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Happy New Year! Better keep out of the water, Dragons be here...
I hope you all had a fantastic 2011, we at Baka-Tsuki certainly did! Enjoying our 5th Anniversary and the effort of our very first project, Suzumiya Haruhi being licenced by a western publisher (and the subsequence email drama i might add...) had been a very interesting and prosperous highlights! However if certain indications of the coming year seems to bring, perhaps this might be the first and only anniversary we will have the opportunity to celebrate, it'll be a real shame it's all going to end in 2012...
But until then, the world will continue to turn and the flow of never ending wonderful Japanese Light Novels to share will continue to march on! To this end I would like to thank some wonderful members of our team, regardless of how long they have been with us or how short, who will be retiring from active duty. It has been an honour and a privilege to have known and read your contribution, you gave us your time to share with us the many different Light Novels that would have remained unshared and unloved outside of Japan. I wish you luck for the new year, in your new lives, jobs, country and relationships! You will always be welcomed here, amongst us baka light novel otakus; 古いものと新しい友達に、あなたと幸せな新年をありがとう！*
- 仲間の皆さん及び初めて御覧になる方、ありがとうございました、そして明けましておめでとうございます。
Thanks to Translator Zyzzyva for finally noticing my awful Japanese. Glad to know some people around here are slightly above the Baka Curve! (present company excluded) ~_~;
Onizuka-GTO 06:58, 4 January 2012 (CST)
Happy 5th Anniversary!
Five years ago, Japanese Animation fan-subbing and Manga scanlating was surging to the front of internet culture. While this was not a surprise, since these Japan orientated medium has been lurking in the sub-culture of the internet for the last 15 years;it was only in the early 21st century that it was thrust into the mainstream. This unique form of medium, not seen in the native medium of most western countries, was captivating and fresh, the fans, the publishers, the TV network licencee, they wanted more and they wondered...What made then so unique? It was this spotlight, and almost insane lust for all things related to the creative industry of Japan, that it was inevitable they would follow the lead to the original material of many of these Manga's and Anime, but when they did indeed discover the breadcrumbs back, they were mildly surprised.
Books? Simple literature? Light Novels as well. These were inspiring the vastly popular cartoons and comics to teenagers? It was hard enough to find an average teenager to keep their attention, to a simple class literature book. Sure, western literature had books that cater to young teenagers too, but they were hardly capable to hold the attention of a adult! But Yet they did and they did so successfully in Japan and in the spin-off mediums. But publishers were distressed, how could they market these book to their respected audiences? The whole point of Anime and Manga, was that you didn't have to read! (ironic statement if there ever was!). Besides they said to themselves, there was no visible interest in the target market anyway, thus they returned to their castles in frustration and horde what Anime & Manga licences they could acquire.
Fast forward today, you can find many Japanese light novels translated and published in many western countries in a number of large book store chains and plenty for e-bookshops. Five years ago Baka-Tsuki created, fostered and encouraged the interest in Light Novels to the world outside of Japan.
And all it took was one simple and motivated Translator, and a very determined but dangerous Tsundere High School Goddess!
So as we celebrate our Birthday today, perhaps we should open the doors at our Fortress of Solitude, the Bastion of the Light Novel Community. After all, it's not every day that an internet community survive to its fifth year. (In Internweb years that makes us an Legal Adult!)
At our official blog, we will be publishing a series of Interviews with some of our longest serving Staff members and some of our newest recruits. To let members of our community to put a face, to the people who help make Baka-Tsuki the place that it is today;I hope this will help many of our readers to understand, our unique fan-driven wiki-communist state. To appreciate that without the contribution of our amateur translators, editors and you (the anonymous reader), we would never of survived this far, and certainly would of faded from the internet like so many before us!
So thank you everyone, and please visit our blog to read the first in our "Cog in the Machine" Interview article, who fittingly, is with our Founder and fearless Dear Leader TheLastGuardian.
皆さん,かんぱい!
Onizuka-GTO 08:03, 11 April 2011 (UCT)
Make a Difference
Administration Forum?? Recommendations. Staff only. http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5008 .....general poll to commence soon.
Onizuka-GTO 15:55, 4 May 2012 (CDT)
