Monday, September 14, 2015

Queen's Blade Grimoire: Despina

She came out a while ago, and now she finally graces us with her presence, the full book in glorious english!





So yeah, my pal was especially moved by our newcomer gal, and for the first time ever we've gone through the trouble of translating the entire book, even the itty bits no one looks at :3



LQ version

HQ version

Enjoy!

22 comments:

  1. wow!! so she's finally here. pretty cool villianess. Wonder how she stacks up against the Swamp witch and her bad gals.

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  2. This is nice! Any plans to do the other Queens Blade Grimoire books? I know there's several that are missing.

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    1. Well, as much as we'd like to, there's only so much time we have available for doing work in a week. So at best, I think any further english releases will likely be reserved for anyone who'll come out after Despina. At worst, this might be the last fully english release.

      We just have a lot of stuff to work on at the moment, and we would like to get back to the mangas after all. But hey, you never know!

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    2. Alright. Even if you don't translate it, would you be willing to at least release raws of the previous girls first?

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    3. Hm? You mean like I've been doing all this time, at the wiki and g.e-hentai.org? (NSFW)

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    4. Oh wow...I had no idea you were doing that. Yes that's exactly what I mean! Thanks!

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    5. she reminds me of menace in the anime except more yuri

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  3. Yay, was looking so forward to this character, thanks for the extra effort with the translation!

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  4. I've been waiting for Despina for so long now, time to build a harem.

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  5. Also, it's been a while, but to update my version, do I need to download everything again?

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    1. Just the App for sure, and the Media update that contains Despina. Rest is optional.

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  6. First off, I'm sorry for the long winded post.
    Second, I really admire the quality of the translation. It's so beautifully done and thorough.

    Now, with that being said, I actually want to go through and edit some of the other books into English with the tons of spare time I'm going to have from now on for a long while. If possible I'd like to keep all the books, at least in each particular series, consistent in "formatting". It won't be anywhere near as nice as this, but I'd like to help out and give back to this niche community that I've followed for some time.

    I've actually already edited Alicia. I finished everything but her character sheet a while back, but I finally did it. Although, as previously stated, I'd like to keep the edits consistent, and am more than willing to change the fonts on Alicia's book to do so.
    Regardless you can get her here
    Oh, Almost forgot I redid menace in higher quality.

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    1. Always nice to receive praise for whatever work we put in, big or small... though getting props for the big jobs does feel extra nice. As far as this work goes, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out a nice combination of fonts to use for the typesetting of Despina's book, mostly due to image quality concerns but also just for the sake of looks in general. There was a lot of trial and error put into her and honestly, I'd be happy to share my findings with anyone enthusiastic enough to wanna give a hand. Heck, if you're using photoshop then I can even share some layer data for the stuff specific to page 40 of Alice's .rar if you want.

      Now, if it's the general fonts you want, I used "Linux Libertine" with italics on for the instructions of each page and "Raspoutine Classic" for the attack names at the top of each page. I noticed you decided to erase the japanese from the side-bars where the attacks normally go now, but if I had to give a recommendation, dump that. I tried it myself and found that at the end of the day, reading up to down and left to right all at once is somewhat annoying under normal circumstances and that the vertical text that resulted from it just wasn't pleasing to the eye in any way, shape or form. Leecher and Marisu both cemented my thoughts independently, so Despina shipped with the text above her illustrations instead, keeping the japanese attack names right where they were.

      For the Character Sheet, Despina's title and name are in "Linux Libertine" with no italics, the words Height/Body Pts and Tactics are in "Raspoutine Classic" with Faux Bold on, and everything else uses "Verdana" with no italics or bold whatsoever. For the backside of the Character Sheet, the words 'Action Descriptions' use "Souses" while everything else is "Verdana" again, just at different sizes.

      And if you plan on doing page 40, the story is written in "Linux Libertine" (with heavy effects and shadows to mask the japanese beneath it, couldn't clean it properly with the faded design behind it). Despina's title on the top left is written using the same font, but with an effect over it with a gradient masked through. The info on the bottom left answering "What's a visual combat book?" also uses "Linux Libertine" for the most part, except for the actual "What's a visual combat book?" question, which uses "Souses"

      So all in all, the fonts you'll need are "Linux Libertine", "Verdana", "Raspoutine Classic", "Souses" and that's it!

      Anything else you'd like to know?

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    2. Really? That's awesome, buddy!! :D

      It looks quite good to me, and I'll leave to my partner to share his editing expertise with you (he kinda ninja'd me here~). Since you went through the trouble, let me point out a couple things I'd appreciate if you could fix:

      For Alice:
      -In her character sheet, the title appearing should be "Darkmaster in Wonderland", seems to have been confirmed recently

      For Menace:
      -Page 11, the shrieking attack is actually "Please Bow Down Before my Authority~!!!!" (though the character sheet still says "shout", for some reason)
      -Page 29, the "butt" is a "but"
      -Page 59, the bandage attack is actually "Bind with Cursed Bandage"
      -Page 63, the headbutt attack is actually "Royal Headbutt"
      -In the character sheet, it'd be nice if it said as well, "Cursed Punch", "Royal Headbutt", "Bind with Cursed Bandage" and "Cursed Slap"

      Some of these are corrections of the previous translations we have, not to disrespect our legendary predecessor~

      Also if you want to edit the back side of the character sheets, let me know and I can translate them as well :3

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    3. Oh, seems I just made some typos with "Alicia" and Menace's "shriek" (not "shout") move, but I just noticed something else, page 13 Menace should be "Leg Wound".

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    4. Final_Agent:
      Honestly, I didn't expect such a quick reply, but I'm definitely grateful to see such a generous amount of text regarding text. I've actually never used Photoshop before. I use Corel PaintShop Pro X6. I do have Adobe Photoshop Elements 11, but never used it. It came with my Wacom Tablet. Anything you could share though would be great. I'm more than willing to pay adobe's monthly fee if need be, and am honestly just looking for an excuse to.

      I was debating the vertical text as well, especially after all the trouble it gave me. I'll undo it right away, and at least I can save time not having to do the extra editing for other books.

      I'll do page 40 and depending on how it goes I'll see about keeping up with it through other books.

      Thanks for all the information, it's greatly appreciated.
      One quick question: What font did you use on the "CRITICAL" Score text? That's pretty much all I can think of that I'd need to know (In regards to text formatting anyways).

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    5. leecherboy:
      It's no problem at all, I'd be happy to fix any errors. Just be sure to let me know whenever you see any. If I knew Japanese then I would have done so myself.

      In Regards to the errors in menace's text: I thought they looked a little impersonal to the character. Also, for Page 11 I noticed the japanese restrictions had a lengthy entry, unlike the translation. Should it be changed, or is it irrelevant?

      As for the back side of the character sheets, Sure, I'm up for it.
      Oh and I'll be sure to change the "Critical" to "CRITICAL" for consistency.

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    6. The font I use for the CRITICAL is called "Jesaya Free".

      Also, no need to get photoshop if your current program can use layer masks and do drop shadows with variable parameters. If you've got that, then you're all set!

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    7. If that's so, then my current program is good to go. Thanks again!

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    8. @Luis Soto:

      You're right about Menace's page 11, good catch. Though, it's only adding a note: "If you don't know which restrictions you have when you drop your weapon, check those written in page 27 (Weapon Dislodged). Characters without weapons aren't affected."
      Feel free to add that, if it's not too lengthy.

      Also, here are Alicia's and Menace's backs of the char sheets:
      http://pastebin.com/usy9Jves
      http://pastebin.com/hvBHNxCa

      I don't mean to ask for a lot of stuff or anything, but since my partner insisted a lot (and I mean A LOT :p) about offering a "whole package" with Despina, maybe you could edit Menace's conversations and Menace's and Alicia's backstories, as well? As you know, we translated these some time ago:

      http://queensbladebattle.blogspot.com/2013/08/queens-blade-conversations-menace.html
      http://queensbladebattle.blogspot.com/2013/01/queens-blade-backstories-menace-and.html
      http://queensbladebattle.blogspot.com/2012/12/queens-blade-backstories-zara-and-alicia.html

      And lastly, if it'll be more comfortable for you, you can reach us through queensbladescans@gmail.com, my partner can tell you my mail if you can't find it (sorry if I'm paranoid >_<).

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    9. Thanks. Like I've said before, I am, at the very least, willing to try and do whatever I can to help. I'm not going to lie, it definitely seems like a lot, but I could honestly use some busy work in my spare time. Anyway, I'll see what I can do and get back to both of you through email as not to congest the blog.

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