Announcing Our Next Project: Angel Beats! 1st Beat

Hey all! Awhile back, I mentioned that we wanted to be a pretty transparent group, as transparent as we could be. So I thought I’d give you all a bit of a progress update on the group, Summer Pockets and yes, the secret project which many of you guessed.

First, Summer Pockets. The Kamome route is around 3/4 translated, and we’re hoping the patch will be released for you all within 2 or 3 weeks. After that, we’ve only got the true route left. We’re shooting for a mid-January completion, and as stated before, the Alka & Pocket routes will be released as one patch, not separate. After that, we’ll put some finishing touches on side content like Shimamon and achievements. Then, our beloved translator August will take a much deserved break after all his wonderful, hard work. The other Summer Pockets thing I’d like to talk about is the newly announced Reflection Blue, an expanded rerelease of Summer Pockets featuring additional routes and content. It’s expected to be released in Summer 2020. As that is quite a ways away, we obviously can’t make any serious commitment to it. But our mindset right now is “we want to do it” so if we have the means and the time to translate Reflection Blue when it releases, we will definitely pick it up!

Secondly, the elephant in the room. As many of you likely guessed from my intentionally obvious teaser photo on Twitter, we’re beginning work on our next project. Angel Beats! 1st Beat is a VN by the same developers of Summer Pockets, as I’m sure many of you know. It was released in 2015 as the first of an intended six volumes. It was also officially picked up to be localized and “50% complete” a few years ago as well. As I’m sure many of you are aware, we haven’t heard a single thing about the localization of 1st Beat or the rest of the Beats from Key ever since. And to be frank, at this point, we’re all a bit tired of waiting. We think it’s a great story, we want to read it, we know many of you guys want to read it, so we wanna translate it.

To that end, the third and final talking point. The state of the group. As said above, our translator August has been hard at work going absolute ham on Summer Pockets and as one of the editors, I can say despite the crazy pace, he’s doing good work. With that being said, once Summer Pockets is done, he’s going to be taking a break. As will my other editor partner-in-crime. They’ll both be back for Reflection Blue if/when we pick it up, but they are out on Angel Beats for now. Which means we’re looking for a couple new folks! A primary translator and a secondary editor. Now, what I want to make clear right off the bat, is we don’t plan on trying to keep our current Summer Pockets pace once we move onto Angel Beats. Obviously, the quicker we finish Angel Beats the better, but our Summer Pockets situation is unique. So if you’re interested in translating or editing, don’t fret, you’re not gonna have to devote your whole life to the translation patch like we’re doing for Summer Pockets right now.

So! For those interested in the primary translator position, we’re looking for someone who can devote at least 15 or so hours a week to translating, and is preferably N2 certified. Now, if you don’t meet one or either of those preferences, we’d still like you to apply. We take who you are very much into account as well. I’d take a dependable N3 with a full time job that can work with others and have fun, over an elite N1 with all the free-time in the world that can’t work as part of a team and takes everything too seriously, any day. Experience using Git is a plus, but it’s super easy to learn so if you don’t have any experience, we’ll gladly teach you. English does not have to be your native language.

For those interested in the secondary editor position, we’re looking for someone with a fluency in English and a good sense of language structure, as well as good discipline. Your main job is to take everything the Testers find and either fix it, or if it’s a matter of phrasing/sentence structure, find a way to make the text make sense to an English speaker. We want to stay as accurate to the original text as possible, but that doesn’t always happen very easily, and it’s our job to make sure that when an English speaking person reads this, they’ll know what the heck is happening, or they’ll understand the joke, all without straying too far from the original text.

So that about does it! If you or anyone you know might be interested in either of the positions, you have a few options. Comment on this post with your Discord tag and what position you’re interested in and we’ll reach out to you, or send a message to @alkatranslation on Twitter, or fill out this application form. (That’s a link, it’s hard to see on the site.)

As always, thanks for reading, please look forward to more news on Kamome and Angel Beats! We’ll make a post any time either of the positions are filled.