Today is a group interview with the three admins of
Null, who previously have been content to be out of the limelight but fortunately for us have agreed to be interviewed. Which is good. After many years of not existing the Null homepage now exists. They recently went on a mega mad uploading spree on the 24th of March, so now is a good time to check out some of their work, and learn something about some of the guys who bring it to you.
The three interviewees are
kal-,
kikiboudka, and
Protected.
1. Please give a short introduction of yourself and your manga
scanlation group. What kinds of manga does your group scanlate, how
did it get started etc.
2. How did you get into scanlating, and how hard did you find it at
first? Has it gotten any easier with more practice? Why did you get
into it in the first place?kal-: You can read about us in
http://www.n-u-l-l.net/wiki/index.php/Null . It was not easy. With practice, our releases got better but not easier. I offered my help when a group asked.
kikiboudka: I started reading One Piece around 2004 and wanted to see more. That's when I discovered Null. Back then I had plenty of time and was recruited to help on Bowling King, having edited a half of the chapters until v10. I then moved to One Piece weekly chapters before launching the One Piece HQ reedits with Protected. I've also helped on a couple of other projects. At the beginning, I had never used photoshop, and my first chapter obviously sucked =). But with time I improved my skills and now I'm quite picky and can't release a chapter if it looks bad ^^.
Protected: I was a Naruto cleaner for Inane (a group that split from Null) and webmaster for Manga-Section (a group that ended up merging with Null) when I found out about One Piece. I decided Null kicked ass and joined them (a decision I never regret). I was a proofreader, and then moved on to be an editor, but I quickly realized how terribly bad I was. I then put my inventiveness and pickiness to a better use by starting the null fund, buying the server, rewriting the website, assembling the distro system and reforming (with the help of Hitomi-chan) the quality control team.
3. What types of manga are your personal favourite? Which manga titles
do you like in particular? Any genres you don't like?kal: I don't care if it's shounen, shoujo, yosei or seinen as long as it's good. One Piece, Gokusen, Hotman. None in particular.
kiki: I like shonen and seinen. My favourite mangas are of course One Piece, Black God, Gantz, GTO, Slam Dunk, Naruto... I don't like girly mangas, as well as certain specific ones, like Prince of tennis and Satan 666...
Prot: Most Null projects, plus one or two good ones per year (Beck, Death Note, Berserk, Historie and Vinland Saga have been in my reading list at some point or another). I'm the type who waits patiently for months and then reads the several high quality volumes released since then in one serving. It's very enjoyable.
4. How do you feel the amount of fan feedback and thanks is for the
work that you have done? How do you feel overall seeing people read
and discussing the manga that you have scanlated?We never received much feedback and thanks to begin with. Null is probably one of the oldest and best performing scanlation groups (our overall release average across 6.5 years is one chapter every day and a half excluding re-edits), but it's been a long time since we saw more than 10 comments for a release, even when they are huge releases. But we get used to it and luckily we are not in it for the praise.
Which is why we try not to read what other people say about all our projects outside our website. When it's not praise, it's lies and slander ;)
5. Are there any other hobbies or things that you like to work on in
your spare time?kal: Piano.
kiki: Basketball and my engineer school is taking me a lot of time too =)
Prot: Reading, travelling, photography and many internet projects.
6. What do you feel about multiple groups scanlating the same manga?
e.g 5 seperate releases of Bleach and Naruto each week while other
series go unscanlated.It depends on their intentions: Why are they scanlating something they know is already being done?
It's a waste of time to have 20 teams editing One Piece and Naruto. I can understand people can get bored of waiting for quality, but I just can't read those horrible scans that some team delivers just after the raws are up. And admitting there are people who want speedscans, *ONE* group is enough to do that job. Whereas we in Null try to launch new mangas but are often lacking staff to get things take off.
7. Speed Scans vs High Quality, what's your opinion on this? You can
give a really long answer if you want to.http://www.n-u-l-l.net/wiki/index.php/Speed_groupsSpeed doesn't necessarily mean Low Quality. But naturally we prefer High Quality scans, by far. Null is a High Quality team. It's also noteworthy that some teams consider their work as HQ when it's barely MQ... but well, that depends of the philosophy of the team. Our early work was also MQ and presented as HQ! We hope that every worthy group will, like Null, care more and more about quality as they go.
8. Null has a 'For every "when is the next chapter being released"
comment the release is delayed by a day' policy. Can you explain the
theory behind this?We never actually do that, it's only there to dissuade people who think we have nothing better to do than read their complaints ;) Remember, every minute we spend answering pointless questions over and over is a minute we don't spend scanlating.
9. Would you like to use this chance for publicity to beg people to
join your group?I beg you people to join us!
...No, just kidding. Everyone who's awesome is welcome in Null. But get ready to be tested and trained, and rejected if you aren't good enough.
If you would like to check out Null releases you can find them hereNull Homepage - For individual chapter releases.
Black GodBowling KingBusou RenkinDragon HeadFull Ahead! CocoGokusenHeroHotmanHunter X HunterKarakuri CircusKonjiki no Gash!!Kunio-kunLiar GameMagic KaitoOld BoyOne PieceSakiSakura WarsShow me the MoneyTajikaraoTogariYakitate!! JapanYu Yu Hakusho
Thanks for putting up some old releases on here and thanks for the hard work throughout the years.
And speed scanners SUCK.
Regardless, they are as others have said the "Gods" of the scan world. I thank them for their superb work through the years and for their continued work in the future.
Nah, but truly you guys have been blessed as scanlators and
I thank you for all the One Piece and Liar Game (and ofcourse: jump super stars).
Thank you very much ;)
And quite the nice interview, its fun to hear from more then 1 member of the group :)
And thanks for the super quality scans!!