Inside Scanlation

vvhime: I'm vvhime and I'm the founder of Ivyscan, and I still manage Ivyscan even today. I mostly involve myself as the project manager, quality checker and scanner for Ivyscan, but sometimes I still do some editing and translating, though not very frequent nowadays. I think I can be classified as a reader during the early stage of scanlation, since I started reading scanlation when MangaProject and Mangasync were still active. After reading Mangasync's projects, I became motivated to start my own scanlation group.

vvhime: Ivyscan is a scanlation group that mostly work on shoujo manga, but we also have other genres we work on like josei, shounen and shounen-ai. As long as I like the story, I don't really mind about the genre. It was formed on January 2004, so it's already been 5 years. I think when I first started Ivyscan, there weren't too many groups around, maybe no more than 100 groups. Those groups work on various interesting and qualified projects, and one group that inspired me a lot was Mangasync, because they worked on classic/old manga that I liked. I also want to promote more classic/old manga for the readers and so I decided to form Ivyscan. My first objective to form Ivyscan was to promote classic/old manga, and I still do that even now.

vvhime: The shoujo community was not as big as it is now. There were not many shoujo groups around. The groups back then each worked on quality projects in term of story. Each group respected each other. Their goal was to promote manga they liked, not to compete with each other. Ivyscan was still a small group back then, but we tried to follow the unstated-rule.

vvhime: I think I haven't encountered such big roadblock, though there are some difficulties with lack of help, lack of free time, but everything can be solved in time. Ivyscan didn't get into any trouble with publishers or organizations, thank God ^_^

vvhime: Well, I'm the head manager ^_^; so I'm the one who decides this and that in the group. I also am the one who distributes the work among the Ivyscan team, and I do that by using email and IRC.

vvhime: I think the most influential project is Crimson Hero. It was the one that made Ivyscan known in the shoujo scanlation community. As for the current most popular project, I think it's Otogi Moyou Ayanishiki.

vvhime: All staff have their own contribution, but 2 people that I always depend on are Conner and kurenai. They both helped me a lot in many ways. I was really surprised when they presented me with a chapter of oneshot (Kao no Nai Otoko) as my birthday present. They're so sweet.

vvhime: I just want to finish our current projects as soon as possible. I also feel bad for the readers if we take too long to release one project. But Ivyscan is still actively working on each project, and I hope to continue running Ivyscan for more years to come.

vvhime: I think they are mostly the early-stage scanlation groups like MangaProject, Mangasync, Storm in Heaven, and Dragon Voice.

vvhime: To tell the truth, I prefer the early-stage scanlation. I think some recent groups are missing the purpose of promoting manga for the readers. They rather compete with each other to release a specific manga faster. I don't like that kind of action, cause I think scanlation was first intended for promoting a specific manga, and the recent activity has already missed that objective. I still think that scanlation will go-on for more years to come.