First of all I did read, read me, I also have skimmed through whole thread but there one thing I didn't get no matter what.
"I'm ONE DUDE translating FOR FREE. I DON'T HAVE A TEAM. I DON'T HAVE PATREON. I DON'T KNOW JAPANESE.
THIS TOOK AN ENTIRE YEAR OF MY LIFE."
These words jumped out to me as soon as I have opened read me. But let me get this straight. Game originally a japanse game. Translation doesn't seems to be a machine translation, doesn't seems to be a complete rewrite of story either and you don't know Japanse. I just don't get how this can be possible. I am not trying to be offending or something, sorry if I have offended you, maybe I'm missing something crucial. Can you explain it to me please?
Sure thing.
I used a combination of Translator++, RPGMaker Trans, and Google Translate to do the initial trans. Then for literally every line (like, thousands of lines), I added another translation from a different online translator. And then went to work comparing the two translations for each, and rewriting them into proper English, asking actual Japanese people what certain words were if I didn't know (I work for a Japanese company as a writer).
Basically, it didn't take any real skill but a crapload of time and effort to look at each line, consider it in context, and rewrite. I will admit there's a few times I used creative license to embellish or change small parts that were a bit boring or repetitive. In Japanese, lots of things are lost when translating/transliterating word-for-word English, especially due to cultural differences as well as the limitations of each of our languages, so sometimes I did go a bit off the handle in adding information. And IMHO Japanese sex scenes are REALLY REALLY boring (basically just a lot of moaning in text), so I needed to add some dialogue to make it digestible for a Western reader.
So yeah, took a year of my life. And no, you didn't offend me.
I think something like, "derp derp your translation suxx lol", would be a bit more annoying to deal with, haha.