Three Years...
As always, this is just a blog I do for me and anyone that’s interested in what we did, and what we’re doing going forwards. No big shadow drops or anything like that, but some announcements right at the end, if you want to skip to that.
Three years, huh?
Long? Little?
Either way, I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done so far, every project has a place in my mind and heart, as cheesy as that sounds.
Before talking about anything about the group I want to touch on our philosophy when it comes to translation. There’s been a lot of noise around AI translations and bad localizations/translations, what is a good localization, etc.
I want to give my two cents here because I think people are being very extreme in both sides.
There’re two values I follow when it comes to translation: Immersion in the story, Being respectful with the original product. Let me explain myself a bit here.
For you to enjoy a novel, you need to be immersed in it, I think that’s the bare minimum and as a translator, I’m responsible that everything I do is in order to do that. So, if I have to change a joke, a reference (that’s not vital to the story) or anything in between, for you not to have a disconnection of the text with the story, for you not to have to tab out of the game and figure out a reference or joke, I’ll do it.
Personally, if I had to do that every 5-10 minutes, I wouldn’t connect with the story, with its characters, with anything at all, and that sucks.
But every single change I make, I try to be respectful with the original product. I don’t change the values of the writer or make changes that I don’t really need to.
But I do make changes, because languages are different and expressing emotions between languages needs some changes.
Sometimes these values collide with each other, sometimes I have to think of a line for days, sometimes I don’t.
Sometimes we have to understand the reasoning of the original author and maybe even include things that weren’t originally in the novel in order to communicate the author’s feelings to a foreign audience.
It’s hard to find a balance betweenmy own values, but it’s so much fun and that’s why I translate, that’s why I’ve been doing it for three years now.
I might get it wrong sometimes, for sure. But I want everyone to know I think really had on every decision I make on every word I type.
And I think that’s the one issue I have with AI translations, they just find the most direct way to communicate words and that’s it, I don’t think that’s good enough for long novels where consistency and immersion takes such a prominent role on enjoyment and etching a product in your mind and heart for years to come.
At the same time, we’re just a for-fun, non-profit translation group. I don’t need to sell novels to keep afloat, to keep people employed, to maximize my reach on multiple platforms. So, I understand why some companies change things that some people think are just too much or too egregious.
Their focus and our focus are completely different, and I would be lost if I had to make sure all of my translations sold enough for me to keep on doing what I love. Official localizations have all of this in mind. Some of them have really nailed it but the discourse online always focuses on one thing were they went too far or something like that, which actually kind of discourages me from even talking about it, it’s honestly tiresome to see how much people bash localizations for one word, sentence or even a small conversation and then having them glaze an AI translation that’s barely coherent and breaks all immersion 3 textboxes in…
That’s actually one of the reasons I still believe there’s value in translations like ours and why I’ll continue to translate for as long as we want to.
Now, I’m not saying there’s no bad localizations, but just try to see the bigger picture before going into a tirade, please…
Anyways, rant out of the way, we had 3 releases in 2025, so I’ll just talk a little bit about each one:
Nagi No Koi
A patch was released earlier in 2024, but this is for the official release which had some minor changes and additions and most importantly, is an official way you can support Nutrients and their novels from now on! So please, pick it up if you are interested!
This novel was such a gem, I fell in love with it and tried to do something a bit different from my other translations, I feel it worked and I think there’s a lot of value there.
How the novel is structured is pretty uhh… novel? for me and really captured me as soon as I figured it out.
I hope nothing but the best for the team behind it and I’ll definitely be there if they need me again!
Oh yeah, there’s also a new release for PS4 and Switch about a month ago! So, you can also buy it on those platforms if you want!
Sousaku Kanojo
The biggest project yet, and the one a lot of people probably heard from us for the first time…
I had a lot of fun translating the novel, and with the help of a wonderful editor we were able to connect with a lot of people and have a pretty successful release. On parallel, with a different team, we prepared a simultaneous Spanish release, which I’m happy about but I would never do again. Having to switch from side to side translating into two different languages was exhausting and burned me out a lot, that’s why I decided from that point forward to limit myself to one version at a time for big projects like this one.
My feelings about the novel itself and some quirks of the translation itself are on the translator’s thoughts if you want to take a look.
One-Armed Crayfish
Isn’t it nostalgic to translate a Tokoroten-sensei novel after doing so much thanks to him?
My first cold email was to Shatou Sombrero actually! I just wanted to have permission to translate their novels as I liked them all, they gave me permission, and that’s how we got here.
A short novel, bunch of cgs and much love poured just right.
With this, all their novels have a translation to both Spanish and English by our team, all of them on steam and ridiculously cheap, so give them a try!
That was 2025, 3 releases… Could have been more, but burnout and just general life was a little rough at the end of the year…
Now let’s talk about 2026 and what’s coming:
Dekinai Watashi
After a lot of burnouts, contemplation and exhaustion… I can finally announce that all translating and editing has been COMPLETED!!
This will be, in terms of textboxes at least, the longest novel we’ve released so far!
Now, I’d love to have a release date for you, but I don’t want to rush one of the most vital parts of any of our projects, the QA. And there’re some images, bugs and whatnot that we must iron out before releasing anything.
But I can say this now: We’ll release it in 2026. Whether it is in a month, two or three, I don’t know yet. But I’ll announce it as soon as we are confident the novel is impeccable and ready. I’m preparing a surprise as well, (nothing to do with translation) hope you’ll like it and to have it ready and perfect for the release…
Now, for an announcement, the next novel we’ll be working on. One that I should have focused on last year, but I couldn’t find any time to:
Azrael on the True Boundary of Life and Death — Celestial World Chapter
Released by Quantize in 2022, the second part of the Azrael novel we translated in 2023!
A semi long project but I’m very excited for you all to read the second part of this story.
With Quantize’s permission I’ve uploaded the trailer with subtitles (turn them on!) on YouTube, you can watch it now right here!
Spanish and English simultaneous release, hopefully 2026!
Finally, I just want to make sure everyone knows how our flow works:
Every “Big” novel (Sousaku, Dekinai, etc) is always followed with an indie/freemium novel that we’ve selected. After that project, we’re back to another “Big” novel. That will continue as long as we are able and we’re still passionate about translating. Whether that “Big” novel is a piece of love, war, struggles of writing, or anything in between. 😉
That’s all for now, if you have any comments at all you can contact us via Twitter, Discord or email([email protected])
Alexeir