Agreed, as someone who did some scanlation back in the 00s and still follows the scene (which remains quite vibrant) that was a real disappointment. Fan scans l

Agreed, as someone who did some scanlation back in the 00s and still follows the scene (which remains quite vibrant) that was a real disappointment. Fan scans lead the way on all the things they're discussing, with a lot of debates around various translation choices and work put into sound effects and redraws despite having no access to originals. I think it lead the way for commercial translators and showed there was a market and demand for getting close to the originals, and sense then has also been a source of effective market research in terms of what is popular. There are a number of wonderful series also only available to non-Japanese readers via fan scanlations. No sort of coverage of that was a surprise.