Visual novels thread.I can't tell if this is AI slop but if it's by modern AI it might be bearable. https://mao-tls.github.io/ Can anyone lmk?At the very least let me tell you, as someone who switched from EN to JP mid-read for WA2, the existing English translation was horrible. Like from 1 to 10 it was maybe a 3-4. I didn't share this everywhere because, if there wasn't a better option, then I'm just making people feel bad for no reason.But it seems there's now better translations, so read or reread it now.Also if this mao guy is here, I want to ask how he afforded so many Astra tokens.
What's the appeal of WA2?
>>748413626Baby's first love triangle melodrama.Personally I find WA1 better since the premise is more unique and more relatable.
>>748413678Not for me, then. I need a lot of edge and blood.
>>748413678What other vns would you recommend then?
>>748413626I am thinking I am probably too stupid to enjoy WA2. I tried reading it and found all of the characters insufferably dramatic. I am too straight-forward to respect how wishywashy the protagonist is, and the pacing is so slow and boring. It's really popular, and many people think it's good, so idk.
>>748413889Don't get me wrong there is nothing with 2. It just doesn't live up to the hype is all.
>>748413467>mtl Kill yourself
>>748413678WA1 is only better because the anime adaptation is unintentionally fucking hilarious.
https://mao-tls.github.io/white-album-2/script/?route=intro&script=1005&compare=todokanai&errors=todokanai#wa2:ic:1005:1240Damn they literally list errors for the original fan TLThat's kind of brutal. But honestly, well first thank you to the original TLs of course, for the mammoth scale work they put in, but also, to be fair if you put out work it's fair if it is reasonable criticized, readers deserve to know
>>748413678>baby's first>FIRSTname 5 better ones pleaseunironicallyI don't read muchI thought WA2 was peak>>748413973The English translation being bad might not help
>>748414276I trust that MTL is unironically better than the fan TL for WA2.I'd trust it over Fate's old TLs too probably but by much less of a margin
>>748415087This is a really nitpicky example.
>>748415143Yeah that reasoning is also AI slop so who knows where the good examples of differences in TL are buried. I haven't looked into it myself but I do trust that the AI TL is better than the original by far.
>>748413467>Our White Album 2 translation was the Gutenberg moment: the point at which a process previously treated as artisanal, slow, and irreducibly manual became reproducible infrastructure. It showed that an agentic translation system could>agentic translation systemGee anon what do you think
>>748415470Weren't these people taught to at least paraphrase?
>>748413678>man getting ntr'd makes WA1 better than wa2 where it's the woman getting ntr'dNuh-uh you're just a cuck
>>748413467it's ai, (chat) gpt6 astra>I want to ask how he afforded so many Astra tokens.software engineers or web devs using tokens from employers
>>748413467Very subtle, OP
>>748415087The people who criticize the localization don't know much about english and japanese writing. The statements say the same thing, but the prose is different and it is a given because languages have their own unique way of writing prose. An english haiku has a different set of rules from a japanese one.
>>748413626Cheating overtime (nips love this mayb thats why score so high) and everyone suddenly retarted
>>748413467Okay I'll give real context. Mao-Tls uses GPT 5.6? I believe? It's pretty good, currently the tl group has caused heavy debate and even real professional translators got involved about whether their WA2 to is actually better than the fantl. It seems mixed some say it's better, some are just anti ai and won't use it if it's better anyway and some are accusing the original fan tl of using old shitty mtl pre "good" mtl. I would say from what I can tell this is better than the fan tl and a few professional translators on plebbit agree. Mao tls is going to probably cause an incursion where the entire EN translator industry for eroge shits the bed if they keep this up.
>>748415779Wait mao uses Astra? Even so wouldn't that cost an obscene amount of money? I thought they used Sol.
>>748415087The original fan TL was mediocre so it shouldn't be hard to surpass it
>>748413678>love triangle melodramaSnoozefest, got it
>>748413467Kill yourself
>>748413626Slop for tranime losers
>>748415828 >/vn/ and r/visual novel quotes on the site That's how you know it's garbage
>>748413626They made the heroines so good you can have a lifetime of bickering.
>>748413467For every MTL that is released a trans woman who poured their soul into translating is murdered. I hope you're proud of yourself.
>>748424043>For every MTL that is released a mentally ill failed male who poured their soul into translating is murderedBASED BASED BASED
>>748424106>translating*vandalizing
>>748413626Getting Setsuna from being #2 to MC's #1 girl is probably one of the most cathartic moments in vidya.
>>748413626Mediocre mexican telenovela but with anime characters
Current top AI models are better at translating than 90% of actual professional translators. As long as an English-speaking editor goes through everything it should be great.Translation is literally what AI was born from.
>common route is very enjoyable >every girl's route is horrible eye rolling dramaI hate every VN doing this
>>748426849Sounds like you just hate women.
I stopped paying attention to this slop when the two very first paragraphs it used for comparison read worse than the fantl. Not that I care that much, it's a mediocre VN anyway so it's not like they're sullying anything but I wouldn't sing the praise of that AI TL. The dude used the latest version of Sol, maybe Astra would be better instead.
>>748413467Friendly reminder that guy and his discord group constantly shit up every visual novel thread on this site making it impossible to actually talk about any visual novel that isn't the fotm shit he just "translated". /vn/ despite barely actually talking about any visual novel moves insanely fast but the vast majority of those posts are just complete nonsense shitposting
>>748413467who the fuck is even interested in this franchisei tried watching white album 2 anime when it came out and it was the worst romance series I have ever watchedeven fucking true tears had more motion
>>748427347It makes more sense when you realize the intended audience for these kinda VNs are literally complete subhuman loser failures who wouldn't know anything about romance in the first place.
>>748427815i get that but there are hundreds of better series than this crap
>>748427013You don't know Japanese, so you're really in position to judge anyone, not even AI.
>>748426984nta but yes I hate all women thanks for asking
>>748413467>Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa nai is fully translatedHoly damn.
i read somewhere that everyone cheats on everyone that they're all irredeemable
>>748414293fuck you, WA1 anime is kino of the highest orderit's work of art only enjoyed by smart adults, millions of teen fags and tranime menchildren were filtered by it
>>748444154>WA1 anime is kino of the highest orderThat is what I was saying, it's the funniest unintentional comedy anime I ever watched, it makes WA2 the anime look like a generic boring SoL slogfest.
Is White Album that melodramatic?I was thinking of playing them after I finish with ToHeart and ToHeart2 since I enjoyed those and Utawarerumono, but if it is just drama for the sake of drama then it it not really what I am looking for in a romance VN.
>>748440645I remember that anime being fairly decent. I wonder how the spoilers behind the MC plays out in a route based VN.
>>748415087Not only are most of the examples nitpicky but I'm also pretty sure that the errors were selected and explained by the AI too which is worthless. Plus, why aren't there any errors from the AI listed? Considering the output wasn't proofreaded how can you be sure the AI didn't made a single mistake at any point whatsoever? Not even the frontier models like Claude Fable are 100% infallible
Best girl.
But is it good?
Hijacking this thread to ask a question, do I play Rio or Serika's route in ToHeart or Yuuki or Karin's in ToHeart2?Already played the girls I was really interested in before playing the games so I am a little undecided on the remainders.
>>748426849Awesome when the common route is an enjoyable and funny read with a colorful cast of characters that bounce off each other, you jump into a route, and then everyone else basically disappears
>>748413467>MAO Translations introduced the first full-scale agentic visual novel translation workflow in the summer of 2026. We apply it in both directions: to bring works from the untranslated backlog into English, and to audit and replace inherited translations that do not survive comparison against the Japanese. No. God, I hate this shitty LLM version of corpo speak.This was released in 2021: https://todokanaitl.github.io/
>>748413467Did The Beatles come back?
>>748413467This level of shilling for your MTLslop is embarrassing, kys mao / gambs / whoever the fuck
I can't get hard unless the girl is clinically retarded, looks like an alien and constantly makes some weird uguu/gaogao/nipah noises.
>>748424043>couldn't find the right term for tsundereit's called "negging"
>>748413467I still think about Setsuna...
>>748418202Thanks for the explanation. Seems based to me though. I do agree that the AI TL seems to have at least ONE failing that reddit pointed out but. Still def way better than the todokanai TL I read a few years ago, I had to switch to JP after reading that.
>>748418202This is just the retard shilling his shit and pretending he doesn't know what AI he is using.
>>748418645>>748419815>it's afraid
>>748464502garbage translation made obsolete by MAO
Is /v/ a Setsuna or Touma board?
>>748442782there is exactly one person that cheats in WA2 and it is (You).>>748430317nta, i know enough japanese to read some of it.just from the first five lines, in order of appearance of nouns,>EN 2: snow, sky, we, tears, airport, wind, jet engine>EN 1: sky, i, airport, tears, jet engine, snow>JP 0: airport, sky, tears, wind, jet engine, snowi first saw a cap showing four errors in the original translation, that several of the lines were translated as exactly backwards. they were backwards. so it is serious. but then completely changing first impressions isn't small eitheryou're right that only someone who could read both languages could tell though. otherwise it's just judging on the prose in english, which i think the original translation is better at, but then what is prose if it says things backwards. without knowing the japanese it's just boxing shadowsalso mari best girl
>>748483798>there is exactly one person that cheats in WA2 and it is (You).What about the first game?
>>748484792i don't know about the first game.WA2 story is unrelated to WA1, the things they share are two songs and mentioning the names of the singers of those songs and that's it.
>>748413467Never read this slop but their Tsukhime tl was honestly not terrible for a mtl.
>>748415109Pick literally any kdrama and I guarantee you the love triangle will be more interesting. I don't read VNs anymore, but I liked Clannad and Mashiroiro Symphony.
>>748484792(You) start the game with a canon girlfriend in WA1 and there are 4 other routes. You do the math.
>>748485921Yep, thats a skip for me bro.
>>748485949Personally I found it pretty fascinating and unique because it really made me approach how I play VNs. I ended up being less of an incel because the urge to NTR the shit main girl with better girls was hard to get over.
>>748486021Well, I am looking for more pure love stories like most of the routes in ToHeart.
>>748486198It is a pure love story if you pick the main girl, and quite an interesting one at that. But yeah WA 1 and 2 are more about the complexities of relationships. There's plenty of moege out there if you want straightforward love stories.
>>748486249I dunno if I can handle that kind of thing. I feel bad enough when I do other routes after the childhood friend's like Akari or Konomi.
>>748413467But I already read the translated version 5 years ago.
>>748487701The translation was wrong. You wasted your time.
>>748472935>>748482952Childhood is picking Touma.Adulthood is realizing a faithful relationship with Setsuna is greatest gift man should always strive.
>>748413467Wait when did it happen?
what did everyone think of himanatsuI have no idea where they were going with Daiya's route it seemed completely irrelevant to the rest of the VN
>>748450228best girl at alcoholism maybe
read White Album 1.5 this holiday season
>>748453439I liked Yuuki's route more in Toheart 2 than Karin but for weird routes I liked Ruuko's more than hers if you haven't done that yetboth Rio and Serika's routes are nice but I probably prefer Serika
>>748413678>Personally I find WA1 better since the premise is more unique and more relatable.i want to do things to you
>>748496974subpar tl, shan't be reading
Hello, dear co-conspirators.
>>748487701>posts a mistranslated screenshotlmfao
>>748497150Touko is so cute she makes me want to reread her kamige
>>748430317The translation reads like absolute dogshit and I know enough japanese to pay attention to the source material as long as it's not fucking KKK. You lost retard
>>748498537vocaroo?
>>748464502The Todokanai TL was literally google translate old MTL. You're shitting on MTL to recommend more MTL
>>748498503How does this prove anything?
for me? it's the BLACK album https://vndb.org/v27089
>>748498647it proves the todokanai line is mistranslated. are you stupid?
>>748498747Please explain how is it mistranslated.
>>748498782The main error is in 「せっかくの」.>せっかくのクリスマスケーキなのにdoes not mean “It’s not every day you get to have a Christmas cake.” That adds an idea of rarity/frequency that is absent from the Japanese.Here, せっかくの means something like “when it’s a special Christmas cake / considering we went to the trouble of having a Christmas cake / for such an occasion”. Combined with なのに, Mari is expressing mild disappointment: since it’s a Christmas cake, it’s a shame the decoration is so plain.So the TODOKANAI TL:>“It’s not every day you get to have a Christmas cake, after all.”is an invented justification. The intended nuance is closer to:>“Hm? I just thought the decorations were a little too plain, that’s all. It’s a Christmas cake, after all.”or more explicitly:>“It seemed a little too plain, considering it’s a Christmas cake.”ask astra next time retardbro, i'm not spoonfeeding you dumb ludditor again
>>748498503uhaibroswhat happened to せかく
>>748498869I asked you to explain it not an AI bot.I repeat this does not prove anything.
>>748498902>せかく>>748498917you are the lowest iq motherfucker on this planet, consider unalivement
MTLs aren't perfect, but no TLs are perfect. You can highlight the flaws in any translation you want. More important is how a translation is broadly over time. And what MTL has right now is accuracy over time. For every 1 problem one will find in an MTL you will find 5 or 10 in a human TL. So the question isn't "which TL is error free," it's do you want more or less problems overall? But most don't really have that kind of broad mindset and are content to stop thinking after finding one issue depending on which side they were already on. In terms of "writing" like an LLM though the fact it's a translation mostly stops that. Pangram can't identify translated text as AI, humans can't in blind tests where they don't already know it's an MTL, etc. That's why publishers are going to start sneaking LLM text into their translations and people won't notice.
>>748498869it's over explanatory compared to the japanese but the ai tl doesn't imply that it's a special occasion whatsoever
>>748490781True. I went in the VN thinking I’ll go for Kazusa True.Closing Chapter changes a man.
>>748498982i don't care, there are thousands of heavily mistranslated line in the human tl so no amount of cope will make it worth reading over the mtlKINO
>>748498968So your best explanation on how todokanai TL is wrong is throwing ad hominems mr highest iq motherfucker on the planet.
>>748498503>>748498747as a japanese language haver the anon is correct that the translation is better than the ai translation here
>>748490781Setsuna is just sunk cost fallacyHaruki falls in love with Kazusa after being alone with her for such a short period of time, it was always over for Setsuna
>>748499074my best explanation is reading both scripts side by side and using my brain
>>748499157Cool opinion did you make sure to ask the AI bot to fact check it for you?
>>748414276>>748468426So true, sis. We LOVE human translations and hate MTL that does the job 100x better and gets the nuances right instead of troonslator fanfic visions!
>>748499209> did you make sure to ask the [superhuman japanese-english translation machine] to fact check it for you?yes, it knows japanese better that any other person on earth so of course i did
The author of this thread is a genuine schizo who has been polluting every English speaking website ranging from plebbit to /vn/ to shill his chatgpt translation of a shitty VNImagine going on a crusade for a fucking airport novelEither don't engage or continue to mock him
>>748413467WA2 got some AI slop translation recently but it's had a fully finished human translation for years
>>748499114You are coping. せっかくのクリスマスケーキなのに is “it’s a Christmas cake and yet…” / “what a waste for a Christmas cake,” not “you don’t get to have Christmas cake every day.” The Todokanai line invents a frequency/rarity claim that simply is not there.Calling it “better” because it sounds natural in English is dekinai logic. A translation is allowed to be idiomatic; it is not allowed to hallucinate a different reason for the character’s complaint. Here the Japanese says the decoration is disappointingly plain given that it’s a special Christmas cake. Todokanai turns that into “Christmas cake is a rare treat.” Similar vibe, different meaning.
>>748499323ok but what about the todokanai TL being garbage fanfiction and the one in the OP being 99% accurate and pleasant to read?
>>748499323I don't know why you refuse to think rationally and keep latching onto a territorial fight like a tribal man, even when professional translators with more than 10 years of experience have said that those AI translations are surpassing them. It's like you're a Stockholm syndrome victim of human translators and will never accept anything that isn't fanfic. Literally a caveman.
>>748499353*aiKINO*human SLOPlation
>>748499353>but it's had a fully finished human translation for yearsWhat you think was a human TL was literally MTL, the team got found out and there was a big controversy
>>748499385>Similar vibe, different meaningcould you at least type your posts without using ai
>>748499385i was saying the the middle translation is better than the ai one
>>748499515why? you are a low iq ludditor so it's not like you'll change your mind after seeing facts and evidence that go against your hardwired assumptionsmight as well bait for some quick (You)s>>748499549the middle one is AI, lmfao
Todokanai does have some questionably translated lines but the local AIdudebro is too stupid to point these out because he didn't actually read the visual novel.
>>748413467>>748413467>>748415087Confused by this github. So he just dropped complete MTLs for a bunch of big visual novels at once? Does that mean Cross Channel has four bad translations now?
>>748499598>the middle one is AI, lmfaolol well it sounds better and translates the meaning
We [don't read visual novels] here, dummy
>>748499720No, he is dropping them every couple of weeks as he finishes them. And yes C+C has another translation, it's less bad than the others but not JOP-approved
>>748499431>>748499482It isn't and it reads worseAlso translations matter a lot less than the reader's intellect, a retard like you with poor reading comprehension would get less out of a novel written in your native language than Auden would out of the most terrible 2014 MTL of the same work.
>>748499858>It isn't and it reads worsewhy do you lie? who is paying you? are you not ashamed?
>>748499858Why are you going to bat for Todokanai when it was literally an MTL project itself? it just makes you look hypocritical
>>748499482>even when professional translators with more than 10 years of experience have said that those AI translations are surpassing them. What translators?
>>748499858>It reads worseSo you know better than translators with 10 years of experience, like Quof, who say it's good? Can you point out the errors, since you're a native speaker of both English and Japanese with decades of experience, anon?
wait is there fighting against what ai is better am confused
"Reading better or worse" is subjective so it shouldn't be argued too intently, there are people who genuinely prefer ESL overly literal translations because "it feels like reading the Japanese more." There's no accounting for taste. To be constructive one needs to stick to discussing accuracy + fluency, aka if there are objective grammar errors or problems. Telling someone they don't actually like a human or whatever else translation more is doomed. Saying they can have their preference but the MTL is still fluent and accurate is the only constructive way forward. >>748500131Yes, some people do not realize the Todokanai TL was edited MTL and are accidentally shitting on MTL to declare their allegiance to another MTL
>>748500054You're a schizo with infinite free time on your hands, if you send me $10 through Wise or whatever I'm willing to dismantle up to 10 of chatgpt's lines
>>748499974Quof is the official translator of Ascendance of a Bookworm and has done a lot of visual novel translations in the past. Nowadays, he translates stuff with Astra and supports MAO, saying how insane it is and that nitpicking minor mistakes is pointless because any human translator would make it worse.https://mtlwiki.miraheze.org/wiki/Advice_for_Human_TranslatorsQuof is the one who wrote this page.
https://www.reddit.com/user/MAO_TLs/this is who you're arguing with btw
>>748500213>Todokanai TL was edited MTLyou better back it up with some proofs if you are gonna drop an insane statement or else i will just call you a loony
why did Aquaplus have to commit all ages suicide
>>748500408>The entire Reddit hates him I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, but it's backfiring and making me want to support him.
>>748500219>dumb ludditor doesn't know that chatgpt is freekek
>>748500407>that nitpicking minor mistakes is pointless because any human translator would make it worse.Correction: Mistakes should be nitpicked, it's just anyone nitpicking MTL should also nitpick human translations. It makes no sense to e.g. pore over a MTL looking for problems then declaring it an unreadable translation after finding a few, yet never doing the same for human translations.
>>748500407>Joining the U.S. Military 101Wtf is this? He's an AI jeet AND a ZOGbot?
>>748500407>https://mtlwiki.miraheze.org/wiki/Advice_for_Human_TranslatorsHFK page btw more high effort that anything i wrote there kek>>748500513check the vndb thread on MAO's profile
>>748415087todokonai sounds like edited google translation. It usually adds "You"s in japanese text where there is none and can change the meaning. But i think it has become better recently kek.
>>748500586I don't intend to use it to dismantle your shit translation though as it's not competent enough.
>>748500627Since translators will lose their jobs in the future, they’ll need to do something else to survive.
>>748500631>check *vague posting* nah link it here schizo so we can all be on the same page
>>748500706https://vndb.org/t25410disclaimer: i haven't read that thread and i do not care whather the og one was mtl or not
>>748500701and that something else will be dying for israel of course, kek
>>748500407>a single literally who, translating smutThat's what I thought. Come back to me when someone of Stephen Mitchell's caliber shares the same opinion. Hell, even Alexander O Smith would do.
>>748500871>unironic appeal to authorityhow low iq can this anon get?
>>748500764so this link reads like>I used AI bot to determine todokanai was done partially with MTLlol, lmao
>hated both by vndb and reddit,kek next this schizo is gonna get rangebanned by 4chan I assure you, mtl actual visual novels that doesn't have english translation instead of going on some moral AI le good crusade lmao, you don't even have the rep to make your words worth listening to
>>748501012>genetic fallacyit keeps tanking...
>>748501012If you follow their sources it does show that the original translation was MTL and that people split off the project due to finding it unacceptable before finally it was edited into something readable.
>>748500932It's an appeal to skill, not authority. Who would I trust more between a mere cobbler and a bootmaker when it comes to telling me everything there is to know about a shoe?
>>748501032oretsuba got tl'd yesterday
>>748501114AI is better than humans at detecting MTL, retard-kun...
>>748413467YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IS THAT A MOTHERFUCKING JOJO REFERENCE
>>748501190That's not what I'm talking about though.
>>748501114You don't really need to know "everything about the shoe," the claims are just about overall accuracy of the translation which has been verified a thousand times over, and anyone who knows Japanese will do for that. Meanwhile the English-facing prose speaks for itself in terms of whether one likes it or not, no need for an expert there.
Who is the MAO-TL person? Is it just an existing community member under a new name?
>>748500871>>748501114>Alexander O SmithOh yeah, the same guy who posts LGBT Pride Month celebrations on his Facebook. Such an authority on good translations. I would 100% trust him to never alter anything in Japanese works, unlike Quof, who has no problem translating “degenerate” stuff.
