I've purchased every volume of OPM that has been released in english thus far, and this has been bugging me for the longest time. But from my observation, so many of the official translations are so vastly inferior to the ones I've read first on this subreddit. It's not so much a matter of accuracy, but rather that much of the awe, humor, and beauty of OPM feels lost in translation. There are the [color=#333333]https://trackeasy.fun/usps/[/color] [color=#333333]https://showbox.tools/[/color] little things like hero/monster names (VIZ translation: bald cape, fan translation: caped baldy), to the more important ones such as King's Heroism monologue to Saitama after the martial arts tournament being SOOOO much less impactful. "The Strong" panel was instead "The Strong Ones" which imo has far less dramatic effect:

compare this: https://i.redd.it/0kms2xivi3mz.jpg

with this: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/173/618/198.png

A lot of the humorous moments were also botched from VIZ translations. I could list a million more examples, but I'm moreso interested in knowing whether you guys who've read both felt the same? Or maybe I'm just being overly picky.

okay rant over, i'm just mad we didn't get a dust cover for Volumes 19-21 lmao.

Viz has never been good. They completely changed the names to everything when bringing over Gunnm for absolutely no reason, Ranma 1/2 is censored, Pokemon Adventures is censored, Maison Ikkoku is ENTIRELY missing a plot relevant chapter due to "Cultural sensitivity", Area 88 was entirely dropped due to the translator's personal feelings, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is censored and has names altered, names in Beastars are incorrectly translated, Dr. Stone and My Hero Academia have a lot of translation errors,...there's probably a lot more than this, but I don't think anyone has taken the time to actually compose a list detailing everything...and (Very recently) there's this.

However, unlike a lot of other translation companies, Viz mostly gets a pass because they are actually owned by a Japanese company, they're one of the "better" translators out there, and people see companies like Funimation and Crunchyroll as being the bigger fish that need frying at the moment.

[img]http://www.dragonflycave.com/wpay/mew.gif[/img]

I don’t buy much Viz, but I do own some of their stuff, primarily Natsume’s Book of Friends (under te Shojo Beat label) and Loveless. I hate the fact that both of these properties have had the honorifics dropped, especially Loveless since the Tokyopop version had those honorifics and they were important to the character interactions.
A few years ago I attended a Shojo Beat panel at Anime Expo and had the chance to ask a question so I asked them why some of their properties kept the honorifics ( I used Beauty Pop as an example because I own that series) and some others like Natsume Yuujincho don’t. I didn’t really care for the answer. I was basically told it was because reading manga was already hard enough as it is and they didn’t want to make it harder by making people remember the honorifics. The way I see it, if I’m reading manga is because I understand how it’s read or I’m willing to put in the effort. I absolutely hate when things get localized, especially names.
A lot of webcomics have the tendency of doing that and that bothers me to no end. To me it comes down to the same thing. If I’m reading a Chinese or Korean webcomic, I’m willing to put in the work to try and pronounce the names as best I can. I don’t need “help” by having them be localized.
Anyway, going back to Viz, it’s a little scary that they are doing that, and then they get offended because people prefer scanlations.
A lot of times, the scanlations are better done than the official translations.

Quote from catandmouse

I was basically told it was because reading manga was already hard enough as it is

Wha...did I read that ri-...WHAT?!?

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Viz is better at translations than Mangastream, I´ll give them that. Good riddance to those hacks. Viz is ok. Not great but hack-jobs are something else. Passable/10.

Good translations (l am talking about award-winning manga/anime English releases here) can 100% work without or with minimal honorifics. These often translate well to Sir/Mr or using a term of endearment and using formal or familiar language to differentiate social status or interpersonal relationships. There are also languages like in my case German where you can actually exchange them without missing a beat as we have our own "honorifics" that apply.
Just slapping around senpais in let´s say a work environment setting while translating is lazy and shallow for example. Viz did it well with Sanctuary in the 90s to name an example and almost got a Harvey Award. Some of their work really rose above the rest but this was obviously done for a niche type of audience.

Edit: Viz is 40% owned by Shueisha (Jump), Shogakukan has another 40% stake (Sunday) and the group that owns both has the rest. You read that right. There aren´t 2 big manga companies duking it out in Japan. The 2 top hydra heads are one and Viz is doing releases just like glorious Nippon intends them too. Kodansha should be the 3rd biggest one when it comes to manga. They are a sperate company and technically bigger due to being rather successful as a publisher of books. They have been printed through Kodansha Comics in the US for a decade so even they bow down to the empire of the sun.
Will "renegade" manga publishers even exist in such a homogenized world in another decade? We´ll see. Thx for coming to my Ted Talk on publishing. It´s a dog eat dog business. Only the top cat executives and the big-name authors actually make bank here.

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

VIZ has never been good. They said "Pay to read manga" but still region restrictions smh. So I decided to If it would come to my country, I won't buy it.

[color=blue]MILESTONES[/color]
1st: Death Note

Yes they are worse ,but just think about the competition that there usually is in popular manga between scanations .They try to publish with the highest quality they can and usually there is a team (that really like the series) behind proofreading it .

Whilst the actual legal company does just enough to get the manga out, without people saying that they have 'plagiarised' x fan-made translation.

Also this industry tends to under-invest 'overseas' (outside Japan) since almost all their revenue(profit?) comes from Japan/Asia and it is one of the main reasons some manga communities are slowly declining .

I usually find scanlations much better when it comes to translations, i don't know if it's due to experience that the scanlators get from doing it for free all these years i'm really confused 😕 , but you got to buy the officials to support the manga tho 🙂

Before you ask, image from Solo Leveling Wallpapers
[img]https://i.imgur.com/0NhPXtW.png[/img]

I usually find scanlations much better when it comes to translations, i don't know if it's due to experience that the scanlators get from doing it for free all these years i'm really confused

If I'm not wrong, Mostly scanlators are not native speakers and they using normal words not too old ones.

but you got to buy the officials to support the manga tho

You are right there.

[color=blue]MILESTONES[/color]
1st: Death Note

This thread is hilarious.

Dear OP, when you're reading scanlations that are almost always done by people who don't understand the language enough to read something without a dictionary next to them to look up nearly every other word... Yeah, Viz's translations are far worse.

Is Viz beyond reproach? Of course not. Be a publisher for 25+ years and you'll have your share of screw-ups. But in terms of publishing companies? They're probably the best one out there along with Kodansha Comics.

You know why scanlations usually seem better? Because the translator can be as liberal with his translations as he wants and nobody will ever, ever give a fuck. Commissioned translators will often have guidelines as to how to translate, but if they make blatant mistakes, they get fired. Scanlators, if they make mistakes? What real accountability is there?

Btw, the claim that scanlations are often times done better than the official publishings is... I mean, you don't know what you're looking at if you honestly believe that. There are a few scanlators that do work that rivals - and sometimes surpasses - actual publishers. But we're talking about the absolute top-end scanlators (Atelier Noir comes to mind) compared to the absolute dogshit companies (One Peace Books, who might as well be a scanlation group). They are very, very few & far between.

-GGpX

I run Illuminati-Manga. You're welcome.

Quote from GGpX

Btw, the claim that scanlations are often times done better than the official publishings is... I mean, you don't know what you're looking at if you honestly believe that. There are a few scanlators that do work that rivals - and sometimes surpasses - actual publishers. But we're talking about the absolute top-end scanlators (Atelier Noir comes to mind) compared to the absolute dogshit companies (One Peace Books, who might as well be a scanlation group). They are very, very few & far between.

If "so few" fan translations are of reasonable quality, then why do you have companies panicking and making statements literally saying "Gives us your money first, THEN we'll change to improve things"? At this point, Western translation companies can burn in Hell for all I care.

[img]http://www.dragonflycave.com/wpay/mew.gif[/img]

Transdude1996 is like the hobo that wants to play golf, jump the fence, swings a few balls here and there and has to run away before security comes, then comes claiming he's a golf player.

Quote from ichido reichan

Transdude1996 is like the hobo that wants to play golf, jump the fence, swings a few balls here and there and has to run away before security comes, then comes claiming he's a golf player.

Nah. Using that analogy, I'm more like the random guy receiving a free day pass at a golf course because the person who bought the pass wanted to get rid of it and didn't want to refund it for whatever reason, then I spend the day playing golf (Possibly get some pointers from the regulars), and decide if it's really something that I'd take an interest in and want pay for. At least, that's how I came to acquired an overwhelming amount of the games, books, and things I have, and I've recently resigned from buying newer stuff (Unless I'm really interested in it) because I already have so much to go through.

[img]http://www.dragonflycave.com/wpay/mew.gif[/img]

Quote from Transdude1996

If "so few" fan translations are of reasonable quality, then why do you have companies panicking and making statements literally saying "Gives us your money first, [b]THEN[/b] we'll change to improve things"? At this point, Western translation companies can burn in Hell for all I care. ...

What you're basically saying is, today is April 7th 2020 therefore that's why the sky is blue.

You do know that while both statements are true, neither have anything to do with each other... Right?

And you know why companies, whose purpose is to make money, are going on the cheap? Pirating and, as people in this thread have already demonstrated, consumers can't tell the difference between a good product and a shit one. People have shown that they prefer a translator/guesslator over an actual professional translator who has been vetted because the Guesslator's script might sound cooler.

-GGpX

I run Illuminati-Manga. You're welcome.

Quote from GGpX

And you know why companies, whose purpose is to make money, are going on the cheap? Pirating

You're saying that like piracy hinders sales when the exact opposite is prooven to be true.

Quote from GGpX

and, as people in this thread have already demonstrated, consumers can't tell the difference between a good product and a shit one.

Clearly you haven't been hearing about how the comic book industry is losing their home turf to the East all the while making progressive characters, political films, and literally telling fans to "Fuck off". Then, there's also the fact that "official translations" have come under much more scrutiny in the past years for several reasons. I don't know, but it seems like people do care about the quality of their products, or are you going believe that eventual narrative that Corona-chan is the reason REmake 3 and Final Fantasy VII Remake are going to be commercial failures.

Quote from GGpX

People have shown that they prefer a translator/guesslator over an actual professional translator who has been vetted because the Guesslator's script might sound cooler.

Or it could be because the fan translator actually knows what they're translating and gives a damn instead of demanding the public to conform their needs before they make any changes (Although, there are a few scanlators I can think of who do that).

Regardless, do you have a single fact to back that up?

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