Forum - View topicLost in Translation
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ajr
Posts: 465 |
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Interesting panel, I hadn't heard anything on the effects of legal digital translation before.
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mdo7
 Posts: 6253 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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This is a very interesting Q&A I've read, at least I got some better insight on the process of translation in manga. Thanks for putting this up ANN.
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Mai5
 Posts: 16 |
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Interesting hearing from the translators. I honestly don't mean to be completely annoying when I don't like the translation, I'm sorry about complaining. At the same time I'm paying quite a bit for a series especially at Yen Press prices. If the translation bothers me I most likely won't buy it. Only one series has ever bothered me that much though and it might just be a personal thing since I was a huge fan of Inu x Boku SS.
 頑張ってください！
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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Manga translators are going through a very similar thing as anime translators did 3-4 years ago. Transition to digital distribution invariably drives down rates in the beginning.
Unfortunately if anime is a leading indicator they won't be going up any time soon. Despite digital distribution's success for anime rates for anime translation haven't gone up at all since the drop. |
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Asrialys
 Posts: 1160 |
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lol eManga? I wonder what the pay is for those employed. |
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medama_oyaji
 Posts: 99 |
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Thanks for posting this ANN. If I were able to be in San Diego, I would have definitely tried to make it to this panel!
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zensunni
 Posts: 1291 |
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Many of my beefs with manga translations have more to do with editing than translation. Whispered Words, for instance, has a lot of spots where it is clear that a similar word that is totally unrelated to the sentence is used. I can't believe that the translator actually translated those intentionally. A good editor should spot something that doesn't make sense and get clarification.
Mistakes happen, but they shouldn't reach the final product in numbers large enough to be worth noticing! |
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fencer_x
Posts: 277 |
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One of the worst mistakes you can make as a manga translation company is to hire editors who aren't fluent in both English and Japanese, or who at least know Japanese well enough to competently and accurately correct the English to make it read well as well as fit in the bubble nicely (I never buy English-language manga, because I've yet to see any versions that don't look like they were typeset by a blind person).
Companies (and fans who want to break into the industry) should be focusing more on cultivating multi-talented people who can do their jobs more effectively because they've got their fingers in multiple pies--like typesetters who know Japanese well enough and are competent enough with English to be able to alter text to say the same thing and still look pretty on the page. |
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lys
 Posts: 1008 Location: mitten-state |
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As a professional manga letterer who takes pride in her work, I have to wonder which series/publishers you've looked at with such terrible typesetting, and whether those were recent titles or books from like 5-10 years ago. I certainly agree that there are bad/awkwardly-lettered books out there and some publishers do better than others (it's become second nature for me to notice and critique those details, even when I'm trying to read just for fun) but I don't think bad quality is the norm. If you disagree with certain choices the publisher makes (like subtitling sfx with the translation on the side, or conversely, replacing them with English), that's a valid opinion, but even then, there are enough different approaches taken by publishers that I would think one at least has it to your liking. I agree that manga editors should have decent to good Japanese comprehension. Even with lettering, it helps me match lines to their correct bubbles, be an extra set of eyes to correct small mistakes or point out bigger things that need editorial attention, etc. |
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katscradle
Posts: 469 |
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This sounded like a really good panel so another thank you to ANN for posting the write up. I love some of the things said.
The part about reviews made me think a little bit about opinions too. Usually I wouldn't comment on anything about the translation, editing or typesetting unless I knew it might be of interest for people either by reputation of the publisher, heavy piracy, or there is something very praiseworthy or very bad from my own interpretation. Like there was this one treatment of a rescue title I thought was quite good but, I remember other people being rather negative about certain things. Some of the opinions I didn't even really think would be a big deal like Western vs. Eastern name order. So I made sure when I wrote the review of the copy I bought to address my feelings of the localization too. I read the notes in the back of manga when they're provided too, even if it's not particularity interesting to me. Sometimes I wish certain releases did elaborate a little. Actually I was just reading an English edition the other day where some of the jokes weren't coming across and I was thinking "this needs notes, that's about the only way to do it ". But, then again it's not so funny to explain a joke. 
Yeah. Kind of a concerning business model among other issues to me. Not all the people working with them have been involved with scanlators though. Some have quite respectable educations and skill. And of course it shows. Which, I'm not saying all scanlators don't either. I know of people involved in that who make a living in the same career fields, just outside the English-language manga industry. |
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Deacon Blues
Posts: 383 Location: Albuquerque, NM |
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I'm amused by the comments that Diaz-Przybyl made, considering they worked for TokyoPop, which was one of the worst companies to grace the face of publishing. One point in particular:
The sad thing is, most scanlators actually care about the series and put a great deal of time and effort into them... freelance translators do it just for the money and often leave it for the editor to figure out. If they had a translator who knew what they were doing for a vast majority of TP's titles, we wouldn't have made up dialogue and drivel for most of their released titles. Scanlations of today are not the same as those of yesteryear. It's a bit arrogant for them to claim they have a translator who knows what they are doing whereas scanlators "don't"? I kind of take offense to that and I've been scanlating for over a decade now. |
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lys
Posts: 1008 Location: mitten-state |
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I don't think you've ever spoken to any freelance translators. Tokyopop wasn't perfect, no publisher is, but over their history I think they kept trying to change and improve to better meet fans' standards. They had some great translators and thoughtful adapters working for them, who've gone on and continue to do work for other manga publishers. People don't go into manga publishing/localizing for the money (if they did, they probably wouldn't stick around long), they—we—do it because we love the medium and the stories. We're fans just like you. When you see how someone like Lillian has stuck around in the industry even after the publisher she worked for all that time went under, how can you think anything but that she must truly love the work she does? |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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There's only so much you can do with proper text sizing, centered bubble placement, and word wrap when you're dealing with bubbles made for a vertical language. There's not much wiggle room short of eliminating those bubbles entirely and replacing them with ones better suited for a horizontal text. That would only work if the Japanese raws were entirely clean and only the background art remained. Though in doing that, you'd probably end up covering up more art than the original bubbles. Correcting the script and typesetting aren't exactly related unless it's necessary to break up a longer phrase between two or more bubbles. Give me an example of proper typesetting using the Roman alphabet, please. But I tell you hwhat, the worst are those super narrow bubbles that either result in breaking words up multiple times, making the font size smaller, stroking them to go outside the bubble, or all three. |
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Suena
Posts: 289 |
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Who reads notes at the back of the book?
*raises hand* I don't mind notes at the back at all. I usually won't read them until I get to the end (unless there was some really weird term I've never heard of and it bugs me that I don't know). I don't like same-page notes because I feel like I'm forced to read it right away, and often times it's things I already know. And I recall a certain volume from Fantagraphics that put a star note on the page to tell me to google the term. Very helpful, thanks.... But yeah, I don't mind notes. I'd rather read a note than have the translator try to put something in that obviously isn't supposed to be there. If I can handle the notes in SZS, I can handle anything 
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Deacon Blues
Posts: 383 Location: Albuquerque, NM |
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The more they tried to improve, the worse they got. Perhaps you've never sat down and did a comparison of the Japanese to English translation... "adaptation" or not, it still doesn't excuse the fact that things were made up or omitted which played a vital role in plot development and scene structure. Fans or not, freelancers aren't always fans of series they are working on. Heck, I gave pointers to one translator who was hired on to tackle a Gundam series and never even read the series, let alone was familiar with terminology. The same goes with Gundam the Origin by Vertical. Their editing staff (as well as translator) has put out a work that doesn't follow conventional norms established by Bandai Entertainment a la animated works (of which I'm referring to ranks and naming)... which was all Sunrise approved, mind you. The translator has never worked with Gundam before and was forced to check the Wiki on it, which as we know is loaded with errors galore. So, the point is, translators and editors alike rarely fact check things and instead muddy the water some more... except in this regard it's an "official" form. |
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