No, because they tend to bowdlerise stuff
when it reaches the global markets.
They still do get their grammar right,
which many scanlation groups usually
fail miserably.

Quote from Dragonfiremule

I find Viz generally has good quality scanaltions, but I don't like tokyopop at all. From what I've read of them, they baby everything, often cutting out swearwords all together so the sentence looks plain... awkward. Like, one time I read one of their translations and it was like, "What the do you think you're doing!?" or something like that. Incredibly annoying, and they also over price EVERYTHING.

Yeah, not that I've ever read it, but I heard that the dialouge/story of Battle Royale was completely rewritten by some dude whose name I cannot seem to recall at the moment.
When I read that, I was like, "If you fear it might not sell well due to the story and the dialouge; why'd you even bother to license and publish it in the first place?"

The only time they seem to put an effort into anything was in Fruits Basket, Chibi Vampire, and anything by CLAMP [so far that I've read, it's been awhile since I've read a few of CLAMP's works, though] and possibly D.N.Angel.

But I think they're going to die soon [hopefully], it's apparent that Kodansha hates them too, what with them ceasing their licensing agreement.

I agree, VIZ does tend to have very good translating/editing/quality skills. As does Del Rey [I've basically only noticed ONE mistake [typo] by them. ONE.

Hmm, I think that generally licensed manga is decent. I mean, they aren't that bad--they just water things down whenever possible (which irritates me). The only publisher that isn't good is Tokyopop. I avoid their series nowadays. But other than that they're generally good quality. However, when comparing them to fan-scanlations, it depends on which series you're talking about. For example, I like the Reborn! Scanlations more than I like the American books, but for series like Kekkaishi I like to read the actual book rather than the scanlations. (not saying they're bad--they scanlations are quite good)
The only publishers that I actually like are Yen Press and Gocomi.

[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/21.jpg[/img]

My favorite licensing companies right now are VIZ and DelRey. I also like Yen Press and CMX alright.

Tokyopop I absolutely hate. Their editing style is annoying - leaving text out of a box when there should be some, putting a giant amount of text in the middle of two boxes (I hate that)-, I've seen plenty of spelling and grammar mistakes, I hate how they change the covers, and I hate how they have that stupid Tokyopop bar on the front cover. Sure I have a few titles from them, but only ones from authors I really like. I'm so glad that their contract ended with kodansha.

So yeah, licensed manga isn't all that bad. As for comparing scanlations and licensed companies, it all depends on quality for me. there's some I'd rather have on my computer (mainly really long series) and some I'd rather own.

The only time I ever see a series as saved is if it involves a series that scanlators and publishers have either abandoned or never started in the first place. Scanlations are best simply because you never have to worry that they censored something out in order to put some arbitrary rating on the back of the book. Also as mentioned by many, the best scanlations always are better than the best legit translations.

Long rant this time.

I personally hate Viz for committing every censorship sin under the sun. Name switches, chapter deletions, dialogue changes, panel editing; they've done it all, especially to its more widely known titles. (i.e.-Dr. Slump, Dragonball, Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure, Shaman King, etc.) Booze is not "Super Juice," smoking is not a crime, middle fingers exist for a reason and deleting panels much less chapters and even volumes is not responsible editing.

I don't have as much of a problem with Tokyopop. They are just lazy; which oddly was a good thing for legit manga translations in a few ways. They were the first to sell non-flipped books and keep sounds intact and untranslated. That said, yeah they're translations suck but for the longest, so did everyone else's. Only relatively recently have other publishers stepped up to the plate with better translations. Still, they've censored their share of titles, roughly a quarter of how many Viz's, and I've already voiced my view on the subject.

Del Rey has the best if shortest record. That said, they have been tempted to censor and actually did so once with Air Gear. They may have released a second print after seeing the venomous reaction to atone but all that means is that they are testing the waters to see what they can get away with.

Really, having faith in any legit release is next to impossible. Faith in Scanlations is almost always rewarded.

yeah i like good quality scanlations much more than official releases, though i do like to buy some official releases if only just to support the mangaka in some way.

i dont have too much experience with tokyopop, but i have some annoyances with viz and cmx. not exactly censoring, but they change the dialogue way too much. normal speech is replaced with american slang and cliches...i guess to make it more relatable? actually cmx put so many cliches into a character's speech once that i couldn't even understand what the character was saying anymore. sorely disappointed.

i like del rey a lot though.

;D

I hate to say it, but there's a lot of irrationality in here.

I think you'll generally find that the work done by actual companies, which are far more competitive than the online community at large and are conducted by paid employees, have superior standards than the average scanlator.

The "slang terms" and americanizations that people largely dislike here are arguably the best translations, more often than not. Scanlators have a tendency to ignore a lot of the cultural difficulties and just make generalizations or literal translations, which leaves a lot more out than a simple slang word encompassing the same meaning will actually contain.

About a decade ago, there were serious problems with the domestic industry, but standards have radically improved. If you don't like an official translation, I think a very particular question needs to be asked first:

*Am I actually qualified [i.e. knowledgeable of the Japanese language and the connotations it contains] enough to assess the quality of the translation? *

You can't just compare two translations without knowledge and declare that one is more correct. Language isn't that simple, and unless you actually know the meaning behind the original, you're basically just deciding arbitrarily or by your own aesthetic standards. That's not an empirical measure of any sort, nor is it a justifiable claim. That's an uneducated opinion with no evidence to back it up.

To be perfectly fair, I know plenty of doctorate-level professors that translate Japanese literature and very clearly screw up on the most basic of things. It's quite evident when you actually read some of the titles in Japanese- heck, Murakami Haruki might as well be a totally different writer. But I'm getting off topic here.

The point is that the average company is going to do a lot better than the average internet volunteer. No offense to any translators out there, but generally you're probably less qualified than a person who is professionally certified- after all, they're good enough at what they do to get paid.

The only real valid complain is the release speed, I think.

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i wont argue that real translators in companies are probably more qualified than scanlation translators, but i don't think whatever the professional is translating is being put on the page word for word ;/

there have been instances of a lot of censoring and changing things. viz even used to openly admit awhile ago that they changed a lot of things and contexts to "make it more relatable" but it ended up just sounding weird and ridiculous.

i mean, in host club a character was made to say "that's so win!" instead of just plain english. i don't believe slang was in the original given the semi-serious context of the scene. and in mekakushi no kuni kanade gave a weird speech to namiki with random metaphors and references to poker chips or something instead of just saying "thanks for helping us out" o_o

normally even english publications nowadays leave notes at the end of the manga if something said in a context didn't make too much sense. none exist for those instances ;/

;D

Quote from gwkimmy

[snipped]

You do realize that I was speaking in generalizations, right? (this isn't supposed to be condescending- it's just a clarification)

You've listed a couple examples, and then immediately qualified them as unusual occurrences. You cannot take isolated incidents as rules when they clearly deviate from the norm.

And "making it relatable" is actually the job of the translator/proofreader. As I said, cross-cultural access is something that you can't always reach with literal meanings. The best translation of The Master and Margarita is generally considered to be among the least accurate, but it captures the writing style in a fashion that makes the original intention of the work- not the literal wording- accessible to the general audience.

It should be noted as well that shoujo manga tends to make a point of following slang terminology and speech in Japanese, just so we're clear... atmospherically phrasing like "that's so win" would probably be considered to generally be correct, although I can't speak to the legitimacy of that particular scene or even the manga as a whole, as I have no experience with the original phrasing in that particular title. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say one should ask if if they're actually qualified to evaluate a translation.

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Well, in a few instances you can actually tell something is wrong even without knowing the source language. Knowing English is enough. If something is downright incorrect in English, and the translator dosen't make clear the error is intentional, then the translation is clerly faulty. If fifteenth century characters use today's slang (unless it was that way in the original, in which case the translator should note it somehow) the translator is at fault.

Unfortunately, we all know people who are being paid to do a job they're clearly incompetent at. I've seen things in "professional" English to Spanish translations that would make your blood curdle. And while someone who doesn't know English might not know exactly what went wrong, they can often see that something is definitely not right.

I'm going to repeat the same line I did last time- I'm speaking in generalities.

If you take a sample from both casual volunteer translators and professional ones, it's obvious that the professionals will generally be superior. Obviously nothing is certain 100% of the time, but the likelihood is much greater.

As to incompetent translators- if they cannot express the concept correctly in the language that it has been translated to, you either hire an educated editor to correct the problem or you find a new translator. Anything else is an anomaly that manages to slip through proofreading.

Interesting note on the whole 15th century thing when it comes to manga- given that the average Japanese citizen is basically incapable of reading 15th century Japanese, it stands to reason that it's all in modern language, and that often includes slang.

In any case, you're speaking of a "few instances." The language itself proves that you're speaking of unusual circumstances- 90-95% of the time that is not the case, and as a result you cannot make a qualified judgment on the overall quality of the entire work, only the few aspects that you understand. It's like condemning a film you only saw 10 minutes of.

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It all boils down to motivation, companies want to turn a profit while fan translation groups just want to share the love.

I voted sometimes.
Both scanlators and publishers, do hit or miss works, IMO.
However, I find scanlations less strict than publishers when it comes to translating. (i.e. They're not as uptight as the publishers who makes things so censored that if it was meant to be funny, it wouldn't. O_O). But I sometimes find it good that publishers do that. So I'm neutral.

Well, I'll leave linguistics aside since I just feel like arguing on a subject that doesn't really bother me; what I hate is the censorship and sometimes even the quality of the pages. I can understand if you don't want to showcase under-age drinking or naked ladies in a shonen or shoujo manga, but when you import something meant for "mature" audiences then I feel it should be left as is.There are already some raunchy western comics out there (Poison Ivy wears next to noting in Batman), so why assume all +17 males get offended by a little skin, booze, and violence.

Also I've seen some manga just butchered by awful page quality. Threads of Time immediately comes to mind. I picked up a volume at the comic shop in the mall, and I ran into pages that were almost completely cut off. WTF?! Some manga are printed so small and so much text is jammed into one panel that I can barely make out the story.

So far, for my seinen fix, Darkhorse has been the best.

/rant

LOOK AT MY WITTY SIG!!11!!!!11

linguistic wise: well, it depends. i mean, let's face the fact: there scanlation groups who profit for scans yet they give a lousy work. some don't profit yet still lousy. although there are some who works well and in-timely manner. i mean when the raws are release, at any moment scans are ready, with good translation. but for some reasons, the english of those publishers sucks more than that of the scanlators. there's too much so called "censor law" applied. it degrade the quality itself. sometimes, the main thought of the story is lost because of this, which is bad for a mangaka, since reviews and comments are directed not to the publisher but mostly or ussually to the mangaka itself.

cost wise, i don't care about the cost, as long as the quality is good, like the manga Slam Dunk that i bought, it was good, and they were cleaner than that of the scans. i don't really care about the cost since its one way of supporting the mangaka. although scans are cheaper since it cost nothing, but like i said, i don't care of the cost as long as the quality is good.

time-wise, both are good. reason is that for those series that are popular, like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Bakuman, Air Gear, and more of those manga that are in the top 20, once raws are available, you'll just wait for a day or less to see the scans, which is good, unlike those publishers, which will take months... but when it comes to manga or series that are not that popular compared to the above mentioned series, im more on to publishers since they, sometimes, are the only one that even bothered to translate those series, although, quality wise, its poor.

now, speaking of quality wise, awhile ago i mentioned about linguistic side. this time its the cleanliness and the very image-quality of the series. sometimes, its better to rely on scans since they would really clean up those dirty spots without deleting scenes, lines or changing the artworks itself. but then again, there are scans that are worse than the publishers, or publishers worse than those scans...

so overall, whether scans or publishers, as long as quality is good, is enough for me. although it really is better to just read the raws itself (that's why, even though its a pain and bother, im studying jap language for this). so to those scan groups, scan them well. for those series that you started, make sure you continue them, not dropping them. for those publishers, i could say Del Rey and Viz are one of the best. keep up the good work (on some of your manga).....

Ras tel ma scir magister Veniant Spiritus Aeriales Fulgurientes!! Cum Fulguratione Flet Tempestas Austrina, Jovis Tempestas Fulguriens!!!