Hi. It feels surreal to write up a thread like this as I never thought the day would actually come, but now it finally has.
I hesitated for the longest time as I prefer to keep quiet, but I believe the public deserves to know what has been happening with me, considering all of these translation delays.
In a nutshell (TL;DR), I will be downsizing operations. If you don't care for backstory, skip to the bottom.
For those who may not be aware, I started translating some time in 2009 for another group. That was a very long time ago and I was still a teen back then. Just a random person who loved reading manga and wanted to contribute to the scene.
Not long after, wanting to have more autonomy, I created my own group (Kirei Cake). At the time, I couldn't think of a group name, so I just slapped together the first two words that came to mind. Kirei (which means "pretty" in Japanese, but everyone just thinks of the dude from Fate), and Cake (none of which was ever physically given out, so it truly was a lie xP). Eventually, it stuck and I didn't bother changing it.
The first official release was made on May 24, 2011. Just some random small series I bought a volume to, to test the waters with. It wasn't anything special. I picked up and worked on a bunch of other series shortly thereafter. (As of this May, Kirei Cake is 13 years old. Insane, I know.)
Being young and driven (and never realizing that I had ADD until literally a year ago), I spent the next decade basically becoming a mindless slave to the scene. I was addicted. Hard.
Due to my mother's poor health (which has only gradually deteriorated since then), I was forced to stay at home and take care of her all this time. I dropped out of university in my second year, and virtually never left home except for groceries. I actually couldn't, as she needed extensive caretaking almost 24/7.
There are a lot of rumours and hearsay floating around regarding her, but to keep it simple, she suffered from chronic anemia and a severe case of psychosis which prevented her from realizing that she had a health problem and was constantly in denial of it. (There are a lot more specifics to this story, but that goes beyond the scope of this thread, and I would rather not speak about it.)
In any case, I had to make do under such circumstances. Since I couldn't get a job and I couldn't leave home, eventually, I was forced to turn a hobby into an occupation, since what little rental income we had was eventually not enough to keep up with the inflation in society. I started to put the infamous note into the releases I made that you have all seen at least a hundred times by now.
The donations helped. A lot. It wasn't much (and still isn't), but it was enough to get by and cover my mother's medical costs, so I was satisfied with that. I lived modestly and saved wherever I could. My heartfelt gratitude goes to all those who have donated and are possibly continuing to do so.
As time went by, the scene went through generations of change. I never thought I'd stick around for long (and there was one point where I actually did just give up and stop), but lo and behold, here I am now. One of (if not the) oldest scanlation groups still operating to this day. (This group outlived dozens of massive, long-standing groups that have been operating for years.)
Since I had a bit of talent for the scene, I was not only able to translate, but also edit. A one-person army. And since I had copious amounts of time and was chronically addicted to the work (which was in part a bit of a coping mechanism), I'd push out a release every day or two. And this continued for years.
Many readers and other scene members came under the impression that my group was also massive due to that throughput, and it quickly became a household name. This was never really my intention, since I mostly focused on niche series that most didn't care about, but it is what it is.
I did have people come and go to help assist with the editing, and for a short time, the translating as well. I am genuinely grateful to all of those members for volunteering their time and effort to help. Many of them were young like me and just wanted something to do during their adolescence or young adulthood and wanted to help speed up releases.
Things became efficient, and pushing out several releases a day wasn't uncommon during the group's heyday. Unfortunately, this only served to further steer the group's reputation into a direction that would ultimately become its Achilles heel.
Because people would think that our group was massive and getting along well with chapters being pushed out daily, nobody new wanted to join in and volunteer their help. This eventually led to stagnant periods, where releases would take longer to be pushed out. And the delays only kept getting longer. I tried to juggle around the dozens of series we had to keep them all refreshed and to give their readers at least something to read every once in a while.
Fast forward to roughly COVID, and the group has reached a point where it's basically only me and maybe 1-2 other people occasionally helping out. Everyone else has either gotten a job/gone to school/moved on/etc. This was still okay for the most part—since I could do everything myself anyway, making releases was only a matter of when, not if. And most readers didn't really seem to mind.
Fast forward to about two years ago, and I somehow landed a relationship and got married. It was sudden and happened fast. I won't go into too many details about the relationship, but in terms of what is pertinent, my SO increasingly wants more time for us to bond, and translation is getting in the way.
For a while, I tried to schedule things and make it work, but it doesn't seem to be working out, and my ADD isn't helping either as I keep making stupid decisions in the relationship that only serves to cause strife. I really needed to downsize, and my pride wasn't letting me. But I've finally bit the bullet, and here I am now.
As of this thread's posting, the following series are hereby dropped and free for anyone to pick up:
- Adventurer License - A cute story that I would've liked to see through, but I could never make time for.
- Assassin Aristocrat - The story derailed quite a while back, so not much of a loss. And it seems someone has recently picked this up.
- Misfit Quartet - A real shame, because I liked this and thought it had a lot of potential.
- Returned Hero - Was always a meme series, but the ridiculously slow publishing speed is just silly.
- Sweet Dreams in the Demon Castle - Despite working on this for years, it's time to let go since it'll never end. And it seems VIZ is actively working on this and is already far ahead.
The following series will remain low priority, and chapters will be released sporadically whenever I have the time to work on them:
- Black Mage - This series isn't difficult to translate, but I'm having trouble juggling it with the rest of the series I am currently focusing on. Will try my best.
- Darwin's Game - There's only a few chapters left (it's a finished series), but I haven't had any time to work on them. I do plan to finish it off, though.
- Decade Legend - I quite like this series and I want to work on it regularly, so it's more like mid-priority instead. Editing assistance would be highly appreciated.
- Devil Wife - This series involves a lot of editing, and chapters are long. If anyone wishes to volunteer to help edit for the long run, that would speed things up significantly. It's starting to get good now.
- Until Your Sword Breaks - Not quite as good as the Duke of Death though and doesn't really give off the same vibes. I'll try to push some chapters out whenever I can.
The following series are high priority and are being actively worked on. They will be caught up with ASAP, so do not worry about them:
- Dai Dark - I'm only one chapter behind. I'll get it done sometime this month.
- Dark Massacre - Only a few chapters behind. Will release multiple chapters at once every so often.
- Death Flags - Exact same situation as Dai Dark.
- Former World #1 - Encountering some hiccups here and there, but I'm gradually catching up with it. Help with editing would be highly appreciated.
- Frieren at the Funeral - Need not be said. I still release same-day and have been doing so since the series began.
- Ultimate Sage - I'm only one chapter behind, and it's about 70% done. Should come out soon.
- Yakuza Reincarnation >- I personally enjoy this series and will do my best to catch up to the latest chapter as soon as possible.
I believe that covers all of the series that I currently translate, but if I missed some, please ask. I may have just forgotten about it.
I will answer inquiries made here, but only if they pertain to translation. I do not wish to answer any questions regarding my personal life at this time.
Maybe? It doesn't really feels like the right reason for me but I'm not going to say no for certain. I guess I'll just stick to "it works better as a continuous read" for now and see how it goes.