As most people who are going to read this post already know, there was a big blowup recently about a Kickstarter for a “Key Documentary” that some guy calling himself “Clannad Man” decided to post. I’m not going to go through the entire event, but if you’re already confused read these links for a bit of background information.
http://oppaiisjustice.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/clannad-man-x-vava-doujins/
http://oppaiisjustice.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/clannad-man-x-tlwiki/
Done? Don’t care, and just want to move on? Okay, good enough. I want to go a little more into depth about the actual lies that Clannad Man spouted off, and why I feel this guy is not trustworthy and truly needs to be kept away from Kickstarter.
1. He misrepresented who he is, trying to make himself seem important and even associated with Key/VisualArts.
I’m serious here. This guy, while careful not to outright say so, did his best to imply that he had some sort of backing by Key/VisualArts or otherwise by someone official. It starts with his picture on the Kickstarter page, wearing a nice collared shirt with the official Key logo embroidered on it. Something any Key fan would like to own? Absolutely. Official? Not a chance. For a “mere” $100, you too could own one just like it, most likely because he’s- technically illegally- having someone create merchandise for him. It’s one of those grey areas people (admittedly, I’m guilty of this too) exploit for themselves at times when a company overlooks the fact that they’re copying a trademarked symbol and it allows the recipient to get official-looking cool stuff while the originating company really doesn’t have the resources or time to track down a single t-shirt or hat. The difference here is that this guy was trying to make money from doing so, which becomes a much larger concern.
Steering back off the brief tangent there, we get into the next part where he offers “original production materials” as one of the rewards. Aside from again being against Kickstarter’s rules and generally toeing the line of legality, he carefully misleads readers about what they’re actually getting.
“Original production materials mean exactly what the name suggests: goods used in the production of a piece of media. In the case of this Kickstarter, the terms ‘original production materials’ & ‘original setting materials’ are used to designate photocopies of sketches produced by the main animators of a specified anime. The photocopies are then distributed to the subordinate animators who use them as reference material for their own illustrations. The specified original production materials were printed and used by the animators in the productions of said anime; in other words, they are not replica photocopies, but actually the ones used in studio. Some materials may have bends, wrinkles, or fading due to the amount of use received in production, though many appear crisp. Distribution of individual materials will be conducted at random, therefore no one will be able to choose a specific character, background, or object depicted.” -Kickstarter.com, project page
While these are claimed to be “original”, in fact they are almost certainly anything but. A brief search of Yahoo! Japan by IRC users showed that these supposedly valuable items in fact go for about $1.00 a page, if that, with obvious bulk discounts in place. Clannad Man decided to price them at fifty bucks a pop. I won’t even get into how most of the listings are not even Key/VisualArts properties at all.
He even bought up “clannad.org”, using it as a redirect to the Kickstarter page. If that isn’t an attempt to claim legitimacy, I don’t know what is.
Finally, his carefully worded “experience”, in which he claims to have led “English Localization Projects”. It is a major faux pas to call any unofficial or fan translation a “Localization Project”. The term normally differentiates translations that have been legally licensed by a legitimate localization company, such as MangaGamer or JAST USA, from those that have been done by those who (perhaps thankfully) have too much time on their hands and release translations for Visual Novels they are passionate about. The latter is generally known as a fan translation. More on this in a moment.
2. He took credit for the work of others to make himself seem more important.
It’s often not obvious to the casual observer when someone takes credit for something they didn’t actually do. I happen to know most of the staff of Fluffy, the group that released the fan translation for Little Busters! personally, and seeing his claim on leadership of that project was actually the first thing that tipped me off to his lies. I know the names or nicknames of every person to have contributed to the Little Busters! project, and Clannad Man was NOT among them. Clannad I was actually unsure of, and didn’t know for sure that he wasn’t the leader of the Clannad project until I was informed on IRC by someone more knowledgeable. The fact that Baka-Tsuki has since disowned Doki Fansubs says a lot about how badly ‘Clannad Man’ screwed up. [UPDATE: Baka-Tsuki has reinstated Doki after they posted an apology and basically disowned the actions of Clannad Man of their own accord after an investigation. More details at http://doki.co/2013/10/30/clarification-regarding-clannad_man-and-his-kickstarter-campaign/ ] It should also be noted that the vast majority of the Clannad project was in fact not headed by him nor by Doki at all, but they merely picked up the mostly finished translation in 2012 from the previous group working on it. The previous group, headed by velocity7, had worked on it from 2007-2011 and mostly finished it at the time. Little Busters!, similarly, had its translation completed in 2012, well before Doki even came on the scene. Doki offered to assist Fluffy in early 2013 with their translation of Little Busters: EX and Memorial Edition, due to a lack of available translators on the part of Fluffy at that point. It should be noted, however, that at no point did Fluffy agree to give up creative control, and applehq has remained the Project Lead the entire time. Clannad Man is not listed because he has no part in this. Although Baka-Tsuki has completely dropped Doki because of this, Fluffy has remained conspicuously silent about the entire issue for now. [UPDATE: See above update for further details. Fluffy has remained silent still, but it appears they have certainly discussed things with Doki in the background and this resolution could very well be to appease them as well as Baka-Tsuki.]
So we can safely say that this is a blatant LIE:
“He was responsible for leading the English Localization Projects for three Key visual novels (Clannad, Little Busters!, and Tomoyo After)” -Kickstarter.com, project page
He certainly was not. Furthermore, this is immensely insulting to the people who donated their free time to translate, proofread, edit and hack code, among other such details, to make a quality translation come alive. There are good people like applehq and velocity7 who have probably spent easily hundreds of hours of their spare time trying to do something incredibly nice for others. This should not be the thanks they get- some hack who most people have never heard of, using his Facebook popularity and former position with a fansub group to make money for what is essentially a vacation in Japan no matter how you word it.
3. There is no accounting for the money he “needs”.
$20,000 is a lot of money. I went to Japan myself a year and a half ago, when the dollar was much weaker against the yen, and the entire trip cost me about $5,000. “But Kor,” you might say, “the math adds up fine then, doesn’t it?” Not really, I say. I’m including nearly $3,000 worth of merchandise I bought while I was there. In reality, the flight cost me about $1,400 and the hotel about $300 (600 total, split two ways for two people) for a week’s stay in Shinjuku in a very nice hotel. So where is the rest of this monetary need coming from? Even with 3-4 people that’s a very high number, about double what is likely necessary. There’s no breakdown of costs listed, and that’s highly disturbing for a plethora of reasons. One could easily say that it’s likely he’s throwing in a whole lot of extras for his own comfort or enjoyment with that sort of cash. First-class seats, five-star hotels, maybe some souvenirs, and a new camera or three? That might explain it better.
Also, as was posted at http://i.dreamofalittlestar.com/post/65502439474/regarding-the-suspicious-key-documentary-kickstarter , “The Grand X-Change Co. he mentions for production seems to be his own organization as a domain lookup indicates it’s owned by “Steven Schoenwald”. They seem to have no evidence of ever serving clients.”
It would seem that he can basically claim any “consulting fees” he may want through using his own supposed documentary company as a medium for production. It’s a nice touch that the website for it is currently down for remodeling, a wonderful way to keep people from finding out too easily that there’s a significant conflict of interest involved.
And finally…
4. Even after being caught, he lied to his Kickstarter supporters about the circumstances behind the cancellation of his funding.
Isn’t this a doozy. Here’s what he posted:
“Greetings fellow Key fans! I am writing to inform you that due to a conversation I had with Visual Art’s President Takahiro Baba, this Kickstarter is being suspended. While we were not asked directly to do so, it is being done as a gesture of good will towards Key/Visual Art’s. This does not necessarily mean that the project is dead, but rather that it may need to be modified in certain ways for it to be deemed more appropriate. Sometime soon a statement will be posted on Key15th.com; I would encourage you to review it to keep up with the project’s status.
Consider this: the international Key community is so passionate about their visual novels / anime that it caught the attention of even the President of Key/Visual Art’s! That isn’t an easy feat. And while I can’t say with any degree of certainty how this will turn out, I have a hunch that your collective passion will be seen in a very positive light.
I’d like to take this chance to say that the support you have shown towards this project has been incredible! I am very proud to be a part of such a devoted community. No matter how this turns out, I wish everyone all the best! ^_^
– Steve S. (the Clannad Man)” -Kickstarter.com, project page
I usually associate the sheer amount of spin on this update with corrupt politicians and partisan news sources. He starts out by misleading everyone about the circumstances behind the shutdown. He “had a conversation” only after VisualArts President Takahiro Baba posted publicly on Twitter that it was a scam. After a short exchange in which Baba asked for an explanation of the Kickstarter for him and the Japanese community, it appears Clannad Man realized he was out of his depth and facing legal action in the form of DMCA takedown notices or worse, and pulled the project. Only the most arrogant and foolhardy person would have tried to continue after that sort of official notice took place.
He then tried to claim that people are so passionate that it caught Baba’s attention. Highly misleading at best: the passion being shown on Twitter and IRC that night was of hatred for this guy who dared to mislead people into paying for this guy’s vacation. It was sheer luck that a Twitter user posted the link as a mention to Baba, who actually opened it and apparently noticed his company’s properties being used to make money for someone else. That wasn’t out of passion, but rather an attempt to let him know that there was a Kickstarter scam going on that he could put an end to. It was actually intended that there would be a followup tweet with instructions on how to serve a DMCA takedown, but it quickly became unnecessary. He then acts positive and encourages everyone, perhaps so he can try again when the heat dies down.
And that brings me to the end of the post. I just felt I had to get this out there.
Unlike others, I’m not going to be neutral and say “form your own opinion”. I feel that this entire debacle shows that “Clannad Man” is a slimeball, a piece of scum who is apparently going to lie, mislead and omit in order to take your money like a snake oil salesman. My biggest hope is that none of my friends and no one I know gets caught up in giving money to such a person, and that is why I’ve gone out of my way to speak against him.
My thanks to the IRC and Twitter communities and all those who spent last night into the morning talking and translating and spreading the word that this guy isn’t to be trusted. It’s a good day when a scam gets shut down before anyone gets hurt, and I sincerely hope word gets around enough that he doesn’t- or can’t- try again.
Hopefully my next post will be more interesting, but I write when the mood strikes. This was it.
[FURTHER UPDATE: As said earlier, Doki released an clarification (http://doki.co/2013/10/30/clarification-regarding-clannad_man-and-his-kickstarter-campaign/) that effectively reads as an apology letter. Good on them. I am glad they investigated, and would just like to point out that they did the right thing by doing so. It just goes to show, greed can end multiple ways- and one of the ways is to become a pariah of the very community you claim to support.
Kastel has also posted a new blog entry about the further adventures of Clannad Man! Read it at http://oppaiisjustice.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/clannad-man-x-curtain-calls/ .
Kortir 