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==Motivations and ethics== While early official translations of manga focused on localizing the manga to an [[Anglophone]] culture, scanlations retained the cultural differences, for example, leaving in [[Japanese honorifics|forms of address]], romanizing sound effects and onomatopoeia instead of translating them, and providing the manga unflipped.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives|year=2010|publisher=Continuum|isbn=978-0-8264-2938-4|pages=221β232|author=James Rampant|editor=Johnson-Woods, Toni|chapter=The Manga Polysystem: What Fans Want, Fans Get}}</ref> This minimalist approach to translation has been referred to as "[[enculturation]]". Sound effects can also be left untranslated in scanlations, creating an evocative Japanese atmosphere. The reader can often infer the meaning of the sound effects from the context or lettering choices.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Huang|first1=Cheng-Wen|last2=Archer|first2=Arlene|date=October 13, 2014|title=Fluidity of modes in the translation of manga: the case of Kishimoto's Naruto|journal=Visual Communication|language=en|volume=13|issue=4|pages=471β486|doi=10.1177/1470357214541746|s2cid=147372886}}</ref> Fans are often quite unhappy with the translation industry for various reasons. Patrick Macias, a columnist for ''[[The Japan Times|The Japan Times Weekly]]'' described fans "addicted to page-turning narratives" as impatient with the "agonizingly" slow pace at which official translations are released.<ref name=Macias>{{cite news |last=Macias |first=Patrick |title=Fans lift J-culture over language barrier |newspaper=[[The Japan Times]] |date=2006-09-06 |url=http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fa20060907a1.html#.T_Oij_VTi59 |access-date=2012-07-04}}</ref> Douglass, Huber and Manovich say that enthusiasm by fans about a particular series, coupled with delays in official translations led to the formation of scanlation groups.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Douglass |first1=Jeremy |last2=Huber |first2=William |last3=Manovich |first3=Lev |title=Understanding scanlation: how to read one million fan-translated manga pages |journal=Image & Narrative |volume=12 |issue=1 |year=2011 |url=http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/viewFile/133/104 |format=PDF |access-date=2012-07-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927154714/http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/viewFile/133/104 |archive-date=27 September 2011 |url-status=live }}</ref> Scanlators say that they scanlate to promote the series or the author in their own language, but Hope Donovan suggests that the scanlator's goal is more along the lines of "self-promotion", and argues that it is prestigious for a scanlator to have many fans.<ref name=Donovan18>{{Citation |author=Donovan, Hope |chapter=Gift Versus Capitalist Economies | editor-last=Levi|editor-first=Antonia|editor2-last=McHarry|editor2-first=Mark| editor3-last=Pagliassotti|editor3-first=Dru | title=Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre| publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] | date=2010|isbn=978-0-7864-4195-2|pages=18β19|title-link=Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre }}</ref> As many titles do not get licensed in most countries, or licensed in any foreign country, scanlation groups allow a much wider audience access to the content. The owner of the now defunct manga-hosting site Ignition-One, Johnathan, stated that "The entire reason I joined the scanlations community is to promote manga that I was interested in and, coincidentally, that no one else would translate."<ref name=Macias /> Also this practice is common for some manga discontinued due to lack of popularity or sales in the target region. In other cases, scanlation groups are formed to get around perceived or actual [[censorship]] in the official translation or in the decision to obtain the series license. "Caterpillar" of former Caterpillar's Nest scanlation group, in reference to erotic content that his group released, stated that "I started doing scanlations because I wanted to read certain manga and I knew they didn't stand a snowflake's chance in hell of ever getting an official English translation."<ref name=Macias /> In the [[yaoi fandom]], commercially published explicit titles are often restricted to readers aged 18 or above, and there is a tendency for booksellers to stock BL, but also insist that more of it is shrink-wrapped and labeled for adult readers.<ref name="Pagliassotti BL West">[[Dru Pagliassotti|Pagliassotti, Dru]] (November 2008) [http://www.participations.org/Volume%205/Issue%202/5_02_pagliassotti.htm 'Reading Boys' Love in the West'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120801134251/http://www.participations.org/Volume%205/Issue%202/5_02_pagliassotti.htm |date=1 August 2012 }} Particip@tions Volume 5, Issue 2 Special Edition</ref> Andrea Wood has suggested that teenage yaoi fans seek out more explicit titles using scanlations.<ref name=Wood-06>Wood, Andrea. (Spring 2006). "Straight" Women, Queer Texts: Boy-Love Manga and the Rise of a Global Counterpublic. ''[[WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly]]'', '''34''' (1/2), pp. 394-414.</ref> The quality of commercial offerings is a common complaint.<ref name=Donovan18/> [[Language localization|Localization]] is also a common complaint among supporters of scanlations. Commercial releases often have titles, names, puns, and cultural references changed to make more sense to their target audience. The act of horizontally 'flipping' the pages of commercial releases has also received criticism from fans of manga. The reason for this change is that manga panels are arranged from right to left, while the panels in Western comics are arranged from left to right. However, due to large-scale fan complaints that this 'flipping' has changed the finished product from the original (e.g. A flipped manga image will keep the speech translations legible, while any graphics such as the wording on clothes or buildings will be reversed and confusing), this practice has largely diminished. The cost and speed of commercial releases remains an issue with some fans. Imported comics from the original countries' markets sometimes cost less than the commercially released version, despite the high cost of shipping. Despite weekly or monthly [[serialisation|serialized]] releases in the country of origin, translated editions often take longer to release due to the necessity of translating and repackaging the product before release. A more recent phenomenon amongst scanlation readers is the emergence of [[ereaders]]. Users may read scanlations on devices such as the [[Amazon Kindle]]. Since most scanlations are distributed as a series of images, many e-book readers already have the capability to read scanlations without additional software. Many manga have not been released in a digital format that is compatible with e-book readers, making piracy the only avenue for readers who wish to read on these devices.
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