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Forum - View topicINTEREST: Translator Resigns From Cipher Academy Manga, Citing Translation Difficulty
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Bubin
Posts: 42 |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2415 |
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On the one hand, I'd sublimate instantly if I had to TL Cipher Academy, so I sympathize. On the other, it's hilarious that the manga was powerful enough to break a translator.
Here's to hoping that the translation remains as stellar as it was before. Cipher Academy's a great read with all sorts of charming quirks and a fantastic eye for representing the menace of code battles. |
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OrangeVision
Posts: 88 Location: Finland |
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If you check the pictures in the linked article, you could argue the intent wasn't really translated properly, you just kinda have to trust that what the character is saying is impressive. I don't think it's egregious to call it "impossible" to translate, though I'm sure some poor translator could probably invent something as clever if they made translating a handful of panels their entire job for a few months. |
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WANNFH
 Posts: 1863 |
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Will it be as good as the previous take? Well, that's more of a question. |
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kgw
 Posts: 1197 Location: Spain, EU |
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Sometimes the problem is "the day is not long enough for this". I do not know how the translation process is for Manga Plus, but I am guessing the translators are not given a whole week to process the chapters. There is a limit for miracles, specially when you have other works to do.
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1440 |
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Pretty much. There are certainly approaches one could take to replicate the language ciphers in English, but they're all extremely time intensive and basically require the translator to re-write significant chunks of any given chapter from the ground up, constructing something that is similarly complex in English but still understandable to the audience AND preserving both the overall structure of the JP version and narrative intent. For the Lipograms, there's a similar puzzle in an episode of Yu Yu Hakusho using the JP syllabary, and to translate it the dub had to totally rewrite it to use the English alphabet. The intent was preserved, bit was doubtlessly a lot more work than translating any other episode. Cipher Academy is a weekly simulpub, meaning the translator probably has 1-2 days at most to get the translation ready so the letterers, editors, and necessary approvals can all go over it before release. Not helping is that NisioisiN is a notoriously verbose writer who will use 1000 words where 10 would suffice, meaning there's often multiple ciphers per chapter, or even per page. All of that, likely on top of having multiple other projects - including other simulpubs - just makes it untenable. |
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MagicPolly
 Posts: 1630 |
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This doesn't surprise me at all considering it's Nisioisin. Zaregoto got dropped by two different publishers (well, one went defunct) and Pretty Boy Detective Club also got dropped.
Good luck to whoever the new translator is, they're gonna need it |
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KarlFranz
Posts: 186 |
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Well the latest chapter have 2 characters try to outwit each other in a game and the rule is that each player can only use half of the letters in the Japanese alphabet, meaning 23. Now translate that into English, meaning you can only use 13 letters of the English's alphabet for each character while keep the context and what they are saying relatively the same as the original text.
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DevilBrew
Posts: 131 |
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To be fair, those titles were more than likely dropped due to lack of interest from Vertical rather than translation difficulty. |
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PipimiOden
 Posts: 204 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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hot take, but maybe it'll be better if they just drop the simlupub and just release the tankobons over here to give the translators just a little more time to figure out how to translate the ciphers... might be worth a shot¯\_(ツ)_/¯
also they should be paid more Last edited by PipimiOden on Mon Feb 20, 2023 5:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2273 |
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I know exactly which YYH episode you’re talking about, and that honestly makes me appreciate the dub writers even more! But the idea of doing something on that scale in the span of a day or two is just mind-numbing. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13626 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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We have seen examples of translators localizing anime/manga scripts that are injecting unnecessary sociopolitical dialogue. Well, the below article to me says that Kumar was trying to stay faithful but Japanese word-play was too frustrating. Kudos to Kumar for wanting to stay faithful to the translation but the Japanese word-play was too much for him. Trying to stay true to the spirit/letter of the original script can be extremely frustrating with Japanese puns.
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jdnation
Posts: 2127 |
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I can understand.
Basically this job requires one to be both a translator and a puzzle game creator. That is a tall order, especially if he is under pressure to simulpub, and at the risk where trying to make it work in English risks departure from something thematically relevant or specifically called back to later. Then there is the temptation to make things simpler but stupider and hilariously destroying the point that the cipher school's high level intelligent students are having trouble with easy English puzzles. If I was handling this, I'd make the call to only translate Nisio's stuff after the series has ended and taking time to decipher the best way to present the material over the years. |
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Pokenatic
 Posts: 583 Location: Neo Venezia |
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Having read through some of the it, yeah, it's easy to tell just how much of an impossible task it is to translate it and keeping as much of the meaning to the text as possible. First chapter alone has a crossword puzzle which, while the puzzle's contents is not actually important to the story in that they could have just blurred out the contents out, you can tell some wordplay is lost as there's only gibberish in the vertical parts of the completed crossword puzzle. I don't envy whomever is taking over and can't help but wonder how well the cipher battles will be localized in the future.
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14893 |
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Likely they're not paid enough for the time they'd need to translate something that complex
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