James North's Site

VNDB Now Has a DRM Field

James North Oct 31, 2023 Japanese , Free Software , Games 0 comments

VNDB created a new field where users can identify a release's DRM status. Since rolling it out to the public in the middle of October, users have tagged the DRM status for over 500 visual novel releases.

Scanlation: An Overview

James North Sep 16, 2023 Japanese , Manga 0 comments

If you don’t know what “scanlation” is, allow me to remedy that. Let’s talk about it as it applies to Japanese manga. It’s the process of taking a physical manga volume, scanning it to bring it into the digital realm, and then translating the digital version of the manga. Although, the translation part doesn’t always happen. Sometimes it’s just about getting a digital version. This article is not intended to be a guide to the very involved process of scanlating manga; just an overview. I want to give you an idea of all the work that goes into scanlating manga. And I’m going to tackle it from the perspective of an unauthorised scanlation team, rather than from the perspective of an authorized scanlation team.

Understanding Japanese (1) - Mindset

James North Apr 19, 2022 Languages , Japanese , Understanding Japanese 0 comments

This is the first in a series of articles on Understanding Japanese, though much of it is relevant to the pursuit of understanding any language. This article is the most important one—nothing matters more than your mindset. It isn't your tools (no matter how fancy they are) that get the job done; it's your attitude.

VNDB Now Has a DRM Field

Scanlation: An Overview

Understanding Japanese (1) - Mindset

Blog Categories