Type: Novel Summary
Title: No.6: Beyond
Series: No.6
Author/Circle: Asano Atsuko
Rating: PG
Language: English

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Type: Novel Summary
Title: No.6: Beyond
Series: No.6
Author/Circle: Asano Atsuko
Rating: PG
Language: English
Notes: So if you’ve been hanging around No.6 fandom recently, you know that in the past week it was just announced that a new novel would be published, filling in blanks in No.6 and expounding on what’s gone on since the end of the novels—an extended epilogue of sorts. While the timelines of the different chapters (each dealing with a different character) do seem to differ, it does touch on Nezumi’s and Shion’s activities after the end of the novels. Given that 9th avenue did a great job with the novel translations, they’re going to translate this novel as well, but until that happens, we’re providing summaries in our usual detailed manner! So if you can’t wait and want to know the juicy tidbits, dive right in! Of note: You WILL need to know what happens at the end of No.6 to understand much of this novel (or not mind being spoiled). If you’ve seen the anime/read the novel translations/heard what happens, you should be just fine.

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Hey guys!

So, as many of you know by now (hopefully), No.6 was recently licensed by the good folks over at Kodansha USA, which means that some time next summer, official English translations will start rolling out to consumers.

Like all good scanlators, we wanted to strike a balance between promoting the official releases (and thereby allowing people to ‘vote with their wallets’ to show their support for the mangaka and author) while also keeping the flames of interest burning brightly—and eventually decided to remove all of our previous downloads (done now!) and release subsequent chapters with a 2-week grace period before ceasing distribution of those files as well.

Shortly after this announcement, though, we were contacted by a representative of Kodansha USA—but please rest assured this was not a ‘Cease & Desist’ letter in the least, and we hold absolutely no hard feelings against the gentleman who contacted us, especially since we’ve been having very productive discussions with him regarding Kodansha USA’s plans with the series (including input on how the fans prefer certain naming conventions over others, the importance of availability to international consumers, and how to keep fandom from ‘dying’ in the hang time between now and the point that the official releases catch up to scanlations) and have enjoyed nothing but the most polite of conversations with no fist pounding or threats of legal retaliation (which frankly, we’re quite relieved by!).

However, these conversations have prompted us to reconsider our decision to continue scanlating this series until the official translations catch up, and we cannot in good conscience continue to do so.

As such, we’re formally announcing here that we will no longer be scanlating No.6.

What does this mean for the fans?

While the gentleman we’ve been in contact with is quite web savvy and eager to step into the domain of real-time digital releases (in his words, “I would love to accelerate all our releases to be day and date with the Japanese release. [...] For No. 6 and our other new series we cannot move up the print release. But there may be other options. Frankly I don’t see anything wrong with skipping straight to the most recent volume for the digital release of a new series — but it’s not entirely up to me, and I would need to look into it further.”), he’s simply not sufficiently high on the totem pole to directly implement this at this point, and such efforts would need some more intense discussion. He’s open to other suggestions on how to keep fans interested in the series to the extent that they’ll still be ‘into it’ enough to purchase official copies when it’s released, so sound off in the comments if you’ve got a good idea, and we’ll see that it’s forwarded to appropriate parties :)

For you No.6 fans in particular, what sorts of “problems” do you see with the official release? Barring actual financial restraints, what might keep you from investing in this official release? Lack of payment method? Preference for digital over print? (at this point, they’re only considering print releases, as their digital branch is still in its infancy—this means no by-chapter releases and you have to pay shipping/can’t view immediately after purchase as well) Worries about translation quirks (while the official summary recently released indicated that ‘Rat’ would be used, our friend at Kodansha USA is quite interested in the fans’ thoughts/preference for ‘Nezumi’ over this translation)?

What does this mean for September Scanlations?

So are we doing away with No.6 entirely? Not a chance :) We want to do our part to help keep up interest without stepping on ‘official translation’ toes, so while we have agreed to cease scanlating and uploading images, we’ve also decided to instead release ‘summaries’ of each chapter, with perhaps a few cropped impactful panels to improve the reading experience. I’ve done this in a personal capacity on places like Tumblr for series that we don’t scanlate but which people have asked me to check out in magazines we purchase (such as Himegoto Asobi and Kimi ga Koi ni Midareru) and here as well for Back Stage!! until translations can catch up. We’re going to be doing this for No.6 now (and with the blessing of our Kodansha contact :D) so that fans can still follow the exciting story and see moving panels and interaction between Nezumi and Shion and the gang, but in a manner that will allow us to sleep soundly at night knowing we’re not cutting into Kodansha USA’s official license :)

We hope that these summaries will help keep fans interested and keen to keep up with Nezumi’s and Shion’s adventures until Kodansha USA can start releasing their own official translations. I end this announcement with words of support and petition for understanding from our contact at Kodansha USA:

Dear September Scanlations readers,

My name is Ben Applegate, an editor at Random House Publishing Services working on Kodansha Comics. You may have heard that we announced the license of the No. 6 manga recently, at New York Comic Con. Since the official release is coming, I e-mailed SS informally asking them to stop their work on the series in the hope that everyone will support Asano-sensei and Kino-sensei by buying the KC versions. Fencer_x has been incredibly gracious and understanding, and has even shared some very insightful suggestions on how to handle the books. My goal is to produce a high-quality localization that fans can be proud to have on their shelves, and to that end I encourage everyone to e-mail me here with any requests or comments you might have. I may not be able to answer all your questions, but I will do my best.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

Ben Applegate

Again, Mr. Applegate’s been a real sport considering he wasn’t obligated in the least to be polite in approaching us much less to go so far as to reach out to the fandom, so please be conscientious should you decide to drop him a line—we all want the series to get the best treatment it possibly can :)

With that said, let’s see our first attempt at summary installments for No.6! Click the ‘read more’ cut to see our first summary—Chapter 22 of No.6. Feel free to let us know your thoughts on this release practice in the comments, and thanks always for your support!

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