some bitching, some ranting, and a wee bit o' fangirling

[insaneneko]

Oh my god. I shared the Loveless preanime CD thing that I had grabbed from seiyuu with a friend, adding a link to Obsession's scanlations of the manga for background. She wrote back saying she tried reading the first two chapters and was confused. She wasn't sure if it was her poor tired brain or Kouga Yun doing her incomprehensible storytelling again. Curious, I downloaded the first file and read it...and was put off by the bad English. Kouya Yun's style is already a bit sketchy, but this English it only makes the problem so much worse. I decided to grab my Japanese volume 1 and compare the scanlation with the original...and just from the first two pages I found so many mistakes and problems it completely annoyed me. I mean, the translator left out simple adjectives and adverbs, mistranslated sentences, had some simple errors...along with the bad English it just amounts to crap in my book. GAH. I wonder if any other groups are scanlating this? *sigh*

One thing I am very excited and annoyed about...I read the newest Fujimi Orchestra book and it was so damn good! I just blazed through it, ranted about it at a friend, then reread it a couple of times. I finally looked at the insert in the book, and it was an announcement that a manga version was coming out in celebration of the series' tenth year anniversary in May! It's coming out along with a side story book written for the book and not for any magazine. ^_^ I totally look forward to that...but what irritates me is that I desperately want to read the next proper book in the series, but looking at the track record of releases it looks like I won't get it for at least another four months...GAAH!!

I kind of want to listen to the drama CDs...I guess I should go search for them...

Speaking of drama CDs, I am very very curious about the drama CD of Soshite koi ga hajimaru (And the love begins), a wonderful novel by Tsukimura Kei. I had already really enjoyed another novel of hers and was looking forward to reading this one, and I was not disappointed at all. She just has this way of writing that feels so fluid and gentle yet still a bit sorrowful and sad...a truly lovely novel. I so need the sequel. I must fight the urge to collect every book of hers out there...

I stumbled across another Valentine's fic at a Japanese TezuRyo fanfic site 3min called My Sweet Darling...and it isn't very sweet. Why the hell am I coming across these rather bittersweet Valentine's Day stories?? I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised about reading this kind of story at this site because this author tends to write a rather callous and um...libidinous Tezuka...In any case, while it isn't very happy I thought it was pretty good...I like the repetition of phrases and the way the sentences seem to lead nowhere and the disturbing eroticism of it all.

Comments

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

I tried Loveless... and like your friend I did not like it.

Guess why?

You pegged it. Very bad translation. Listen, English is not my language. If it's awkward and stilted? I just drop the thing... I don't have the patience to try to understand WHAT they might have tried to say.

Remember when I congratulated you on that Thief scanlation? That's why... because it was so fluid, it could (the story) have been written in that language first, not Japanese.

I MIGHT give the anime a try since many seems to like the manga BUT the manga itself is NOT a very good job (translation-wise) and in fact, bad jobs like that can actually KILL a manga faster than having a Japanese version only...

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I know there are a lot of bad scanlations out there, but sometimes I just have to rage...

I know exactly what you mean about bad scanlations...I've tried reading some to see if I'd like them enough to buy them in Japanese and was just totally turned off by the English...totally counterproductive. >_

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

I know that some people seems to think a few years of studying Japanese and with a dictionary, they are able to do a translation.

That sound you're hearing?

Me laughing my head off. Ok, I don't speak Japanese but I'm bilingual. It's NOT that friggin' easy to take one manga, be sure you totally understand the meaning the artist meant to imply and then translate that fluidly in another language. A lot of time? It's awkward and you then wonder if the mangaka is strange or not too good or having a weird sense of humour OR if it's just a matter of bad translation.

More often than not? It's the last option that is the culprit.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I can't laugh about it. I've seen the painfully awful things that have been done with someone without enough of a grasp of grammar and armed with a dictionary...bad...

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt because I know I make mistakes when I translate too, but when something is so bad...

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

Oh... I don't laugh because it's funny.

I laugh because some people are quite delusionized (sp?)... translation is an art. No amount of dictionary/kanji manuals will help you do a good job if you're a starter in a new language. If you've been seriously going at it for many years and read enough about the culture to get puns and cultural references, then okay you may be successful...

Otherwise? You're just turning people OFF those bad scanlations... like Loveless.

Dammit, when I do those French to English summaries for Haru wo? They are HARD to do and I've been speaking/writing English for 20 friggin YEARS!!!!!

I did nearly 2 years of part-time translation studies at McGill (University in Montreal)... I studied computer programs at Concordia University... I worked in an office where I had daily dealings with across-the-country staff (who only spoke/read English)... AND translating French to an English version was HARD...

So yes... I find that a lot of scanlations are awkward at best and kill the interest in manga. They should SUMMARIZE instead of doing straight-forward translation.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Well, you're translating out of your native language, which is usually harder anyhow. Impressive credentials. I just translate fanfics and doujinshi and manga...but I've known Japanese all of my life (tho not that well for a part of my life when I rejected all things Japanese--I guess that was the extent of my youthful rebelliousness) and have formally studied it quite a bit as well so thank goodness I'm not a beginner.

I like the concept of scanlations, which is why I participate in creating them. But I nowadays I don't seek them out and read them unless they are from the few scanlation groups I think are pretty decent or I get sucked in by some other method (yaoi daily, recs).

[teletha.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine, and recent Loveless obsesser missdeep was complaining about the very same thing with Loveless. Though she's not nearly as fluent as you are, she was able to tell the how bad the translation was. Not to mention the English isn't very good either.

I never liked Loveless, since I just couldn't read it. English is my first language and I just couldn't tell what the hell was going on.

I do honestly wonder how accurant most scanlations are. A lot of them have akward English that doesn't flow well, but until recently I always figured at least the translation were mostly correct.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking, I can do a better job than this. Kouga Yun's writing is already a bit fragmented, it just can't support this kind of awfulness...

I don't know how accurate most translations are because I don't really want to delve too deeply. I do notice really obvious mistranslations every so often, though.

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

I think they should do summaries instead of straight-forward translation. They could probably be a lot better if they understood the story without all that awkard English (which is very painful to me). Personally? It totally turned me off BUT I will give the anime a try. But it's starting with a bad reputation in my book and I know now it's squarely the fault of the translators, not the mangaka...

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

(It's 5 am. Why am I up at 5 am?? >_<)

I'd heard a bit about the groups doing Loveless leaving something to be desired but I didn't realise it was that bad...I adore Loveless so the thought of people getting turned off because of inadequate translations makes me cranky.
Guess it means I should get cracking on the Loveless Project, huh. This gives me hope that my crappy translations might not suck quite so much. XD;;

BTW, thanks for the heads up on the TezuRyo site. I'll check it out once I'm actually awake and coherent.

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

Here here...

I'll offer myself as a cobaye. My experience trying to read the thing was abyssmal. You can't do worse...

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Thanks for the vote of confidence. ^_-

(Am still working at the Yukikaze review - I keep getting distracted and re-watching it.)

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

Oh... being distracted by it is good.

You know I've done FOUR AMVs of Yukikaze, right? (plus one sick-fuck x-over :P).

And a painting?

And even wrote 2 ficlets?

Yukikaze is dangerous for one's health ^_^

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I demand in future that these things come with warnings! :P

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

*lol*

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

You watched Yukikaze??

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

^__^

Don't you know?

I broke her mind a few days ago... I sent her the Jack/Giroro x-over AMV. I wonder if she's gotten over that shock to her system :)

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

THE WORLD WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN! *sobs*

It does make re-watching the series an...interesting experience (need to stop cracking up at inappropriate moments).

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched that AMV so I don't delve into your posts regarding it...

Poor thing. She sounds traumatized...

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

Aid and abetted by Manon. ^_^;;

Am in the middle of typing up a review but it keeps devolving into fangirl babbling when I'm trying to sound reasonably intelligent. At this point I might just throw in the towel and give in to the arm-waving. XD

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

and arm-waving is good.

BTW, it's all part of my nefarious plot. To get Japanese-knowledgeable fans so I don't die in WTFness when #5 is out ^______^

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

*laugh* at least it's not 3:30 a.m. (that was me last Saturday)

Loveless is pretty shitty. I didn't realize it either until my friend was wondering if it didn't make sense or her brain was dead. I think almost anything else would be better. Are you actually translating the manga itself? I know you were doing the extra booklets...

Er...enjoy the fic...hehe...

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

Kouga Yun's writing can be pretty ambiguous but it's not that bad. >_<

I mean to translate the entire series eventually (though at my current pace official translations may be out before I finish. Eheh) because my friend demanded I explain what the heck the series is about after I conned her into buying it despite not knowing a word of Japanese. XD
I did the first chapter or so a couple of years back...it's lying around in a notebook somewhere, should finish editing and post it.

As for Japanese fanfics, I find I enjoy the Tanabata stories more than the Valentines ones. And Tanabata is supposed to be angsty! ^_^

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

*laugh* You want motivation? Download the first chapter from their site and compare just the first two pages to the Japanese....yours will be better and the world will be a better place for it.

Glad to hear someone's doing a translation because I was temped to...

I like the really sappy stuff that gets written for Valentine's Day (because it's a nice break from the angst I wallow in the rest of the time), but the two I've read so far this year are far from that. >_< I don't think I've read that many Tanabata fics, though...

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

I'm too scared to look at the atrocities committed against my favourite series. ;_;
Don't let me stop you if you feel like translating it - I'm sure it'd be a lot better than what I can churn out!

Maybe this year's Valentine's Day was particularly sucky for the writers? XD
I love raburabu fluff but I'm not as fond of Valentine's Day related stories (except Sakiho-san's AtoRyo one which was hilarious)...I like fanfics that incorporate Japanese traditions and celebrations more so I wish more authors would write Tanabata-themed stories.