Forum - View topicNEWS: Viz Names New Shonen Jump, Shojo Beat Editor-in-Chief
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Malintex Terek
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I wonder how this will affect the magazine's structure; in all likelihood it will remain the same, but perhaps we could be in for some changes, either for better or worse.
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Josh7289
Posts: 1252 |
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Shonen Jump is in dire need of changes. Two to three chapters per month is not cutting it anymore. Seriously, the Naruto anime is about to catch up to the manga, and you know what happens to manga and magazine sales then, right?
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Malintex Terek
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I don't think you can make an inference about that, since the only show that really applies to *is* Naruto. I agree, though; there needs to be some changes. Shounen Jump should only serialize one chapter per month, and they should also fire all the rookies who are producing amateur-quality translations for SJ and rehire the groups who did work for Viz all through the '90s. Regarding editing policy, I don't really care if they change manji or downplay some unnecessary religious symbolism, but for cryin' out loud, Viz needs to be less activist in arrogantly trying to impose "their view of Japanese manga" on the world by changing names/failing to localize puns/trying to outdo fansubbers/scanslators. Deliberately changing sound effect translations JUST TO DISTANCE THE "OFFICIAL" RELEASE FROM SCANSLATIONS is the most *retarded* editing policy in the history of English manga. Of all the manga companies, Viz is the only one that continues to edit manga when they obviously don't need to anymore; CMX is an outlier that shouldn't even be allowed to handle manga, so I'll conveniently ignore them. Anyway, Viz used to be a lot like ADV films in that they were big, but small enough to listen to fan criticism and openly admited they were promoting Japanese culture; look at the success of Julian Grybowski's DBZ petition (since nullified by recent retroactive Viz action) and the (arguably brutal) attention to detail that came with editing 1990's Viz manga. Sort of like 4Kids in fact; for the times, Viz's changes were all too necessary. Compare this to now; we've got a company so bloated and huge it hires a whole bunch of people to work on expensive manga that sell for virtually nothing. To top that, the manga is of hideous quality in translation, editing, layout, material, and binding; whatever happened to hardcover manga? Or paper that didn't disintegrate when it got in contact with water? Or coherent and flowing English that doesn't look like it was run through a thesaurus ten or twenty times before adding a mix of jargon/colloquialisms from different regions of the United States even though the English manga gets distributed to non-US English speaking countries like Australia and Britain. Promoting "japanese" culture? That looks a heck of a lot like Viz is promoting AMERICAN culture by forcing it on other nations. And let's not get into a discussion about how Shueisha forced Eiichiro Oda to stop drawing manji in his manga; there's no other company in the world powerful enough to force Shueisha's hand other than VIZ Media, a company directly owned by Shueisha itself. Frankly, I think VIZ needs to get back to its roots; it's so busy trying to make manga "mainstream", which is an ambition that will end in a fiery and abysmal failure it's neglected its "otaku" fanbase; in this, they're the manga equivalent of 4Kids Entertainment, whereas they used to be the equivalent of ADV Films. I do not like ADV all that much because of its quality, but its earned some respect from me since it's a large company yet still projects an aura of empathy for "anime fans"; Viz and 4Kids, like grown up children, have thrown away the people who "fostered" them into becoming so big, such that they come across as arrogant brats with deep pockets, eating up everything that comes their way with the slightest inclination of "marketing potential". Assuredly, a new ASJ & SB editor-in-chief is an important position, and I see it as critical turning point for VIZ Media to do a complete "360" back to the fanbase that grew up with it. |
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TheHTRO
Posts: 326 |
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There's just one problem with that: each manga would take longer to complete that way. We'd be waiting for years for a manga to be complete, maybe even decades, maybe even longer than we have had to wait for "Ranma Nibun-no-Ichi" to be complete. IT just goes to show you: "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". As for your "mnga equivalent to 4Kids" claim, I think you're being a little extreme. I have seen nothing to indicate that Viz "edits" manga in the degree you describe; they're actually "uncut" for the most part. Yes, it's true that they translate sound effects, but I really think you are "making a mountain out of a molehill". More importantly, Viz at least ACKNOWLEDGES that these JAPANESE comics are set in Japan, something 4Kids clearly will never do (on a related note, Tokyopop admitted that it was "TOKYO" Mew Mew). So, I wouldn't compare the two just yet, hypocritical though Viz's translations can be. Oh, and they don't change names all the time (though I do have a problem with them saying "Zolo" when it should be "Zoro", like they originally printed it).
You can'treally blame them. No doubt they take piracy very seriously. After all, "Scan(s)lations" are technically (online) bootlegs, but I won't get into that. Also you appear to be contradicting yourself regarding the "manji" symbol. You claim that you "don't really care if they change manji", yet you complain about how Eiichiro Oda was "forced" to stop drawing manji. If you don't mind if Manji are changed, then why would Eiichiro no longer drawing it be a problem for you? I'm sorry if I sound ignorant asking this, but I'm just wondering. As for the topic, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. |
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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That can work for series that have a lot of pages per chapters like Blade of the Immortal or Oh My Goddess!, but don't even think that you can pull it off for something that has only around eighteen pages per chapter. That would put Viz in a VERY bad position.
Right, so we could have more random U.S. pop culture references that came out after the manga was created in Japan! (Don't take that that too seriously.)
Sheesh, you act like they're committing a sin to have a sfx translation text have "KABOOM!" or something akin to that.
Right, because obviously Viz would want to have the manji changed for One Piece, despite it being shown in the eight volume of One Piece. Also, I find it funny that you bring up other countries where manga (in this case One Piece) goes to, yet you single out Viz in the U.S. for being the reason why Oda had to change the manji symbol for Whitebeard's flag and the tattoo on Ace's back in last week's recent chapter for Weekly Jump. The One Piece franchise isn't doing that hot and does not have as much favor and exposure as Naruto and Bleach, so to say that "It's nobody but Viz's fault for making Oda change the symbol" comes off as nothing more than a baseless accusation by a bitter fanboy who has a beef with a specific North American manga/anime company.
I'd like to know where 4Kids is keeping anime titles that share the literature-like quality that The Drifting Classroom, Monster, Phoenix, and Vagabond exhibit to some. I really do.
There's a shred of irony here, not to mentioning continuing bitterness. Seriously, while I do agree that Viz should realize that there is a very solid market out there for manga fans that have more mature tastes than the average one, you're really exaggerating the state of things. |
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HitokiriShadow
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I think it would be a bigger problem because it would result in their manga taking far longer to come out. We would be seeing roughly one volume of each series per year. That's not good for Viz and its not good for the fans. |
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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Which was what I was getting at. Blade of the Immortal still works monthly because of the quality and quantity you get per chapter. However, I'd go crazy if One Piece got put on a one chapter per month rotation because I'd die before the series ever got finished over here, never mind that it reads better in volume batches than in chapter batches. Demand nowadays usually asks for a quarterly or bimonthly release for an on-going series that hasn't caught up/is incredibly close to where the Japanese ones are at, and anything less is taking a risk on sales for whatever series it is. |
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Malintex Terek
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How's that any different than Japan's rate of serial? Isn't America privileged enough that you need to have more than two chapters per month? That ensures a constant flow of manga, rather than Viz running its reservoir dry and thus forcing them to have erratic serials in the far future.
It's a perfect analogy, because one cannot apply television broadcasting standards to a whole different medium of expression. Writing about people getting their heads blown off, limbs severed or being raped is a heck of a lot less messy in writing than on television, which is why manga tends to have more "extreme" depictions of drug use/sex/violence/language than its television counterparts. Even then, Japan is just less sensitive to those "controversial" topics than America. Additionally, remember that 4Kids was broadcasting a children's show on public television, which forces higher standards for editing its properties; in contrast, Viz isn't obligated to focus on any demographic, it selects the demographic it wants to appeal to and then edits its manga to fit them. That's now how manga distribution should be; rather, Viz shouldn't edit its manga at all and allow for the demographic to be attracted to what it puts out.
Viz's "acknowledgement" of the origin of manga isn't meant to highlight Japanese culture at all, it's an advertised feature, just like the big logo on the from of ASJ that say "HUGE! 432 PAGES"; how Viz is hypocritical is that in spite of this "advertising" about the differences between cultures, they completely localize the manga inside of ASJ, thus making it "less" Japanese when it is implied to being "completely" Japanese. This is why when TOKYOPOP edited the Initial D manga (was it ID?) they recieved complaints/hatemail because they continued to advertise their product as "100% AUTHENTIC", when in fact that was no longer the case. That being said, what's the big deal about people getting pissed off regarding anime/manga's origins in Japan? Unlike the majority of you lot, there's a lof of Americans who still hold hateful blood for the Japanese in response to Pearl Harbour; it seems tough to believe, but looking at the animosity between Korea and Japan and the Sunni & Shiia Muslims in the Middle East, intolerance/bigoted feelings run fairly deeply. Just because one such as yourself lacks any sort of reason to dislike Japan doesn't mean the rest of the world shares in your inexperience. Frankly, I don't see the big deal, since cartoons are made from all over the world and the definition of anime is quite simply "cartoons from Japan". People don't make a big deal about cartoons made in Canada (Beast Wars/Reboot) versus the United States, so why should Japan get special treatment?
I do not see what you're saying. There's no good reason to deliberately distort a translation just because a scanslation community translates it in some way or another. Doing so seems like a waste of time and energy to me, since as Naruto's popularity has illustrated, the online community doesn't detract much from the sales of a property.
I can understand a need to erase manji in a Western culture, since we're still touchy regarding Nazism, in no small part due to the neo-Nazi movement and the Oklahoma City Bombings. What pissed me off is that manji in Japan lack the negative connotations in the West and are in fact common religious symbols; forcing censorship of manji in Japan is like forcing Christian crosses or Jewish kippah from any media exposure. That's absolutely ridiculous, even in a politically-correct intoxicated nation like the US, let alone a country like Japan that is infamous for promoting negative sterotypes.
By "eight" you mean the first eight, and you conveniently forget the following four where the manji are being edited. When the next round of Viz printings comes in six months or so, I have no doubt that the manji in those previous volumes will also be edited.
There are several reasons why I singled out Viz as mentioned in the previous post, particularly that VIZ Media is directly owned by Shueisha and is therefore in a place of prime correspondence with the publisher. Additionally, America is the most wealthy nation in the world, so "poor sales" of a certain manga in this country exceed those of other countries. OP isn't a poor seller in America, just "mediocre" for the average selling VIZ manga; it's "poor" only in comparison to Naruto and Bleach. The final reason is that several other countries far past VIZ's serial have already edited out the manji, yet Shueisha has done nothing to change the manga in favour of them; rational corporations made adaptions to reel revenue from their primary consuming block, then they prioritize the second and so on; this indicates that Shueisha values the OP property's success in America, even if its not selling well right now (as indicated by Viz demanding exclusive distribution rights to OP from 4Kids) so this step is a pre-emptive move to make VIZ's time with producing the manga easier until it "skyrockets" so to speak. Shueisha figures that the Japanese consumers won't really care either way; I agree with them. However, that's not what the author wanted, and as far as I'm concerned, the author's viewpoint should be of paramount importance. |
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Wolverine Princess
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Tokyopop didn't "admit" to anything. They released the manga long before 4Kids got hold of the anime and renamed it Mew Mew Power. Actually, the back covers for the Kawaii a la Mode spin-off have an ad that says "Watch Mew Mew Power on 4Kids TV every Saturday!" |
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Strephon
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*blink* For a series that's released weekly in Japan, releasing one chapter a month, as you were advocating, is obviously quite "different than Japan's rate of serial." Even in Viz's magical golden days of the '90s that you were hearkening back to, their comics-format releases generally had two chapters per month. What would cutting back to one accomplish? |
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Malintex Terek
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Whoops, I forgot ASJ was a monthly serial. Sorry about that.  ;
... Anyway, the number of chapters per anthology doesn't seem to have an affect on the sales per magazine, so even if VIZ cut down the number of chapters to one, they would stagger their reservoir at a fourth of the rate the manga progress in Japan and thus ensure the anthology survives for years to come without trouble; basically put, VIZ should reduce the chapter load since it is more profitable for them in almost every way. |
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