Community Discussions
Explore the latest discussions and community conversations related to this domain.
Does anyone know any brands like Wildfang?
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I was in love with this one vest and pant set but I did not get it when it was in stock. So does anyone know any brands that are in a similar price range with a similar look like the vests? without the weird back they have since they’re technically meant to go under a blazer. I attached a picture of the one I was looking at if that helps
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These are in fashion rn so loads of places are doing similar vests. Idk where you're based but ASOS, Zara etc etc or look on depop/vinted
What's the deal with Wild Fang Project?
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WFP is the group that translated Baki since 2003, Ive read their stuff and with it there always seemed to be some message about how they only release to their private group and that the stuff that i was reading were leaks.
I would be happy to chip in and support financially to Baki being translated, but they never seem to advertise a webpage or crowd funding web page or anything like that, so what is the deal? Is it just like a hipster scanslation group or something, like you gotta be with the "in" crowd to pay money for a particular service?
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From personal experience, getting hit by a publisher is not a pleasant experience. They are probably trying to stay low to avoid that.
Beware of Ichido Reichan and Wild Fang Project
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As if his unethical practices like gatekeeping and charging money for mediocre if not rushed translations were not enough to sate Ichido Reichan and his overblown ego, it has come to the attention of many his desire to not only steal Kengan Asura from Hokuto no Gun but to harass its membership, Scanlators should beware of this vulture!
Here is proof of Ichido Reichan harassing a member of HNG hoping said person will join Wild Fang Project only to be rejected and called out on his BS. Seconds later, Ichido shows his true colors
Top Comment: Charging money for unlicensed scanlations, even good ones is absolutely horrible. The reason we love scanlations is because they share the works of artists with people who may not get the chance to experience them otherwise, so if you wall it off so you can make a quick buck you're an absolute shit stain in my book, especially as someone who's done creative writing in the past. I'm not a violent person at all, but if someone tried to hassle me to pay them money for scanlations to my face I seriously think I would punch them.
How do you get fangs and claws of the dragons?
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I've shot them everywhere I could think of.. the mouth, every foot.. just scales..
Top Comment: The first time you shoot each dragon you get a scale. After that you can shoot them in the mouth, horn or claw and get a fang, horn or claw.
Where do y’all shop for suits? Any reviews for Wild Fang?
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Specifically looking for suits designed for AFAB people. Willing to spend the money on Wild Fang if they’re actually worth it? Let me know where you’ve had luck. TIA!!!!
Top Comment: I do made to measure suiting through Bindle and Keep (queer owned!) and it's the fucking bomb. You get to choose everything about it so you can have traditionally masculine markers (ie, straight pockets, watch pocket, straighter jacket cut, etc) but it's cut to actually fit your body. I hate obvious bust darts and shit that reads femme and they're really good about minimizing that stuff if that's what you want.
So why does Wild Fang give shitty translations? Like what exactly does he gain from this shit? Majority of fans have been misinformed because of this mf
Main Post: So why does Wild Fang give shitty translations? Like what exactly does he gain from this shit? Majority of fans have been misinformed because of this mf
Top Comment: I swear to fucking christ it's because he used to charge for these scans (150 dollars if memory serves me correctly) so would just pump them out Now it's mostly because the ego in that man's body cannot be contained by any form despite the fact he just chucks shit in google translate and extrapolates a story off that
About wild fang's translations
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So I'm new to the Baki series (about 250 chapters into Grappler Baki) and I'm unsure of what the deal is with the wild fang translations... people say they're bad and made shit up, but idk what stuff they made up, or where it's most prevalent in the story.
I'm reading on Mangadex.org right now and so far all the translations I've seen seem pretty good, or at least average... I've seen some pretty fucking bad translations of manga (see translations of early Black Clover on Mangago.me, it's laughable) and honestly that's what I expect when people say "fan fiction levels of bad". I haven't seen any of that in Baki yet though, although idk if it's on mangadex or not.
Anyways could someone tell me about some of the worst of wild fang's apparent bullshit?
-Edit: I finished Grappler Baki
Top Comment: I remember that one scene in which he referenced naruto in grappler Baki and had kozue mom call her daughter a “narutard And he sometimes does stuff like say hanayama trains.
[Manga] Wild Fang Project: One group's quest to be the only Baki the Grappler translator, by threatening their competition off the internet
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CW: brief mention of rape, some homophobia
I was uncertain of how to approach the drama about the Wild Fang translation group, their work on the Baki the Grappler series, and subsequent attempts to fix it by other groups. At one point I wasn't sure whether I really wanted to write this at all, but after expressing desire to do so, I got a private message warning me that Ichido, one of the primary players in this drama, would go on a cyber-harassment campaign against me if he found this post. It was this message that inspired me to write this and provide more of a public eye to the drama. I'm not sure whether Ichido will see this or whether he would go so far as to harass people for six months or LOIC them if he does see them post in here, but take this as a word of caution.
First, some necessary background.
Context: Manga Fan-translations
Most manga (Japanese graphic novels) do not have an official translation into English. While the availability of manga for English readers is always expanding, it tends to only happen to the most popular series: the new big series in Weekly Shonen Jump, etc. When the series you like is too old or niche to get an official translation you can purchase, you have to rely on the dubiously legal practice of fan translation or scanlation, where people buy Japanese copies of the manga and put English translations in themselves. There's a difference of perception in the community between straight uploads of officially translated manga and a translation of a series that doesn't have one yet. While there are some people who will just pirate whatever they want and not give a shit about it, there are people who prefer to support the authors and buy the books when available, only turning to translation when there is no other option. Mangadex, one of the biggest fan translation sites, explicitly does not allow scans and re-uploads of officially translated material.
Now, these series are translated by people who usually aren't getting paid for it and usually aren't incredibly qualified for it. Fan translators often make mistakes, get burned out and drop a series, or have infighting between them. There can also be multiple teams trying to translate the same material, if one of them feels that the other isn't doing a good job and they need to express a more accurate/more naturalistic interpretation of the story with the world.
Context: What is Baki the Grappler?
Baki the Grappler (or Grappler Baki), which began in 1991, is one of the most classic and beloved martial arts manga, particularly in Japan. The first four series have sold over 85 million copies, and one spinoff, Baki Gaiden: Scarface, has sold 3.5 million copies. The series is about Baki Hanma, a kid with a vendetta against his dickhead father Yujiro Hanma. Baki desires to become a martial artist strong enough to defeat his father. The only problem: Yujiro is the strongest man in the world. Even though Baki has no interest in being the strongest, it is the destiny that has been forced on him. Thus, he must go on an incredible journey to become the greatest martial artist, battling many quirky and incredible foes, including a giant monkey, an unfrozen caveman that wrestled dinosaurs, and Miyamoto Musashi brought back from the dead.
While the series is considered a classic of the genre, it's not a very easy series to break into for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious is the art. The art style of the series emphasizes hyper-detailed, excessive musculature, which can be a little off-putting for some people. The second is that the story itself is not traditionally marketable. Its gross, gory, intensely homoerotic (to the point that an essay on how homoerotic Baki the Grappler is, is itself getting a TV adaptation), and often offensive. For example, in one of the most recent chapters, it is revealed that Yujiro's testosterone levels are ten times that of the average man, to the point that Yujiro considers himself the only man, with everyone else as women. He demonstrates his worldview by... raping a man.
Finally, what is perhaps the biggest obstacle: the translation. The official translations only cover a bit of the first series, and the whole second series (which only started getting translated in 2018). There are five series out right now, and tons of spinoffs. Now, you might say that's what fan-translations are for, but as we'll see, there was a bit of drama involved in the fan translation scene that contributed to making things dicey. The series only became fully fan-translated, up to the most current chapter, in September 2020, almost thirty years after the release of the first chapter of the first series. For a long time, the only way to read the back half of the first series (as recommended by the Grappler Baki subreddit) was to search for archived 4chan threads until you found one that posted the raw Japanese pages alongside script-format translations of that page (remember the 4chan scans, I'll get back to that). Thanks to the efforts of many fan-translations teams (TheSpinyBackTeam has done the most work for translating in the fandom, but /a/nonymous was the group that translated the final part of the first series as far as I can tell), the series was finally available to read for everyone! However, as you will see, what people thought they were reading was not necessarily the actual Baki the Grappler, particularly due to the efforts of a specific, devoted translation team...
What is important to gather from all of this is that the Baki fandom is pretty insular. It takes a lot of investment to even follow the story, let alone enjoy it, so Baki fans tend to be very invested and more of a close-knit group.
Okay, so what's the drama then?
If you read through the series yourself, or engage with the fandom at all, you will eventually probably hear the name Wild Fang Project, or Ichido Reichan (head of Wild Fang Project), come up. Wild Fang Project has been one of the most notorious names in the Baki the Grappler community because of Ichido's outrageous behavior, and the general quality of their scans.
First off, while at various points many of these scans have been leaked onto scanlation or aggregate sites, Wild Fang tends to keep their content behind a paywall. You can debate the ethics of making people pay for your fan translation of someone else's work- many translation groups accept donations, but charging for fanlation is pretty unusual- the fee for these paywall-protected scans was at one point 150 bucks, which is downright extortionary.
Second, the art quality of the translation is an issue. WF has always been known for valuing speed in its translations, knocking out chapters as quickly as possible, to the detriment of quality work. For example, one of the most important parts of the translation outside of scripting is "redraws" - removing Japanese text, then trying to redraw whatever was behind that text to make it look more natural. Here's a typical example of a redraw. Now, here's the Wild Fang approach. Part of their authorial trademark was just slapping text over the Japanese text, which is pretty sloppy.
Third, the writing quality of the scans was a problem. Fans will always dispute translations, even official translations. You could write up whole drama posts on, say, the clash between the One Piece official English translators and fan translators/BNFs over what Kaido's pirate crew is supposed to be called, Nagatoro calling Sempai sus, all kinds of stuff. However, in most instances, translators are just trying to bring the story to a new audience in the way they feel is best. Wild Fang was a bit different. Compare the Wild Fang translation to the official translation here. I am not a Japanese speaker, so I can't say how easy it would be to confuse these two scenes in the original language, but it's obviously a completely different scene in both versions. In fact, it's almost like the Wild Fang translators weren't even reading the Japanese and just writing based off what they felt was happening. It's not just a question of whether or not they made a mistake, either. Ichido has been known to rewrite stuff if he feels he could do a better job. For instance, there's a pretty straightforward (arguably cheesy) plotline where Baki's love for his girlfriend Kozue allows him to grow stronger, both in his convictions and in direct combat. Ichido thought the focus on romantic love was "gay" (despite literally being the opposite) and decided to remove all references to such. A scene where Yujiro encourages Baki's relationship in the hopes that he will grow stronger from it was changed to Yujiro hoping that Baki will father a strong grandchild, despite absolutely nothing like that being hinted at in the original Japanese.
Well, that sucks. I guess I'll have to find another translation-
Whoa now, not so fast. You see, Wild Fang is not famous for their price point. They are not famous for the lack of redraws. They're not famous for the pseudo-translation. What they (primarily Ichido) are actually known for are being a bunch of rabid assholes. They wanted to be the only game in town, and if you questioned their authority (or even worse, were trying to translate the series yourself), they would harass the shit out of you. Thespinybackteam, one of the primary forces working to clean up WF's mess, got hit with the brunt of the damage. Ichido went on a terror campaign against Spinyback, including:
- "Sniping" their releases (this is when you deliberately target another translation team by posting a translation faster than they can, in the hopes of driving traffic to your translation and not theirs). In this case, WF went so far as to post their translations immediately on top of Spinyback's translations to drown them out.
- Stealing translations from Spinyback and publishing them as his own work
- DDOSing Spinyback's website
This behavior was not limited to Spinyback or even Grappler Baki translators. Hokuto no Gun, most famous for their incredibly high-quality translation of Kengan Asura, has been on the receiving end of some petty feud with Ichido ever since 2009- which I can't find the root cause for. All I know is that it drove Ichido to try to snipe HnG with a massive amount of chapters at once, poach their artists on Discord, and go into the Kengan subreddit just to gloat like a cartoon villain.
The attack was relentless. Remember the 4chan scans I talked about? Why were they posted like that instead of being properly put on the page? Well, it was put on 4chan because the translator couldn't properly scanlate it himself and wanted some form of correct translation to exist rather than let the WF version be the only version. Thespinybackteam was threatened so constantly that in 2018 they were thinking about just giving up the project, and were only revitalized when major translation site Mangadex finally banned the guy for trolling and ban evading.
Conclusion
It's not a clean-cut happy ending, but ultimately Ichido and Wild Fang could not maintain a monopoly on the Baki translation market. They continue to sell their translations on their own sites, occasionally being leaked by disgruntled team members. They have translated and still do translate some other series, primarily martial arts manga like Baki, but nothing as popular, and nothing as controversial. There are still stretches of chapters where all you have to read is the Wild Fang translation, but ultimately, you can still read the whole main series from start to finish in English. I don't know what's in the future for Thespinybackteam, but I hope they will continue to provide more of the skill and violence of Baki to an English-speaking audience.
Top Comment: All I came away from this was that the WhiteFang dude is a freaking loon. He's harping on furries appropriating **BEASTARS** which Paru Itagaki (Keisuke Itagaki's daughter) made. And this too post too. Naah, The Kengan reddit is full of Fake straights fa**ots and little boys in the closet trying to push a gay agenda that Kengan Ashura doesn't hvee and never owned. Thank you for making this, his whole post history is a trip down mental insanity.
Whats bad about wildfang translations?
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I just started reading and was reccomended to use mangasee for new grappler baki instead of mangadex due to it being wildfang translation. Whats so bad about it?
Top Comment: Really inaccurate sometimes. Like crazy inaccurate.
Why are wildfang project scans bad?
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I already watched the anime and readed the manga from baki dou, I was now reading the Grappler Baki since some people told me the manga was better and that the anime removed pretty good scenes. The problem is, I heard in this sub that Wildfang project isn't good at translating, but I just noticed I was reading their scan, and I am at chapter 170 at the Baki VS Yujiro fight. Are they really that bad? cause I haven't noticed it and they seem pretty legit
Top Comment: I have heard the guy behind wild fang has done some shitty stuff aside from the bad scanlations, but I can't speak on that. As for the scanlations themselves, well at first glance you can probably notice they just look ugly, when there's pages with big text outside of a speech bubble, the translation is just plastered above it/close to it making it look jancky and unpleasant to look at. As for the translations themselves, they can be anywhere from incoherent to completely wrong, which obviously leads ro a boat load of confusion (an example that I've seen a lot, is with the strength match between Pickle and Yujiro, which was mistranslated by WildFang leading many to somehow believe that it was Pickle who used the trick on Yujiro, and not the other way around).
I'm unfamiliar with the hate for Wildfang translations. Is it safe to say my source is wildfang? Don't tell me this was Itagaki's original translation
Main Post: I'm unfamiliar with the hate for Wildfang translations. Is it safe to say my source is wildfang? Don't tell me this was Itagaki's original translation
Top Comment: Almost certainly wildfang. I read a better translation and it aint had no f word in it. They be adding all types of words like the infamous "narutard" part.