About @sketchbookbotEN

Current Status: Version 1.2 (July 2011). Covers practically everything, including recent chapters that have not been covered in a bound volume (tankoubon 8) yet. Oh, and I have yet to do picture dramas 4~6. I should get around to that.
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Say hello to @sketchbookbotEN – the English Sketchbook Bot. Inspired by the original @sketchbookbot (and also partially by Songbird’s @KajiwaraSoraBot), this bot pulls from a vast list of lines from both the original Sketchbook manga, and from the anime Sketchbook ~full color’S~.

Translations, if not translated straight by me, are culled (without permission) from fan-translated sources:

  • Musashi Quality‘s scanlation of the manga;
  • SpoonSubs’ fansub of the anime (Crunchyroll took their official — and sometimes mistaken anyway — copy down);
    and
  • this guy, who’s translated the DVD picture dramas.

There are some translations I’ve altered slightly…either 1) to suit my taste >>; 2) to fit within Twitter’s 140-character limit; or 3) to give the line a bit more context. Furthermore, many of the Suzukaze (Ryo/Fuu) skits share tweets (everything else for the most part is a single character’s line), because of how they talk. Usually, I reference existing fan translations for more technical stuff, such as a lot of Kurihara’s lines. For the most part, the manga takes precedence over the anime; for example, my reference of “Function” uses Negishi (v. 4 p. 44) as opposed to the President (episode 5).

I have access to all printed volumes of the manga, and all episodes of the anime (including picture dramas); I do not, however, have access to the drama CD “Sketch Book Stories”, so I won’t be pulling lines from that (assuming it is comprised of original content to begin with).

This is a bot made just for the heck of it. I make no guarantees on the quality of any translations posted, because I’m still learning Japanese. I also make no guarantees on how much amusement you’ll get out of @sketchbookbotEN, although I figure that enjoyment is just naturally proportional to how much you have read (and liked) Sketchbook.

On Replying to It: There are currently 11 replies that it can toss out, but you’ll have to reply to certain tweets correctly in order to get it to speak. Key words are:

  • “断トツ” – ‘Dantotsu’, volume 2, page 66
  • “Ah, sou!” – ‘Asou’, volume 2, page 70
  • “How is it? The calendar I gave you that starts on Wednesdays…” – ‘Hard to See’, volume 2, page 90
  • “But Kate, you speak English!” – ‘That Morning’, volume 2, page 139
  • “They don’t breathe fire?” – ‘Dinosaur’, volume 3, page 104
  • “function” – ‘Function’, volume 4, page 44
  • “Ika daioh” or “Salmon King” – volume 4, page 59
  • “yudame udon” – ‘Dame Udon’, volume 6, page 108
  • “How are you?” – anime, episode 6: preview
  • “Hello! My name is _____! What’s your name?” anime, episode 7: Kate’s appearance
  • “salmon pink” – anime, episode 12: 5 minutes in

…actually, it’ll reply to these key words whenever you ping it with these terms, but I’d say replying is a bit more fun.

Lastly: I block spammers on this account. If you think you’ve been wrongly blocked, sorry for the inconvenience — ping me on my actual account, and I’ll restore access as soon as possible. If you’re a new follower that I’m not familiar with, and you’d like to confirm that you’re not a spammer (and speed up the followback process), send a mention with the word register to it.

Disclaimer: Sketchbook is (c) Totan Kobako / MAG Garden. Sketchbook ~full color’S~ is (c) Totan Kobako / MAG Garden / full color’s. Text assets used and translated without permission. If you like Sketchbook, I strongly recommend and advocate purchasing the original manga volumes/anime DVDs/goods whenever possible…or if Crunchyroll licenses it back, support them with a paid account!