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REVIEW: DearS GN 1

It's baffling why there are so many incompetent teacher figures in manga and anime, like the floozy from Mahoromatic, or the nutjob from Azumanga Daioh.

Either Japan is full of teachers so dominated by stress that they’ve become basket cases, or the entry country is filled with men who dream of dry humping their high school instructors.

Just want to clear something up here (since the reviewer spent two paragraphs ranting about it), but the whole English teacher to Spanish teacher, and the way it was translated makes perfect sense.

While English is taught in Japan it is by no means a language that most people know fluently enough to be able to understand every bit of English that they come across, and there for some people would get the secondary joke about the teachers libido, and others would not so it is bit of an in joke. Likewise the same is true in the United States - Spanish is the most commonly taught foreign language (I myself had two years in grade school, one year in middle school, and two years in high school) and therefore if you are trying to carry the same joke to the English translation, it makes sense to pick the language that someone will most likely understand. As such, some people would get the joke, and some would not, an appropriate carry over of the original Japanese work.

Just want to clear something up here (since the reviewer spent two paragraphs ranting about it), but the whole English teacher to Spanish teacher, and the way it was translated makes perfect sense.

While English is taught in Japan it is by no means a language that most people know fluently enough to be able to understand every bit of English that they come across, and there for some people would get the secondary joke about the teachers libido, and others would not so it is bit of an in joke. Likewise the same is true in the United States - Spanish is the most commonly taught foreign language (I myself had two years in grade school, one year in middle school, and two years in high school) and therefore if you are trying to carry the same joke to the English translation, it makes sense to pick the language that someone will most likely understand. As such, some people would get the joke, and some would not, an appropriate carry over of the original Japanese work.

It doesn't carry over if it's completely inconsistent. Everyone in the manga is speaking Japanese (or at least that's what all the dialogue is pointing to). So why would they be learning Spanish, when most likely they are taking English classes?

Furthermore, this is supposed to be part of Tokyopop's "100% Manga" line. I thought these books were supposed to be free of this kind of change.

I don't understand the problem with the sound effects being un-translated really, does anyone ever really pay attention to the sound fx in manga?

They are just there to look cool, yeah that's it.

Although for every 1 person that doesnt like un-translated sound effects, there are like 10 more that don't like translated ones

You know, all things considered, it probably was for the best that they leave the Spanish untranslated.

I guess the "smart" thing to do would have been to make it a generic "foreign language" class and put the English version in <>'s just like they use in every webcomic known to man.

I know enough kana to read untranslated sound effects, but it makes me feel bad for English-speaking readers who are missing out on the audio portion of the manga because some lazy butt felt that translation only needed to go as far as what's in the bubbles.

I agree with this review to some extent, but I was one of the people more on the side of how much of a blatant Chobits ripoff DearS is. However I'm also one of the few optomists that it will get better as it progressed as it is only the first volume.