Forum - View topic

Hey, Answerman! [2006-10-27]

I own the entire run of Gantz in Japanese, and I can say it's a lot better than the anime version, but when it comes to licensing, I can't help but be a little skeptical about it.

I've asked representatives at most of the major manga publishers about Gantz and generally the response tends to boil down to one or two factors; either it's too expensive, or they don't think there's a big market for it. Back when Dark Horse first put the equally shockingly violent Berserk on the shelves (and promptly got the title kicked out of major bookstores once they discovered what the content was), everyone started getting a little wary of licensing long-running, expensive, ultra-violent titles aimed at older men. The manga market in America is largely a success because of sales to tweens and adolescents and the audience skews female; this is why stuff like Fruits Basket and the Shonen Jump titles (which have a crossover appeal to both males and females despite appearing to be traditionally male-centric stories) sell so well.

Hyper-violent stuff like Gantz (which gets really over-the-top; there's as much graphic sex and disgusting violence as you could ever want) is a tough sell in this market, and it's going to be even harder to get it on store shelves that are already totally crowded for space. I don't doubt that one day it might get licensed and then make the jump, but I wouldn't expect to see it anytime soon.

Honorifics, for example, have long been a huge sore spot for fans and translations, honorifics and titles and such. The fact of the matter is, there IS not single English-language or western culture equivalent to "chan" or "kun" or "sama" or even "san". It does not exist. So instead, a proper translation needs totake this into account, and instead of translating all the "san" as Ms and Mr and all the "sama" as Lord, it needs to actually take into account the context of each individual case and apply the appropriate English/western equivalent, assuming that one exists at all!

For titles/names/descriptive honorifics describing characters' ranks/stations, psuedo-literal translations are NOT appropriate nor accurate. Yes, I'm looking at you, Bleach fandom, and the whole "vice captain" thing. If you really wanted to be literal on that one, "taichou" should be "division commander" and "fukutaichou" should be "assistant division commander". "vice captain" is not as true a translation as many people seem to think, but rather a psuedo-literal translation that's apparently become popular in fan circles. Heck, I could write a whole rant just on this, but I'll spare you and get back to my main point.

The other issue is translating terminology used in a story. This is definitely something that becomes an issue. Do you say "sakabatou" or "reverse-blade sword", for example. The former could possibly be argued as a "name" and therefore not to be translated,but if you don't use the translation the whole significance to the plot that the sword carries may just as likely be lost on the English-speaking audience. Nine times out of ten, fully translating terminology IS the best way to go in order for the story to make sense to the most people. That fan-translations often skip this is somewhat understandable, as they can generally assume that other fans will already know what it means, but it certainly isn't very professional. Also, people need to stop giving the official translations crap because they DO actually translate some of the terminology like this.

Like many other aspects of fandom, I'm probably a minority when I say that I think the honorifics are better off translated. I recall when I was first trying to get into manga; so many companies had honorifics left in the text. I had no idea what any of them ment and it was rather dificult (especially considering i was only 12 at the time) to take in context. Not until I read RuroKen did I know what they ment. While most hardcore fans aren't like that many people aren't hardcore fans. Hell, I probably know more casual than hardcore fans. I'm sure many of them don't understand many honorifics either. And I really think they're even more out of place in manga that take place in an english speakin area (trigun). As for anime...to each his own. Some titles I don't mind the lack of honorifics, some I think need honorifics and some (mostly by funi) either satisfy me or irritate me if the plot isn't centering arround japanese characters.

I enjoyed the column. I really would like to see the Elfin lied manga, and does anyone think they'll ever show the 14 episode of Elfin lied?

Everything else are on-off stories set prior to the Slayers TV series and can be watched whenever in any order, except for Slayers Premium which should be watched after having seen at least the first season of the TV series.