Seeing as the series hasn't been licensed in English yet, we will be continuing the fan translation of the GGO spin-off series for those who liked the first volume. Luckily, the people from the Russian SAO wiki have provided us with the raws of volume 2 and 3 and, even better, with cleaned illustrations as well (hooray for no more white lines in the illustrations). I have also replaced the volume 1 illustrations that suffered from this problem several weeks ago. Anyway, the purpose of this post is basically to cover the introduction so that the actual translation posts are less cluttered.
Volume 2 is somewhat shorter than volume 1 (392 pages versus 472 pages); however, the actual arc apparently didn't fit into one volume, so it was released in two volumes instead, hence the (I) at the end of the title (the Japanese version uses the character 上, which denotes the first volume in a two or three volume series; let me know if anyone has a better idea for how to account for it). And unfortunately, volume 3 (552 pages) is even longer than volume 1 (Sigsawa even outdid Kawahara's overly long Progressive volume 1 (520 pages))... so this arc... might take a (considerably long) while to translate... Meanwhile, the fourth volume of the series, Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online IV 3rd Squad Jam Betrayer's Choice (I) (or SAOAGGOIVTSJBC上; at this rate, even the abbreviations will need abbreviations... they're beginning to look like long strings of gibberish text...), is scheduled for release on the 10th of March. Just when I thought that I had a chance of catching up to the Japanese release...
Now for the technical, release speed and legal stuff. The volume itself is split into 9 chapters + prologue, which greatly vary in size. For those interested in the titles, a tentative translation of them will be added to the index page. Note that the translation might change as we actually get to the chapters. Release speed will probably be limited by editing speed, just as the case was with the first volume, so I estimate a release every 2-3 (4-5 if we're busy) weeks, though the longer chapters will probably take longer. If the series gets licensed, we'll halt the translation and will most likely have to remove the already existing translations from the site as well. We also reserve the right to work on some side projects if we (actually) find something else interesting to work on.
Style-wise, just a reminder in case anyone hasn't noticed, but we prefer to use British spelling variants (though we don't change "trucks" to "lorries", "apartments" to "flats" or make other such changes that could confuse the readers), so don't be surprised that we spell "tires" as "tyres", "pajamas" as "pyjamas" and so forth.
As for the story, as the cover should imply, the series is upping its second selling point - lolies - thus, the macho main character will be replaced with another loli. She's not a new character though, and M will still make his appearance, but... he's not going to be on LLENN's team. For those interested in the synopsis, here's a translation of the preview on Dengeki's site:
The 2nd Squad Jam was suddenly announced to all players in Gun Gale Online. Although the victor of the first tournament, LLENN (Kohiruimaki Karen), heard the announcment, she did not really feel interested in it.
However, a mysterious stalker crept up on Karen, and told her that people would die on the night of the 2nd Squad Jam. The man claimed that the "worst case" could only be avoided by defeating Pitohui, who would be participating in the tournament. After much anguish, Karen decided to participate in the tournament, but......
P.S. For those interested in manga (or just some visuals), the manga adaptation of the series has been added to Comic Walker and the first two chapters are available in Japanese for free. From what I've seen, the manga is doing the narration in a different order and adding original content. I might be interested in picking it up, but I wouldn't have the time or skill to do typesetting.
Thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteGGO was always my favorite SAO setting but the main series didn't live up to the full potential and I always wanted to follow other main characters than Kirito for once. Looking forward to all of your translations.