Forum - View topicINTEREST: German Fans Are Disappointed That Tokyopop's New Light Novels Are Translated From English,
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Ruben Vetrovs
Posts: 1 |
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That explains a lot to be honest...
Their first light novel license during the rise of interest for that medium was Sword Art Online, that was around the same time as Yenpress got the license too. Tokyopop did not release the first volume for YEARS because of unnamed difficulties. (A comparison: German SAO is currently on volume 13/14 while the english version is on 22) When I saw the boring, effortlessly and generic cover made for Konosuba (And also their other new light novels, they all have the same copypaste coverdesign....) I knew it was the right decision to stick to the english version and ignore the german release... Another thing I absolutely hate about Tokyopop is that they're postponing more and more volumes, also of manga. Hyouka 12 for example was supposed to be released march 2020 I believe, it was postponed with no specific date mentioned, was then supposed to be released this month and was postponed indefinitely AGAIN while blaming the paper shortage... Other publishers almost always manage to stick to their bi-yearly released programs, Tokyopop releases a new program every 3 months and still messes up with almost every release for ages now... Last edited by Ruben Vetrovs on Mon Oct 18, 2021 6:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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CatSword
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This seem like pretty broad genres for translators not to be able to handle. |
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Aika1801
Posts: 4 |
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Truth be told, as a long time follower of Tokyopop Germany translations (first as a reader, then as a... let's just say I know enough people who translate for them) I can tell the quality of the translations has definitely decreased.
Of all German manga publishing companies, Tokyopop is the easiest to get into (will easily hire university Japanese studies majors in their 3rd semester for manga translations), and while that alone doesn't lead to bad translations, it's quite telling...? There is only minor The first light novel translations (when they first started out with works as Gosick, Boogiepop, Maria-sama ga Miteru, etc.) used to be really good, but it did kinda decline in quality with the newer works. (My sister owns the Black Bullet light novels and skimming through the translation left me with a "Well, it's ok... kinda awkward but I guess maybe that's just how it is" feeling, not so much with the sheer awe I felt with the older translations. Then again, I was a middle schooler back then and easy to impress lol.) This article is indeed somewhat misleading though, since the interview states that the translators might not be "comfortable with translating the works due to their [lacking] knowledge for the specific genres or works [they are required to translate]." (Translating is hard though and I applaud everyone following through with this trying task.) Translators at Tokyopop Germany usually don't really get to choose what they translate, but at least once they do, they tend to get chosen over and over again for one specific series. #consistency? That might just be me and my conspiracy theory now though, spoiler[but I suspect there might have been people jockeying between manga and novel translations, possibly someone who might not have been just up to that level to translate actual prose yet. Whatever the case may have been, editor-san probably found the level of the translation just not satisfactory enough and so they just went "ehhhh whatever" and took whatever they got from Amurica. Probably not the best choice, but sure, I guess...] Please don't give me flak for this haha... This probably is my first real post on here. Thank you for reading through my ramblings, welp everyone have a nice day byeeeee -runs- |
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Zeparu
Posts: 11 |
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I mean from all the things you could've reported on about the German anime/manga market this is the story they chose. Which is weird. It's basically just an unfortunately phased line from an interview about translations that ANN - how ironic! - also completely mistranslated.
No, that's also not what she said. What she was referring to was that their manga translators were uncomfortable with translating prose in contrast to manga scripts (which requires a different skill set). So they were looking for existing translations who already made the step from Japanese to Western prose as a base for their translation. You can argue if that makes any sense (translators in Germany certainly didn't think so) but in an article about translation quality this is a really strange mistake to make. Better ask a German for feedback next time. Anyway, my point was, there are way more interesting things to report on in Germany. For example, to stay on topic, researching why German publishers are having such a hard time with light novels in general would've been a much more fascinating story, and would've also given some much needed context for this story. |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3783 |
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I imagine the translators didn't "feel comfortable" with the rates they were being offered and English to German was just easier to get at a lower price.
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Suxinn
 Posts: 249 |
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I was wondering if Tokyopop had changed during their hiatus from English-language manga publishing, but nope, seems like they're just as scummy as ever. I guess at least they aren't using machine translations anymore? Small mercies, at least, with that.
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luisedgarf
Posts: 664 Location: Guadalajara, Mexico |
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Yes, but the main problem is that in Latin America there is, as far as I know, only one person certified to translate from Japanese to Spanish, in this case Brenda Nava, who has translated manga and anime on her own. Because of this, she is a very sought after person and her services are not exactly cheap, not to mention that she is famous for having a somewhat difficult character, which makes her a somewhat controversial figure in the world of Japanese to Spanish translation. At least that's better than in the Middle East, where all translations from Japanese to Arabic or Hebrew are from a third language, mostly English or French. |
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kgw
 Posts: 1139 Location: Spain, EU |
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I blame money. EN > DE it has to be cheaper than JP > DE. I really, really, find hard to believe there is no translator in Germany "comfortable" enough with light novels' Japanese. I am sure a Haruki Murakami (i.e.) translator might feeel out of their place with a LN and their metajokes, etc. But surely there might be some other translators there… simply, they are not as cheap and fast as re-translating an English translation, which has its own issues.
Also, it's widely known that Netflix subtitles in every language come from English, no matter the original language. In Spain, translators' associations protested because the shows are being translated first by a "machine translation software", then handed to a low-paid translator to "post-edit" (tweaking errors, like verbs, names, etc.) for 1/3 of the usual fee. EDIT: we all like to think we got our materials right from Japan. But I am afraid, it's not true. Most of classical anime in Spanish (Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, etc.) came from English, or, in Spain's case, France*. |
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Frog-kun
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 118 |
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Update (11/19): Further clarification has been added to the summary of Hellweg's interview in the second paragraph. The article previously stated that Hellweg said that translators may "not be comfortable" with Japanese; this has been expanded to "may 'not be comfortable' with handling the content or format of a Japanese light novel, or may lack the appropriate 'background.'"
Update 2 (11/20): According to Light Novel Dungeon writer Stefan, the German translator of The Rising of the Shield Hero claimed in an email exchange that he translated the series from Japanese. In addition, the German translator of Sword Art Online volumes 1-12 claimed that she translated from Japanese, but the series was handed to a different translator from volume 13 onward. Tokyopop removed the "Translated from Japanese" in its credits starting from volume 13. Translator Myrill Ihrens issued the following statement: "It's true, that with SAO volume 13, the translator changed. As you from the Light Novel Dungeon probably know, there was a big change in the LN segment at Tokyopop in order to establish LN more in the German market. Unfortunately, this new concept didn't fit for me as a translator anymore." ANN has independently confirmed the correspondence in both cases. Thanks to Stefan for the tip. |
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FlyingOrange
Posts: 22 |
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One thing is that Anime on Demand is getting replaced by Crunchyroll. Was kind of surprised it was never reported here. |
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sniper_samurai
Posts: 77 |
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That was in the German release of Grandia 2 on Switch. |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2413 |
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While I understand the fear that using a pivot language can cause more to be lost in the translation, I don't feel like this is a big deal. You never know what you're losing in a translation. Even with a direct translation from Japanese, you're still stuck with having faith that a good job will be done. This is even more true with light novels. It was discovered that some series like Mushoku took rather ridiculous liberty with their English translation, and nobody noticed for a long time.
I think fans should expect high levels of quality and accuracy, but there is absolutely no guarantee that you get better quality and accuracy by going JP->DE than JP->EN->DE. If it was down to the same person with exactly equivalent proficiencies in all three languages, the former is better. That isn't the true comparison here because we're talking about different translators. |
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