#What do you *M E A N* the English release just cut out an entire chunk of the 3rd part that included the OG Digidestined getting kidnapped

[dnalt-d2]

I feel like I just got Mandela Effected by Digimon the Movie

[akatsuki-shin]

I... I don’t often call out anyone specifically using social media before, but... I saw this among the reblogs in my first post about MXTX novels English release announcement and I feel that this is just too much...

I’m not going to tag this with the fandom tags because this is literally just my personal rant, and I don’t want unpleasant things to appear when people are happily browsing the tags.

I also censored the person’s blog name. It’s not like I want people to mass attack them.

But I do have some things I want to say about this kind of mindset.

And this is gonna be a long post, so I’ll cut it with "Read More” later below as not to disturb anyone’s browsing experience.

Why do they have to split the books into multiple volumes?

First, you do realize that the original Chinese version and other languages versions are also in multiple volumes that don’t always be published on the same date, right?

SVSSS has 3 volumes, MDZS has 4 volumes, TGCF has 5 volumes.

With the English release, both SVSSS and MDZS get +1 volume while TGCF gets +3 volumes.

Why you ask?

Have you ever considered how long a single Chinese word would be if written in alphabets?

The word “人” in Chinese only needs 1 (one) character, while in English it would translate to “P E O P L E” = 5 (five) characters.

The word “知己” in Chinese only needs 2 (two) characters, while in English it would translate to “C O N F I D A N T E” = 10 characters, or “S O U L M A T E” = 8 characters.

Now apply this to an entire novel. FYI, TGCF has more than 1 million word count in Chinese, so you can do the math by yourself.

I mean, just go watch the donghua or live action in YouTube. One single sentence in the Chinese sub is often translated to two or more lines in the English subtitle.

And have I mentioned that the English release will have:

Glossary

Footnotes

Character Guides

And I’m going to repeat this once again: In China and other countries that already get their official releases, it is also NOT always all released on the same date as a single set/box.

So yes, (not) surprise! For the Chinese release and official releases in other countries, you also often need to purchase multiple times, pay shipping fee multiple times, and wait for certain period of times until all volumes are released.

It doesn’t only happen to MXTX novels, it happens to almost all novels, be it danmei or not.

Why don’t they just wait for translations to finish and release it all at the same time/as a box set? Why the span of two years?

On my part, I already say above that in China and other countries that already get their official release, it’s also not always published all on the same date.

Other than that, I’m not an expert at book publishing, much less when the publisher is not from my own country. But maybe consider the following:

They’re releasing 3 (three) hugely popular IPs all at the same time. Maybe the preparations take more time and effort to ensure everything is flawless?

Since it is very rare (or maybe never, cmiiw) for danmei novels to be published in English, maybe the publisher is testing the market first? Because if they already release them as a huge bundle from the start and it somehow flops, the loss would be very big. If it works well, then good! Maybe for future danmei release, they will consider making a box set or releasing them within shorter timeframe. 

In terms of marketing, if they wait another 2 years to release it all at once, will the momentum still be there? You can say “so in the end it’s all about money”, but if not sales number and money, what else should the publisher expect to receive for their work? They’re already putting a lot of effort buying all three IPs from the Chinese publishers, proofread or even translate some from scratch, pay translators, editors, illustrators, printing companies, etc. If it’s not selling well simply because they release it at the wrong time, aren’t all these efforts going to be wasted? And you can bet there will be no more danmei published in English if their first try already flops merely because of losing the momentum.

Are there any other rules or regulations they need to comply that prevents them from releasing everything in one go? But once again, even in China and other countries, it is also not always all released in one go, so this argument is already invalid from the start.

But they make it so expensive like this!

I’m sorry to break it to you, but I’ve compared the prices to MDZS Japanese release + TGCF Thai release and... The price isn’t really that much different.

Btw, I’m using Google’s currency converter, in case anyone wants to know where does my calculation comes from.

Okay, so here’s MDZS Japanese version from CD Japan:

One volume of MDZS Regular ver. cost 1760 yen. This is 15,96 USD before shipping. There’s only like $4 difference.

There’s also the Exclusive ver. that cost 3660 yen (32,92 USD) but we’re not gonna talk about that because they’re basically making you pay for the bonus, which is some acrylic panels and illustration cards.

Now here’s TGCF Thai version from Sense Book:

Translation using Google Chrome page translate:

One volume of TGCF costs 360 baht. This is 10.77 USD before shipping. So there’s about $9.22 difference.

Again, notice the difference of word/sentence length in the Thai words and English alphabet.

"But there’s still difference in price and other releases usually gets merchandise!” - Correct me if I’m wrong, but the US is probably one of the most expensive countries in the world. Do you think the materials, printings, and manpower cost is the same with other countries? Especially compared to one in Southeast Asia.

“But it’s xxxx times more expensive than the original Chinese version!” - Excuse me, the original Chinese version doesn’t need to pay for translators, proofreaders and editors with multilingual skills, and purchase the IPs? If you think it’s more worth buying the Chinese version, then by all means go ahead.

------------

Some last words...

I’m not looking down on those in difficult financial situation, but hey, I’m not filthy rich either? I come from a third world country and even if I’m a working adult, I’m still in working middle class + I got my parents to take care of. My country’s currency is literally just a tiny 0.000069 USD per 1 Indonesian Rupiah.

Every single fandom merchandise that you see me bought, either I’ve saved up for that or I sacrificed other things to buy that. I just don’t show the struggle to you guys because why should I? I’m just here to have fun about the fandom I love, not to flex my struggling financial condition.

These official English release of MXTX novels? All 17 books are going to cost me almost HALF of my monthly salary. But hey, I think it’s a good thing that they didn’t release it all at once, so that I can save up between months to purchase them all and plan my spending better.

If you feel the price is expensive, especially if you have to ship from outside North America, consider the following:

Book Depository provide free worldwide shipping

The books’ ISBN numbers are all available in the publisher’s website, just show it to you local bookstore and ask if they can order it for you

Plus, there are already hundreds of generous fans doing free giveaways in Twitter, even the publishers are helping to signal boost this. You can go and try your luck if you’re really desperate.

Lastly, I know how much love we all have for our favorite fandoms, but remember that fandom merchandise is NOT your primary needs.

You are NOT obliged to purchase any fandom merchandise if you can’t afford it and you should ALWAYS prioritize your primary needs.

Also, if you still want to read the fan-translations that are still available, alright go ahead. But remember that the translators themselves already said fan translations in English are now illegal. You can read it. We all consume pirated contents at one point. But don’t flex about it and diss the official release just because you can’t afford it.

I don’t know if the person who made that reblog tags are going to come at me or not, but even if they do, I literally don’t care. I’m not gonna waste my time arguing with someone with that kind of mindset and will block them right on the spot.

Also Idgaf if they call me out or talk behind my back, I literally don’t know them, so I don’t care.

End of rant.

[bensolodefensesquad]

Some guy in my star wars facebook group decided to call my dim because “It’s the Skywalker saga so the hero has to be the Skywalker!” and I’m too stupid to realize that all the signs are set up for Rey being Luke’s kid - “It’s not rocket science!” and so I got annoyed and replied him this:

A. Why would JJ go through the trouble of setting up a mystery box so strongly if the answer to the mystery box is Luke, which is the easiest answer.

B. How can anyone be okay with Luke being her father? For one thing, it would turn the sequel Trilogy into a complete rehash of the original trilogy. When the major complaint of the force awakens is that it's too much like a New Hope, why would they use the exact same plot twist in the second movie of the trilogy? It's dull, and it's bad marketing.

C. If they're really trying to get people to fill the seats for this next movie, why would you already make the plot so cut-and-dry. Rey goes and finds her father Luke Skywalker, and together they go kill the evil kylo Ren. Boring. Can't wait to go see a movie I already know the entire plot of. Do you think people would have been that surprised and excited to learn that Vader was Luke's father if George had set it up so plainly in the first movie?

D. What visual cues are you even talking about? The only thing they have in common is that she's from a sand planet, and Anakin's lightsaber. You can't talk about her being a great pilot, because everyone in Star Wars is great pilot apparently. I would say there are more visual cues to her being related to Obi-Wan than Luke, and I don't really believe that either. 

E. Maz Kanata says that the belonging you seek is not behind you it is ahead. The people you're waiting for on jakku, they're never coming back. But there is someone who still could. And then Rey says Luke? Which means the people who left her on jakku who are never coming back and Luke are two different people. And people want to make this big deal about oh maybe it was her mother who actually left her, but she said she's waiting on her family. That generally means that she knows that she was left behind by more than one person.

F. The English accent. Are you telling me you really think that Luke Skywalker's daughter is going to have an English accent like that? As a matter of fact, Daisy actually had to change her natural Londoner accent to something more Posh. Who do we know that uses English accents in Star Wars movies? Kenobi and Imperials/first order officers. Who doesn't use English accents? Luke Skywalker.

G. What timeline are we exactly looking for for Luke to have left her on jakku? Because Ben solo fell to the dark side when he was 23 years old. Which meant that Rey would have been 13-14 years old when he turned to the dark side. Now, we know from the movie that she was left when she was like 4 or 5. So what reason would good old Luke have to leave his daughter on a nightmarish hellscape of a planet if we're still 10 years out from when his nephew decides to ruin everything for him?

H. Making Luke Rey's father completely destroys his character. Because you would have to assume that either he left his daughter to rot on a slave planet for years or that he just knocked up some random woman who never told him that she was pregnant and instead dropped their daughter off on jakku. Considering that lucasfilm and Disney went through Great Lengths to make sure everyone knew that Han and Leia were married before they got pregnant with Ben, I highly doubt they're going to go with the one night stand created Rey plot. And to have her be his daughter from a marriage would make him a terrible father.

I. And speaking of the mother, who? The only girl that we've ever seen Luke Skywalker have any sort of lust over is his own sister. And granted that was a movie making mistake, but we are living under the assumption that Luke immediately went straight into trying to train other force-sensitives in the universe. When exactly did he have time during all this Jedi Academy stuff to get married, and knock up some chick?

J. And gosh, didn't we get an entire book set 23 years after the battle of Endor from Leia's perspective? Didn't she spend that entire book worrying about her son and her brother? Why isn't she worried about her sister-in-law, or her niece? Just seems really strange to me that even if they disappeared somewhere, Leia wouldn't think to mention them at all? So strange.

K. And while we're on the subject of this Jedi Training Academy that Luke was supposedly running, it was clearly filled with force sensitive children, right? Isn't that the gist we're supposed to be getting? If we're allowed to have enough children in this universe that were force-sensitive that Luke could have a training academy, why should we assume that this one force sensitive girl is his child? Why couldn't have any of those kids been his kid? If the force is apparently so prevalent in this universe that Luke can have a bunch of kids at his training academy why does mean that Rey has to be a Skywalker in order to have the force?

L. Deciding that Ray has to be the Skywalker because she's the hero means that you are reducing Leia's impact to the Skywalker Legacy. We already have a Skywalker for the next generation, and his name is Ben solo. To say that Rey has to be a Skywalker so we can have a Skywalker for this generation means that you don't count Ben solo / kylo Ren as a Skywalker which means you don't view Leia as a Skywalker, which means you have no problems with erasing her from the history of Skywalkers.

M. When have lightsabers ever chosen Allegiance due to lineage? Are they like ones in Harry Potter? Can they be ancestral? Because it sure looked to me like if it was all about lineage, it would have gone to kylo Ren? No, the force is a living thing, and it chose Rey in that moment to use the lightsaber to defeat kylo Ren. It's not because she's a Skywalker, it's because the force needed her to win in that moment.

N. And honestly, this whole Skywalker Saga thing is malarkey. Yes Kathleen Kennedy has said that this is the Skywalker Saga, but like I said above, you don't have to have a Skywalker as the driving force for it to still be the Skywalker Saga. As long as the story of the Skywalkers is getting told in a significant way, which the teaser poster for The Last Jedi seems to suggest that Rey is integral in mending the relationship between uncle and nephew, it's still a Skywalker saga movie.

O. To suggest that Rey needs to be the Skywalker because she's the hero means that you don't believe there is a Redemption Arc in store for kylo Ren, as a Redemption Arc would Place him squarely on the route to hero, and Skywalker hero. And I think that's a really poor interpretation of the movie, if you think that everything they've set up, and everything they've released for The Last Jedi doesn't point to him leaving the dark side. Which means the story you want told is that they're just going to kill kylo Ren. Effectively ending Leia's Legacy, and telling one of the most boring stories ever told in space. Kylo is not going to be Darth Vader, he's not going to reach that level of evil, and so the only way they could go with him for a compelling storyline, would be to go the other way.

P. In relation to Redemption for kylo Ren and creating him as the Skywalker hero of the trilogy, where exactly would the storyline go at this point? If the point is to just kill kylo Ren, Where is the dramatic tension? We've already seen that Rey can kick kylos ass without any training, so after her training how would another movie and another movie after that of her kicking his ass again be compelling in anyway? In the original trilogy, Vader one every single battle he was in up until the point that he chunked the emperor into Oblivion. If you already have your hero and your villain Dynamic set up to where the if you already have your hero and your villain Dynamic set up to where the hero wins in the first part of the trilogy, where is your story line?

Q. I recognized my parents when I was five years old, I highly doubt that if Luke Skywalker was her dad who left her on jakku, she wouldn't have known immediately the second she stepped on to Ahch-To. Oh hey, I know that face. I remembered my uncle that I didn't see for 22 years that I'd only seen as a small child. Kids recognize faces.

R. And she also thinks that Luke Skywalker is a myth, do you really think that she would have never heard her father's name ever? At no point does Ray ever wonder who her parents are, she wonders where they are. She knows their names. She knows her own name. She would have recognized Luke Skywalker, or Leia Organa, or Han Solo, as family names if she was related to any of them, and she didn't. But no, by all means, it's not rocket science at all. She's defo a skywalker. Because lightsaber.