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@necromancyscans
I was wondering if the fan translations were still at least in existence for posterity's sake? Luckily we can have both, we probably would've had them sooner if © wasn't so bloody long
Yes, I’ve preserved my copy. I wasn’t about to delete all that work.
So, this project is basically dead, and although I have received neither a cease and desist nor a DMCA claim I have judged it best to remove all translations from the first volume from this blog.
I can only hope that Seven Seas elects to translate the later volumes as well, some of which overlap substantially less with the content of the anime.
Basically, if you watch in the usual suggested order (first arc of OVA then all of TV series) that follows the plot, with some modifications, of vol 1, 3, 4, 6 and 7. The contents of vol 2 are entirely omitted and so, I think, are those of vol 5.
News! - Seven Seas Entertainment has announced they’ll be releasing the original Record of Lodoss War novel, The Grey Witch! Not only that, but it will be what they’re calling the “Gold Edition”: a large, hardcover book with gold foil stamping on the cover (much like the Japanese version you see above on the right). The novel will also include illustrations by Yutaka Izubuchi, best known for his artwork for Mobile Suit Gundam and Escaflowne.The novel will be released October 31, 2017 for a SRP of $24.99 USD.
Is this still being translated?
There’s a bit that’s been translated but not posted, but no, not at the moment, though I’m not ruling out picking it up again.
Are you Milo?
I have no idea who you’re talking about.
hello? are you still scanlating the novels?
Hi, sorry about the radio silence!
We do have some material translated beyond what’s been posted, but I actually have let this project slip by the wayside for the last while.
I should try to get back into things.
Update - December 12, 2015
We have started translating and proofreading vol. 2 (The Demon of Flame), as I probably mentioned earlier. No ETA on releases as of yet, but after being busy for a while I finally have more time and energy to devote to the project, though I can’t speak for the rest of the team.
Hopefully when we do release something, it will be in bigger chunks, though likely less often than before.
More about those Comptiq replays...
I found a couple of sites of interest: illustrations and an article. I’ll translate a relevant bit from the latter:
It seems natural that some would say “Oh, I want to read [the replays] again!!”... unfortunately, I believe that would be pretty difficult these days. Firstly, the TRPG replays published in Comptiq were never independently published, and even the National Diet Library doesn’t have every issue of Comptiq from that time (apparently some were stolen).
As far as I can tell, it appears there was once a plan to publish the collected replays. There was a notice in Comptiq to that effect. But it seems it was cancelled due to an issue with D&D copyrights.
...
After the end of the serialization of the Record of Lodoss War replay, another replay was planned and started, but that was the Wandering Legend of Crystania.
below the cut follow a list of the titles of each issue of the replay, as taken from the article linked above.
Ciaran Hillock's Rune Soldier translation
This translator is not part of our group, but Rune Soldier is set in the same world as Lodoss, so it might interest you to know that there is an ongoing translation of that light novel series as well.
Because I find watching videos for text really tiresome, I haven’t watched much of the Niconico version of the original D&D replays, but the big thing I noticed is that all six of the members of the main party start together, which is also true in the redo, and they have a few adventures that aren’t in the novel.
Here’s a map of the town of Zaxon from the redo, with arrows indicating everyone’s houses (in the novels, only Parn, Eto, and Slayn live there).
I’ll write the names of the characters, so you can look for them yourself:
Ghim: ギム
Parn: パーン
Deedlit: ディードリット
Slayn: スレイン
Woodchuck: ウッド・チャック
Eto: エト
For anyone interested in helping us search for Comptiq scans, apparently the D&D replay (that was later redone) covers the Parn and Orson arcs, running in Comptiq from September 1986 to April 1987 and from June 1987 to July 1988, respectively.
Spark’s adventures were originally played according to the Record of Lodoss War Companion rules and were republished in the third volume of the compilation, so they should be easier to find.
Hey, question- is there any chance of the original tabletop Replays being translated after the novels? They're supposed to be fairly different from the novels and the adaptations. I think there are scans of the first three replay volumes are floating around, if it helps. Glad to see the novels are finally getting translated, though!
The short answer is no, because of issues getting scans. The long answer is this:From what I’ve been able to find out, the original (D&D system) Lodoss replays were only published in Comptiq magazine. When the franchise began to take off, there was a concern with copyrights, so they switched to their own system and did a redo replay for the earlier parts - basically a whole second campaign following the same overarching plot, and with different players, based on the Record of Lodoss War Companion system, and that is what was published as books. To my knowledge the original D&D replays were never officially reprinted.So far I have been able to get my hands on scans of the first book (the redo replay), but the only Comptiq scans I’ve seen are a few of the illustrations.However, there are two things I *have* been able to find:
this website has what looks to be a partial transcript with a certain degree of paraphrasing of the Comptiq replays (the site in general is a treasure trove of info related to the Forcelia setting - Lodoss, Sword World, Rune Soldier)
some folks on NicoNico have been making a video series (really, more like a slideshow) out of the original Comptiq replays. This looks to be a more complete version than the other site, but translating text from videos is far from ideal
So basically, it might be possible if we can get ahold of some decent scans, but so far we (I) have been unsuccessful. If anyone reading this either has such scans or wants to help us look, give us a shout! Personally, I (the translator) am not terribly interested in translating the redos, but might be willing to go for the original replays IF we could get scans of them.
A note on translation philosophy
Translation is more of an art than a science, especially as pertains to literature. I tend to choose, when in doubt, to lean towards the looser translation that sounds better in English, rather than the stilted, but precise. Oftentimes this just means replacing a Japanese expression with the appropriate English one, but sometimes it’s more extreme than that. Also, don’t expect any Japanese honorifics, probably not even if I later on translate something that’s set in Japan.
And I’ve decided, when transliterating names, to err on the side of assuming that Mizuno (and/or one of the players) was going for cheesy themed naming - not unreasonable given some of the other names.
So the royal castle of Flaim, in the city of Blade, is called Archlord, and not Akrohd as I’ve sometimes seen it written (I mean, when the other castles include Stone Web and Shining Hill, it’s arguably the least silly...) and one of the characters in volume 2 miiight just get called Pseudo.
Translating The Demon of Flame is kind of rough because it feels like Flame Flaim flame flame flame Flaim Flame
Like, it’s about a Demon of Flame, in Flaim, associated with the Tribe of Flame...
For some reason Kashue and the Tribe of Wind (not Flame) were the ones to create the Kingdom of Flaim, in which they fight against... the Tribe of Flame?? Why’d he name his country after his worst enemies (like... yeah in Japanese it’s not ‘flame’ it’s ‘honoo’ but I would guess that Mizuno had an English dictionary to use for his themed naming*)
Well, actually it’s kind of fun translating this one because it’s a story that wasn’t in the anime so I’m less familiar with it, plus Kashue plays a big role, but at times the word ‘flame’ starts to look like it doesn’t mean anything when you’ve written it that many times.
*though Moss, and not Flaim, is the winner for most consistent themed naming, with places like Dragon Breath, Dragon Scale, and Dragon Eye... these aren’t even translations, that’s literally what they’re called in Japanese
I’ve gotten my hands on raws for the five numbered volumes of the Legends of Lodoss series, which is the series about the Six Heroes, and some of the illustrations are amazing (like most light novels, most of the illustrations are black and white tho).
I’ve also edited the titles on this blog’s book list, because volumes 2-5 have English-language title pages. They seem to have gone with Pharis, not Phalis, so I may have to go back and change that.
That’s Eto for you.” From where she sat on the sofa, Deedlit smiled up at Parn. “I would expect nothing less from a friend of mine.” Parn smiled as though he himself had been praised.
Mizuno, Ryo. Record of Lodoss War, volume 2: The Demon of Flame.
d’aww the ParnxEto friendshipping is strong with this novel.
Lodoss = first light novel ever?
I finally started watching the series of Lodoss-related comedic animated shorts that came out in 2014 (link to the entry on MAL). They’re about a couple of Lodoss-obsessed otaku who are trying to put on a Lodoss play or skit for their school festival, so they recruit a girl to be Eto. It’s pretty silly so far.
But in the first episode, they make the interesting claim that the original Lodoss novel was the first light novel ever. I haven’t been able to verify this, though it was at the very least among the first, especially if you only count works that were considered light novels around the time of publication (the term was apparently invented in 1990, two years after the publication of The Gray Witch in 1988).
ETA: I forgot to mention it, but apparently Lodoss (and in particular, Yutaka Izubuchi’s illustrations for the novels) was the origin of the super-long pointy ears on Japanese depictions of elves (this has also spread to other countries to some extent - for instance, it appears in some Korean MMOs). According to his Japanese Wikipedia article, this was due to a misunderstanding - Deedlit was supposed to have ears “like Mr. Spock”.
My point is that Lodoss has been something of an influential franchise, which may not be obvious from the current state of the Western fandom.
