Few years ago I would have agreed but not now. It's meaningless to read a bad translation as it greatly reduces the quality of original work.

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Damn, I wanted to click "Disagree" and clicked "Agree" instead. But I suppose it doesn't really matter, because my actual answer would be "it depends". When I'm desperate to know what happens in a manga I like, I'll take everything, even just a written description instead of scans. But on the other hand, I've seen scanlations that were so bad that I was thinking "If you can't do this properly, don't do this at all!".

I can bear bad quality scans, but I detest lazy translation. I've seen scanlations where half of the speech bubbles were just left blank, some words were just written in romaji instead of translated (something like "are you daijoubu?"), and the stuff that was translated was very hard to understand. It was worse than reading raws. Seriously, if you can't speak Japanese well, don't try to translate from Japanese.

Oh it matters greatly, since it is directly linked to whether the experience of the manga will be positive or negative. So I voted disagree and I'm surprised so many people actually voted agree.

I must say I wouldn't care so much if the cleaning, raws, font etc. are quite poor. But a bad translation is an absolute no-go for me. Words in manga are just as important as the expression of the art. If that doesn't go well together, then I'd rather not read it at all.

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"where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise" - Thomas Gray

Yes, I agree. Unfortunately, there are less people who understand that and this poll shows it.

I'm surprised at the outcome of the old poll, too, and a bit shocked, really. Kinda shows how indifferent and insensitive many people, especially young people, are today. Sad and unsettling, really.
But well, there were still many people who are bothered by certain things, and that gives hope.

The new poll... I clicked "Agree", though a bad quality scanlation is definitely not something I'm happy with. Generally, I think that if you can't produce at least a medium-quality scanlation, then don't even try.

I have yet to finish Part 5 of JoJo because of [Old Scans]

They are horrid. No offense to whoever did them but just no. I'd rather grab a good looking raw and use a kanji dictionary.

I prefer reading good raws (if I can find them) over a bad scanlation. I can't read any Japanese. Some genres it doesn't work and thus the series has to be skipped but in things like generic shounen or scenic slice of life the text might be a distraction from the artwork (sadly).

I like how there are so many people, who get what is important (i.e. translation quality, rather than perfect graphics), but...


So...
You want to see pictures, in those cases, rather than caring about reading a manga.
You'd be happy with an image gallery, instead of a manga, then?
...because without the text, that's all it is.

Not saying pretty artwork is bad, but if that's what you care about, why are you bothering with manga, at all?

.

Last edited by silkfish at 3:03 pm, Jul 13 2022

Agreed. I was reading a series until there was a slight slow down in releases. Fortunately there were text summaries available to satisfy my need for spoilers. Then a new "scanlator" came along and used the summaries to scanlate the rest of the series. Not sure how they filled in all those bubbles without line by line translation. I was happy to wait until the original group or real scanlator could continue the series. Now I have resigned myself to the fact that it will never be properly scanlated because some people are satisfied with made up scanlations.

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[Url=http://goo.gl/WMSVJ] k'><u>Looking for... shoujo with a canned peach confession.</u></a><!--url_type_2_end--><BR><!--url_type_2--><a href='<!--Auto_parse_begin--><a target='_blank' rel='nofollow' href='http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm''><u>http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm'</u></a><!--Auto_parse_end--> target='_blank'><u>Don't English Me I'm Panic</u></a><!--url_type_2_end--><BR><!--url_type_4.5--><a href='<!--Auto_parse_begin--><a target='_blank' rel='nofollow' href='http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3839'><u>Guess'><u>http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3839'><u>Guess</u></a><!--Auto_parse_end--> the Manga/Anime Name</u></a><!--url_type_4_end--><BR>'Shojo manga has no boundaries, and never did!’ -Shimizu Reiko, Himitsu - Top Secret fanbook interview

If an entire series is translated badly, it's worse than nothing and I won't read it. If a few chapters are badly done, but the rest are fine, it's better than nothing.

I voted "disagree." A lot of scanlators are hesitant to redo chapters that have already been scanlated, no matter how bad the translation is. Bad translations also tend to have a lot of clunky phrasing, and things like that really drive me up the wall.

Yes, BL reader here too! I'm only saying 'hard choice' after the experience of reading a certain manga done by a certain scanlation team which used a certain word in an interesting (but very erroneous!) way throughout the manga! I truly appreciate all scanlators' efforts, but it can detract from the experience of reading a manga when a drama/slice of life manga (for example) suddenly and unintentionally turns into a comedy due to poor translation! Sometimes, if the translation is obviously below average standard, I just wait for another team to scanlate the manga...

The amount of non-scanlators responding to the poll shows in its results. Poor quality work is NOT better than no release at all. Shoddy work means distractions everywhere and the inability to enjoy what you're reading.

Disagree. There has to be a line/standard even for those who speed scan.

Even those where the intent is to simply host raws and provide a method to transpose the raws with a translation e.g. raff, one should have standards as well (good quality raw scans and grammatically correct translations).

It's really out of respect for the manga, the mangaka, and the others who worked to ensure the raw publication of the manga....anything less is a demerit. I cringe at terrible grammar/translation. Crappy scans are really a pain too.

Sad to see that nearly 2/3 don't see it that way.

Last edited by mysstris at 5:52 pm, Dec 22 2015