Hi all, I've actually been meaning to post this for a while, but I just haven't had the time.
As the title says, as of today, I am retiring from translating for Ginga, and manga in general. For some of you, this seems sudden, but to others, you’ve probably seen this coming for a while.
There are a number of reasons why I’m quitting translating:
1.) The demand is too high and I have no time — Back when I started translating 6 years ago, I was in school and didn’t have a job, so I was taking time to learn how to read Japanese with the purpose of filling in translation gaps of the entire GDW series. Ever since then, the demand for more chapters/volumes/pages/etc. has increased rapidly. However, now that I have a job, which I believe is more important, I simply do not have the time to keep up with this kind of demand. I need to focus on real life and move on.
2.) I want to get back into my other hobbies — I’ve noticed that ever since I’ve taken up several translation projects, I haven’t done any of my other hobbies, which was playing music, writing and drawing, and I fear that at this point I’ve completely forgotten how to do all three. I’d like to get back into those things that I enjoy before I completely lose my touch. Translating takes up A LOT of time, and I honestly think I could be using that time more productively.
3.) I’m falling out of love with Ginga in general — It’s no surprise that Yoshi and his team haven’t exactly been producing the best of content with the latest series. TLW had too much narration which I wasn’t too keen on translating, and GDN contains developments (and lack thereof) that I haven’t exactly been a fan of. It’s mainly because of these things that I’m losing interest in the series, and it’s not fun to take part in something that you have no interest in (trust me, I have real life experience in this). I’m also growing out of the series and the fandom in general.
I’ll put back up the Ginga volumes that I had already translated. The Monkey arc is done. I’ll still work on redoing the Russian arc and whatever volumes of TLW are available, but I’m not going to continue retranslating Ginga Densetsu Noah.
For anyone who is still interested in reading GDN, you can check out Digsu's GDN chapter summaries on Ginga Board. They pick up where the latest GDN chapter (80) left off.
So in short, I won't be translating anymore, but I'm still checking the past volumes for typos and weirdly-sized text. It's taking more time than I thought, but I promised that I'd get them done, so you still have those to look forward to at least.