the disney version of Into the Woods it sucks

And if you're just looking for music and not stage presence, Epic the Musical is just a concept album. And you might think "oh, it got famous on TikTok, how good can it be" IT'S GOOD. IT'S GOOD I PROMISE. OMG

[lobautumny]

Alright, guess this toy's gonna talk about Palworld, because it's seen Discourse™️ start to crop up about how "supporting the game is immoral because it's stealing designs from Pokemon!"

Now look, this toy's not about to sit here and tell you that all of the monster designs in Palworld are completely original and the game isn't, on some level, a bootleg. Obviously a lot of the designs are bootleg pokemon. That's not the point it wants to get at. The point is that it doesn't really matter.

First of all, nobody is being hurt by Palworld having knockoff pokemon among the ranks of its monsters. Game Freak is not some tiny indie developer struggling to make ends meet having their work unfairly co-opted by a big, bad corporation. Pokemon is, in fact, the largest, most profitable media franchise of all time, and Palworld is an indie game. The reason that something like this would hypothetically be scummy/shitty is if someone were taking someone else's work, changing it slightly, claiming it as their own, and thus depriving the original creator of credit/visibility that they should've had. But that literally can't happen here, because everyone already knows what Pokemon is. So unless it gets found that they're stealing designs from fakemon artists or something (there was one alleged instance, but it seems to have just been a coincidence of two different people having the idea of "what if Chimecho but with big, bulky arms?"), Palworld is hurting nobody through having bootleg designs, so the moral argument against the game falls flat.

With that out of the way, there's a much more interesting topic to discuss here: Why is it that when someone's fangame gets C&D'd, everyone immediately jumps to the creator's support, accurately assessing that our copyright system is broken and primarily serves to hurt independent artists, but the moment a developer makes the changes necessary to make sure their fangame doesn't get hit with a C&D (and to allow them to make money off of it), it's suddenly bad and cringe and unoriginal?

The argument that "Palworld is lazy and unoriginal and therefore bad because the monster designs are too similar to Pokemon's designs" is something that this toy would be willing to hear out if Palworld were a turn-based singles-format RPG with similar systems/overall structure to those found in Pokemon games, but, uh. It isn't. It's a third-person shooter with monster-catching mechanics and, like, Factorio-ass automation and base-building, from what this toy can tell. And it doesn't know if the game is good, as someone who has not played it (or even really seen gameplay of it), but it can absolutely tell you that the game's not lazy.

Sure, they could have done more to make the monster designs feel more unique, and that's absolutely a valid criticism for the game. This toy doesn't want to come across like it's saying otherwise. It just wants people to recognize that that's kind of a nitpick when the game is, on a mechanical and genre level, something completely different from anything any Pokemon game ever has been or ever will be, and that nobody would be complaining about laziness or a lack of originality if this came out as a fangame literally just using actual pokemon. In that reality, people would've been popping off at how high-effort it is, actually. And like, even putting money aside, this game literally could not exist as a fangame. A while back, someone uploaded some videos on Youtube showcasing a fangame they were developing that was an FPS where the enemies were pokemon. They got hit with a C&D and their Youtube account was terminated within a couple days of the videos being uploaded. The game was not monetized, and in fact, never even had a download link, to this toy's recollection. Palworld would have suffered the same exact fate if it wasn't its own IP.

[absolutebl]

5 Oldest BLs I Want to Remember Forever

I keep getting tagged in that "oldest BL" game so I thought I'd just do my version of it.

So here are 5 of my very oldest BL screen caps and why I keep them around.

Japan's Takumi-Kun 2007

Possibly the first BL I ever saw, I don't really count it as such. That was before BL existed as a term, I got access to a bootleg version through my anime contacts way back when. (Like on a damn thumb drive.) Technically it was probably 2009 or so since it was DaiMao with fan subs. I remember not liking it all that much but understanding why others might. And then returning to my beloved yaoi. (Which did not include Takumi-kun, mind you. I did read it later. And it's just as bad as the show, if not worse.)

I keep this image for obvious reasons. I mean the kabedon is so common in Japanese romances they invented a word for it. And this is its first appearance in BL.

After that, I actually have Junjou Pure Heart from 2010 saved. A fascinating early JBL of the atmospheric style that recently reappeared legally on Gaga (if you want watch).

Korea's Just Friends 2009

Korea started off their BL journey strong. Of all the olds on this list, Just Friends is the only one I rewatch regularly. IMHO KBL still has not climbed back to the realistic queer chemistry and gritty charm of this show. It's fantastic and it's available all over the place, including on YouTube. It's like under 30 minutes too. Frankly, you have no excuse not to watch this.

This final kiss is a masterpiece. In public?! In UNIFORM?! Will we ever see something this groundbreaking from Korea again?

Thailand's Love Sick 2014

I don't know if Love Sick stands the test of time for new BL watchers. Frankly, I don't really care. (I'm certain all the het stuff around the main BL plot line does not work. So watch the BL cut if you want.) Because look, it still works for me. I still do the occasional rewatch, over ten years later!

I will never get over the earnestness of this show.

The pure unadulterated messy high school angst of our beloved boys in blue shorts. You can see how Noh and Pun shook up a nation and started an industry.

And they did it with one lost hand hold.

Iconic.

Forever.

Possibly the greatest moment in BL history.

I don't even need to say fight me on this one. You can't. Because it's the truth.

China's Like Love (2014)

I probably reference 2016's Addicted and Irresistible Love more often but Like Love still has a place in my heart. This still is from when it up on YouTube before the 2016 crack down. Honestly? It's worth a watch if you can find it, as it is pretty typical of early CBL before said crack down. Just imagine what this kind of BL industry would have developed into without censorship.

I keep this particular still because it jogs my memory so quickly over the leads, their styles and personalities. This show hald many of China's favorite BL tropes rich/poor, jock/nerd, and a touch of whipping boy. Its legacy is HIStory Obsessed, 100%.

Taiwan's Faded (2017)

I keep a few others from Taiwan's 2017 roster like HIStory Obsessed and Red Balloon but Faded is the important one to me. Faded is a pro-marriage equality propaganda short and it is worth tracking down. It is an ICONIC piece that uses BL for queer advocacy of the kind that helped Taiwan become the first Asian country to legalize same sex marriage.

Why this shot? Look, the forehead kiss is so much a marker not just of romance but of a shift from romance as hidden, private, and sexual to romance as family unit and legal entity. A forehead kiss eludes to something sacred (the head is to be bowed, blessed, and so forth) and is enmeshed (in many Asian cultures) with elements of familial piety, class loyalty, and religious obedience. This image is emblematic of the move of queerness from a private hidden (disregarded) sphere and into public discourse and political advocacy .

Well, goodness I had a lot to say about that, didn't I?

(source)

[little-linda]

Me: I miss Valvert.

Tumblr: Look I have fanart

Ao3: Look I have fics

Brick: I'm literally right next to you all the time

My laptop: I have a google docs document you wanted to work on.

Also tumblr: I also have both funny and meaningful discourse

YouTube: I have bootlegs.

Me: I miss Valvert 😭😭😭😭😭

[msmads]

Switch 2 Prices Rant

Actually tagging this post because the points in this poorly organized rant aren't empty, and I do want them see to some extent

maybe someone else will tidy up my tired ass's mess of points from a meandering rant into bullet points or something.

maybe I'll tidy it up later into like, an essay, idfk, it's a mess and I'm not looking to actually write an essay.

... oh boy this is gonna ruffle some feathers though, guess I'm finally opening myself up to some hellsite discourse...

NGL, I'm getting fed up with people complaining about Nintendo Switch 2 prices and Switch 2 game prices, when they're only halfway to catching up with inflation since 2005 on the game prices on the most expensive games, which means yes, Mario Kart World is cheaper than Madden 05 was, and they're refusing to acknowledge the actual problem that their own wages aren't going up to keep up with inflation.

Within the (shitty) present system, the problem isn't a luxury good being 450 bucks, it's that you're not being paid enough for what you do.

AND for fucks sake, 450 bucks for a piece of tech that is on the cutting edge of power efficient gaming, is pretty decent.

These guys are out here fixing or improving most of the problems with the previous generation system they made, and keep on not laying off their employees unlike the other big fish, and what they get is people being understandably unhappy about the price and lying about stuff to have a big ol' negativity circlejerk on Nintendo, while saying shit like "it's not a political issues" and ignoring the fact that Videogames are the cheapest form of entertainment there is today, even with these price increases, and the fact that wages being stagnant in an inflationary economy is obviously going to cause problems like this, and the related fact that SOMETHING IS OBVIOUSLY GOING TO GIVE WHEN AN INDUSTRY IGNORES INFLATION ON IT'S PRODUCTS FOR 20 YEARS, AS EVERYTHING ELSE GETS MORE EXPENSIVE, UPPING COSTS ALL AROUND FOR MAKING THE GAMES AND HARDWARE TOO

and

that's not even getting into the absolute BULLSHIT where companies that have publicly traded stocks in the US have a legal responsibility to keep grow every year!

THAT'S LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE

COMPANIES HAVE BEEN SELF CANNIBALIZING BY MINIMIZING STAFF TO DEAL WITH THAT, WHY DO YOU THINK CVS PHARMACIES ARE SUCH SHITTY STORES WITH LIKE ONE PERSON STAFFING THEM?

Nintendo has been managing to keep away from stripping themselves for parts, despite the Switch 1 being frankly a shit show of a device by Nintendo's quality standards, with them going through a dark period of undercooked BS in the middle of its lifespan to boot.

They're doing shitty things with credits lately, that's something reasonable to complain about.

They're shitty to their fans with their IP enforcement, that's something reasonable to complain about.

They swept Joy-Con Drift under the rug, that's something reasonable to complain about.

They dedicated a whole ass physical button to a paywalled bootleg discord call feature, that's something reasonable to complain about.

BUT GODDAMN

PEOPLE ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE PRICES OF THE CHEAPEST FOR CONSUMERS FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT THERE IS GOING UP IN PRICE BY A MODEST AMOUNT INSTEAD OF THEIR FOOD GOING UP IN PRICE OR THEIR WAGES STAYING STAGNANT FOR SO DAMN LONG THEY'RE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE MOST REASONABLE BLEMISH ON A RAY OF PLEASANTRY AMIDST A SEA OF DISASTER THAT CREATED THE BLEMISH INSTEAD OF LOOKING TO THE MAELSTROM AND RESISTING THE ACTUAL FUCKING PROBLEM

If you can't afford it, save up for it

if you can't save up for it, UNIONIZE AND DEMAND BETTER PAY SO YOU'RE NOT UNDERWATER JUST TRYING TO SURVIVE.

Ah yeah, the online subscription thing

that that exists at all, pretty shitty

but holy shit, I find it so annoying hearing about how much more you get out of XBOX Live or PlayStation Plus than Nintendo Switch Online

they're all doing the same shitty practice of paywalling your ability to access servers the subscription isn't even paying for, XBOX and PlayStation just force you to pay for EVEN MORE STUFF

Nintendo's top plan is asking LESS THAN HALF THE BASIC PLAN FOR THOSE OTHER TWO FUCKERS

50÷12<9.99

and the basic plan on Nintendo's end is less than 2 dollars a month,

as shit as it is that they paywall that at all, it's way better than what Microsoft and Sony are and have been doing for way longer, so comparing to them on that front is pretty bullshit too.

bllghhhh.

ok...

I think I'm done.

[lesmisshippingshowdown]

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!!!

Hello everybody! I just wanted to say a massive thank you for the love for, and enthusiastic participation in, the Les Mis Shipping Showdown so far. It's been incredible to see so many people get on board with my silly little gag and I'm so excited for the tournament to continue playing out

HOWEVER - currently we are lacking in two very important things that only you guys out on the frontlines (on the barricade???) can help with.

1) PROPAGANDA

In 2009, Cheryl Cole dropped her debut solo single and changed lives by reminding us all that we've gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love. I need you all to be more like Cheryl. Don't be discouraged if your OTP is currently losing - and don't become complacent if they're currently winning by a landslide. We're not even halfway through the round of 32 yet, and you - yes YOU 🫵 - can help turn the tides of battle by telling the world, in an easily shareable format, why your preferred Les Amis pair the spare combo deserves to take victory in this noble contest.

Examples of things you could submit as propaganda include: fanart, fanfiction, AMVs, clips or gifs from your favourite screen adaptation or grainy bootleg that prove your blorbos' love, well-researched meta with supporting quotations from the Brick, completely unresearched rants based entirely on vibes, etc.

Ways you can share your propaganda with the world include: appending it in a comment reblog (not whispering in the tags!) of the relevant poll, sending asks to this blog, submitting posts to this blog, or making an original post and tagging it #les mis shipping showdown. (<- please use this specific tag. we're not checking any others. if you just put it in the generic les mis tag or ship tag with no reference to the poll we won't know it's for us)

2) FANART AND/OR EDITS

As much as I loved trawling through Tumblr tags and Google Images (and editing a few really stupid stock photo memes) to find visual references for every ship in the Round of 32, this was a) very time consuming and b) not as collaborative a process as I'd like for a fandom wide enrichment activity, especially for a bracket that's SO chock full of fanon-based shipping.

So, in preparation for future rounds, we would LOVE to receive submissions of fanart and edits for your favourite ship(s) to be used - with credit, of course - in polls.

We are looking for submissions for ANY AND ALL SHIPS INCLUDED IN THE BRACKET, regardless of their popularity, the amount of canonical visual content (like screencaps and production photos), or how likely you think your ship is to make the round of 16. As I've already said, we're only partway through this round and anything can change, plus I have a little surprise planned for the eliminated ships anyway that could still use your artistic contributions ;)

Here's a reminder of the current bracket so that you know which ships we're looking for artwork for:

As a bonus, if you send your art to this blog or tag it as #les mis shipping showdown, it also counts as free propaganda for your ship!

FURTHER RULES FOR FANART & EDITS:

No AI-generated content. Not going to get into the discourse on this one, I just don't want to see it.

No NSFW art, including artistic nudity. This is a theoretically all-ages contest, plus random polls getting flagged as mature will just make sharing that specific match up a complete mare.

Please ensure any art/edits are formatted so that they can be added to the poll as one single photo.

If you prefer to be credited by a different pseudonym to the URL you're using to submit your artwork, please make this clear to us at the time of submission!

Again, if you're posting art with the specific intention of having us use it, make sure you specify that either in the caption or by tagging it #les mis shipping showdown. We won't know it's for us if it just appears with no comment in the general tags!

To keep it simple & avoid any suggestions of favouritism etc., fanart, as long as it abides by the other rules, will be used on a "first seen by mods, first served" basis. We'll make an effort to reshare all art that isn't able to be used in a poll proper either because you got there too late or because your ship got eliminated before we could get round to using it.

Thanks in advance and happy propaganda-ing! 💋

[randomnameless]

Why did KT go out of it's way to state that Clout wiped out all the houses that tried to leave the Alliance only to ignore it for the rest of the route

Literally what does it even add other than making Clout look like an evil, power-hungry dictator whose cruel actions are never acknowledged by the story or characters

Maybe it was to paint Fraud as bootleg copy of Best Dad, who also erased Hrym when it wanted to say Adrestia goodbye and join the Alliance?

Of course, actions having consequences is a concept alien to Fodlan, except when it's to bash some Northern barbarians, or to give more fuel to "Church BaD".

Fodlan's plot is... foggy at best, which is why some people earlier theorised that we have a lot of fanworks about it, whenever fans are unhappy or not satisfied with plot threads, they tend to write fanfics/come up with HCs, and that's how we got 5 years of Discourse (tm).

Did Hans 2 exist? Did Supreme Leader have agency? Why Supreme Leader never offered the same offer of service she offered Leopold to Ludwig? Is Bernie dad an asshat for beating up the assassin who wanted to murder his heir? Is Rhea keeping Colonel Sanders locked in the Abyss? Why Uncle Thales didn't target Enbarr with Javelins in Tru Piss, or pulled out Nemesis from his tupperware?

We will never know.

I joke a lot about the 10k years of lore, but let's be real, any game with plot threads as vague and weirdly hanging as the ones existing in that verse would have been roasted to oblivion if it didn't benefit from the same "circumstances" Fodlan did.

[centrally-unplanned]

I blogged before about this company, Orange, that is an AI-powered manga translation company. Essentially, their pitch is that most manga is still (officially) untranslated, a ton of manga gets made after all but few become mainstream enough to get ported overseas. They posit the barrier to that is the cost of translation; if they could automate that process, then they can make viable for release what previously was not. That concept rests on two questions - does the tech pan out, and does the economics add up?

Recently they went live, under the name Emaqi, so we can better explore those questions. What I notice on first glance is the pitch seems to have shifted a little bit in post:

You are not the translators of Vinland Saga, Witch Hat Atelier, or Magic Knight Rayearth, very obviously so. They have Sailor Moon in here lol. These are just the official translations being cross-listed into their "manga platform", where you buy it there and it lives, DRM-locked, in their app. Which is fair enough as a model, that is just Kindle, it works. Though Kindle and a dozen others already exist, so their value-add has to be the AI translation stuff right? That is why I would choose this over another app.

Which they do have, though it is kind of buried:

"Only on emaqi" - there is no mention of the translation approach, poor guys! Can't fault the branding decision I guess given the state of the discourse. When it comes to the products themselves, I went through ~6 or so of the sample chapters of different manga, did a few spot checks with the original Japanese, and read the reviews of some others who looked into it. They seem fine! I am cautiously impressed, I think there proofers did a good job smoothing out some edges, it has a "manga tone", and while small issues like the hyphenation the reviewer above mentioned do exist and are legit noticeable, they aren't common and not a huge deal. It has flow issues? Some dialogue should link together in how it is written, but doesn't. But it isn't crazy off or anything. You will not be wowed by these, but certainly if you are someone who reads bootleg scanlations you are gonna have no problems. A lot of manga uses pretty simple vocab and isn't breaking new ground on plot, I can see how a purpose-built tool could handle it well enough.

The economics though...here is where I don't think this case was ever going to pencil out and isn't now. Because I am pretty sure no one here has heard of any of the manga listed above as exclusives. (I saw 90's manga Geobreeders in there, but that was already partially translated in the 2000's, not sure if they did a new one? Setting it aside) Which, of course you haven't, if you had it probably would have been translated! Books are a 90:10 market, most books never get read and some books get read a ton. Anything big enough can justify a professional translation, and the other can't really sell to begin with.

On top of that, their model is mass translation; which means these obscure manga are presented to you with no context, no hype, no build-up. Wtf is The Blood Blooms In the Barrens?? See, if you were like a boutique publisher, selecting "the best of the best" in untranslated manga, you would promote your specific product. Interviews, social media, the value of the brand-itself as a quality seal. Publishing less is more, actually, your value as a publisher is as a quality selector. Or you could be say the porn market, where you max quantity so people can search "foot fetish breeding kink oshi no ko" and get results; they know what they want. But they aren't doing either! And to be blunt a lot of these are not gonna sell on their art alone:

I'm not mocking The Delayed Highschool Life of a Laborer here, that is better than I could do; but if you want to me spend money on a whim the bar is high and these don't reach it. Which of course they don't, they would be professionally translated if they did.

And finally, the price - $5 dollars, for volume 1's, like a 100-200 pages. The cross-listed manga typically sells for ~$10? That isn't much cheaper! If "translation" was this big cost barrier, and all you got is cutting the price of ebooks in half, I don't know if the analysis was so solid. This is a new product, I doubt they are overcharging to make a quick buck right now - this is the "sell at cost to scale" era.

In all of their lead up press they would say things like this:

Orange's process uses AI to read the manga through image analysis and character recognition, then to translate the words into English, Chinese and other languages. The technology is specialized for manga, meaning it is able to handle wordplay and other difficult-to-translate phrases. A human translator then makes corrections and adjustments. The process can deliver a manga translation in as little as two days. Orange will work with multiple Japanese publishers. The company looks initially to complete 500 translations monthly.

But this is missing a lot of context. For one, these manga are simple high school or battle manga that are ~200 pages long, many of those pages have only a few lines of dialogue, etc. Imagine you are a professional translator, and you are given that manga to translate, all the set-up done for you, all you gotta do is write. How long do you think that would take? Not that long! It could probably take like a week if it's actually all you did (calc'd from a 10k word count manga volume, 2k is a typical "good translator" per day count - many manga are shorter than that). And note how they said "as little as two days" - not median two days! Just, you know, aspirationally.

Translation is just not a big bottleneck. You gotta do layouts, lettering, proofs, etc, these can all take just as much time - and are being done by people, they still need wage workers doing all this. But that is small fry in comparison to publishing contracts, author approvals, distribution, all of that. And most importantly, product acquisition - you have to get authors to sign with you! That can be months of work. I am sure they are trying to get bulk agreements with publishers and such, but authors will push back on that, this is not an easy endeavor.

Which is why, in above, they say they hope to have "500 translations monthly". And after a year+ of work, on launch, they have...

...18. As best I can tell at least, their site deliberately obfuscates what they actually translated versus are just hosting for resale after all.

So yeah, as mentioned I don't think the economics pencil out. These aren't worth $5 dollars, they can't actually generate volume that makes "massive economies of scale" actually valuable, and their approach is currently antithetical to the idea of generating traction for any of their individual works. Niche publishing just doesn't work this way.

But it is early days, and hey I respect the experiment! I do think the tech is pretty good, and it is nice to see a company showcase it. It isn't quite good enough yet for prime time, but it could get there. I do want more manga to get exposure and audience; I will give a fair shake to any who try.