My school/company/internet provider/prison/mental institution doesn't allow me to use IRC or any of those file sharing programs. Why don't you just offer direct downloads?

Hi there. We don't offer direct downloads at this point (although we have in the past) because the costs of bandwidth becomes astronomical. We congratulate ourselves that it's because of how popular we are and are VERY happy about it, but it still empties our wallets and purses. We do offer HOSTED downloads through file-hosting/sharing sites (and this is available even for our past releases - except licensed manga) and those links can be found through our yahoo group and forum.

---

 

FILE DISTRO/SHARING

Can I serve your scanlations on my website?

Sure you can, as long as you fulfill certain conditions which have been outlined in our new Distro policy. To paraphrase, as long as you don't remove our inserts and credits pages, credit us as the scanlators, wait for 72 hours when it comes to new releases, refrain from selling our work and upload the files to your own servers or host site accounts, we have no problem with you serving our scanlations on you website.

---

 

IRC + BITTORRENT

Why don't you offer bittorrent files?

We tried out torrents but there were simply not enough seeders or peers who stuck around to keep it alive. It eventually died and we all got drunk during the wake and then aripie took off her- *cough* Well, that's another story... >_>;;;

I already tried IRC, it's too complicated, can you help me figure it out?

We can't help you personally (like holding hands and recommending not to knock before pressing the enter key - old joke- :P) but we have links to IRC guides which can explain the complicated, intimidating world known as IRC. We all learned it that way, so once you start educating yourself, it will get supereasy!

I don't have IRC, can you just send me the files?

I'm afraid that is simply not possible because there are too many of you!! And too less of us :(. You will have to go through the IRC or Hosted files route. Actually, we've made things simpler recently because our new distro policy allows sharing of our releases in livejournal communities and such.

---

 

NAKAMA

How do I join Nakama's staff?

Go down to the NakaLinks menu and click on the cheery "Join Us!" link. That page hosts our staff calls and deadlines. Just keep tabs on whether the positions are being offered and mail us when we are looking. We have tests that need to be passed and should you qualify, the dark, mysterious world of Chinko Love and Willy Worship shall be opne to you... from WITHIN!

Will you scanlate [insert title] this manga?

Scanlation is a lengthy and expensive process involving time, effort and money, much like a lot of meepie's sexlif- EEP. No, I didn't mean that, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

>_>

So, as I was saying, scanlation is expensive and time-consuming. We know this and so have some preferences. The main one is that we should like the art and story and characters or any one of them. If we find ourselves so drawn to it that it invades our sleepy times and Feilong isn't licking my toes anymore, we will definitely try our best to track scans and procure it. However, the easiest way to get us to do a project (that we like at the least!) is to provide us with scans of it. And we don't mean scans that you've downloaded from a p2p or Aarin boards. The scans must have a properly creditable scanner form whom we have informed consent for scanlating.

Ultimately, we go for the pretty. :D

When will [insert chapter and title here] be released?

We don't know... We are all anal to an extent but sadly, we are all real people too, with real lives and so, we don't have release schedules planned for entire projects. Moreover, scanlation groups largely have a high turnover rate, so a staff who worked on a project may leave midway, may become awol, etc. We can't tell. We definitely finish any manga that we've started and any sequels that have been spawned. So, you can be assured that we will complete what we start, we just cannot give you dates.

---

 

PERSONAL USE

Can I serve your scanlations on my website?

Sure you can, as long as you fulfill certain conditions which have been outlined in our new Distro policy. To paraphrase, as long as you don't remove our inserts and credits pages, credit us as the scanlators, wait for 72 hours when it comes to new releases, refrain from selling our work and upload the files to your own servers or host site accounts, we have no problem with you serving our scanlations on you website.

Can I use your scanlations, but translate them to [insert language]?

I'm afraid we cannot agree to allow the use of our scanlations in this way. Firstly, we  put in a LOT of effort by finding original manga and purchasing them ourselves or sourcing them through friends. Then we plead and beg and find some translators who are interested and willing to work with us. By taking our scanlations, you have completely bypassed these 2 steps, which frankly are the toughest phases of the scanlation process. This is only going to discourage groups from scanlating because if people are going for shortcuts, why should we take so much effort? We think what groups like Storm in Heaven & Obsession do is fantastic. That way, you please a wider audience AND you contribute to the scanlation and manga community.

If you really want to scanlate manga in your own language, we suggest that you start from scratch because the nuances of Japanese may translate better into your own language directly rather than through English, which frankly does not convey the subtlety involved in Japanese dialogue.