Unjapanologist

I didn't know about it, had a quick look just now. I don't think there's cause for wariness in particular - the rules say "JManga will retain all rights in your submissions", but that's pretty standard for a contest, and it seems like contestants will all be translating just a part of the same couple of manga volumes anyway. Doesn't look like there's any risk of fan labor being exploited like in some other "let the fans translate" ventures we've seen.

At the same time, it's not really something I'm personally excited about. Allowing exactly one winner to become a professional manga translator is nice for the winner and all, but a bog-standard contest does nothing to encourage structural changes to the system of manga publishing that leads to scanlations (an issue that judge Deb Aoki, for instance, is pretty keen on 'solving' as far as I can remember. Haven't actually read anything by her in a long time). Maybe this info is hidden somewhere, but it doesn't sound like they're trying to invent a potentially innovative business model to harness the powers of fan translators for the benefit of all.

So as far as I can tell, harmless fun that's probably just a marketing gimmick for J-manga. Have any other people found issues with it?