I'm thinking about buying some licensed manga, but since my experience is pretty much null, are there any publishers who you would never buy from due to a poor conversion from japanese to english. Be it, awful translations, a lot of censorships, missing pages, whatever. Which publishers would you rate highly (why?) and which would you never buy from and why?.

I'm not the pickiest person out there, so take this for what it's worth.

I've bought quite a bit of licensed manga, and while there are certainly scattered mistakes, overall I've been pretty happy with the quality. There is no publisher that I simply won't buy from, though there are certainly some irritating changes (i.e. Jimmy & Rachel & other name changes in the licensed version of Case Closed).

As far as I can tell, within each publisher's releases, the number of mistakes can vary from volume to volume or even chapter to chapter. This is probably more a reflection of who's working on it, how much experience they have, how rushed they are, etc. than whether a publisher is "bad" or "good".

I'm sure other people, who feel their favorite series has been "slaughtered" by the publishing company, will disagree. 🤣

"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Viz is usually good at translating names and stuff like that. Not much censorship at all.

Ooh, hard questions.

Unfortunately, no publisher is just plain 'bad'. Manga publishers frequently do great work, but they also rarely have butcherings. Other than Shonen Jump titles (most are high on edits, but Shonen Jump Advanced titles are okay), there isn't much you actually must avoid, unless you happen to like nudity, because that gets censored all the time.

Avoid:
(1) Karin (re-named to Chibi Vampire shudder. Poor dialog ruins one the most powerful scenes in the manga). Just D/L it.
(2) Tenjo Tenge famous for being edited for a younger audience than the manga is meant for.
(3) Mangas on hiatus! It hurts to never finish a favorite manga! http://community.livejournal.com/mangacast/486726.html
(4) Any edits on this page you find too extreme: http://www.animeondvd.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/12380/

[img]http://myanimelist.net/createimage/SirGir.png[/img]

So far, I've liked licensed publishers' work, it's usually as well, or even better in quality than scanlators' work. Some of them even reedit the sfxs.

Overall, Viz is good, they may change a few names here and there, such as Ryuki to Light in Death Note, but it's almost identical to what the scanlators would do. Tokyopop is also decent. Don't know any that really are bad.

Manga isn't really censored. It's anime that gets censored really badly.

Quote from SirGir

(3) Mangas on hiatus! It hurts to never finish a favorite manga! http://community.livejournal.com/mangacast/486726.html

That list is rather out of date. Yotsubato!, for example, is being released again - vol. 4 has been out for a while, and vol. 5 is due out in October.

"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

i haven't read through all replies yet, but can people post what mangas should be avoided in their opinion, if they feel some manga's aren't up to scrath rather than a specific publisher. Thanks.

Quote from TofuQueen

Quote from SirGir

(3) Mangas on hiatus! It hurts to never finish a favorite manga! http://community.livejournal.com/mangacast/486726.html

That list is rather out of date. Yotsubato!, for example, is being released again - vol. 4 has been out for a while, and vol. 5 is due out in October.

Yeah, that's true, but its the best we've got 😛 (right?) I'd hate to think if it was recent that it might be even longer...

Quote from reanimated838uk

but can people post what mangas should be avoided in their opinion, if they feel some manga's aren't up to scrath rather than a specific publisher. Thanks. There really isn't that much you need to avoid, the mistakes are largely forgivable, and as TofuQueen said, even a single title isn't consistently bad. People tend to be overly critical about the publishers. You're safe.

[img]http://myanimelist.net/createimage/SirGir.png[/img]

Yeah, I checked that link SirGir gave to the place that kept track of mistakes, and I checked the Viz section, because most of what I read that's licensed is licensed by Viz. And the results: Nipples basically get edited all the time, the F word will be changed, names may be changed to what they are in the American dub of the anime, penises get cut out, the middle finger will be edited out so it looks like a fist, manji may or may not be edited out because they look like swastikas a little, but they might just put an editors note and explain it, crosses will have the arms removed so they don't look like crosses (except in D. Gray-man, because that wouldn't be possible, there are just too many crosses, but that's what you get in a manga about priests.), and that's basically it, for Viz at least. And you know what? I can live with that. Editing out breasts, penises, some cursing, and crosses doesn't ruin a series, as far as I'm concerned. It's nice to know that manga isn't really edited as horribly as people say it is in the licensed versions.

Quote from reanimated838uk

i haven't read through all replies yet, but can people post what mangas should be avoided in their opinion, if they feel some manga's aren't up to scrath rather than a specific publisher. Thanks.

Avoid early volumes of Mahou Sensei Negima ^^ Quite a bit of change

Quote from Juneau

Quote from reanimated838uk

i haven't read through all replies yet, but can people post what mangas should be avoided in their opinion, if they feel some manga's aren't up to scrath rather than a specific publisher. Thanks.

Avoid early volumes of Mahou Sensei Negima ^^ Quite a bit of change

Yeah, some of that early dialog made cringe too.

Buying Negima vols 1,2,3 in the omnibus edition as opposed to single volumes is a no-brainer. (it's the same price for the omnibus as one volume! Fantastic deal)

[img]http://myanimelist.net/createimage/SirGir.png[/img]

Well over the years most publishers have changed their ways in editing manga to the US.

Over the years, for example Tokyopop, did horrible job by changing most of the names of the characters in Initial D and cutting some scenes. After complaint's from fans about the changes, a few years later Tokyo Pop released their "Original" manga line, in wich all of their new titles would come in their original formal (right to left) and try to leave intact the original names and cut out weird scenes to the american puclic, by making notes on the back explaining the why of it.

Another example over the years is Viz, when I used to buy the 1st edition of x 1999 they were in normal left to right formal, as well as many other series, and over the years they now respect the original format right to left, plus they've created several lines for manga lines so they can now actually stop butchering manga to make it suiteble for kids, when it's not aimed at little kids.

So some of the most edited manga are about those published about 5 years ago and back. I'm just gratefull that now a days extreme manga editing is not done anymore like before~

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/Tsuki_Usagui/Forums/DancewithmeSmall.gif[/img]

Quote from Imitorar

I can live with that. Editing out breasts, penises, some cursing, and crosses doesn't ruin a series, as far as I'm concerned. It's nice to know that manga isn't really edited as horribly as people say it is in the licensed versions.

I don't like any censorship. Takes away from what the mangaka intended.

And the high-rate of nudity censorship just makes us Americans look like prudes. Show me the money! (and other things)

Just a bit too into bad things

(and part of the yaoi scanlation group
Terribletrio!)

I'm not fond of censorship either, and of course I'd rather the volumes be completely unedited, but if that's all that's being taken out, it's not worth doing what some people were doing, which was boycotting entire COMPANIES over one edit. I'm sorry, but such minor edits aren't worth that response, and I would definitely still buy the volumes. Of course, if the story was ever altered, that company would never get my money for that series ever again, unless they stopped it and fixed it, but just some minor artwork edits? I don't think it's worth making much of a fuss over. Maybe a little fuss. So they know I'm displeased. But not even an regular-size fuss.

Hey people they the "Licensed Publishers" take their work in censoring a little to far sometimes. but at least vis did not put bars on ranma, like CMX did on Tenjou Tenge girls. I mean not even out of shower and bar on and the such.

If your after manga try the library or even tokyo pops main sight.

love and peace