“Translations are like wives: the faithful ones are not beautiful, and the beautiful ones are not faithful.”
A horribly misogynistic quote to begin an essay with, I know, but it’s a quote that has stuck in my head since I encountered it a quarter century ago. I could have sworn I read it in Edward Seidensticker’s introduction to his translation of The Tale of Genji, but looking over it now I can’t find it. I may have attributed the quote to Seidensticker after the fact, since he was a translator who understood that what makes translation enormously difficult–and arguably impossible–is not whether or not you know the “words”, but rather the task of recreating as faithfully as possible the experience of reading the original. Seidensticker said, “I always liken the translator to a counterfeiter … his task is to imitate the original down to the last detail.” Some translators of manga today might misinterpret that simile to justify the inclusion of Japanese honorifics such as “-san,” “-chan,” “-sensei,” etc., but they would be missing the point. Seidensticker wrote beautifully, and he knew what made writing beautiful. One word that comes up again and again in his writings is “rhythm.”
There’s no diplomatic way to say this, so I’ll be blunt. The vast majority of my kouhai, my juniors in the field of manga translation, have no sense of rhythm, so sense of meter, so sense of what makes a line worth reading, and no sense of how to write a line worth reading. This becomes painfully clear when you read something they’ve written that is not a translation. A blog entry, for example. I recently read a self-introduction by a professional translator of manga in which the word “awesome” was used three times, without irony. Other essays by this same translator read like…well, like the blog entries of just about any non-writer with a basic grasp of grammar but no flair for writing whatsoever.
I was fortunate enough to major in creative writing as an undergraduate, and though I never realized my lukewarm desire to become a novelist, I did learn to write well. I wrote fiction, non-fiction, and poetry under the tutelage of very good writers. In a sense, I think what I learned in my poetry classes has served me better than anything else I studied. I have little patience for modern poetry (I’ll take Dr. Seuss over Ginsberg or Plath any day), and I have never written poetry “for myself” (ugh), but Yeats, Eliot, Pound, and William Carlos Williams taught me the importance of rhythm, of meter, of juxtaposition and alliteration.
And Twain taught me to use the right word, not its second cousin.
Manga translation further requires an ear for voice.
In any decent manga, each character has a distinctive style of speech. In some cases it is more subtle than in others. It seems that most manga translators today (Have any of them lived more than a year in Japan?) have their noses buried in their dictionaries, translating word by word, rather than looking at the speech as a whole, and considering the personality, background, and mindset of the speaker.
They cannot see the forest for the trees.
And even when they do manage to glimpse the forest, they simply lack the skills and knowledge to capture it. Like children in art class, they draw a bunch of brown trunks topped with green blobs and call it a forest. A character appears who speaks a regional Japanese dialect, and the translator, by default, renders it as a poor caricature of what the translator imagines to be “Southern English.” Another character uses a sophisticated vocabulary indicating a high level of education, and the translator awkwardly conveys this by using “fancy” words–again, like a schoolchild doing an embarrassing imitation of a stereotypical highbrow intellectual.
I should confess at this point that I rarely read translated manga. But it’s not for lack of trying. The fact is I can rarely get through more then ten pages of a translated manga before my blood pressure begins to rise and I put the book back on the shelf for the sake of my own health.
For obvious reasons, I am trying to avoid naming names here, but I will give a specific example here that illustrates some of the points I have tried to make. I love Nodame Cantabile. It’s one of my current favorite manga. Ninomiya has a talent for creating distinctive characters who often border on outrageous, yet never lose their believability. One day, while flipping through the English translation in a bookstore, I had one of those groan-and-slam-the-book-shut moments. I have neither the translation nor the original on hand, so I can’t recall the precise language, but there is a scene in which Chiaki’s ex-girlfriend calls him a maké inu. This translates literally as “losing dog,” but essentially means “loser” as that word is used in vernacular English today. In his response, Chiaki calls the woman a mesu maké inu, or “female losing dog.” This is admittedly a hard one to translate, because, while it sounds normal enough in Japanese, it sounds odd, to say the least, in English. I think I would probably translate the phrase, “If I’m a ‘loser,’ I guess that makes you a ‘lose-ette.’” The translators of the Del Rey edition instead had Chiaki call the woman a “bitch.” In Nodame, Chiaki is the foil, the straight man for the more eccentric characters around him. But he is by no means generic. He comes from a wealthy, upper-class family. He has a sharp tongue and can be insensitive, but his upbringing renders him incapable of vulgarity, let alone crude misogyny. If he were a native English speaker of the same temperament and upbringing, the word “bitch” would simply not be in his vocabulary. The translation was jarring, and grossly unfair to the character. But it was fairly typical of the kind of “errors of voice” that occur on almost every page of translated manga today.
To my kouhai translators, let me offer this advice. Learn to write English well before you attempt to translate Japanese well. Being a native speaker of English by no means makes you a master of English. That is why some people are paid to write, and others are not. “Knowing” Japanese is of course essential (and some of you need to work on that, too), but fluency in Japanese alone does not a translator make.
Here are a couple of books I would recommend:
- all the fun’s in how you say a thing: an explanation of meter and versification, by Timothy Steele.
- Writing Fiction, by the Gotham Writers’ Workshop
I would also recommend that you read lots of well-written books, both fiction and non-fiction, and analyze what makes them good. Compare, for example, Ursula K. LeGuin and, say, Terry Brooks. Brooks is certainly prolific and widely-read, but he is, frankly, a hack.
Finding out the meaning of a word and figuring out the best way to Anglicize a sound effect…. These are the hammer and screwdriver in the translator’s toolbox. If you think they are the only tools you need, well, it’s time to wake up and smell the o-cha. Don’t allow the praises of a few hardcore otaku go to your head. As far as they are concerned, an ugly wife must be a faithful one (and, conversely, a beautiful one must be unfaithful, and therefore suspect). They are simply unqualified to judge your work. The sad fact is that many of you are producing translations that are both ugly and unfaithful, and that is the very worst kind. You need to look at your own work with a critical eye.
To publishers of translated manga: You get what you pay for. I’ve heard industry people attribute declines in sales to any number of factors, but never to the quality of their own product. We’re both professionals, so let’s not mince words.
Your product sucks.
The manga generation that grew up on Pokémon and Sailor Moon is outgrowing your product. And publishing work targeted at twenty-somethings is not going to keep them buying if the quality of the translation remains at a junior-high-school level.
Sure, you can find any number of doe-eyed, young otaku who are willing to work for peanuts. But seriously. Do you actually read the translations they give you? I don’t mean proof-reading. I mean reading as if reading for pleasure. Do you, as an adult who has no doubt read plenty of excellent fiction, really think that what you are getting for the slave-wages you pay is of a quality to be proud of? Or have you lulled yourself into believing the otaku’s syllogistic fallacy that an ugly translation must be a faithful one?
The readership is growing up quickly. It’s time for the translators and publishers to do the same.
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The issue’s a lot more prevalent in fan-translated manga. In one fan-translated manga that I’ve read, panting noises were translated as “Ha”. So, instead of sounding tired, the characters sounded like they were laughing.
Also:
>have no sense of rhythm, so sense of meter, so sense of what makes a line worth reading, and no sense of how to write a line worth reading. -
King of Nigeria,
Sorry I haven’t gotten back to your wife about her request for me to help you move $5,000,000 to Switzerland (although I’m deeply honored that she chose me, of all the people the world, to help with your plight).
Fan translations are just that, so I don’t expect much from them. What’s really sad is that a handful I’ve seen are actually of higher quality than most official translations of manga published these days.
Even so, the overall quality of fan translations has risen exponentially since Back In The Day, when a certain person with the initials “S.S.” was considered by the (then very small) community of anime fans to be the Queen of Fansubbing, because she had access to a Japanese dictionary, subtitling technology (analog!), and the chutzpah to call herself a translator. But her translations had a certain entertainment value, at least for those of us who actually understood Japanese.
Bizarre errors are not so funny in an official translation that people are expecting to pay for.
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True, but I’ve noticed that a lot of commercial translations have adopted the style of fan translations, to appeal to pirates, who claim that fan translations are superior to commercial translations, due to the use of such and such techniques and styles, resulting in shoddy commercial works. Correct me if I’m wrong, though.
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You would probably know better than I. If true, that’s a pretty peculiar case of the tail wagging the dog. I had assumed that a lot of the people now doing official translations are former fan-translators, but I really don’t know. Come to think of it, I can count on the fingers of one hand the professional manga translators I have actually met and spoken with in person, and I don’t think any of them are below the age of 35. (^^; )
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Very interesting article. I’m a fan translator working for a scanslation group, mostly because I find it’s a relaxing and enjoyable way to use my Japanese skills. I took a Japanese translation class at my university last semester, and although it focused on prose and poetry, not manga, I began to realize how important it is for your translation to make sense in English. I don’t read much other translated manga, but occasionally while watching fansubbed tv shows with friends who are non-speakers, I too get pissed off at the crappy translations and complete mistranslations.
Anyway, thanks for the book recommendations. I just ordered a copy of the one by Timothy Steele
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The worst professional translation I’ve seen was the CMX translation of From Eroica With Love. Now, I have no idea what relation it bears to the original, but as a piece of English text it’s execrable, because while the characters use British slang, they use it in a way that no British person ever would. It’s very clearly the product of an American translator trying to make the British characters sound extra-British, and failing through a lack of understanding of how British English works. For this half-English reader, it was excruciating.
Fan translations vary enormously, and sometimes if a project gets picked up by different groups at different stages you get to see the whole range of possibilities with a single title; they shift from “better than some professional translations” to “apparently English is not this translator’s first language, or second, or third”, to everything in between.
(I remember being struck by how well the translation of Seduce Me After the Show worked — I’d given up on anyone ever rendering regional Japanese into a convincing English equivalent, but the Kyoto story in that collection was note-perfect. I wish more translators and adapters would take that level of care.)
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mo, glad you found my rant useful. Loved your 15-second Star Wars scene. I did my first M.A. at Shampoo-Banana (though in Asian Studies, not Computer Science!).
Katherine, you just made my day. (^^) I was asked to “check” the translation of Seduce Me After the Show and ended up completely re-translating it. The Kyoto story, in particular, was one I poured my heart into. Since I have never even been to the U.K., I knew I was taking a big risk trying to use a regional dialect (You can probably guess what region), but I did a lot of homework in a very short amount of time. I wanted to convey the sense of a sort of island within an island, a community that maintains its own language and customs despite all the changes taking place (in this case over decades) around it.
The original translation of that whole volume was frankly wretched. Happily, we cut out the middle man for the second est em volume, Red Blinds the Foolish. Can’t wait to do another est em project. She just had two new volumes published a couple of weeks ago.
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“Some translators of manga today might misinterpret that simile to justify the inclusion of Japanese honorifics such as “-san,” “-chan,” “-sensei,” etc., but they would be missing the point.”
I’m assuming from this that you don’t like retaining the honorifics? As a person who speaks no Japanese and hasn’t ever written for publication outside of highly technical articles: I *like* translations that keep the honorifics. Who calls who what when encapsulates social relationships in a way that is not directly reproducible in English. They’re Japanese characters, why should they talk to each other like Americans do? (Assuming that it’s a manga set in contemporary Japan, of course.)
But I loved the translations for SMAtS and RBTF.
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I have never even been to the U.K.
Wow, really? That makes it even more impressive. I liked the use of the Yorkshire accent because it seemed to convey a similar sense of difference and rusticity, but it was respectful in a way that a lot of faux-regional renditions of Osaka dialect aren’t. I look forward to more est em work translated by you!
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Great read, Matt!
In response to KoN, I can assure you that no publisher approaches manga with the intention to sound “more like fan translations.” There are a few reasons why it might seem that way, however:
* Many translators working in the industry (even a few editors) came from the fan translation community. This is not a knock on the individuals or their skills — but it is a fair indicator of a lack of experience, if not talent.
* While fans of scanlations in particular aren’t being catered to in editorial, the vocal, opinionated and high-profile fans are. Footnoting, honorifics and glossaries get props across the board to the point where many reviewers see the lack of a glossary as a shortcoming. Publishers do listen to their audiences, and for better or worse, the audience seems to prefer a slightly stilted presentation.Anyway, Matt, I agree wholeheartedly with you in sentiment, and I think that a lot of the issues are already self-correcting as more freelancers and staff hired out of fandom grow into professional maturity. As for publishers spending more for consistently better translators, it seems unlikely in the present market where margins are tighter than ever. That said, the rise of “prestige” manga in the last couple years, from all of Vertical’s Tezuka releases to Viz’s stellar signature line to D&Q’s classy editions, seems to indicate that there are enough publishers out there who will put quality above a higher margin for the sake of the medium.
For “mainstream” manga, the teen-centric and genre series that drove the boom/bubble, seems like rates freelance rates are stuck moving in the other tradition for the foreseeable future. As someone working on the editorial side of things, I would add that not only are better translations good for the reader — they make your staff more productive! As common sense as that argument might seem, it more often than not falls on deaf ears when budgeting is concerned.
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this probably sums up quite neatly why i so greatly preferred ADV’s Yotsuba over Yen Press’s [or is that one word? i never remember]. while they did manage to break some of the jokes (bad when a later joke built on it and they missed the connection) and muck up the characters’ names a couple of times [as in, using the wrong one <_<] it actually read naturally. Yen’s is… i dunno. the jokes make more sense, but it takes more effort to read.
[as for why the heck sound effects in speech bubbles need to be left in then translated in the margin, i don't know.]
that said, i can see some value in leaving the honorifics in when it’s actually meaningful. it doesn’t usually break the flow and conveys useful information. of course, that doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense when the character in question is supposedly speaking a different language at the time. [i've seen some fan translations which have left those in for medieval European characters speaking French or English before...]
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“I *like* translations that keep the honorifics. Who calls who what when encapsulates social relationships in a way that is not directly reproducible in English. They’re Japanese characters, why should they talk to each other like Americans do? (Assuming that it’s a manga set in contemporary Japan, of course.)”
This is the weird idea many manga readers seem to have. I would agree that a good translation is “recreating as faithfully as possible the experience of reading the original.” So to Japanese the suffixes are completely “normal” and therefore somebody reading the translation should feel the same way about it – “normal way of talking”.
But many manga readers don’t want that, they want the exotic, the “Japanese” – one could think they actually want the illusion to be reading their manga in Japanese, and therefore want suffixes and as many japanese words as possible to be kept.
Who says that it “is not directly reproducible in English”? I dare say English and many other languages can very well express politeness, distance, respect, close friendship – and not to mention “normalness”
– etc. just as much as japanese. They might do it differently through the vocabulary used or prefixes instead of suffixes. But mind you, Japanese also has more ways of expressing all that, apart from suffixes, and those will get lost or replaced anyway.But using suffixes is of course much easier. You don’t have to search for the right words, just keep suffixes and call it “untranslatable”.
On the other hand many readers demanding for manga to be “faithful to the original” do not want regional dialects to be retained (because many of them sound “uncool”?). It seems to be too faithful to the original for many, and suddenly they don’t mind unfaithfulness anymore … but of course they’d still want suffixes in the same work.
So, concerning regional dialects or other special ways of talking (old japanese etc.), I realized they are simply being ignored most of the time, aren’t they? At least then you don’t have to bear with some badly done imitations …. although even in Japanese they don’t always use those correctly or only part of it (f.ex. nobody would understand a character talking completely in some old japanese).
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Wow. I go to bed and wake up to find a full-blown debate going on. I should blog more often. (^o^)
JRB, I’m glad you enjoyed the est em translations. As for honorifics, I think it should be decided on a case-by-case basis, but minikui nicely summed up my own take on the issue. In any translation, there is always something lost. (Dr. Seuss is all but unknown in Japan, probably because the very concept of “rhyming” is alien to Japanese, and Dr. Seuss without rhymes is like chocolate without sugar.) Retention of honorifics may give the reader the feeling of getting the “real Japanese experience,” but that feeling is an illusion. There is always a great deal going on in the language that is extremely difficult to convey in another language, but I would rather focus on conveying those nuances than simply ignoring them and hiding behind the retention of honorifics.
Thanks again, Katherine! I love translating est em’s work. And since she’s a former student and dear friend, I can pick up the phone anytime and ask about a particularly scene without worrying about offending “The Sensei.” (-_^)
Jake, thanks for the extremely informative response. My knowledge of the inner workings of the English-language manga publishing industry is not what it was 15 years ago, so I’m always eager to hear from insiders. The danger in catering to the vocal “base” is that you run the risk of doing what Marvel and D.C. did in the 1970s (and what the G.O.P. is doing today): becoming an ever-shrinking niche industry that alienates the majority of potential customers.
Chargone, your example of retaining Japanese honorifics when the characters are supposed to be speaking a language other than Japanese perfectly illustrates my “can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees” point.
minikui, we seem to be on the same wavelength. The thing about hardcore fans of anything (and I’m guilty of this myself sometimes) is that they are obsessed with “purity,” and they don’t like to see their beloved genre become popular among riff-raff who (in their eyes) don’t “get it.” (This reminds me of a recent Onion News Network piece titled “Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film as ‘Fun, Watchable’.”) It would be helpful if those fans would understand that, when it comes to Japanese language, they themselves do not “get it” (or presumably they would be reading the Japanese originals and not bothering to read translations), and therefore they should not be trying to dictate the “proper” way to translate.
Regardless of whether or not your retain Japanese honorifics or include some Japanese words, a good translation should make you forget that you’re reading a translation.
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Matt,
First, I agree with your statements on voice.
But I’m honestly shocked that you can’t read other people’s translations. The blood-boiling-from-reading-the-other-guy’s-poor-translations reaction should have been tempered years ago by other people’s adverse reactions to your interpretations. Have you never read a scorching review of one of your translations that you couldn’t dismiss? Are the only translators you respect, those who you read before you learned Japanese? If so, then the problem may not be so much in their translations, but in your attitude.
If you’ve only been able to get through ten pages of any particular translation, and you hardly ever read translations, how can you make a blanket statement that the vast majority of manga translators are sub-par? The two statements don’t jibe.
And the whole “kouhai” affectation really rankles. The above doesn’t sound like a sempai who has been there and is helping along the less experienced. It sounded like a frustrated old man complainin’ about how them young whippersnappers is ruinin’ the world!
Your article would have had so much more weight if you had cited a few instances of translations of the new generation which you enjoyed reading.
It’s a shame because about half of your article contained valuable advice that, if worded differently, could have reached those who need to hear it most. But as it is, most translators will probably dismiss this article as another Internet rant.
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You just made me google “awesome awesome awesome manga translator.”
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I will agree that simply turning a dialect of Japan into fake Southern (or other) accent is something that makes me cringe but I do sense that there is a greater effort on the part of some translators to capture this though sometimes that is difficult to accomplish (I think of Kaede from “Negima!” who speaks in an older form of Japanese and that does not come across in the Del Rey translations though fan translations have given the audiences awareness of her unusual speak by including her “de gozaimasu” sentence endings).
As to honorifics, I will beg to differ. You call the inclusion of Japanese honorifics an illusion of keeping real. Certainly it is true that the various nuances of the Japanese language can be hard to capture in English but those can be lessened with the inclusion of honorifics.
Further, why the fear of Japanese honorifics? Seriously. I’ve seen translators (and others) who are adamantly opposed to honorifics being used in adaptations give a whole slew of reasons to not include them but then turn right around and include all English honorifics that were used in the original Japanese or even Spanish honorifics, French honorifics, etc. That has always smacked to me of a type of racism — Japanese honorifics are bad but western honorifics are good.
I will say this — I think that of all the companies out there, Del Rey does the best job of things, mainly because of one inclusion — translator notes. So although I’m hardcore about “keeping it real,” I understand that there are things that aren’t going to make it. So I appreciate when a translator such as Mr. Flanagan says, “In the Japanese, the joke was ‘such-and-such’ but since there was no way to get that across in English, this is why I chose the wording/joke I chose.” That way, I’m not actually deprived of the original Japanese joke.
From my own Japanese studies, I know that Japanese translation is an art more so than a science. A room full of translators could be asked to translate a page of text and all come back with something different depending on their perspective and thoughts about the passage in question.
I do appreciate the hard work translators put into their craft. I do rail against translators who feel I need to be protected from anything Japanese coming across in the text, including certain Japanese words. I don’t need to be protected but what I’d like to see is other companies follow Del Rey’s lead and have some translator notes.
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William, thanks for the frank response. I was actually expecting to get more responses like that.
The blood-boiling-from-reading-the-other-guy’s-poor-translations reaction should have been tempered years ago by other people’s adverse reactions to your interpretations. Have you never read a scorching review of one of your translations that you couldn’t dismiss?
In my own experience, reviewers rarely address the translation per se. I honestly can’t recall ever reading a negative review. The only negative reactions I can recall were a few comments on the Nausicaä Usenet group (back in the days before the Web). At the time Sue Shambaugh’s horrible fan-sub was taken by some fans to be the sacred text on which the manga translation should have been based, and when I (or Studio Proteus before me) failed to reproduce Shambaugh’s laughable mistranslations, these fans complained that we had got it wrong. I’ve seen lukewarm reviews of some manga I’ve translated, but then again I have translated some manga that I personally don’t like at all. The only “bad review” I remember receiving was from former Viz Editor in Chief, Satoru Fujii, when I first sent a sample of my work to him back in 1989. He said it was accurate, but stiff, unnatural, and academic. He was right.
Are the only translators you respect, those who you read before you learned Japanese?
No.
If so, then the problem may not be so much in their translations, but in your attitude.
That’s possible. But it seems I’m not the only one who thinks the quality of manga translations is generally poor.
If you’ve only been able to get through ten pages of any particular translation, and you hardly ever read translations, how can you make a blanket statement that the vast majority of manga translators are sub-par? The two statements don’t jibe.
Good point. It’s possible that the titles I’ve checked are not representative of the field as a whole. But if a translator can’t keep me reading for more than ten pages, then I’d say s/he’s not doing her job well.
And the whole “kouhai” affectation really rankles. The above doesn’t sound like a sempai who has been there and is helping along the less experienced. It sounded like a frustrated old man complainin’ about how them young whippersnappers is ruinin’ the world!
Sorry to rankle you. I did try to offer helpful advice. But I did not “wrap my words in an oblate,” as they say in Japan. I think the situation calls for blunt discussion. If a translator reads it and is confident that my criticisms do not apply to her/him, s/he has no reason to be offended. If my words hit home, s/he should probably swallow her/his pride and do the hard work to become a better translator. Alternatively, s/he could dismiss my words as the grumblings of a frustrated old man and thereby avoid having to think about them seriously.
Your article would have had so much more weight if you had cited a few instances of translations of the new generation which you enjoyed reading.
This is true. I wish I knew some I could recommend. I have no doubt there is good work out there. I would be grateful if you or anyone else could recommend some good translations.
But as it is, most translators will probably dismiss this article as another Internet rant.
If so, that’s too bad. I could have been less harsh, but I think that would have reduced the impact of my criticisms. We can all use a bucket of cold water in the face now and again.
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Simon,
You just made me google “awesome awesome awesome manga translator.”
Eek. Don’t go getting me in trouble, Simon. (^^;) I’m sure s/he’s a very nice person.
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AstroNerdBoy, as I said, I think the use of honorifics should be decided on a case-by-case basis. I am currently reading the English translation of Jean-François Parot’s mystery novel (set in pre-revolutionary Paris), The Châtelet Apprentice. I don’t read French, but I feel the translator makes judicious use of French for the most part. But I sometimes find it distracting. The author (of the original) also includes notes, which I enjoy reading, but I don’t enjoy having to flip to the back of the book each time I want to read a note. I wish they had at least made them footnotes rather than endnotes. When I first began translating (I had just finished my first M.A.), I was big on annotations. They seemed essential to me. But I gradually came to feel that notations interrupted the flow of the narrative, thereby making the experience of the Anglophone reader that much different (and less smooth) from that of the Japanese reader. I still think notations can be helpful, but I prefer to keep them to an absolute minimum, and to include them in a way that interrupts the flow as little as possible. Most readers read for pleasure, not as a means of studying. In my ideal world, I could translate something like the Kyoto story in est em’s Seduce Me After the Show in the way I think best, then add an afterword that provided all the background information and context, and which the reader could either read or choose to ignore.
As for humor, this is the hardest thing to translate, regardless of the language. The essence of humor is the abrupt epiphany that makes us burst out laughing. That abrupt epiphany relies on a certain minimum of previously acquired knowledge on the part of the reader or listener. The understanding of what makes it funny must be instantaneous. A joke that is explained may be understood, and even smiled at, but it won’t be laughed at. Have you ever watched a subtitled movie in a theater, and noticed that a handful of people burst out laughing at a moment when no else in the theater does? They are native (or near-native) speakers of the original, and they “get” the joke that is lost on the rest of the audience. That is one reason I generally avoid translating humor. I simply don’t have the skill to make an English reader laugh at a Japanese joke. I can only think of one instance in which I thought I did a pretty good job of making a joke work in English. That is why I liked working with Gerard Jones. I would explain the jokes to him in great detail, and he would take them and make them into jokes an Anglophone reader could actually laugh at. To do so, he would sometimes change it completely, which was a bit jarring to me, but the original jokes (usually crude groaners by Rumiko Takahashi) were not so brilliant that they deserved slavish faithfulness. The Japanese reader laughs; the English reader laughs: everyone’s happy. Me, I’ll leave the humor to people who do it better. (Gerard is a professional humorist. My own training as a writer did not include humor.)
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Re-reading my earlier comment and Bill’s after, I feel really lame for my hasty post and a blanket agreement with the sentiment that “translations should be better” as it’s unfair to the people, the process and the diversity of what’s out there, and as an editor who can’t translate, I don’t want to come across as a stone thrower in a glass house.
Something I was wondering about your own translation experience – have you ever worked on a series that was unfinished or only just started, where you couldn’t read the series in its entirety before doing your work? And do you think that question is relevant to some of the issues you discuss? For example, in any long-running shojo manga, it’s quite likely that a character will switch from –san to –kun to show a piviotal relationship change. If you remove honorifics, it can be nearly impossible to show that change elegantly in English unless you know it’s coming and plan accordingly. Or sometimes a throwaway joke might turn out to be a recurring gag with an important payoff. I’m just curious what your thoughts are on translating one volume at a time, as that’s a reality that’s much more common now than in your translating heyday.
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Jake,
[...]I feel really lame for my hasty post and a blanket agreement with the sentiment that “translations should be better”[....]
Well, as a rule, all things–including my own translations–should be better. (-_^)
I have worked on series that were unfinished at the time I was working on them. But I don’t think I’ve ever started a project without first reading all of the work that was available. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a case where new material arrived and I thought, “Damn, if I had known this was going to happen I would have translated ‘X’ as ‘Y’ instead of ‘Z’.” And since I always try to convey nuances of speech (particularly as they reflect a character’s personality or the relationships between characters), a significant change should not be all that difficult to convey in English.I’ve given the impression that I’m opposed to using Japanese honorifics in any circumstances, but I can think of several manga in which–if I were the translator–I would use certain Japanese terms of address. In my opinion, “-san,” “-chan,” “-sama,” and (for the most part) “-sensei” are not essential to conveying the spirit of the original. But terms like “sempai” and “kouhai,” when used as forms of address, often require special attention, because they have social importance and there is no English equivalent. To go back to the example of the Parot novel I’m reading, “Monsieur” is used regularly, and with good reason, because it has significance that the English “Sir” or “Mister” do not. In fact, the use of the term has actually been noted by the protagonist twice so far, so the translator would have had a hard time with those passages if he hadn’t been using “Monsieur” throughout. In the same way, I wouldn’t want to try to translate something like Nodame (and, God, I would have loved to have been the translator on that one, despite my earlier statement about humor) without using the term “sempai.”
Right now I’m working on a piece (Sorry, I can’t reveal the title or artist yet) set in Germany, in which a novelist is referred to as “sensei.” I don’t think I’ll be able to ignore it, so I’ll have to ask a German friend if there is some roughly equivalent form of address that I can use.
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Basically my point is that I’ve see a certain mindset in young translators who are in the first half decade or so of their career that seemed very analogous to your opinions. I was there myself about fifteen years back. If you are not of that mindset, then I apologize, but you really seem to be there.
It’s the point where you are so certain (usually falsely certain) of yourself and your translation ability that you see other, different interpretations from yours as challenges to you personally. It literally gets you angry that they translated something in a way that you wouldn’t have. Your statement that you can’t read another person’s translation for more than ten pages, combined with your statement that you felt the need to completely retranslate a work when your job was as a translation checker brought me up short. It sent up red flags in my mind that you were also operating under this mindset.
The reason why I asked if there were translators whose work you enjoy who basically came along after you were already established was a part of that. Usually translators in that mindset will give more leeway to other translators who they already respect. But give no leeway to unknown translators.
Also, getting bad reviews and instantly dismissing them (the reviewers) as somehow uninformed is also a symptom of the mindset.
What brought me out of that mindset was proof positive by someone I couldn’t ignore that I did a bad job on my translation. It humbled me, allowed me to accept that other people’s interpretations are just as valid as mine (even though I might not agree with it), and I was finally able to enjoy other people’s translations without feeling competitive.
That isn’t to say that I never rewrote another’s translation. I did that plenty (especially with one particular translator) when I worked at Viz. But I also was able to receive, edit and enjoy other people’s translations without feeling the need to change their interpretations to match my own.
If you are operating in that mindset, then you are a poor qualitative judge of other people’s translations, because you will always feel that anything less than your own translation is a wrong translation (with the exception of those translators you already respect).
As I always like to say, “The best translation is your own translation.” Everybody reads differently, and everybody takes away from a book something a little different. The only person who will translate with exactly the same priorities as you is yourself. Everyone else will translate it with a different set of priorities. Not necessarily a wrong set, but a different set. The mistake for people operating under the mindset above is confusing that different set for a “wrong” set.
That isn’t to say that there aren’t misinterpretations, bad characterization, and plain flat-out getting the translation wrong. That happens too, and they deserve to be pointed out and corrected if possible for the one making the mistakes to grow and get better as a translator.
I’m afraid I can’t give you names of brilliant recent translators since I don’t have time to read much translated manga myself. I regret it, because I love reading other people’s interpretations mining them for turns of phrase that I wouldn’t have thought of myself. I’d recommend my own work, but I can’t count myself as a part of this generation of translators having started in 1991, only a year after you did. And that was after a decade of unsuccessful creative writing of my own.
But I hope that some of the manga reviewers who are reading this conversation can provide a few names of people they think are deserving of mention as being good translators.
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William, I am not qualified to comment on my own mindset, and I’m not sure you are, either, at least not to the extent that you have based on such little data. (I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you.) People who actually know me personally would probably be better qualified to judge my personality than either you or I: Fred Schodt, Trish Ledoux, Toshifumi Yoshida, Mari Morimoto, Lillian Olsen, Shaenon Garrity…
I can say, though, that I love to find a good translation, regardless of who did it. I feel a mixture of professional jealousy and admiration. You know that there are plenty of perfectly common Japanese phrases for which there is no one-to-one English equivalent, and that you find yourself wracking your brain every time it comes up, wondering what’s the best way to translate it in that particular context. When I find that someone has gotten one of those phrases spot on, I think, “Damn, why have I never thought of doing it that way?” Unfortunately, even when I think to check the translator’s name, I usually forget it within five minutes.
These days, I actually see a lot more English-to-Japanese translation than Japanese-to-English translation, because I’m subjected to subtitles every time I go to see a non-Japanese film. (I live in Kyoto.) Natsuko Toda is of course perennially horrible, so I try not to look at the subtitles when I’m seeing a film she’s done, but these days there a lot of young Japanese subtitlers who are quite good.
So, the short response to your comment is, no, I do not think my translation is always the best. As for the re-write I did of Seduce Me After the Show, trust me, I wouldn’t have done that if the original translation had not been mind-bogglingly awful, which it was. Aurora had farmed it out to a “professional translation company,” which treated it like they would a hotel brochure or the instruction manual for a toaster oven. And considering that I got just a nominal fee, I still wouldn’t have done a complete re-translation if the artist hadn’t been a close friend, and if I didn’t believe the work deserved much better. I would simply have told them, “Sorry, but you got screwed. This is an awful translation.”
William, I’m 44 years old. I’ve had more humbling experiences in my life (or this year, for that matter) than I care to remember, and I don’t have the energy or inclination to view every other translator as a rival. I am my own harshest critic.
I just would like to see publishers recognize that translation quality counts and pay decent page rates to translators, and I would like translators to demand more of themselves and to prove to the publishers that they are worth more than they are paid.
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Thanks for the interesting read!
I’m speculating here, but I think that part of the problem you’ve identified is economic. We know that these American manga publishers aren’t rolling in dough, and probably try to keep production costs on each book to a bare-bones minimum, especially lower-profile books. As a result, they probably can’t afford to be too choosy in who they hire as translators. This would, naturally, result in major variations in quality, which is what we’re seeing. One solution would be to add writers to the process, with training in writing fiction or TV/film. They could work with the translators to create better-written English text.
I think a useful analogy here is to Japanese video games, where English translations have improved by leaps and bounds since the 80s and 90s, as sales and overall production costs have shot up. I remember the days when I would have to put up with broken English, incomprehensible storylines, and tons of blatant errors and type-Os. Nowadays, higher-profile game developers will employ teams of translators and writers who work together to create higher-quality product. But it’s worth their while because they’re making good money.
I would love to see manga publishers investing more in their translations, but frankly, I’m not sure that it would result in better sales. So they would need some incentive to do so. One step would be for us, as readers, to be more critical of translations, and to let publishers know what we think of their product.
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Hi Matt;
I’m contentious by nature, so I’m going to take another shot at this.
Feel free to ignore me if you think you’ve said enough on the topic.“Retention of honorifics may give the reader the feeling of getting the “real Japanese experience,” but that feeling is an illusion. There is always a great deal going on in the language that is extremely difficult to convey in another language, but I would rather focus on conveying those nuances than simply ignoring them and hiding behind the retention of honorifics. [...] Regardless of whether or not your retain Japanese honorifics or include some Japanese words, a good translation should make you forget that you’re reading a translation.”
Sure. But would retaining the honorifics prevent you from *also* conveying said nuances?
Surely the goal of translating a foreign work is not to produce something that has no cultural differences, but to produce something that is fluidly readable while capturing those cultural differences. If the goal of translation is instead to make the things that would be normal and unnoticeable to the writer also normal and unnoticeable for the reader, then when you are dealing with a work from a different country, that reflects the life and culture of that country, should you “naturalize” the story to the extent that it no longer has any difference from a work produced in America based on the life and culture of America? Does it really make the story more enjoyable for the readers to replace onigiri with doughnuts?
Now I’m an academic by training and a nerd by inclination, and I just *love* weird vocabulary and footnotes (both using and reading), which may affect my point of view. But if I’m reading a work in translation, I don’t want the translator glossing over the aspects of that work, or the culture that it comes from, that are different from modern American behavior and worldview. A work in translation will never be equivalent to a work by a native speaker, because the background and expectations of the writer will be different. I think it is perfectly possible (although shamefully rare) to create a fluid, literate, enjoyable translation which nonetheless reflects that difference.
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I just wanted thank Matt and everyone else for such an interesting discussion. It’s been a really interesting read.
I’ve been reading manga in translation since I was a young teen, and now that I am a fully established adult, I feel increasingly frustrated with the lack of sophistication in manga translations. For the most part, I feel they’re perfectly acceptable, but there are times where they just don’t sound right. Matt’s comments about rhythm and voice are really spot-on. I couldn’t figure out just what my objections to a translation was beyond “It just doesn’t sound right,” but that is certainly it.
This really struck me recently when I was reading the recently published Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga (?), wherein everyone speaks in an unappealing pseudo-Shakespearean fashion. The falseness of the voices frustrated me and made it nearly unreadable, though I thought the story and art were compelling. I got the feeling that it was because the translator didn’t really have a grasp of the rhythm of Shakespearean language, so it just ended up sounding terribly stilted and affected.
I’m not trying to just complain here. I really do respect the manga translators in operation now, because I know that many of them come from fan translation roots, and they are certainly lovers of manga like the rest of us. I’m not in the business, so I’m not precisely sure how all this works… But I wonder how much mentorship is involved in translation work? I get the impression that it’s generally a solitary venture, so how are young professional translators supposed to get better? Who is helping them? Who is giving them solid feedback? Editors? I don’t often see discussions like this about translation, which is a pity, because good translation is so important and often misunderstood by the general audience. I think having open and frank (and smart) discussions like this would help the situation immensely.
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Matt,
As per the first paragraph of my second response, I apologize.I still don’t think your original post will help translators recognize faults in themselves, but maybe the following discussion will. I hope so. At least it may give people something to think about.
To those who are concerned with honorifics,
In most cases, the translator is not responsible for whether they are used in a translation or not. The companies decide that, and the translators do as they’re told. (Although there are a few companies that are willing to decide it on a case-by-case basis, the majority place instructions concerning honorifics in the style guide.) It seems to be a hot topic for manga readers, but from the translator’s point of view, most of the time the point is moot. -
“But would retaining the honorifics prevent you from *also* conveying said nuances? (…) But if I’m reading a work in translation, I don’t want the translator glossing over the aspects of that work, or the culture that it comes from, that are different from modern American behavior and worldview. (…) I think it is perfectly possible (although shamefully rare) to create a fluid, literate, enjoyable translation which nonetheless reflects that difference.”
I feel that keeping japanese words or honorifics doesn’t necessarily convey the differences correctly. Many readers don’t really understand those words nor what they mean. They feel something different when reading them than Japanese readers do. So instead of teaching them “-san shows respect”, which is not the whole story and therefore not of so much use imho, the ideal solution would be to show respect etc. with the words used in english.
I do agree it has to be decided case by case. But what I’m trying to say is, retaining honorifics seems to often convey more of a “difference” than there actually is or a different difference ^^ (Honorifics or Keigo can also be used to convey distance or “irony” f.ex.)
I also heard from quite a few people that it’s annoying for them to really stumble across words they don’t understand all the time. For sure, when reading series from Korea, where they keep korean honorifics etc. it is very annoying to me. These words look like gibberish to me, I’m already busy enough with the characters names alone, I have no idea how to pronounce them and they are hard to remember. So having to remember stuff like “oneesan” (in korean, but I forgot) at the same time is, well … annoying – and not entertaining. And there are still many manga readers having problems with remembering japanese names.
And as I said before, I have come to believe that too much “credit” is given to the honorifics stuff. It’s not honorifics on their own that are going to convey or, when left out, not convey the cultural differences. It happens in many different places.
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minikui said:
“So instead of teaching them “-san shows respect”, which is not the whole story and therefore not of so much use imho, the ideal solution would be to show respect etc. with the words used in english.”True, but manga is mostly dialogue- (and interior-monologue) -driven and it’s not necessarily easy or even possible to convey nuances of familiarity while retaining naturalistic, informal speech. American kids don’t call their friends or classmates “Mr Smith” (they don’t even necessarily call their friends’ *fathers* “Mr Smith”), so how do you convey the san/kun/chan/no-honorific distinction in a one-sentence dialogue balloon? In actual American usage they all translate as “John”.
Or take the first-name/last-name distinction; most of us *never* call a friend by their surname unless maybe we’re introducing them to someone else. We don’t have a culturally-significant point when someone can call you “John” rather than Mr Smith, because most Americans expect *everyone* to call us “John” from the first meeting (except maybe salespeople). Unless you make up some sort of cutesy nickname for the other character to use, there’s no equivalent.
“Honorifics or Keigo can also be used to convey distance or “irony” f.ex.”
And that’s a distinction which can be conveyed in a fairly straightforward way, since exaggeratedly polite and grammatical speech has the same potential functions in English.
“And as I said before, I have come to believe that too much “credit” is given to the honorifics stuff. It’s not honorifics on their own that are going to convey or, when left out, not convey the cultural differences. It happens in many different places.”
Absolutely. But I associate removal of the honorifics, for works set in contemporary Japan, with an editorial attempt to erase or downplay those differences, which, let’s face it, flies in the face of something many readers find appealing about manga.
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For example. In the 4th volume of Viz’s edition of Aya Kanno’s fabulous Otomen, which has a perfectly readable translation, there’s a joke in the author’s note that is based on the fact that the makeup-obsessed kendo-buff rival guy, Tonomine, ore-samas himself. There’s no hint in his dialog, as translated, that he is that kind of person. Something about the character was lost in the translation, because of that.
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Once again I’m in agreement with minikui. Retaining certain Japanese words by no means guarantees that the reader’s understanding will be increased. On the contrary, it can lead to a false sense of understanding. I understand that there are plenty of readers–mostly hardcore otaku who are eager to learn as much about Japan as they can–who share JRB’s preferences. And there is something to be said for translation that caters to those readers. But the readership for manga has grown exponentially over the past 15 years, and I think it’s fair to say that most of them want a smooth, easy read. To readers like JRB, such readers may seem lacking in intellectual curiosity, but keep in mind that manga are entertainment, not textbooks. The original artists intend for them to be entertaining, and native Japanese readers expect them to be entertaining. Yes, it is possible to strike something of a balance between “beauty” and “faithfulness,” but that requires knowledge, skill, and artistry that is too often lacking. And it’s not just bitter old translators like me who think so. Check out David Brothers’ review of Yotsuba&!.
I can assure you that no translator wants to stamp out any traces of Japaneseness and completely Americanize a manga or anime. You don’t go to the trouble of becoming fluent in the language of a society without having a desire to share its culture with others. In the earliest days of importing anime, producers did in fact try to hide the fact that the product came from Japan. But that hasn’t been the case for more than twenty years. The Japaneseness is a selling point. I would like to believe that a reader can gain a better grasp of the intricacies of Japanese society through a good translation that is conservative in its use of Japanese terms than s/he can through a bad (stilted, mechanical, flat, awkward) translation full of footnotes and “-chan”s.
Simon Jones has written a great commentary in response to this post that offers a publisher’s point of view. It’s a must read for anyone who finds this discussion interesting.
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David, thanks for your thoughts. The money aspect is obviously a big issue. TokyoPop brought manga to the masses by cutting corners everywhere (including translators’ fees) and bringing the price down to below $10 per volume.
In publishing, budgeting and pricing ultimately come down to sales volume. The higher the sales, the cheaper the cover price, and vice versa. So back in the day, manga TPB prices were in the $15 – $18 range. Prices are as low as they are now, partly because of lower production costs, but mostly because of higher sales. In his commentary, Simon refers to the “race to the bottom,” and that, sadly, is what we are seeing. Sales skyrocketed at the turn of the century, and that meant higher profits. It should also have meant that publishers could spend more on production and still make solid profits. Today, there is simply no reason for translation rates to be so low, other than corporate stinginess (or greed, depending on your point of view–that extra money has to be going into somebody’s pocket) and the availability of cheap labor, in the form of countless young people who can produce something that vaguely resembles a translation. And as Simon said, manga publishers “are not interested in accuracy, just the appearance of accuracy.”
Their problem today is that they have painted themselves into a corner, for the very reasons David pointed out. As readers grow up, they become more discriminating, and the amateur translations that satisfied them when they were 15 do not satisfy them when they are 25. I don’t expect publishers to spend more money on pop titles geared at teens than is absolutely necessary (again, for reasons Simon noted). But the market is stagnating at least in part because they are not producing books that adults will want to read.
Nodame Cantabile was a massive hit in Japan, and it could have been a hit in the English-speaking world, as well. It should have been reviewed in the New York Times. But–while I think the people at Del Rey are great–the sad fact is that the translation of Nodame was, to put it delicately, not up to the quality of the original. It was a potential cash cow that died in the womb because the publisher skimped on the single most important ingredient: the translation.
Several times over the past few years, I have been approached by publishers who asked me to translate something, only to say, “Sorry, we can’t afford that” when I told them my page rate. (And believe me, what I ask for today is far less than what Viz was paying me ten years ago.) What they mean is not that they can’t “afford” my rate, but rather that the company is not willing to budget that much for translation. These are not small, indy publishers getting by on a shoestring. They are fairly large (in some cases very large) companies with comfortable profit margins. But the bar for translation fees has been set very, very low, and publishers seem to lack the foresight to go after long-term profits by spending more to get a higher quality product.
It is taboo to talk about fees publicly, but I can tell you that most translators today are getting paid 20% to 30% of what I was being paid ten years ago. That is not a living wage. Even if you translated 12 hours a day non-stop, you still couldn’t make enough to move out your parents’ basement.
It reminds me of the situation in American comic books for most of the 20th century. Wages for artists were kept extremely low, and artists were made to feel expendable. It wasn’t until phenomenal artists like Neal Adams and Frank Miller came along and started using their considerable clout (They were not expendable) that working conditions for American comics creators began to improve.
I’ve been dissing the Nodame translation, but I don’t really blame the translators. How can they be expected to pour their heart and soul into something for which they are paid sub-minimum wages? That’s why I say to the publishers, “You get what you pay for.” Maybe the translators I’ve been criticizing would roll up their sleeves and show us their stuff (Eek! Two clichés in one sentence!) if they were adequately compensated.
William, you may have taken a disliking to me, but maybe if people like you, me, Fred Schodt, Dana Lewis, and other long-established translators used the nets in this way to raise reader awareness of the importance of translation, publishers would begin to relent and take better care of their translators, resulting in a better product and increased sales. Unrealistic? I don’t know. But I’m at a point in my career where I have nothing to lose by speaking up.
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Matt, I certainly have not taken any disliking to you. I respect you and your opinions greatly. I came from a large, argumentative family, and I can argue points without having it affect my feelings for the person him/herself. You presented me with a puzzle of someone who seemed to have an early-career point of view much later in his career than I thought was possible. It turns out that it probably isn’t possible, and what I took as a mindset that I knew about is most likely something else entirely. I apologize for my mistake.
Without having much more evidence than you have, I simply disagree that the vast majority of manga are as poorly translated as you seem to indicate. I also don’t agree that the product the publishers are putting out is crap. The pay to freelancers is very close to being crap, but having worked on the publisher side as well, I can’t fault the companies too much for it. (A little, but not too much.) I know what pressures they’re under.
Like I said in my original response, I don’t think the way your post was worded will help matters. Most translators who read it (aside from a translator of Nodame and one who uses “awesome” too many times) will think that your complaints are not about them. They probably feel that the job they’re doing is the best that can be done, and won’t recognize the “tin ear” in themselves. In fact, many of the worst offenders will probably whole-heartedly agree with you, and think that all of those other translators should pick up their game! The revelation that one’s ability is insufficient only comes later when one can see in hindsight one’s own deficiencies.
On the other hand, if you have a disliking for me, I don’t really blame you. I sometimes run on at the keyboard much more than I reasonably should.
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No sweat, William. It takes a lot more than that to get on my sh*tlist, which is very short. (It seems I am incapable of holding grudges.) Obviously, you and I both care a great deal about translation, so that puts us on the same side, as far as I’m concerned.
What you say is true: most people will probably think my criticisms don’t apply to them. But hopefully it will give some people food for thought. And I know I’m tossing stones from a house that is not made of bullet-proof glass. And that I should work on pulling the logs from my own eyes before trying to remove the splinter from my brother’s. But in this post I decided to stick my neck out. (^^)
I am encouraged, though, by the fact that you see a half-full glass where I see one that’s half-empty, since you no doubt have a better grasp of the state of manga translations than I.
But there’s always room for improvement, right? (???)
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A lovely article that goes along with a war for which I’ve been trying to gather support for a long time. But then, as Simon points out in his reply article at Icarus, people don’t care. They just want to seem hip and feel like they’re touching the mystical orient.
But then, I’ve also seen people who fancy themselves scholars saying that honorifics add nothing to a story or character motives, thus dropping them is fine. That frustrates me to no end as someone who is both a writer and a person who has more than a trivial understanding of Japanese culture.
Aside from that, I mostly stopped by here to say that the man I most trust to translate manga without turning it into an adaption or relying on shitty crutches like a similar American accent is David Ury. The man can capture the difference between standard Japanese and Osakan/Kansai characters without turning the Osakans into hee-haw caricatures because he understands how to give a character voice and attitude in the way they say things and the flow in a given phrase.
*salute* Godspeed, sir. It’s an uphill battle, that’s why I don’t even bother anymore, outside of idle complaints. Haha. Just buy the books from Japan and you don’t have to worry about what idiots like Keith Greffen and Mike Leib (spelling might be off) decide a manga should be.
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A name! At last. And an actor, to boot. Wow. I just searched Amazon, and none of the titles he’s translated are to my taste, so I don’t want to buy one, but I’ll be sure to check them out the next time I’m in a shop that sells translated manga. (The one shop I knew of here in Kyoto closed its doors recently.)
I debated whether or not to edit Randall’s comment, since I don’t want to see a flame war begin here, but I don’t like to censor, unless the whole comment is without merit (in which case I delete it).
I hope it goes without saying that Randall’s opinions are his own and not mine. (^^; ) I should also confess that I don’t know who he’s talking about.
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Matt, yes! There is always room for improvement!
I haven’t read any of David’s translations either, but I’ve had lunch with him one day during a San Diego Comic Con a few years back. A very fun guy to sit and talk with. I’m not surprised that he has admirers.
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Haha, sorry. Feel free to edit things out if people start getting upset.
As for that last two names, they’re people who worked on the American version of Ikkitousen (manga) and turned it from a wonderfully interesting take on the Three Kingdoms events to a tawdry farce full of pee jokes and vulgarities. It also looses nearly all of Shiozaki Yuuji’s comedic timing and… well, I could go on about it for ages.
I guess, to be fair, they’re listed as having “adapted” the manga, but then, I’m somewhat militaristic in thinking that’s something that should never be done, at least not as something that is just a text swap on the original art. Something like Power Puff Girls Z can be called an adaptation, I don’t think changing the story over existing art could call itself that, even with clever editing. But I think that’s probably another argument. Maybe…
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“I just searched Amazon, and none of the titles he’s translated are to my taste”
The Wallflower? A pure shojo comedy? (It’s getting too long, but it is so funny). He also translated Genshiken, which should be quite a challenge with all the cultural references and jokes.
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minikui, sorry, I should have said I searched Amazon.co.jp. Either way, as is so often the case, the translator’s name is not given on the pages for “The Wallflower.” Now that one does sound like fun. (Just between you, me, and the Internet, it’s actually a sort of semi-secret fantasy of mine to grab all those cute-but-stylistically-challenged girls off the street and give them a complete makeover. Yes, I’m a geek who is picky about style.)
Genshiken sounds too much like the reality that surrounds me every day as someone teaching in the world’s only “Faculty of Manga.” (See fantasy described in previous paragraph.) ???;?
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This was an interesting read!
Now I hope this would encourage reviewers to write about the translation/adaptation aspect.
I think it would help the publishers too, not only translators/rewriters.Something like:
“The plot was horrible and the character designs were messy…but the translation was accurate and awesome awesome awesome!”(I’m only kidding about the awesome x3 part…)
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Hello Matt
Nice article. I have to say that your translations are great. I started reading Banana Fish in French and just couldn’t get into it, I found it bit boring and stilted. Since it’s out of print in French I borrowed a few English volumes from a friend, found it a lot better and wondered why. That was when I realized that you worked on the translation.
I cringe a lot at horribly mistranslated stuff. In a German translation someone referred to himself as Me-sama, instead of finding an equivalent to ore-sama. The whole thing was set up as a joke that no average reader would get. There wasn’t even an annotation. I don’t understand why someone would translate something in a way nobody could understand.
A few German and English Manga translations don’t even explain the honorifics. My mother read Antique Bakery and told me that even though she loved it, she was very confused ’cause she didn’t get the honorifics and there was no explanation whatsoever.P.S. Nonnative English speaker speaking.
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