Has anyone here read it?

Mar 4, 2019 1:49 PM

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Sep 2013

So i've heard it has at least 140 volumes now, and i wonder- what does 40k+ pages long novel would be about?
It's probably THE LONGEST thing ever written, with maybe 10 million words?
So my question is- has anyone here read this? By any chance, the entirety of it? What is it about? How long is the story, how many characters are there? Does it follow a single group of characters?
And how long period does it cover? I gues 140 books can't be about 1-2 years...

And most importantly- why is it still ongoing?

Mar 31, 2019 6:15 PM

keragamming

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Oct 2013

12258

berial6 said:
So i've heard it has at least 140 volumes now, and i wonder- what does 40k+ pages long novel would be about?
It's probably THE LONGEST thing ever written, with maybe 10 million words?
So my question is- has anyone here read this? By any chance, the entirety of it? What is it about? How long is the story, how many characters are there? Does it follow a single group of characters?
And how long period does it cover? I gues 140 books can't be about 1-2 years...

And most importantly- why is it still ongoing?

From what I remember the cast becomes bigger and the characters from the anime eventually becomes adult, I know some spoilers but I don't want to spoil there, but it now follows different cast of characters, like game of thrones for example.

Jun 22, 2019 12:19 PM

Rhiannon-Senpai

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Jun 2009

2741

I only read the first volume. Unfortunately I've read that only 5 volumes were translated in English. So even if one reads all 5 volumes, there's 125 more (also the 22 short stories).
I really liked the first volume, it only covers the first few episodes of the anime. Unfortunately the adaptation wasn't that good. I only liked the ending song and the backgrounds lol.

Aug 20, 2020 7:10 AM

Gabriell_Braga

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Jan 2018

This Japanese youtuber did reviews for the first 30 volumes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzQzcbKXWIQ&list=PLJ0ZmASmGWQBDPdcaNASxJBqdynf9acUI

Mar 10, 2021 6:42 AM

Ansh2004

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Feb 2021

195

I also know what is about? That it's ongoing?
From what I know it's author meant for it to be only 100 volumes but he/she continued it to 130 volumes and then he got sick and eventually died and then someone related to him or someone close to him/her picked it up. I mean I would love to read about it if this is really that of story and doesn't stretch too far. But to it looks they are stretching the story but I could be wrong. So I don't know anything about it if someone does please tell what is left in the story that even after the author's death they are still not giving it a ending. I mean it's been more than 10 years and this story still hasn't been given a conclusion?!

Mar 21, 2021 10:34 PM

removed-user

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Jul 2018

564612

I'm translating the entire series with DeepL right now, which is by far the best translator out there. If nothing gets in the way, then I'm reading one volume per week. The series will probably never get an official translation, it's too big and unknown outside of Japan

Mar 24, 2021 4:26 PM

abystoma2

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Nov 2013

5460

WuxianXiaozu said:
I'm translating the entire series with DeepL right now, which is by far the best translator out there. If nothing gets in the way, then I'm reading one volume per week. The series will probably never get an official translation, it's too big and unknown outside of Japan

Interesting. Do you plan to release the translation anywhere, or is it just for your personal use?

You all need to watch Nami.

Mar 24, 2021 5:05 PM

removed-user

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Jul 2018

564612

The problem right now is that it is going to take a few months to translate every volume. There is a daily and monthly limit to how many documents I can translate with DeepL. I can cheat the system a bit by using a vpn and different browsers to translate more documents, but it's still going to take a while before I'll have everything translated. Once everything is done I will make it available for download. But if someone wants to try and read it now then you could just message me and I'll make the volumes that I have already translated available.
There are a few minor problems which I don't want to explain now, but to sum it up: 99.9% of the translation is perfectly translated, but sometimes here and there you'll see a page that sounds like complete nonsense, not because of translation error, but because the ocr for that page for whatever reason didn't work properly.

removed-userMar 25, 2021 5:42 AM

Mar 27, 2021 5:11 PM

abystoma2

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Nov 2013

5460

WuxianXiaozu said:
The problem right now is that it is going to take a few months to translate every volume. There is a daily and monthly limit to how many documents I can translate with DeepL. I can cheat the system a bit by using a vpn and different browsers to translate more documents, but it's still going to take a while before I'll have everything translated. Once everything is done I will make it available for download. But if someone wants to try and read it now then you could just message me and I'll make the volumes that I have already translated available.
There are a few minor problems which I don't want to explain now, but to sum it up: 99.9% of the translation is perfectly translated, but sometimes here and there you'll see a page that sounds like complete nonsense, not because of translation error, but because the ocr for that page for whatever reason didn't work properly.

That is great to hear, I look forward to you releasing this project. A machine translation is better than no translation.

You all need to watch Nami.

Jul 19, 2021 3:04 PM

#10

removed-user

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Jul 2018

564612

Update on my project: I'm starting it from scratch which is actually good news. I have found a new way of translating the novel which has much better translation quality than how I initially did it. That being said, instead of translating every volume just like that and releasing it, I will release every volume after I have finished reading it, so that I can improve bad parts of the translation. You can download all the volumes on my blogspot Here For every volume I will provide the docx file that I used to edit the text and the epub file which I used to read it. If you want to read the volume in any other format, then you can convert it on your own.
There are currently 147 volumes of the main story and 26 volumes of the side story also known as "Guin Saga Gaiden", so a total of 173 volumes. Images from the original novel are also included in every volume, except for volume 35 and volume 131-147, which won't have any images except for the bookcover. If you want to see the images, make sure to use an ebook reader that can show images.

Keep in mind that this is still a machine translation, although the best one you could ask for, but it still has some minor mistakes. Two things you should always keep in mind: Male characters will sometimes be referred to as she/her and female characters will sometimes be referred to as he/him. And second, names and locations are often not correctly spelled, but this isn't a problem because almost always it's obvious who or what is meant. On avarage I improve and correct between 20 and 40 pages per volume, but if there are really minor mistakes that don't change the content or meaning of a sentence outside of those pages, then I just leave it there because if I correct every single thing, then it would just take too much time to finish 1 volume.
At the end or after the end of every volume there is always an afterword from the author which I don't read, so those pages might have some mistakes in them since I don't double check them.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave me a message.

Aug 23, 2021 12:42 AM

#11

Zmbo6ii

Offline

Nov 2017

WuxianXiaozu said:
Update on my project: I'm starting it from scratch which is actually good news. I have found a new way of translating the novel which has much better translation quality than how I initially did it. That being said, instead of translating every volume just like that and releasing it, I will release every volume after I have finished reading it, so that I can improve bad parts of the translation. You can download all the volumes on my blogspot Here For every volume I will provide the docx file that I used to edit the text and the epub file which I used to read it. If you want to read the volume in any other format, then you can convert it on your own.
There are currently 147 volumes of the main story and 26 volumes of the side story also known as "Guin Saga Gaiden", so a total of 173 volumes. Images from the original novel are also included in every volume, except for volume 35 and volume 131-147, which won't have any images except for the bookcover. If you want to see the images, make sure to use an ebook reader that can show images.

Keep in mind that this is still a machine translation, although the best one you could ask for, but it still has some minor mistakes. Two things you should always keep in mind: Male characters will sometimes be referred to as she/her and female characters will sometimes be referred to as he/him. And second, names and locations are often not correctly spelled, but this isn't a problem because almost always it's obvious who or what is meant. On avarage I improve and correct between 20 and 40 pages per volume, but if there are really minor mistakes that don't change the content or meaning of a sentence outside of those pages, then I just leave it there because if I correct every single thing, then it would just take too much time to finish 1 volume.
At the end or after the end of every volume there is always an afterword from the author which I don't read, so those pages might have some mistakes in them since I don't double check them.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave me a message.

Hello there bro
Thank you for your work
May i ask you for whether you would recommend it or not and what can I expect coming to it
Have a good day

Aug 25, 2021 4:36 PM

#12

removed-user

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Jul 2018

564612

I do recommend Guin Saga, it is one of the best things I have ever read. Kaoru Kurimoto has a real talent for writing an amazing story with a great atmosphere and characters. It's hard for me to tell you right now what you can expect from this since it has 173 volumes, after reading 100 volumes I could probably give you an accurate answer to that question. But basically, to give a simple answer, it's like Lord of the Rings and Berserk except 10 times better than both of them. I do strongly recommend reading the Gaiden volumes, as they are even more amazing than the actual main story.

Sep 23, 2021 10:22 PM

#13

removed-user

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Jul 2018

564612

Hello, this should be my final update on the project. Starting with Volume 10 and the 2nd Gaiden volume, the volumes have gotten a much better translation quality. Instead of using OCR like I did on the previous volumes to get the japanese raw text and then translate it, I now purchase every volume as an ebook and get the perfect raw japanese text without any mistakes from those ebooks, which I then translate with DeepL. Those of you who have already read anything after volume 9 already know how good the translation quality is. If you'd show it to a random person, then he might not even suspect that this is a machine translation. That being said, Volume 1-9 and the 1st Gaiden volume have been replaced with a better translation that I did with the ebook method as I explained before. In case you didn't like the translation quality or want to read the volumes with a better translation, I recommend downloading the new and improved translations of those volumes. The images are now located in a seperate folder instead of inside the document.

Dec 24, 2021 8:16 AM

#14

underoath777

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Mar 2011

404

thanks for the work you do, really appreciate it

Feb 12, 2022 9:09 AM

#15

removed-user

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Jul 2018

564612

Hello, it has been a while and it's almost completely translated now. There have been some issues and I have decided to remove my blog. If you want to download the volumes, then send me a message and I will send you a link with all volumes. In about 2 weeks I will finish the entire series, after that I will provide a link for anyone who will ask for it.

Feb 12, 2022 12:06 PM

#16

kosmoskos

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Dec 2019

thank you for your amazing work man! has guin saga finished or stil ongoing?

kosmoskosFeb 12, 2022 12:09 PM

Feb 12, 2022 2:18 PM

#17

removed-user

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Jul 2018

564612

I can give you an objective and a subjective answer to that question.
Objective: Yes, it is still going on and it will most likely never finish. If Kaoru Kurimoto was still alive then according to her we might have needed even as much as 500 volumes to finish the entire story. Right now Yuu Godai is writing all new volumes since volume 140, the last one was in 2020, volume 147, so it's coming out really slow, but it's still releasing.
Subjective: Guin Saga is an unfinished work and it has ended with volume 130/22nd Gaiden volume. Everything after that is not Guin Saga, it's fanfiction. It's not based upon anything that Kaoru Kurimoto has left behind. No one knows how the actual story would have progressed. They could have given this novel to anyone, and they could have written literally anything they wanted and it would have been published as a Guin Saga novel. And that's exactly what has happened. These volumes are horrible, I hate them. Today I read volume 135 and wow, I can't describe in words how much I hate it. I actually wanted to drop this novel without even finishing this volume. The only reason why I'm still reading it is because I'm curious to see what they have done with it, but I don't accept anything as real or canon. None of it matters, everything is fake. The Gaiden volumes 23-26 were alright, except for Gaiden 24, I don't know what that was, weirdest volume I have read. The 2 volumes from Yohino Yume (132,134) that I have read were not horrible, but it was still really bad. Volume 134 was the only volume so far that was somewhat believable, something that I can imagine Kaoru Kurimoto might have written, but it was still bad for the most part. But Yuu Godai... a cursed name. What she has done with this novel is unforgivable.

Mar 1, 2022 7:24 AM

#18

removed-user

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Jul 2018

564612

Hello again and for the last time. Some things have come up and I'll be gone from this website for many months, maybe even more than a year. Since I won't be able to reply to anyone, here is the link for anyone who wants it. Goodbye

Jun 12, 2022 2:41 PM

#19

Memore

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Feb 2021

6897

WuxianXiaozu said:
Hello again and for the last time. Some things have come up and I'll be gone from this website for many months, maybe even more than a year. Since I won't be able to reply to anyone, here is the link for anyone who wants it. Goodbye

Thank you so much!!