How Manga Was Translated for America

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/14/books/manga-comic-books.html

by karaokeyoga • 3 years ago

60 55 3 years ago

Snapshot seems a bit incomplete. Portions of the text are difficult to read, and it ends rather abruptly. Thinking it was probably cut off before the end.

js22• 3 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36748985

mqus• 3 years ago

also offtopic: I get SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP in Firefox and Chrome. Am I the only one?

aaron695• 3 years ago

It will be related to the Cloudflare DNS brawl with archive.xx, I had the same issue -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today#Cloudflare_DNS_a...

Search HN, other posts about it.

Cause I run a mix of 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8 I 'thought' the second was only a backup, but no, some algorithm.

So it mostly works from cache I guess from 8.8.8.8 hits, but every now and again it 'randomly' fails.

So try changing the .ph to the many alternatives in the wiki article you might have cached (HN sometimes uses .is)

faitswulff2• 3 years ago

A bit disappointed that this didn't cover the scan(s?)lation community that was the lifeline for anime and manga in the early 2000's before the categories became mainstream. How manga was translated was by rabid enthusiasts who would learn Japanese and scan and translate manga for little to no compensation, or even at cost to themselves. In that sense, it felt similar to the warez scene of the same era. Since then, anime has gone from a weird niche genre to cosplay supplies being sold in Joann Fabrics. I am still not used to how mainstream it is, but as someone who benefited from their work, I would love to hear more about those early scanslators.

pohuing2• 3 years ago

The scene is still pretty alive and I cry for every manga that gets an official English release. Because at least the digital offerings often look visually worse than the fan scanlations. But they're the rights holders, so there's no competition to avoid insane compression artifacts or stupid localisation errors.

arijun• 3 years ago

What does look visually worse mean? My (very limited) experience is the opposite: the quality of the translations and redraws were much higher in the official versions. And there’s way less “all according to keikaku”-type translations.

Frotag2• 3 years ago

I suspect that even if an official release is available (with free samples) potential buyers tend to check out the scanlation first. Mostly since checking for updates on websites that aggregate fan scans are more convenient than checking 3ish publisher sites.

But anyways, I'm playing devil's advocate but I'd imagine a sloppy scanlation of chapter 1 has very real consequences on interest in the later / better official release. By sloppy I mean distracting grammar mistakes, poor image quality, etc. I know I personally wouldn't give the official a chance if I mistakenly thought the plot / art was meh from the scanlation. And that's bad because it doesn't support the authors, who tend be super overworked.

xoa• 3 years ago

Agreed, as someone who did some scanlation back in the 00s and still follows the scene (which remains quite vibrant) that was a real disappointment. Fan scans lead the way on all the things they're discussing, with a lot of debates around various translation choices and work put into sound effects and redraws despite having no access to originals. I think it lead the way for commercial translators and showed there was a market and demand for getting close to the originals, and sense then has also been a source of effective market research in terms of what is popular. There are a number of wonderful series also only available to non-Japanese readers via fan scanlations. No sort of coverage of that was a surprise.

zdw• 3 years ago

Even older than that, even in the 90's there was a large community of folks who had an Amiga and genlock and would translate and distribute subtitled VHS tapes of somewhat esoteric shows like Marmalade Boy and Kodomo no Omocha that did not fit into the genres that were getting commercial releases at that time.

Also, didn't mention the entire run of Mangajin[1], which was quite the resource for folks learning Japanese back in those days.

[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangajin)

brazzy• 3 years ago

Ahhh yes, the original fansubs. The good ones came with liner notes, explaining linguistinc and cultural nuances.

And there was substantial debate in the fandom concerning the ethics. How much margin over the price of a blank tape was acceptable before it became a for-profit piracy operation? Should fansubs cease distribution when a show got an official release? Even if that release was dub-only or had a worse translation?

charlieyu1• 3 years ago

Not only scanlations are unpaid, they are often met with copyright lawsuits.

chickenimprint• 3 years ago

Sadly, the big french scantrad groups have shut down in recent years

sn92• 3 years ago

I still prefer scans when I can find them.

Official translations often (1) censor a ton in both the text and the art to satisfy Western Puritanical sensibilities and (2) have drastically less cultural context than scans do --- scans often will have notes about references to myths/stories that manga are referencing or influenced by like creation myths or relevant stories/concepts from Buddhism or random bits of cultural stuff like why a character might sneeze randomly after being talked about.

I've yet to read an official translation that's as good as scanlations, and the notes are often more creatively integrated into the scans in a way that are useful when encountered whenever possible.

I still subscribe to the official translations out of some sense of moral obligation to send some money back to the creators, but scans are faster and higher quality often enough.

NoRelToEmber• 3 years ago

That's because official translations follow the rule of “Readers in English should be able to enjoy the story without thinking about it being a translation,” - an impossible standard.

Think about what it requires - to cut out or replace any signs of the culture it came from, that would cause any friction with the target culture. To trick the reader into thinking the world is one big homogeneous mush, where works coming from the other side of the globe don't contain anything that would so much as confuse them. Nothing that would require a translator's note or explanation.

It's not translation, it's butchery. It's making a sausage come out on one end, no matter what parts come in at the other.

Ialdaboth• 3 years ago

Not gonna lie, I was expecting something more in-depth, like the complete history of manga translation from the Studio Proteus/Toren Smith era and before, to now.

AdmiralAsshat3• 3 years ago

Japan has a longstanding bias against lefties, and many left-handed children were trained to use their right hand. So manga artists and their fans weren’t crazy about seeing left-handed warriors in the U.S. versions.

That's probably not the angle I would've chosen if the intent was to garner sympathy.

olddustytrail3• 3 years ago

That's not the username I would've chosen were it my intent to garner sympathy.

AdmiralAsshat3• 3 years ago

Oh no! You got me! My critique of an article has been undone by my irreverent username!

js22• 3 years ago

Gift link:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/14/books/manga-c...

appleaday1• 3 years ago

Who here remembers the debates we used to hold in the one manga forums? lol

gaws• 3 years ago

They're still happening.

How Manga Was Translated for America

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