We did this exact same poll 8 years ago, and residentgrigo wanted to do it again. So why not?

You can submit poll ideas here (and try to keep them manga/anime-related)
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: Do you read European comics?
Choices:
Lots, and more than manga! - votes: 81 (1.4%)
Lots, but I read more manga - votes: 314 (5.4%)
Just a little - votes: 1682 (29.2%)
Never have - votes: 3000 (52%)
Do film / TV adaptations count? - votes: 689 (11.9%)
There were 5766 total votes.
The poll ended: September 30th 2016

I didn't realize that "V for Vendetta" was a European comic...

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

This poll is interesting to me because when I translate I usually try to translate all of the sound effects into English equivalents. When I first started translating though, I didn't really care and just left them out.

Another thing I'm curious about is, how people like sound effects to be translated. As in, would they want ドキドキ to be written as "doki-doki", "ba-thump ba-thump", or "heart beating"?

I am astonished the answer "I don't care, make more manga ! Slave !" is not a possibility.

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My perfect sentence when someone suspect me : "I'm not suspect, it's not me I swear"

Generally Replacing the original sfx.
But, as having a good redrawer in every other team would be too much of a demand, I am/would be happy as long as they left the sfx In the margins, instead of messing up the chapter by trying to outdone themselves.

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[img]https://i.imgur.com/HphHlPh.gif[/img]
Tv Tokyo - Anime & Manga ~ MinatoAce

I hope that it weren´t Europeans who flooded the i never have option. My favorite (comic) author Grant Morrison is Scottish, but he (mostly) switch to US publishers in the late 80s.

In the margins, approximate to the sfx, as the original art should be left alone. That´s my main concern. Scanlations tend to do a better job with these than official translations...


Last edited by residentgrigo at 9:32 am, Oct 1 2016

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

I prefer to have the translated SFX replacing the originals, because it makes the reading experience flow more smoothly and naturally. Nobody wants to redraw/retouch all that crap though so putting the SFX next to the original is a nice compromise. Leaving them alone is fine for an amateur scanlation since Japanese SFX are mostly self-explanatory or pointless anyways. Putting them in the margins sucks and I wish people would stop doing it; they clutter the page and break up the natural flow when you're reading.

My bigger pet peeves with SFX are when they're simply transliterated or described like bad RPing (crap like "appears suddenly" or "startled"). The former is completely worthless since the reader won't understand them, and the latter sounds awkward and clunky. Both are a waste of scanlators' effort.

"Replacing the original" is the obvious and most convenient option (and what I voted for), but since it must be difficult for the scanlators (and since I'd rather the manga be released quickly than they waste time looking for a sufficiently skilled redrawer to manage the SFX), "As a note in the margins" would be my second choice.

Ah well, I could say a lot but I'm not going to, this is one of those topics that is of much more interest to those involved in scanlations than to the actual readers. The vast, vast, vaaaast amount of readers just want to be able to read what's being said, they mostly couldn't care less about anything else... sfx's included.

And yes, it takes just an inordinate amount of time to fully, properly replace sfx's.....time that is far better spent moving on to the next project (in most cases). If it's one of the (very rare) sfx's that you really feel strongly about including (i.e. it isn't just ridiculously obvious what it is from the context), yeah, just jot it down beside/under/wherever the original or put it in a margin.

Oh, also, anybody out there that's typesetting English over the top of the original sfx's and then actually leaving it that way........you know, something God-awful like this...

http://puu.sh/rucvo/68337bd789.jpg

Please, please just stop that. It (always) looks absolutely awful.

Reading comics growing up, I came to think that sfx are an important and integral part of the reading experience, and that the sfx adds important information or mood. Even the old old live-action Batman TV series would interrupt the action in a fight to plaster a big "Bang!" "Wham" or "ka-pow!" across the screen. I enjoy the thought they would give to decide whether to make an sfx "crunch" or "ka-runch" or "kr-r-r-nch" and the different mind picture each creates. I love how Wolverine's claws has a special sfx, snikt, as they extend, and how perfectly that sfx creates a mental picture of metal blades extending and just how long they extend and just how fast it takes for them to snap into place.

Thus, when I'm proofreading, I give thought to exactly how the sfx should sound, for example, whether an arrow striking would sound like thwack or thunk or thwip depending on if it hits something hard or hits a body or just nicks a person. And I really appreciate it when I'm on a team that likes to do a full scanlation, complete with sfx placed professionally on a nicely cleaned panel by a typesetter who gives thought to what type to use. But people have lives and so I understand it when we need to skip setting the sfx or even translating them at all, especially when the original sfx seem to be filling space or not giving any extra information.

On the other hand, there are series for which the sfx is a big part of the action and I get lucky enough to be on a team that agrees and is willing to do a great cleaning and typesetting job. I found a spot with the team that had been scanlating a martial arts gag series. I often work puns and jokes into the sfx and tailor the sfx to each character's personality. Does every (or any) reader notice that one character's effects are always a word that can also mean fapping, or that another's hint that he is effeminate, or that one always has a short a sound (attack, whack, slap, pat...) because he is a humanized cat, and so on? Probably not, but that's OK, it's my form of thanking the original artist, thanking my teammates, and leaving some hidden graffiti out there in the ether. I love my first reading of the finished product where I see how seamlessly the sfx appear as if the original product had been in English and I even laugh at the wonderful placement and font choice and color that the TS has selected. That kind of work takes a long time, but it's nice to have some jobs that you have a great time doing and for which you end up proud of the finished product.

SFX are absolutely not worth the effort. So in 90% of the cases, ignore them. In 10% of the cases, where there is actually some non-obvious meaning to it, put the translation on a margin.

Even SFX in bubbles should be ignored just to save the translator's time.

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I would say that to me it depends on whether the sfx are needed to understand what is happening or gives the manga an upgrade so to speak. I can't think of times where the sfx can be left out as they are really unnecessary and I would only leave those untranslated if I were a translator who wanted to give the best experience to the ones reading my translations.

SFX take a load of time to translate as authors put many in their manga, but if they are translated it gives a nice feeling to the translation.

As for how the translation should be implemented. I have liked it when the translations are put in between the frames of the page if replacing and redrawing is too troublesome. Replacing the original sfx with the translation is the most pleasing way for me, but the above suggestion is also good. I don't like having them put in a glossary at the end of the chapter because I usually skip them, because I won't have a clear picture of what was happening on the page the sfx appeared in.

Overlaying the original sfx is a no no for me though. I won't say much about it when I see it, but it's ugly. I can handle everything else from the options just fine, but simply overlaying the original with the translation looks really really ugly. At least if it's only with the sfx it's not so bad, but some times people overlay the original words with the translation when it's something like a frame showing a landscape and it has something written on it. Some people simply put the translation over the original words. It's better than nothing so I can't really complain, but the asshole in me say, "it's ugly".

Looking back at some of my past work like https://66.media.tumblr.com/4ae3242b6930b53692ef6719ac1ace1 3/tumblr_n8ub13tEeJ1tfsfhpo1_500.gif

This poll is actually super handy as someone who typesets manga. In a lot of the projects I work on, we don't clean the original SFX, so it can be tricky figuring out where to stick the translated ones. Lately, I've been placing the translated versions by the original SFX, in ways that I hope don't impede the original art too much, using a similar font. I totally wasn't expecting "in the margins" to be the most popular response, especially since I personally am not a fan of putting effects there unless absolutely necessary, so I'll take that into account in the future.
All-in-all, a bit of a surprise turnout.

prefer is not the same as being fine with/tolerating. I prefer replacing original sfx but I'm completely fine with in the margins and overlaying the original sfx (it's like the halfway point b/n margins and replacing).

...That moment when you realize you've been a member for over 8 years.

Anyways, I like the sound effects mentioned in the margins since often they are so interwoven into the artwork. I don't remember if I voted the same 8 years ago because I've since been able to read Japanese sound effects.

I prefer the SFX to be translated. If the scanlator team can replace them then all the better. If not then I like it to be beside the original SFX. If they use a similar font to the original Japanese then even better. Because it makes it easier to follow the plot with the same flow that the mangaka intended for the readers.