This week's poll was suggested by Carmella. I'm actually not sure if this commonly happens anymore, but apparently it does because Carmella claimed "this has recently become a popular practice of a large-scale translations publisher." Didn't name the publisher though. The example I gave is from Cardcaptor Sakura.

You can submit poll ideas here
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: How do you feel about authors publishing the prototype / precursor after the series had officially come to an end?
Choices:
No opinion - votes: 822 (29.3%)
Cool, but I won't be reading it - votes: 427 (15.2%)
It's great! Will read it - votes: 1387 (49.5%)
I hate it as it adds nothing new to the story. It's just the rejected version of a series I liked - votes: 168 (6%)
There were 2804 total votes.
The poll ended: March 29th 2020

PS: I hope you guys are sheltering in place, as a majority of the world is dealing with the COVID-19

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

It doesn't matter (to me). Only localize when it makes sense of course but those are all valid decisions as that is how translations work. An example.
Changing Arisu to Alice Sakaguchi in Please Save My Earth makes perfect sense but going from Shinichi to Jimmy Kudo. That´s a no from me dog.


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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

No, the names don't match the characters and their cultures

Just look at Dragon Ball with Mr. Satan, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Gunnm with the basic characters, if you want examples of translators trying to "fix" a problem that doesn't exist.

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I again present to you THE worst take possible ↑ . The "fixes" are the only reason JoJo can leave Japan. The licensees even try to retain the musical connotations if possible. No worse example could have been used. None. Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken character names are changed to avoid lawsuits. The Prince estate would sue you into next week if you used the original names which are all over JoJo and they aren´t the only ones. One of the reasons Capcom didn´t bring their Part 5 game out of Japan. Prince was obviously still alive back then so things used to be even bleaker. And then came this (only in the OVA): https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-05-22/jojo-ani me-manga-sales-halted-due-to-islamic-images
I wonder how close A.P.P.P. and co came to a Fatwa... Dark stuff and the other reason why the English breakthrough of JoJo (still a niche IP outside of Japan of course) took so long. You never stop learning with me MU 😉. So yeah, think things through when adapting stuff but no one could have known here I think.

And not only did DBZ go with "Hercule Satan" in the end, his actual name is Mark. But no. Dragon Ball should have dared a moral panic on a prime time slot in the most Christain nation on the planet. Jikes. His main appearance was further during the Buu Saga that first aired around 9/11! Simply amazing.

Edit: Hm. I am as obsessed with 9/11 as RLM, aren´t I? I should do a word count on how often I bring it up on the web.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 10:58 am, Mar 29 2020

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

Names are generally not something that should be translated or localized.
Ever.
Nicknames and titles, are a different matter, of course.
You translate "Blackbeard" to kurohige, or svartskägg etc, but Edward Teach (his actual name) always remains Edward Teach, and always should.

However some names in manga/anime (and some other fiction), are intended to be beyond obvious in their meaning, with their meaning being quite relevant/important. They're, practically speaking, more like titles or indicators, though they are, nominally at least, actual names.
Hence there are some cases, where they should actually be translated.
This is not the case with "Yukito Tsukishiro to Julian Star", as cited in the poll.
It's a perfectly normal name (the kanji are chosen to have a meaning that is suited to the character, as a subtle little thing, as is often the case in manga/anime, but...), and is therefore not a name that is acceptable to translate or localize, in any way.

Oh, and there is one other case where translators should make changes to names:
Fixing mangaka errors, in how they spell non-Japanese names.
Much like fixing errors in non-Japanese writing, like if they write something in German, and you fix spelling and grammar mistakes ...unless, of course, it's supposed to be said/written by someone who isn't supposed to be particularly competently, such as a Japanese person. Not counting Japanese who have grown up in Germany like, say, Asuka. (or worse: the incomprehensible nonsense "German", spoken by the "Germans" in the anime K)
This doesn't, however, extend to "fixing" the occasional nonsensical name, that simply doesn't exist and wouldn't make any sense and/or sound ridiculous (e.g. in Hanayamata: "Fountainstand" isn't a surname and never will be)

Edit: I did a quick check, to make sure Mr. Satan was Satan in the original (and it's not like the translators/localizers would change the name to Satan!) and was very amused to see that the "Mr" is in the original Japanese.

Last edited by zarlan at 10:57 am, Mar 29 2020

I'm torn. A lot of my favorites when I was younger were very localized and I remember them fondly, but I prefer as little localization as possible.

I'm annoyed enough at them flipping the name order to Given Name-Family Name

Dude, the Hell is your problem?

Also, if you have to censor a product in order to release it in a certain area, then don't release it in that area. Game companies already figured that out half a decade ago.

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Absolutely not. I don't believe in all this "localisation" nonsense in the first place. Preserve the culture of the damn country of origin, ffs. Trying to pretend that "all cultures in the world are similar" is the reason that intolerance is still so prevalent in this day and age. How would English-speaking people like it if Japanese or Chinese people "translated" their names? I can barely even stand the switching of East Asian names to "the normal configuration" of given name-before-family name, though I've resigned myself to all official translations doing this anyway.

No, the names don't match the characters and their cultures

When it's a matter of censorship, I hold my nose, maybe throw up a little bit, and continue reading (and when it's a clear nickname with a real meaning, I'm just fine with it. Like Whitebeard/Blackbeard in One Piece, as mentioned earlier). When they just change a Japanese person's Japanese name because "oh no that's too ETHNIC for our majority-white audience!", yeah, absolutely 100% fuck you and I am never reading your translation of anything.

It's actually why I gave up mangastream's One Piece scanlations! Katakuri's name being "translated" via an obscure historical reference was the worst, dumbest bullshit I have ever seen in a scanlation.

You heart it here first folks. Dragon Ball, JoJo, Naruto, One Piece, Macross or... should have never left Japan! I wonder if the bible should have stayed in... I don´t know, is it Jerusalem? TONS of localization issues there. And does FMA count? Arakawa got some things wrong when she adapted some of the foreign names. And how would anyone translate Sandman/Soundman from Steel Ball Run? It´s impossible to get that wordplay into ANY other language.

DoA Xtreme 3 further had a region free official English localization since 2016 but let´s spread that marketing tactic of it being "too hot" for outside Asia further. It´s not like the 2 previous spin-off games flopped outside of Japan (and inside Japan) so Koei Tecmo decided to make a fake controversy to bait the Chads to fight for free peaches. We are talking about a game that released in the famously sexually open China here. Lol. I love it when idiots get conned out of their money and Germany´s USK gave the last 2 "beach" games an age rating of 12+. Nobody cares. Nobody ever cared or DoA 5 and 6 would need to stay in Japan too. That´s why this transparent as glass stunt was pulled. See MU, never ever will you stop learning with me.
The game is trash btw (2/10) and has about a maximum of 20 minutes of actual game content (outside the casino). Nealy all QTS and a broken volleyball game. They even cut features from the older versions it was a glorified port of. Did you also know that this is a free to play DLC trap? Were the Chads connected out of at least 60$ + shipping to play a game that is free on PSN 🤣 ? Oh well, if this pays for Nioh 3 then so be it. That´s how I played it out of curiosity.
Those games have localization changes btw (and not all the cast members are Japanese so that´s an added layer) to quickly touch on the poll´s topic again. I guess even the main series should have never left Japan then...

Jokes and educating content aside. Sandman/Soundman from JoJo Part 7 is untranslatable as is, right? https://jojowiki.com/Sandman
JoJo is clearly top tier when it comes to translation difficulty. The old scanlations certainly crushed people. This post just works TM.

Edit: The one above is the new JoJo wikia btw. Only it will get updates from the old admins.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 1:38 pm, Mar 29 2020

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

It would discourage me from reading the series.

Scanlators must be doing a good job of sheltering in place, seems like there’s been a steady stream of releases lately.

I’ve noticed this happening a lot with webtoons, especially the Chinese webtoons and I personally hate it. I can kinda see the publishers localizing names in order to facilitate things for readers, but I also believe that if we’re willing to read these foreign comics, we won’t be intimidated by foreign names.

No, the names don't match the characters and their cultures I know there are studies about this in media. That is, localization helps to widen vierwership, but personally as a child, growing up with elder family watching subs of like anything (e.g. Japanese, Mexican, Korean, Brazilian media), I never felt like the localized version was any better. It most cases it was worst, the longer I watched that type of media.

Yes there are multiple other reasons why localization is done, but honestly you always better off watching subs if you can or reading the original.

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Internet Lurker At Heart

I don't know who you think you're responding to (protip: there's an actual reply button when reading this as a news post rather than a forum thread) but just for the record, it's not possible for Arakawa to have gotten any names in FMA "wrong" because she set it in a completely fictional universe. Amestris is like a fantasy mishmash of all of Europe but vaguely centered on Germany, and Xing is a sort of fantasy China parody across a surprisingly small desert. These countries are NOT Germany and China. Any names she decided on for the people of these countries are correct for the history and culture of the world SHE created.

This is the reason why I hate it the most. I like to use the chance to learn be it by names or idioms.

Also something I hate with some animes (or more like I'm able to notice) is how they remove different ways of addressing a character when they're a great way of showing glimpses of the character personality or their relationship.