JoJo July 2009
JoJo is the founder and leader of JoJoHot (热情汉化组), one of the most popular and well-known scanlation groups in China. Similar to Toriyams's World in terms of popularity, JoJoHot scanlates various shounen series, most of which come from Shueisha's Weekly Shounen Jump. Like many other Chinese scanlation groups, JoJoHot is a forum-based group. JoJoHot is very similar to the speed scanlators found in the English scene, scanlating magazine raws every week as they come out.
*Note that this interview was originally conducted in Chinese, so Chinese version of the questions and the responses are also included. Also, JoJo took some texts from the Baidu Encyclopedia entry on JoJoHot for the first and second question.
JoJo: I'm JoJo, the founder of JoJoHot. JoJo is the name of a manga, which is also where the group got its name from.
JoJo: At the time (which year?) I (a 26-year-old guy living in Beijing) wanted to scanlate JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but it's impossible to scanlate JoJo by just one person, so I thought of forming a group, because with more people we can get more work done! Back then it wasn't easy to read manga in mainland China, you can't understand Japanese raws, and legitimate versions didn't exist. It was like the ban on alcohol in America back then, you can't drink it, and you don't know when the ban will be lifted. I think this was how most people in China felt. JoJoHot was born on the Internet in a special time like this. Before the Internet, it felt like there was no manga fan within miles, on the Internet, I quickly found people who shared the same interest and was able to form a group.
The group's first project was the popular Naruto. Remembering those harsh days, at the time, the concept of teamwork over the Internet did not exist, and everyone simply waited. Many wondered at the time if we could make it. Although our translations and quality weren't ideal back then, but through various hardship and obstacles, JoJoHot slowly grew stronger. I refused to publish my pictures online because I believed JoJoHot is about the team, not just about myself, and its products are the result of everyone's hardwork. That's why we also refused to put any advertisement in our work or try to make money off of it
Today, although I'm neither proficient in Japanese nor good at web technology, JoJoHot still managed to grow nicely after 5 years of existence. JoJoHot has a large audience, but the group still holds onto its core value—reject all commercial advertising. JoJoHot created many public service ads using manga characters, from simply translating manga to lending manga characters to help create public welfare ads is another one of JoJoHot's accomplishments. "Public Service with Passion" is one of the first of its kind in China, and its popularity is rising each day, especially thanks to the hard works of Hitomi from our forum.
The following would best describe JoJoHot: Using manga to spread public welfare...to spread love...to let the current generation and the next generation of Chinese people rediscover passion. JoJoHot's URL can be found at http://www.jojohot.com/
JoJo: Not familiar...I don't really try to contact any either ^^
JoJo: I'm not really familiar with that.
I rarely rate others...and recently...I really don't have the time or interest to recall anything...*sweat*...I don't want to feel like I'm writing an autobiography in preparation for my death... ^^
JoJo: All our projects...are alive...because there are members who enjoy them...
A few years ago I often watch American TV shows, these years I've been watching news more often...been watching too much ~ but can't really write them down...so...I've been playing badminton a lot recently...and am reading less and less manga.
JoJo: Scanlation...still holding on...
Public welfare...those in China don't understand...those outside China don't care...
Passion...still holding on...