TNT: Qidian Redux

This week for Translation Necessary Thursday I’m back with another post about some lying, and thieving assholes. It’s Qidian Redux!

What now: God so much has happened since the last post about this two months ago that it’s really quite ridiculous. So I’ll start with what’s happened since. There was more trash talking happening on the novel updates forums and novel translations subreddit. That is pretty much a given, there were obvious throwaway accounts on both sides, although I’ll be straight up and say I saw a hell of a lot more Qidian International throwaway accounts. So they’ve already lost my trust, and were losing more credibility with me as the situation progresses. Their PR person was apparently fired, personally I say good riddance they were a joke and terrible at their job.

Then the community is thrown into upheaval again with the departure of some translators, including one of the most prominent translators in the community CKTalon, jumping ship from Wuxiaworld to Qidian International. According to CK it was just because of the money. Personally I think he’s foolish, they’ve shown that they won’t keep faith and so signing anything with them at this time seems to be incredibly stupid. What doesn’t speak well of him is the fact that he left Gravity Tales, another translation website prior to all this starting up. Him joining Wuxiaworld was part of the initial situation in the first place, so him leaving again isn’t a good sign of his character. Personally while I enjoyed the series he translated, which even included series like I’m Really a Superstar, I couldn’t in good conscience keep supporting such a person.  Not to mention that the Qidian International website still is terrible.

So the community is getting over this, and when we all think this isn’t going to become any more chaotic we have another situation pop up courtesy of Qidian International slinging slander and more lies. They hired another person to be their PR person, u/HighJaystar, and started another war on Wuxiaworld by sending a DMCA request to try to take down the entire website, which failed, and than proceeded to steal all of the Qidian works on Wuxiaworld and copy and paste them onto their own website, which is still terrible to use. I actually asked HighJaystar about trying to fix their website when this was all going down and he was acting as the QI PR person, but I never received another response after that question was brought up. I guess he was too busy making personal remarks with the company account.

These actions gets them banned from the subreddit entirely, which is highly understandable and frankly Novel Updates should just have banned them as well due to their own rules regarding aggregator sites, which QI had clearly become after stealing translations. Those translations are counted as completely different under International Copyright law as far as I know from what I’ve learned since this whole mess has started.  They did implement a filtering option to remove Qidian International works completely, but frankly this seems to be caving in to me.

So that happens just a couple weeks ago, and now just a few days ago we have yet another situation where GGP, the prior owner and operator of Gravity Tales, whom I mentioned above, has apparently signed away most of his rights to the translations and operations of his website to Qidian International. Apparently many of the translators at the website were unaware of this. This all occurs just a couple days after GGP announces they had signed a licensing deal with Qidian. GGP lost a lot of faith from the community after this action. While I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, the fact that he wasn’t sticking with the community against known thieves of translators isn’t helping his image.

There is a lot more that went down, but those were the big incidents and I feel like I’ve wrote enough on the subject. I’ll provide a link to someone’s pretty unbiased timeline of the issue below.

That’s it for this week’s Translation Necessary Thursday, personally I ask that everyone boycott Qidian International, or if you were already doing so continue to do so. Their actions have been irrepressible thus far.

QI vs Wuxiaworld Timeline:

Part 1

Part 2

There are more things that occurred, like QI implementing ads that you must interact with on their website to continue reading, which apparently is even more unusable now. But I haven’t gone back to their website since this all started. They’ve also stolen artwork from others as well to use as cover art, but that isn’t anything new.

TNT: I’m Really a Superstar Chapters 161-200 by Chang Yu

This week for Translation Necessary Thursday I’m covering the fifth set of chapters in Zhang Ye’s rise to stardom! It’s I’m Really a Superstar Chapters 161-200 by Chang Yu!

Plot Synopsis: Having beaten up the son of the leader of the Art Channel, Zhang Ye had been imprisoned by Superintendent Song on trumped up charges despite acting as a Good Samaritan. However with some pointed poems and press coverage Zhang Ye manages to finally be freed…

Plot: This set of chapters really showcases Zhang Ye’s boldness and desire to stand up for the underdog. I won’t say the precise details, but needless to say this set of chapters was very good.

Characters: We get introduced to a few new characters, but my favorites are Yao Jingcai and the Abbot. Yao Jingcai in particular is an excellent side character and isn’t a stuck up jerk.

Overall: If you haven’t been reading this series yet I can’t state enough how much you are missing out on the fun.

TNT: I’m Really a Superstar Chapters 121-160 by Chang Yu

This week for Translation Necessary Thursday I’m covering the fourth set of chapters in Zhang Ye’s rise to fame! It’s I’m Really a Superstar Chapters 121-160 by Chang Yu!

Plot Synopsis: Zhang Ye has left the Radio business and joined Beijing Broadcasting’s Television Department for a History segment. However before he starts working on that, he’s invited to participate in Beijing’s Couplet Competion! Faced with dissenters and old foes, he takes center stage and begins to wow the world once again with his amazing skills at poetry!

Plot: This is probably the most fun set of chapters yet in this story, with plenty of action and face slapping to go around. This set of chapters takes us through the rest of the Couplet Competition to the beginning of Zhang Ye’s new program he was hired to do. I can’t state enough how awesome these forty chapters are.

Characters: We get introduced to a few new characters, but we get to see some old faces as well like Zhang Ye’s Number One Fan.

Overall: Another excellent set of chapters in a must read series. If you aren’t reading this series already you really are missing out.

TNT: I’m Really a Superstar Chapters 81-120 by Chang Yu

This week for Translation Necessary Thursday I’m back with the third set of chapters for Zhang Ye’s journey to stardom! It’s I’m Really a Superstar Chapters 81-120 by Chang Yu!

Plot Synopsis: After achieving a small amount of fame at Beijing’s Radio Station Zhang Ye has had enough of the managements bullcrap and quit after receiving his award as a newcomer radio host. Now he’s got no idea of what to do to pay the rent to his demoness landlady Rao Aimin!

Plot: This set of chapters is Zhang Ye’s start on his journey to TV fame after his stint as a Radio Host. It’s pretty awesome and I loved this set of chapters quite a bit and it had some of the best translation work I’ve seen done.

Characters: We get introduced to a bunch of new faces, including my new favorite Rao Chenchen, Aimin’s Niece. The pair a total handful and are absolutely merciless to Zhang Ye. The rest of the newcomers are great too though. Zhang Ye continues to be a real treat however.

Overall: An excellent set of chapters, if you aren’t binge reading this already you really need to be.

TNT: I’m Really a Superstar Chapters 41-80 by Chang Yu

This week for Translation Necessary Thursday I’m back with the second set of chapters in Zheng Ye’s ongoing rise to fame! It’s I’m Really a Superstar Chapters 41-80 by Chang Yu!

Plot Synopsis: Zhang Ye was originally a mundane college graduate, cursed with below average looks and height but with aspiring dreams of becoming famous. However one day, he woke up and suddenly found himself in a parallel world! In this new world, most things were similar to his previous world but there existed subtle differences, be it: brands, celebrities or even famous works! Armed with the knowledge of his previous world and a heaven-defying Game Ring that gives him magical items, stats and skills, Zhang Ye embarks on a journey to pursue his life-long dream of becoming a celebrity.

At the radio station, during the host hiring interview a loud voice narrated, “Up above the sea’s grey flatland, wind is gathering the clouds. In between the sea and clouds proudly soars the Petrel, reminiscent of black lightning. Glancing a wave with his wingtip, like an arrow dashing cloudward, he cries out and the clouds hear his joy in the bird’s cry of courage. In this cry – -thirst for the tempest!”However, the interviewers of this world that had never heard of Gorky’s “The Song of the Stormy Petrel” were so shocked that they stared with their mouths agape! That’s how Zheng Ye got hired by Beijing Radio Station…

Plot: This second set of chapters really gets the fun rolling pretty much from this point on, although it was still really fun in those first chapters. I had a hard time breathing after reading the first 40, but these next 40 chapters left me seeing spots because I was laughing so hard from the hijinks Zheng Ye gets up to. These chapters cover pretty much the end of Radio Station arc and while it’s merely the first arc I was already completely hooked to this series after the first 40 chapters.

Characters: We get introduced to some more petty people, like Teacher Little Red Mushroom or Zhāng Yě for the most part.

Overall: If you weren’t laughing by the end of the first set, you really ought to be by the end of this set. I’m Really a Superstar is a must read for pretty much everyone.