Forum - View topicThe Spring 2017 Manga Guide
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2143 |
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For some time I've pondered the notion of a work of fiction that (A) has a large, roughly gender-balanced cast and (B) passes neither the Bechdel test nor the Reverse Bechdel test.
Tsuredure Children doesn't quite meet those criteria, but it comes close. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2616 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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No worries on that front! I'll likely wait for volume twos of the series we cover in the Guide to come out before I write a full review for many of them, though, just so there's a bit more to discuss that people aren't familiar with.
Just volume ones this time. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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I hope we'll get to see reviews of Land of the Lustrous and Kakegurui - Compulsive Gambler, two manga releases on my radar. (I know Kakegurui comes out in-print in July, but the digital version is already out.)
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Ryo
 Posts: 62 Location: Montreal |
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Great, I was waiting for this. I think it would be very useful to have the artist's name in an easy to spot location though. As it is now, we have to look at the volume image, which is not always very clear, or parse the whole intro to find it.
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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Rebecca, I'd be interested if you could give examples from Flying Witch. The uncle's accent was a very, very strong Touhoku accent in the anime. I recall mentioning to my wife shortly before he appeared that I was a little surprised we hadn't heard any classic ズーズー弁 or other strong Touhoku accent signifiers, and then we were pretty blown away by the 津軽弁. The Tsurugu dialect is practically not mutually intelligible to many other Japanese speakers. Note that #3 in that link is someone who mentions that they can understand the dialect when spoken, but have more trouble when it's spelled out phonetically in kana, as the Flying Witch manga did in Japanese. I can sympathize, because I find it harder to understand "phonetically written" intense Southern dialect in books than to understand it from my grandparents in real life (or just understand standard spelling to be heard in that accent.) The impression I get from your comment is that the translation to English was handled very similarly to how it was handled in Japanese, albeit that being annoying for the same reasons that phonetic Southern accents can annoy me. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 2616 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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Sure, John Thacker, not a problem! Here are two examples of the uncle's speech:
Now part of the problem may be that I can't quite tell what, if any, regional accent the text is trying to imply; I see pronunciations that look like my own accent (Maine), but others that look Southern or Midwestern. And yes, I'm afraid I am assuming American, because those are the accents I'm most familiar with - it could be a specific accent from a different English-speaking country they're going for. I'm guessing that they're not really trying to mimic a Japanese-area dialect without any English equivalent. Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of dialectic writing - I find it confusing and/or irritating. (I've yet to see an author get a Maine accent right!) Cases like Ntozake Shange's poetry, where it's part of the poetics of the work, is one thing, but as an attempt to add "flavor" to a piece, I tend not to like it. |
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zeonozero
 Posts: 85 |
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I like this new seasonal guide. I've always been hoping for more manga reviews and these scores can assist me in deciding to buy or read a new series.
Keep it up with the first volumes too, so that way people don't feel swamped to read or catch up on everything. |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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Thanks! So it looks to me like a non-rhotic (r-dropping, and here the version with linking and intrusive r, see the "oughter" for "ought to / oughta'") Southern accent like my maternal grandmother had. (The "faan" looks to me like the Southern vowel shift.) These days a lot of people associate non-rhotic accents with linking and intrusive r with Boston and northern New England ("pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd", but a fair amount of North Carolina and Tidewater Virginia still has it (among older people), along with Savannah, New Orleans, and some Charleston. It used to be more common, and is mostly dying out; young people in the South have the Southern vowel shift, but are mostly rhotic. My grandmother basically could not say "Mariana" without it being "Marianner'" and my Dad's Virginia accent has the intrusive "warsh" and "Warshington." The fact that it's only really found among older speakers these days may be why the translator did it, to contrast it with the "normal" Touhoku-ben in the same way that non-rhotic Southern speech would be contrasted with the speech of younger Southerners. I can see why you see it as a mix of some Southern with Mainer, certainly. I'm not usually a huge fan of attempting to spell dialects either, even in the hands of someone skilled like William Faulkner. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9861 Location: Virginia |
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@Princess_Irene
The problem with the translator not using some attempt to replicate the dialect is that the need for Kei's translation wouldn't have made sense. I will say that I doubt the translator knows as much about a Maine accent (if that is what he was attempting) as you do. That is the perennial problem with trying to provide a specific dialect. Also, my primary association with the word "harbinger" is Spring, so I'm not sure why you would think it was inappropriate. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 2616 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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@Alan45
Some quick research in my books shows me that I most often see "harbinger" used as "harbinger of death" or "harbinger of the apocalypse" or something similar. Clearly I need to cool it on the 18th and 19th century Gothics and sensation novels. 
I'm fairly certain the translator wasn't specifically going for a Maine (or New England) accent; it just looked generally mixed to me. John Thacker's analysis is very interesting - I definitely do see a generational shift in my local accent. For example, I say "idea" with an "r" on the end ("idear"), whereas my father does that and most definitely pahks the cah, and my late grandfather did all of those while talking about his "gels" (girls). (And if you want to know how my very elderly relatives who came over from the old country talk, pick up anything by Anzia Yezierska.) Long story short: accents are neat. I should learn more about them. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9861 Location: Virginia |
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It struck me when I saw the anime and again when I read the first volume of the manga that the individual in question was an excellent personification of the phrase "harbinger of spring" so I didn't have a problem with it. I am aware of the usage you mention but it didn't come to mind at the time. Now that I think about it, I wonder what the original Japanese is? It must be a similar concept.
The problem with not trying to represent a Japanese regional dialect in anime or manga is that it is almost always remarked on, used as a character trait, or used to show that the main character is far from Tokyo. That aspect is lost if the translation doesn't try to indicate it somehow. It is easier in anime as you can hear the substitute US dialect. It is helped by the fact that much of the US dubbing is done where a regional accent comes naturally to the local voice actors. My family is from the vicinity of Philadelphia. While there may be some pronunciation specific to that area it is not usually remarked on. Of course I wouldn't notice.  Our connection to the "old country" is long gone.
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2233 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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For a passage in My Little Sister Can Ready Kanji (v2), there was a scene where the main characters overhear two old ladies speaking in a medium Touhoku accent, and because the main characters come from a future where all dialect has disappeared, they can't really understand it.
It was done as a joke so I was forced to do something, so I ended up translating -ndabe as... "you betcha" and using fargo-esque sentence grammar like "doncha know". I at least chose a dialect that was "north" ish and also something at least somewhat recognizable to a wide variety of americans, but I still feel dirty when there ended up being lines like "But I don't wanna be a "you betcha" character!" Dealing with accents in translation when plot or humor relevant is really, really hard. |
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Calico
Posts: 383 |
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I'm not sure if it's just me, but I couldn't find the link to the article page today. It doesn't seem to be pinned to the front page like the anime preview guides are, so I had to find it by checking the forums and clicking the article link.
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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In my experience, you can always tell someone from Philly by the distinctive way they pronounce the word "water", almost like "wooter" or "woulder." There's a host of other Philadelphia English traits, but that's the one that stands out to me the most. |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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Yeah. I like your approach in the case you mentioned, but it's really tricky because on the one hand, as you point out, you have to choose something familiar enough to almost all readers, but that often means incorrect stereotypes. It's especially tricky the larger your audience is, like a lot of translations, because a really good regional US accent won't work as well for UK readers, and vice versa. (Similarly, the "what's the number for 110" joke in Flying Witch should be "what's the number for 911?" in the US (110 is police emergency, 119 is is fire and medical), but that doesn't work in other countries. The CR translation left it as 110.) When the joke is that the accent is basically incomprehensible to most people, even in the area, well, it's tricky to have an accurate transcription of a nearly incomprehensible accent. That goes double because most people who have an accent don't conceive of themselves as speaking according to some kind of different spelling. |
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