Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - manga.exe
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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English is diverse and limitless precisely because it always evolves and incorporates new and foreign words, not by trying to define something it has no definition or original concept of. I mean it's ironic, people who most adamant against incorporating foreign words (not necessarily Brian) and ignoring what makes English unique or in fact English is its inherent "mutt-ness" When it comes to translation, my rule of thumb is: respect the universe it takes place in. That means Japanese honorfics IF takes place in Japan or among Japanese characters, and likewise Spanish honorifics, Italian honorifics, Chinese honorifics, Korean honorifics, etc. in their respective in-universe settings. And if there simply is no word to transmit the idea, then import it with a translation note. Again, a very English concept. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13241 |
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You silly Americans. Thanksgiving is in October!
Anyways, I'm thankful for the anime industry being the way it is. I don't care what anyone else says, but every season brings lots of new shows to be watched and enjoyed. There's always something to help brighten up my day by keeping me entertained. I'm also thankful I live in Canada and so have easy access to whatever the States get (besides streaming). No costly importing for me 
I'm all for keeping honorifics, in print at least. They can sound kind of awkward in a dub but they do convey meanings that wouldn't come across otherwise. |
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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Still, in Japanese also, the "evolving relationship dynamics, respect, age differences, subtle nuances of tone" etc. aren't conveyed exclusively through honorifics ("subtle nuances of tone" naturally are expressed through said "tone" rather than honorifics). The form of the verbs, vocabulary, sentence structure, and obviously the overall attitude and context are all part of it as well, I think much more so than the honorifics alone, which often are simply used out of habit. And a translation can express and convey these things without relying on honorifics. Of course, since mangas and animes just love to include the symbolic "drop the honorific / switch from last name to first name" scene, keeping them makes things easier. |
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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Honorifics?
Well there is this classic piece of Southern US social interaction from my early childhood:
So, no the Japanese have just taken that sort of thing to heart. It isn't that "Honorifics" are an alien concept without parallel in English culture. Far from it. Mark Gosdin |
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Divineking
 Posts: 1299 |
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Well according to an interview the VP of animation at Viz did with Toonami Faitful, their pleased with how Neon Alley is doing so apparently there's some kind of audience for it (me included I guess since I wanted to see the T&B dub that badly). Though I do agree they need some kind of addition to the linear option and thankfully they've said that's a priority. Guess we'll see how that goes
On the note note of the whole translating honorifics thing, I also agree that it more or less depends on the setting. I'd take for example how Viz chose to leave honorifics in Rurouni Kenshin when they normally don't bother to for their series. It was a very distinctly japanese setting, and historical japanese at that, so in that kind of case not leaving in honorifics would probably be worse than trying to find an alternative. For a purely fantasy setting though? There's really no need for them whatsoever and a good translator should be able to find some kind of way to make it work without using japanese as a crutch. It's part of the reason why I still can't take scanlations that seriously since their notorious for that. I admit I used to be one of those people who'd cringe if subtitles or manga didn't include honorifics but eventually I got to the point where I realized that unless it's the above circumstance where the series is too distinctly japanese, it generally doesn't make a difference whether or not their left in. |
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EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
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Well, for series set in Japanese setting, the rule should be leaving honorific in print (God bless translation notes), but that doesn't work well in series set anywhere else. Especially in works set in Western setting, where authors usually use them for their own and reader's convenience.
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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Totally agree. I shudder at the thought of reading Victorian Romance Emma or the Earl Cain series with honorifics, but I do like them in series set in Japan, be they historical setting series like House of Five Leaves, or more modern set series like Nodame Cantabile.
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Neon Alley sounds like it may have worked as a linear channel on TV, a decade ago. It's just too constricting for 2012, where I can record anything any everything I want and skip all of the commercials at my leisure. I can pause live TV to go to the bathroom or make a sandwich, then resume and skip at least one set of commercials. I have control,
and I don't appreciate that control being taken away just to watch too few anime that are dub-only. I commonly see Paint Tool SAI on pixiv artist profiles, many of those make doujinshi and h-manga as well. |
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casualfan
Posts: 333 |
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I prefer to have honorifics in subtitles not just for the Japanese culture flavor, but also to avoid confusion. Some translators thinks it's a smart idea to just put the first names (which can cause confusion if I haven't memorized the character's first and last names).
In dubs though, it won't sound natural and could really ruin the experience. It reminds me of the joke fandubs in Youtube. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5507 Location: Iscandar |
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On the question on Neon Alley, I agree with the changes than Brian would make to improve it. But, unlikely him, I do not wish well on the current Neon Alley (dis)service because I do not think that poor executed ideas should be rewarded with our money.
On the saving deals question, I do not have plans to buy discounted anime. First, because I like to buy releases when they first come out; I feel this helps more the distributors. And second, I took a look at TRSI discount sets, and the only worthy things I saw were K-On!! (season 2) and the three Durarara!! DVD sets. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4159 |
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Only for Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace and Terry Pratchett.* In most practices, especially for visual mediums, it's more than fairly tedious.** For translating suffixes, I liked what Tenchi Muyo! did, changing "chan" to "Little" and "Sama"/"Domo" to "Lord"***Still, this exchange always stuck out in my mind: Wasu: "No, call me Little Washu!" Ayeka {thought}: "How can I call you 'Little' when you're 20,000 years old!?" The idea still makes some sense, mostly because she has the body of a ten year old but there are some problems. *Master of footnoting english fiction. ** Case in point, more or less. *** They also changed them from suffixes to pre-modifiers which is a nice mirroring of English translation. "This is you and this is how I think of you" Japanese vs "This is how I think of you, yeah, you" English. Almost confrontational, I suppose but I have gotten to the point where I consider Japanese sufffixes to be the polite way to be rude.+,++ +Example from Best Student Cuncil Rino Rando: I'm Rino Rando Ayumu Oumu: Then I'll call you Rino. I'm Ayumu Oume. Rino: Then I'll call you Ayu-chan. Ayu-chan: ...ok. ++ Isn't this really annoying? Translaters, take footnote... |
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RyanSaotome
 Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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I'd rather have honorifics since I understand them, and any Americanizing of it generally comes off as forced and not telling the relationships effectively.
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Brainchild129
Posts: 307 |
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With translating honorifics in manga, I tend to agree with most in that I'm fine with them in specifically Japanese settings, but in most situations their presense or removal doesn't add or take away anything from the story at large. I'm even ok with leaving some words that really don't have a good English equivalent, such as sempai/kouhei.
What DOES bug me in manga translation is not translating terms that DO have a proper English translation - you cannot honestly tell me that "Big Sister/Brother" doesn't get the same point across as "Onii-chan)." You can't tell me that "fu fu fu" means something different or deeper than "ha ha ha." I'm pretty damn sure that substituting "cute" for "kawaii" will work just fine. Ok, the last one, I've only seen once, but the others are common in some publishers (*coughSevenSeascough*) and to me it reeks less of preserving cultural nuance and more of flat-out laziness in the name of appeasing a vocal minority. |
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Myaow
 Posts: 1068 |
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WEIRD TANGENT: Omitting the honorifics in translations always strikes me as WAY less egregious than the thing that some translators do where they have a character who always goes by their last name in the Japanese text go by their first name in the translation. As if addressing people by their last name is a uniquely Japanese thing?
(I'm thinking of Honey & Clover, where EVERYBODY calls someone by his surname "Morita" in the Japanese but in English everyone calls him his first name "Shinobu"-- this happens to a number of different characters in this series too!) I've never actually seen anyone complain about this before, for all the hubbabaloo I see about honorifics, which I think is a much smaller deal. @Brainchild: Tokyopop's old Marmalade Boy translation had a lot of random Japanese vocab thrown around too! The notes claimed that they were trying to replicate the slang use of random English words in the Japanese version, but it was kind of bizarro when a character would randomly yell "SUGOI!!" or "BAKA"... |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I definitely lean towards leaving the honourifics in, unless a non-awkward means of translating them is possible. For example, translating "-sama" as "lady" or "lord" I feel is fairly accurate; however, it doesn't work in a modern setting. And I'm also in agreement that it would be awkward to see the honourifics in a setting where characters are most definitely not speaking actually Japanese.
I also agree with Myaow about Honey & Clover, I hate how they switched which name the characters use. Especially with Mayama since there are two characters with the given name Takumi. The worst of course is the fact that the subtitles in the anime do this as well, even though you can hear damn well that characters are using the family name, not the given. |
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