Forum - View topicAnswerman - What's Wrong With Fan Translations?
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LaughingElbow
Posts: 237 |
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{One liners (especially nonsensical ones) are prohibited. ~nobahn}
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Aaronrules380
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I mean, some fan translations are obviously awful *cough mangapanda *cough*) Even if you don't speak the language because they aren't coherent, but I'd be much more hesitant to criticize a professional translation, and in those cases only when I have a trusted Japanese reader to back me up (I know a few on forums who are well known to be competent, or even native Japanese speakers, some who actually translate professionally as well and help explain where fan translations fucked up when confusion arises). But yeah, if an official translation seems weird, I'd probably check with someone who I'm confident is a good judge to explain what the original was, and how it can be interpreted rather than assume I know better
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Saffire
 Posts: 1256 Location: Iowa, USA |
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Reminds me of my time as a mod for a major Bleach forum. I had a text file detailing translation errors in every major group's releases (including the official one) which I had to reference fairly regularly to address questions or arguments. When I quit caring back around 2009 or so, there wasn't a single translation that I trusted 100%.
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minakichan
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MangaPanda is actually just an aggregator; they don't translate anything. They just steal scanlated chapters that real scanlation groups have done the work on, then post them for free ad revenue.
Anyway, I used to be a scanlator. Our translator translated from scans of Korean translations of the original work, and then I edited and rewrote lines because I didn't like how they were worded, or to make them fit in speech bubbles. I don't know a lick of Korean or Japanese. I also did my own QC. (I think my cleaning was pretty good though.) It never seemed weird to me at the time, but looking back, I'd say we really didn't have standards. A lot of people romanticize scanlation as the work of highly-competent and free-spirited artists subverting the means of production, but sometimes it's just college students who really like manga and don't really have a ton of skills. There are tons of great scanlation groups out there, but the number of groups run by kids taking their third year of Japanese in college or for whom English is a third language is actually quite high-- and growing. People who say that scanlations are always or even usually better than the professional ones are just looking at the best examples and ignoring a LOT of really shoddy work. |
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DuelGundam2099
 Posts: 533 |
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This article now explains why Crunchyroll decided to change Ishikui's name to Rock Eater in the TV version of Ushio and Tora even though both the official subs and dubs of the OVAs didn't do this. Part of me does wonder that if pro translators doing remakes look up previous entries to make sure things are consistent. I know Funimation and DiscoTek can't agree on whether or not it's spelled Casshern or Casshan.
 Answerman should do a follow up on inconsistencies between translators at some point.
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Someone has to ask the question first. 
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corinthian
Posts: 264 |
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The lovely folks at Sparkler Monthly just did a podcast that includes a bit of discussion on this subject. Most of the panelists were current or former manga editors who heard their share of complaints. My favorite was that the official translation flowed too easily. Somebody actually thought that human beings speaking should be stilted and awkward, because translation or whatever.
That, or they were grasping at straws to justify their piracy, which is another, entirely separate discussion. |
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Shenl742
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I wonder if this is actually some kind of copyright issue, or at least a deliberate attempt to help differentiate products when two different companies issue separate things from the same franchise. Like how Animego released the Oh My Goddess OAVs, while Pioneer released the movie as Ah My Goddess. I know various Lupin releases have gone by different names in the past (Including Rupin, or just "The Wolf") ADV released the Sakura Wars OAV and TV under that name, but when Funimation released a different, later set of OAVs they were called "Sakura Taisen". |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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I love this line "Fans imprint on the first thing they saw". Especially when it comes to names. Ever see an Attack on Titan fan refer to Levi as "Rivaille"? Fan translations getting it wrong because they can't check with the creator. It stuck around for a really long time, too.
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DuelGundam2099
Posts: 533 |
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I would, but I already asked a question a week or so ago as to what anime do Japanese fans consider bad and if they are different from what Western fans consider bad, I figured there is an unspoken "everybody gets one" rule.
Oh wow, that is silly. I know DiscoTek tried to make Mazinger Z and Shin Mazinger Z in different titles to differentiate between original and remake. However, both TV Nadia and Giant Robo: The Day The Earth Stood Still had different distributors, but kept their titles the same; the same with the Gundam franchise since Right Stuff is releasing most of the franchise except for Victory for reasons they won't reveal to the public (I sense mole people conspiracy, maybe Glenn Beck and Jack Thompson are involved). |
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DJStarstryker
 Posts: 140 |
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This is also where you get Horo vs Holo (Spice and Wolf) or, even using professional translations, Aeris vs Aerith (Final Fantasy VII). |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Also, ANN's objection is mostly from where you GET fan translations--Namely bootlegs/fansubs.
Which have become rare to extinct in the days when Crunchyroll licenses everything while it's still airing. Nowadays, it's more of an academic professional-ethics argument, since most fan-translation has sunk back into the Net ether it started before CR went legit. |
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Oh, believe me, no such rule exists. The percentage of useable questions I get is really low. (It's about 30% "Will there ever be another season of x", 50% "I feel like this general nonspecific feeling I have is a trend, why is that?", 10% confused people thinking they're writing to an anime company.) If you've gotten one answered before there's a good chance you know how to ask the sort of question I'm looking for. |
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Merxamers
 Posts: 720 |
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With regards to quality of translation, i have to agree with Justin. When i first started reading manga as a poor college student, i devoured an enormous amount of fan-translated manga, many of which have never and will likely never receive an official english translation (now that i'm a working adult, i now purchase/read through legal means whenever i can).
In many of the series i read, there were chapters where the translations were so bad it was nearly incomprehensible (GE: Good Ending comes immediately to mind, but there were many others). I suspect this may have been the opposite case, ie. native japanese speakers attempting to translate into English, because i can't fathom any other reason for the gibberish that passed for a translation. I honestly enjoy the official english translations, to the point where i'm glad i read them first; if i had read through the emotional high points of Claymore and One Piece through poorly translated scans, that would have ruined those series for me.
Yes, this annoys me to no end as well. Fans spelling characters names the way they saw it in fan translations seems so silly. Edit: another thing that bugs me is when a fan translation would give a cultural footnote, and it would just be a text link to a wikipedia page. 
Last edited by Merxamers on Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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DuelGundam2099
Posts: 533 |
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Alrighty, I'll compose something later, thank you Answerman.
This was a thing? Seriously? How did that happen?
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