After too much exposure to Japanese and subtitled anime, I have a hard time bringing myself to buying an English-translated manga, even when the page layout and SFX are faithfully preserved. It just feels... dubbed. That, and I always feel weird buying manga in America, it just doesn't feel natural. If someone were to see me in the street with manga, or buying manga, they would probably brand me as a wapanese, or nerd, or both. They probably would be right, too.
I guess it can't be helped and I should just practice my Japanese, and order the books straight from the source but it's a weird dilemma.
My favourite is when they rip out a Japanese word, replacing it with an English word which doesn't really carry the full meaning, and then ut a translation note in with two paragraphs explaining what the Japanese word meant and why we didn't think it would work.
By the time the whole exercise is over, it would have saved them time to leave in the Japanese word and then write one sentence explaining what it is, or using the two paragraphs to go into more detail.
They did this with "kotatsu" in Azumanga Daioh. And then the really dumb thing is they used the word "kotatsu" standalone in a later volume. Whoops?
I guess the only way to "subtitle" a manga, is to transliterate the original text into romanji, and then subtitle that. Boy would that be awkward, but the die-hard Japanophiles would be happy.
... I don't think anyone would buy them... ('ﾟ...ﾟ)
Because instead of a "literal" translations, translators try to give a more fleshed out translation that's more slick and smooth to read.
I prefer it that way.
What I'd find useful is a conversion of more manga to using furigana. Romaji (not romanji, such a thing doesn't even exist) wouldn't be acceptable because you lose the kanji and therefore, some of the meaning. :-)
>>5
Romaji/Romanji... same difference. Although I guess the former is easier to say, so it stuck.
>>6
Nope, Romanji has no meaning to Japanese and most English speakers familiar with Japanese, except as a common typo.
I rather like it when certain translators, professional or otherwise, use leave honorifics as they are. I.e. "ojousan" rather than "mistress" and so forth. Trying to translate "kotatsu" is kind of obviously retarded.
Though I don't know where you'd draw the line, really. What happens when someone goes overboard with the "merely romanize the untranslatable stuff" policy?
>>8
Agreed. They should use footnotes or an appendix to explain the untranslatable though. We don't want to scare off the newbies.
Gah... those sneaky Japanese have to go around chopping the 'n's off of words.
Damn confusing bastards.
>>8
It really depends on the story itself. If the story is taking place in Japan with Japanese people then "ojousan" is more acceptable.
But when the story takes place somewhere in the western world with western characters, it sounds a little out of place, no?
>>11
Depends. Was it in the original work?
>>10
Not really. Romaji comes from "Roma", the Japanese/Italian for Rome. It doesn't really make sense for them to base it on the English "Roman".
Perhaps >>1 should get to work on learning Japanese, if the concept of translation is so offensive to him.
Well, the Portuguese for "Roman" is "Romano". I don't think it's changed much since the 16th Century.
But it's not important; a Westerner's mistake. Roumaji makes sense.
>>12
Come on. Let's say the story takes place in New York. Having a bunch of white guys talking to each other and ending every name with honourables (like -san, etc.) is pretty out of place in an English translation.
>>16
Sure, and if they were really inappropriate, then they probably shouldn't have been in the Japanese one either, if they're trying to set the story somewhere that honorifics aren't used.
>>16
Yet it could be that the conversation was written from a japanese POV, or for a japanese audience, so that if honorifics were stripped due to in-story cultural context it'd leave the conversation's depth truncated. In that case, IMO, it'd be appropriate for two crackers to call each other "Dude-kun" and "Man-san" even if such conventions were never be followed outside a thoroughly weeaboo context in the real world.
I'm just speculating here, however, since I've never seen a manga featuring non-slanties having a discussion in a supposedly foreign language.
You know you've been on the internet too long when you don't even notice the racist slurs until some n00b points them out, LOL.
>>20
LOL.
in my opinion,
the best way is to do like what DEL REY did with their manga translations. i mean, translate it like how the english-speeking world would say it, leave the specific jap. words like kotatsu and such alone with some explaination later on, and just be logical with the contexts and places used.
If anyone wanna subtitling, the books better be in A4 sizes cos like what some says above, they wanna the kana and kanji intact with the translation below.
this idea probbly sucks cos of the costs and such. the heck with that, cos its just an idea.
I would disagree. I prefer the fansubs that are as unobtrusive as possible, and backed up by captions or footnotes. I would prefer the equivalent approach in manga over an attempt to "smooth-over" the un-translatable stuff. I think a manga's audience is sufficiently interested in Japanese language/culture to find an 'authentic' translation more appealing.
Also we should change words like "durian" to "pineapple" in case people haven't heard of a durian. That's pretty much on the same level as translating "kotatsu" to "my warm room", anyway.
I have seen subtitled manga long ago (well, something like it; the English was in the margins.)
It was rather hard to read.
>>24
Depends on context, really. "Ew, that pineapple really stinks!" isn't going to work too well.
Anyways to get back on topic, the way to do this would be eBooks. As then we can have a little button where you toggle between English with all Japanese culture trashed, English with Japanese culture intact, and the original Japanese. You could have a little GN-sized two page eBook device for it and it would be perfect. :-)
Yeah, pay for two translations and actually use one. Or zero. That sounds like something that's going to sell real well.
Zero, because you usually read none of the text when reading manga.
lol
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"Captions and footnotes" are anything but "unintrusive". They very definitely break the flow of reading, and detract from the enjoyment.
And scratching your head over something in the dialogue that was poorly grafted from the wrong culture isn't?
They're hardly mutually exclusive.