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maximilianjenus wrote:

Merxamers wrote:

The writing in Shield Hero is very amateurish and awkward, and reminiscent of someone's first self-published e-novel (which may be what it was, at first). Especially in the first couple volumes, there are countless instances of the narrator breaking the immersion to give us a "By the way, <expository>", instead of letting the reader find out the information naturally. There are also many, MANY instances of aggravating dialogue along the lines of "Let's go do <thing> now" "Ok". Also, another problem that other light novels seem to share, is that it can be difficult to tell which characters are speaking when a group is talking, especially when the 4 heroes are involved.

that' spretty fair, and in a way it's a generic/boiler plate problem for most webnovel and webnovel based media (taht adn power trips/harems).

true. It may be a better example of a transfer story (which doesn't mean much) but it does have those problems and actually was an e-novel, pretty sure the author's first. I think he only wrote two and that was the first. As for vol 5 and beyond, it was heavily changed by the editor to manage the pacing better.

Anyway, I only asked as it seems to get a lot of mixed complaints. There are some vary reasonable ones, like rushing through the heroines physical development and ptsd to quickly get a romantic interest for him. However, there are some unreasonable ones like when people complain that he isn't sleeping with the person they want him to because he isn't emotionally ready for that or when the official translator wanted to know why the conspirators weren't telling him why they were messing with him.

I'm a bit surprised that anyone would think that Tatsuya in the anime was all that different from in the books. For the most part, you see the same stuff in the anime that's in the books - including some of the internal monologuing. It's just that you get some better detail in the books and don't have to infer quite as much.

In any case, one thing that I'm very pleased with with the books in comparison to the anime is the translation quality. The anime had some weird faux pas like Mizuki asking in the second episode whether civilians are rare at their school - which makes no sense, because eveyrone there (except for spoiler[Tatsuya]) is a civilian and has nothing to do with the military. But the novel translation has her asking whether normal people are rare at their school (because they'd been talking about various, abnormal abilities that the characters had), and suddenly, that question made sense. Another odd one (though not as bad) was Tatsuya talking about Hattori being "wasted," whereas the book talked about him being "sick." You understood what he meant in the anime, but it also didn't seem like the right word, whereas the book translation's word choice fit much better.

rahzel rose wrote:

The only thing that really bothers me about the translation is the decision to have Miyuki call Tatsuya "Tatsuya" as opposed to something like "Brother" because she never ever calls him by his name. It just seems so informal considering how highly she respects and thinks of him, and it's also just unnecessary.

It's one of those things with translations that's hard, and the best choice is always up for debate. If you're going to fully translate the Japanese into English, then you can't leave in stuff like "Oni-chan," because it's not English, and having Miyuki call Tatsuya "Brother" would be incredibly weird to most Americans - especially if she did it more than once or twice. We simply don't use brother or sister as a title like that. We say things like "my brother" or "your sister," but I don't think that I've ever heard anyone call their brother "Brother" like it was a name. That just isn't normal English. So, pretty much the only way to fully translate the novel into English is for her to use his name. And for the most part, that really doesn't lose any meaning - just like, for the most part, not having honorifcs like -chan and -kun doesn't lose any meaning. And leaving that stuff out makes the translation more accessible to non-otaku. But occasionally it actually matters (like when the story actually makes a big deal about someone using someone's name without an honorific), and there really isn't a good way to fully translate it into English without losing meaning.

Now, because anime and manga is a niche market where the fans are typically willing (even eager) to learn some of the Japanese terms, it often works for a translation to use terms like "oni-chan", "sempai", and "-kun" rather than actually translating them into English. So, a large portion of the fanbase would have had no problem with the English translation of the novel having Miyuki call Tatsuya "Oni-chan" like she does in Japanese, but it does make the translation more niche, which may or may not affect how it's accepted and liked by those who aren't otaku. So, it wouldn't surprise me if part of the question of how it should be translated came down in part to how much of a chance Yen Press thought that it might have outside of the Otaku crowd. But it could also just be the preferences of the translator. There are plenty of translators that insist on keeping stuff like honorifcs, insisting that it retains more meaning that way, whereas others insist on translating those terms, because they're not English.

Personally, I think that it works either way. Unless the way that Miyuki refers to Tatsuya is actually discussed in the story, I don't think that it really matters. At most, some sublty is lost for hardcore otaku. You know who she's referring to, and it's quite clear how she feels about him and what their relationship is regardless of which form of address she's using. But I would have been fine with them using "Oni-chan" too, since I'm well acquainted with those terms at this point. However, I would be more likely to recommend a novel to a non-otaku family member or friend if it doesn't retain stuff like "Oni-chan" in it. As much as having lots of -chans and -kuns and sempais and whatnot is not off-putting to me, it would be to many of the people that I know. So, I really can't fault them for having Miyuki call Tatsuya by his name. It's what a non-otaku would expect.

Regardless, I'm very glad that we're getting light novel series like this officially translated into English. We didn't used to, so it's real treat to now be able to get the original versions of some of these series - especially when the series never gets fully adapted into anime (which is often the case). Yen Press will have to release quite a few more novels from this series before we get to material that wasn't adapted in the first season of the anime, so we may or may not get to the new stuff before they do a second season, but not needing a second season to get the next part of the story will be fantastic (much as it would be great to get a second season). I mean, imagine if we all we had for Spice and Wolf were the two seasons of the anime, we would have lost out on most of the series! And far too often, that's exactly what's happened. But not with The Irregular at Magic High School. Smile

Tsutomu Satou is not just a terrible writer, he is a terrible person.
And his roots as a salaryman are no excuse for his fascist ideology. I couldn't finish the first novel and the anime was just as bad. It's a good thing he only wrote these novels and didn't try politics.

Kalessin wrote:

We simply don't use brother or sister as a title like that. We say things like "my brother" or "your sister," but I don't think that I've ever heard anyone call their brother "Brother" like it was a name. That just isn't normal English.

That didn't stop Jeremiah Bourque from leaving the honorifics in for Strike the Blood.
Andrew Prowse and Yoshito Hinton's translation of A Certain Magical Index had Kuroko address Misaka as Big Sister in place of Onee-sama.
I was pretty excited to read the Irregular novels since they shared a translator with Index. Imagine my surprise when I found out Miyuki calls Onii-sama by name instead of something like Dear Brother. I don't know about anyone else here, but that was a big turn-off for me. Translators have their own preferences I'm sure, but I'm still disappointed.

Kalessin wrote:

Personally, I think that it works either way. Unless the way that Miyuki refers to Tatsuya is actually discussed in the story, I don't think that it really matters.

I think a scene comes up in a later novel where she makes a big deal about referring to him by name. So that's gonna be a treat for ol' Andrew.

Kalessin wrote:

Yen Press will have to release quite a few more novels from this series before we get to material that wasn't adapted in the first season of the anime, so we may or may not get to the new stuff before they do a second season

>Madhouse
>saying it like season 2 is a matter of time...

Someone that has read the novels beyond the first five volumes to know if it is better or not?

If it is good, is quite a shame that Madhouse in, I say, their method of making awesome animation whitout taking care of the writing, eliminated some of the things that made the novels enjoyable to an extent, especially Tatsuya´s personality. As not everyone read books, especially light novels because few have been licensed and the writing sometimes is weird, not everyone that has seen the anime will touch the books thinking they are bad or even worse that the anime.

Also, the mangas spawned from the books are good or not? Because I have a couple of them but I haven´t read them. I wanna know first

Princess_Irene wrote:

I thought about this particular issue a lot and hadn't quite solidified my thoughts when I wrote the review, which is why I didn't mention it. I think that the change was made to make it appeal to English-speaking audiences - if she called him "oniichan" or even "big brother" it would bring up that forbidden romance/incest thing that is distasteful to a lot of (western) readers, so having her call him by name and letting her actions indicate their closeness and her respect - which did come through - was an easy fix.

That isn't a bad early fix, but when they get closer to being caught up, western readers are going to have to deal with the incest eventually. That is unless they're going to rewrite entire plot points. I kind of doubt the person translating it is familiar with the source though so they might not realize the inability to side step the issue like that long term.

SilverTalon01 wrote:

Princess_Irene wrote:

I thought about this particular issue a lot and hadn't quite solidified my thoughts when I wrote the review, which is why I didn't mention it. I think that the change was made to make it appeal to English-speaking audiences - if she called him "oniichan" or even "big brother" it would bring up that forbidden romance/incest thing that is distasteful to a lot of (western) readers, so having her call him by name and letting her actions indicate their closeness and her respect - which did come through - was an easy fix.

That isn't a bad early fix, but when they get closer to being caught up, western readers are going to have to deal with the incest eventually. That is unless they're going to rewrite entire plot points. I kind of doubt the person translating it is familiar with the source though so they might not realize the inability to side step the issue like that long term.

Someone that has read the novels beyond the first five volumes to know if it is better or not?

If it is good, is quite a shame that Madhouse in, I say, their method of making awesome animation whitout taking care of the writing, eliminated some of the things that made the novels enjoyable to an extent, especially Tatsuya´s personality. As not everyone read books, especially light novels because few have been licensed and the writing sometimes is weird, not everyone that has seen the anime will touch the books thinking they are bad or even worse that the anime.

Also, the mangas spawned from the books are good or not? Because I have a couple of them but I haven´t read them. I wanna know first

I've only read the Miyuki spin-off (The Honor Student Student at Magic High School), which I liked for the different perspective.

I kinda want to see how they're going to handle the "Onii-sama" thing after vol16... pff

AksaraKishou wrote:

I kinda want to see how they're going to handle the "Onii-sama" thing after vol16... pff

What's there to handle? They translate it and hope that the fanbase continues to buy the books. If the books stop selling, they stop translating them, and it sucks for those who want the rest. It's not like Yen Press is writing the books. If the fans who stuck around for 15 volumes decide to jump ship, because they don't like where the story goes in book 16, Yen Press really can't do much to fix that. They'll do whatever advertising they do to push the series and get folks buying it, but the readers will either like the story and continue to buy the books, or they won't. All of the creative decisions were made long before Yen Press got involved. But I would think that most folks who stuck around for 15 books would keep buying the books. Some may very well quit, because they don't like what happens in book 16, but most folks who would react that negatively to it will probably have jumped ship by then anyway - especially since the short summary for it on wikipedia already gives away the key spoiler that most folks would object to.

Of far greater concern is whether the books will continue to sell well enough to even get published as far as book 16. The longer a series is, the more likely it is that the sales will tail off too early for it to be fully published, and while these books are short, that's still a lot of books, and there's always risk that too many fans will drop the series part way through, and we'll never even reach book 16, let alone the end. I sure hope that we get the full thing, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if this fizzles out long before we get there. All we can do is buy the books and hope that they continue publishing them until they've published them all.

Kalessin wrote:

AksaraKishou wrote:

I kinda want to see how they're going to handle the "Onii-sama" thing after vol16... pff

What's there to handle? They translate it and hope that the fanbase continues to buy the books. If the books stop selling, they stop translating them, and it sucks for those who want the rest. It's not like Yen Press is writing the books. If the fans who stuck around for 15 volumes decide to jump ship, because they don't like where the story goes in book 16, Yen Press really can't do much to fix that. They'll do whatever advertising they do to push the series and get folks buying it, but the readers will either like the story and continue to buy the books, or they won't. All of the creative decisions were made long before Yen Press got involved. But I would think that most folks who stuck around for 15 books would keep buying the books. Some may very well quit, because they don't like what happens in book 16, but most folks who would react that negatively to it will probably have jumped ship by then anyway - especially since the short summary for it on wikipedia already gives away the key spoiler that most folks would object to.

Of far greater concern is whether the books will continue to sell well enough to even get published as far as book 16. The longer a series is, the more likely it is that the sales will tail off too early for it to be fully published, and while these books are short, that's still a lot of books, and there's always risk that too many fans will drop the series part way through, and we'll never even reach book 16, let alone the end. I sure hope that we get the full thing, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if this fizzles out long before we get there. All we can do is buy the books and hope that they continue publishing them until they've published them all.

This is not a matter of sales. I don't care if they stop at vole 4 or something. I'm spending money on their products, so i expect quality.... Is it that hard?

Honorifics are mandatory in many social situations so as to emphasize social distance or disparity in rank. By either taking them out or changing the way one speaks alters the meaning of the sentence greatly. It's like YP doesn't understand the concept of sociolinguistics.

At this point, i'm tempted to advise people to import the jp book and read the fan translations that are going around.. YP (and others) might learn their lesson and stop f***** up stuff aimed at anime/manga/etc fans by marketing them for the general audience. I think they should try to squeeze as much as they can out of the fans than to just sell a handful of books just because they don't want people from the west to feel "uncomfortable".

AksaraKishou wrote:

This is not a matter of sales. I don't care if they stop at vole 4 or something. I'm spending money on their products, so i expect quality.... Is it that hard?

Honorifics are mandatory in many social situations so as to emphasize social distance or disparity in rank. By either taking them out or changing the way one speaks alters the meaning of the sentence greatly. It's like YP doesn't understand the concept of sociolinguistics.

Well, you're free to complain about the lack of honorifics, but the reality of the matter is that they're not English, and outside of a niche market, no one would ever leave them in a translation. It has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with the differences between Japanese and English. Outside of hardcore otaku, no one would expect the honorifcs or miss the small amount information that they convey, because honorifcs aren't English. Leaving them in means that that portion of the text was not translated, and if they're removed, no one but a hardcore otaku would even think that any information had been lost with regards to how the characters refer to one another. They simply don't expect that sort of information to even be there, because that's not how English works.

There are always things that are lost in translation. There's no way to avoid that, and honorifics are only a part of the equation. The only way to get the full, original meaning is to be fluent in the original language and read the text in the original language. Some translators choose to leave in the honorifics in order to not lose the small amount of information that they convey, and obviously, some otaku prefer that, because it makes the text feel more Japanese, and they don't lose that small amount of information that the honorifics contain. You're free to tell Yen Press that that's how you'd prefer that they do their translations or even that you think that it completely ruins the books if the honorifics are removed and that you won't buy them without honorifics, but there's nothing wrong with Yen Press choosing to remove the honorifics when translating books into English, because honorifics are not English.

Personally, I'm very grateful that Yen Press licensed this series and has been releasing it in English. I don't think that the issue of honorifics is a big deal, and I'm certainly not going to boycott the books just because they don't have honorifics. But complain to Yen Press if you feel that strongly about it.

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