No offense guys, but unless you know much about Japanese or translation, I'm not so sure you're in a position to be saying what portrays culture.

No offense to you, but that's obviously not the case. If a country differs greatly from your own then it's quite clear where the cultural differences are. You don't need to be an expert to see it.

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I like your thinking. Totally agree with everything you've said so far.

Some words have no direct translation ... why on Earth do you think we have loanwords in the first place?

Lets pick a easy example, Doppelganger that is a word taken from German and if you are going to argue about it referring to a creature ... how many language specific variants of Elf exist? How about "Internet"?

Languages are living beings sort to speak that are in constant changes and evolutions, loanwords are a example of that, in the Japanese case there are specific honorifics that cannot be directly translated and by their omission it removes a social content, reworking then is more often then not a impossible task with dubious results.

Unless you are so opposed to be subjected to a foreign culture you reject EVERY element that have no direct English translation ... and I speak as a non-native English Speaker Person, English is about as foreign to me as Japanese.

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What part of "Please do not put in huge images!" did you fail to understand?

Unless, they are deaf and need subtitles...

...Shinigami isn't an honorific though. Localization =/= excising all aspects of culture.

I agree with that for the anime half of translations, however with manga you dont get the voice, tone, ect so leaving in honorifics adds that tone/voice in. I agree there shouldn't be TL notes in anime or manga on the page leave them in a separate page in the end. there are some points I would argue with that. certain words and phrases shouldn't be translated such as names of organizations and things like that. in the official Vis translation they took a made up Japanese word and translated it to a made up english word, "Monstrils." that's the kind of crap you get with over localizing. the reader should not loose information from the original TL but the reader also shouldn't need to translate the scanlation themselves either. I personally like certain things not translated like shingami to death god (at least call it a soul reaper or just reaper) but i think fansub groups have taken those few instances and applied them to everything. i would rather an under localized thing than a over localized version or else you will start seeing people localizing the name of 'Kurosaki Ichigo' to John Smith. Sure it seems far fetched but its not that far off if some official translations are translating names of organizations for localization.

As a matter of fact, I do find it offensive that someone who's read some manga thinks that honorifics are a necessary part of "culture" when it'd get things across just as well without them. If you're looking for culture you'd be better off looking at the actions of the characters than a title attached to the end of someone's name.

Here's something to think about that's totally relevant here. In an episode of a TV show I watched the other day, a character who didn't know Spanish very well (but thought she did) was hired by a Mexican actor as a tutor. She assumed that because he used the less formal "tu" instead of "su" that he was coming on to her, when in fact tu is used with just about anyone you can be friendly with. Similarly, I have a feeling many readers of manga may not understand honorifics as well as they think they do.

i have a book i wrote full of Japanese names and also uses as a dictionary for each cultural stuff and words i learn. i am not a beginner at this. i play visual novels and games, watch anime, read manga and loves their art and music, clothes, house layout etc. i like calling some characters using honorifics because i like to call them that. even if someone is a beginner in this they can try to learn and love the culture or just reject it. i don't reject any country's culture or language. in my place we don't use mr./miss. we just use honorifics or just use their first names. but that doesn't mean i call people of other countries this way. i use -san or mr. where appropriate. why do you assume all the other people are total newbies or hates the honorifics? what if the translators who use honorifics are using them because they like it that way? they are also making people who read their stuff eventually like to learn more of Japanese culture and language. what if manga too is fully changed, as renaming characters, cutting culture words or stuff, using other English songs like some anime dubbing company? at least leave manga alone. the English manga publishers can decide if they want to remove the culture stuff. the scanlators love manga, that's why they are sharing it to all the fans. they have the choice of not including the honorifics and words from the translations before typesetting in to manga. if you truly love the culture not just for the manga/anime you would not remove the culture words. only exclude them if you feel that a particular manga don't sound right with honorifics.

Only amateurs think they can decide for the reader what he is supposed to know and what not.

this is a insult to the scanlators. as i said it's their choice to include the honorifics. if you don't want to include honorifics in your scans it's your choice. but why are you trying to convince others by using sentences like the majority are naruto readers and others? i don't read naruto. i didn't want any arguments when i first commented in this poll. i was just stating my opinion. the fans are not forcing anyone to bring best quality of scans or transitions. we just want to read our favorite series.
anyway this topic is already over. the scanlators are the ones that decide. so just leave me alone already.

This is exactly the fan girl attitude I was referring to that created this ridiculous trend. They don't understand how ridiculous they sound, when they are defending broken English and half translations. If a scanlator uses google translation and puts it into his scanlation, wouldn't your manga heart cry and you protest against this nonsense? It is the very same feeling when I read a honorific diseased series. The goal of a translation is to create a seamless reading experience for the reader, similar to what a Japanese would experience when he was reading a Japanese book or when an American experience when he was reading an American book. What you are replicating is only what an foreigner reading a Japanese book with low translation skills would experience.

is this website allowing this kind of insult? i told you to leave me alone.