Seishun Buta Yarou - Translation hunt

So today I watched the sequel movie, and just like the show, the movie too was 10/10. It spurred me up into action, partially for what others thought of the movie ending and partially to find the translations of ln. Spoilers: I did find them in the end, but let me present here the process in an unnecessary, exaggerated manner.

I started at NU, perhaps the least helpful site in this search. Rather then helping, it only raised more questions as far as I can tell.
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/seishun-buta-yarou-series/

Nu linked me to Crack of Dawn and Confused translations, perhaps the early teasers for this novel? Teaser in 2015, Someone picking it up but giving up in a bit and another version of same chapter? Interesting but not helpful.

Then I checked the official tl at https://yenpress.com/9781975399351/rascal-does-not-dream-of-bunny-girl-senpai-light-novel/ Pretty cool that the translations were here but it was only 1 volume translated, worth the purchase - but I was looking for more.

So I went on reddit - the series subreddit, r/SeishunButaYarou specifically. I was just here (and mal amd r/anime) a bit ago for movie ending. I went through the posts and found out that the translation used to be at https://mountainofpigeons.wordpress.com

And of course was the site purged - the classic jp ln experience . So I hoped on wayback machine and found the snapshots.

I found 3 volumes + illust, prologue and chp 1 of volume 4. Almost perfect if knew how much exactly was ever translated. There was another problem tho, the mediafire folder of epubs was taken down . Quite annoying considering I was trying to make an offline backup. Well making my own pdf from the archived pages would now be my last option, quite the improvement over my last-last option of going through pirate sites.

So I went back to digging google and reddit, and found translations upto vol 9 (Lateat vol in jp is vol 10) - except there was a problem, it was the cn translation .

Well then I realized/found that there is a discord server for mountainofpigeons. Accepting the invite, I found myself on a basically dead server. Of course no epubs there either but I found someone who had done a whole site backup before the purge. And then I do the classic act of "Random on server for 10 secs and sends you a DM".

My dragon luck shined on me, and lo and behold the guy I DM'd was online at that time. Yay!! After a bit of talk I got the links for vol 1-3 epubs and confirmation that the translation was only till v4-1.

And this should have been the end of this, right? Except no, I had found a curious reddit post while I was searching - One that hinted that the translation was still ongoing in another, better place. And did it bugged me to hell. And then I realized what that place is.

Most subreddits for anime series tend to have their own discord servers - this one was no different. I went through the subreddit faq again and found the server. The first time I had only found links to yen press and nu, not helpful at all.

Hoping into this server - quite the active one, and I found the epubs and two more things.

Number 1 - A docx - A vol 8 chp 1 and 2 translation of the series from cn translation. The translator claims it is not really edited and there might be errors bit respect bro.

The movie ended at vol 7 and as such the part of series unavailable to english audience in any form is vol 8 to 10 right now.

The second thing - Picture Drama, apparently there are 10 of them. I found 5 of them with russian and eng subs. I found 6th with eng subs - It seemed that the translator behind mountainofpigeons has helped with this one somehow.

Apparently 7th and 9th are not translated and I have yet to look for 8th. The 10th is pretty new and not translated.

So I quickly opened cmd and youtube-dl, completing my offline backup for now~

That was quite the ride, I have another similar story that I experienced a day before this one - I will tell it perhaps in another blog?

My timing for this one was quite exact. April and a lot of this stuff would not have been available/published.

Also, Mai san is the best and Sakuta x Mai is the bestest!

The Super Awesome Dragon,
Ddraig.