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dear all,
I'm on my final year of a phd in translation and about to finish my last paper on the topic of amateur translation. so, I'm here asking for opinions. What do you think about manga scanlation? Good, bad, don't care?

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dear all,
I'm on my final year of a phd in translation and about to finish my last paper on the topic of amateur translation. so, I'm here asking for opinions. What do you think about manga scanlation? Good, bad, don't care?

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dear all,
I'm on my final year of a phd in translation and about to finish my last paper on the topic of amateur translation. so, I'm here asking for opinions. What do you think about manga scanlation? Good, bad, don't care?


If your are looking for brownie points there are always some light novels that qualify as decent to guys that aren't into anime culture and are "literarily" stronger than manga (some very few are like, no loli, no panties all over the place, no gropping, no harem and no senseless stripping and stuff). Sadly works like that are an oddity, but they are easy to trace once you realize an author is weird enough (Who knows? Natsuki Mamiya comes to mind, though the plot architecture is not usually smooth; there is also stuff like oregairu).

"Sadly" translating light novels is a lot more work than working in manga, though if one is actually good the biggest drag is typing the text and double checking spelling.

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no panties all over the place, no gropping, no harem and no senseless stripping

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[this message was edited by Maou on Mon 3 Feb 01:57]

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I'm interested in light novels but I have difficulties in understanding what makes a light novel different from a novel,
When I was in japan I noticed a lot of smaller books with manga art in the cover, but I never read one, so I have no idea,
Any place where I can find light novels translated by fans?

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I'm interested in light novels but I have difficulties in understanding what makes a light novel different from a novel,
When I was in japan I noticed a lot of smaller books with manga art in the cover, but I never read one, so I have no idea,
Any place where I can find light novels translated by fans?


Light novels usually are more lax about translation since they take a lot of time. There are some places that follow a "wiki" format (aka, one guy edits what he wants and when he wants, and other people can edit on top of it freely). There are places like Baka tsuki...... And while I mentioned "alternative" works without popular characteristic, "be careful" that roughly 80%~90% of the popular stuff is otaku pandering fantasies (soft core porn harem with chuunibyou storyline). There is "soft" stuff that was made popular recently, like Hyouka or Iris on Rainy Days or Kokoro Connect or Biblia Koshodou or stuff by Takemiya Yuyuko; though personally I usually prefer war / adventure themed stuff (like rakuin no monshou or rokka no yuusha).

Speaking off, there are some Jojo light novels. I wonder if they eventually become movies after been tweaked by Araki.

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Thanks for the link,
As i am new to the light novel scene can you tell me how you got into it and what is the Appel for you? Btw, I have on one of jojo light novels! The purple haze one, but it takes me forever to read it as I have to constantly check the dictionary.

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Again, I don't think that any individual act of piracy is necessarily bad in the big picture...just the culture.

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I'm interested in light novels but I have difficulties in understanding what makes a light novel different from a novel

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I subscribe to everything Polly said and even more. And the French perspective is even worse, as we have many more things available in France than the US ever had because of our particular period in the 80s that keeps going strong today.

Only one little tiny egoistic detail:
Lack of easily available fansubs pushed a lot of people of my generation to start learning Japanese to have access to good stuff. Once we were there, we started fansubbing/scanlating for some, and/or becoming official translators and working within the industry. We are quite many.

The thing with the overwhelming accessibility of pirate translations is that nowadays there is little reason to learn Japanese "just to read my favourite author". So while young people of today think they are expanding their horizons by reading stuff they couldn't read if they didn't pirate, they are actually narrowing their horizon of possibilities by barring themselves from the Japanese language, actual japanese culture, and (real paid) work opportunities.
Moreover, by doing that, they assure that people from my generation will keep getting work for a long time before being replaced by pesky youngsters, so: their loss, the industry's loss, but professional translators' gain.

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What do you mean by actual Japanese culture? I though manga were full of Japanese culture...I mean, there is more to Japanese culture than tea ceremony and flower arrangement...

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What do you mean by actual Japanese culture? I though manga were full of Japanese culture...I mean, there is more to Japanese culture than tea ceremony and flower arrangement...

Ah.
Eh...
What can I say....

Imagine someone who thinks he understands American culture even though the only thing he knows from the US are Beyonce and Jay-Z's music videos and Call of Duty, and nothing more.

That's more or less where most people who consume manga, anime and nothing else stand.

PS: This video is not funny because it is frightfully accurate.

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[this message was edited by mattfabb on Tue 4 Feb 03:34]

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Ah.
Eh...
What can I say....

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So while young people of today think they are expanding their horizons by reading stuff they couldn't read if they didn't pirate, they are actually narrowing their horizon of possibilities by barring themselves from the Japanese language, actual japanese culture, and (real paid) work opportunities.

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if they ever become available to me by any legal means

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Right now, it's up to them to create the alternative and make it affordable for everyone, otherwise fans will get their fix by other means...

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I am undressed from 80’s style and recreated with modern sexy and beautiful style that amaze you and feel never been experienced world before.

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Surely though there is a lot to be said about mainstream comic books and alternative comics in terms of how they relate to American life. They may represent reality through the filter of an author's pen/imagination, but they are not disconnected from it. Especially as fandom is a big part of people's lives, both in japan and US.

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This is a touchy subject indeed... I think it was here on the Cafe where I once read that piracy was a lot like masturbation: pretty much everybody does it, but nobody likes to talk about it!

Now, no matter how you try to look at them, scanlations are a form of piracy. There's no other way around it. I would never try to justify it. That being said, sometimes fan translations are pretty much the only way certain people could enjoy certain works.

While it would be indeed plausible that I spend several years and a hefty part of my resources learning Cantonese on the sole purpose of being fluent enough to read the Condor Heroes trilogy on its original language, the other option would be to download a pdf version of its English fan translation, by the way the only English version available of these novels. I guess it's a no brainer. I can see some people thinking the same for whatever obscure Japanese manga or light novel with near to zero possibilities of seeing a Western release.

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Surely though there is a lot to be said about mainstream comic books and alternative comics in terms of how they relate to American life. They may represent reality through the filter of an author's pen/imagination, but they are not disconnected from it. Especially as fandom is a big part of people's lives, both in japan and US.

Allow me to be blunt.
People who think they have learnt some Japanese culture by playing Persona or reading Yotsubato are at the same level as someone thinking he learnt American culture because he saw women dressed as prostitutes thrusting themselves at a fat sports car in some hip-hop video, or barebones 'Murica patriotism, shameless xenophobia and fetishism for weaponry in CoD.

Which is not to say what either saw was wrong.
There is a lot to learn from how an entertainment industry chooses to represent its culture in products for the interior market.

But I think we are veering away from the initial topic.
What's the plan/analysis of the PhD? Where do you start from, where do you aim to end up to, what's the path to go from A to B? That could help us give more accurate or helpful answers.

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[this message was edited by mattfabb on Tue 4 Feb 18:40]

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The PhD is about the evolution of the practice of translation, in light of non-professional translators carrying out a practice that traditionally has been the domain of institutions such as the church, publishers, the state, etc. which meant that what gets translated and how it gets translated is in large part determined by these institutions. Now, scanlation and other forms of un-authorised translation station form what is essentially an unregulated public sphere.

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My research shows how scanlation functions as a system and puts forward some ideas about why it does what it does. Curiosity toward Japanese culture is part of it.

In fact, I object to your metaphors, as you compare manga to video games or music videos, which are not the same thing. Manga are a more basic form of expression, cheaper and faster, so they are more attuned to trends and events in Japanese society. Videogames on the other hand are created by huge teams over a period of years, and they are financially risky unlike manga, so they may fall back on familiar conventions to manage that risk. Manga tend to be less constrained by economic consideration, as the cost of producing manga are always the same, while video games are determined by evolving technology in large part.

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This is a touchy subject indeed... I think it was here on the Cafe where I once read that piracy was a lot like masturbation: pretty much everybody does it, but nobody likes to talk about it!

Now, no matter how you try to look at them, scanlations are a form of piracy. There's no other way around it. I would never try to justify it. That being said, sometimes fan translations are pretty much the only way certain people could enjoy certain works.

While it would be indeed plausible that I spend several years and a hefty part of my resources learning Cantonese on the sole purpose of being fluent enough to read the Condor Heroes trilogy on its original language, the other option would be to download a pdf version of its English fan translation, by the way the only English version available of these novels. I guess it's a no brainer. I can see some people thinking the same for whatever obscure Japanese manga or light novel with near to zero possibilities of seeing a Western release.

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dear all,
I'm on my final year of a phd in translation and about to finish my last paper on the topic of amateur translation. so, I'm here asking for opinions. What do you think about manga scanlation? Good, bad, don't care?

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[this message was edited by nobinobita on Wed 5 Feb 08:24]

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dear all,
I'm on my final year of a phd in translation and about to finish my last paper on the topic of amateur translation. so, I'm here asking for opinions. What do you think about manga scanlation? Good, bad, don't care?

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[this message was edited by Seizya on Wed 5 Feb 10:39]

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As far as scanlations themselves go, it was easier to feel they were justified when they were tiny, grainy, poorly lit images of a decade ago, not the meticulously lettered, high-res beauties that are out there today. I'd like to hope that their quality might pressure legitimately licensed translators to step up their game, get things made available more quickly, and make obscure, older, or out of print titles available, but like the music industry's response to piracy, I think it's much more likely to encourage them to clamp down.

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I also get that in a good amount of cases, fan translations are way better than official ones.

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I am undressed from 80’s style and recreated with modern sexy and beautiful style that amaze you and feel never been experienced world before.

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dear all,
I'm on my final year of a phd in translation and about to finish my last paper on the topic of amateur translation. so, I'm here asking for opinions. What do you think about manga scanlation? Good, bad, don't care?


Lots of interesting points brought up. I hope you will make your final paper available for us to read.

Here's my two cents on the issue of scanlation, which in my case starts long before the advent of the internet (i hope this helps)

I spent the earliest years of my life in Thailand where Manga was incredibly popular (and continues to be) and almost everything available was bootlegged. You could get 300+ page tomes of all kinds of manga for a less than a buck. These comics were in every news stand right next to all the legit magazines and newspapers.

Those are some of my happiest childhood memories. Every week my dad would take us to the book store and we'd each pick out a couple volumes of comics. And man, they had everything, shonen, seinen, shoujo and even historic greats like stuff from Tezuka and Ishinomori. I read all the Shonen Jump greats of the time (goddamn, Dragonball, Slam Dunk, Hokuto no Ken, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Blues, Dragon Quest--so much good manga at one time!). I also read a lot of random Otomo stuff and I remember falling in love with GUNM and finding it years later in the US as Battle Angel Alita. I also read A TON of stuff that maybe a little kid shouldn't read (Crying Freeman, Mad Bull, Riki Oh etc).

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[this message was edited by mattfabb on Wed 5 Feb 11:57]

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I think this is a gross misconception, depending on how you would define a "good" amount of cases. This is coming from someone who works with English translations side-by-side with fan translations. In most cases where fans complain about official translations, they are either used to the unofficial ones and don't like change or don't care for how one particular thing was translated. Since you don't indulge in fan translations yourself, I can only assume that you've inherited this belief from people with a biased viewpoint.

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I like to think that I'm fairly neutral because I work with official translations, but when they aren't good it makes my life genuinely awful. I have indeed worked with "professional" translations that are worse than fan ones, but that's not the norm by any means. Fan translations so often just "give up" on lines and make something up. The errors that I see in professional translations are usually of the contextual nature. For example, a line will be technically accurate, but grossly inaccurate based on the situation. These sorts of problems almost always come up among translators that are native Japanese speakers, probably because they aren't interested in the material. In other words, they're simply translating the words, because that is their job, instead of actually taking interest in the story itself. Although this does come up depressingly frequently, it's not the norm and is usually ironed out by an editor.

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However, I can see where fans might prefer fan translations in some cases, because they're coming from the same place as the readers. Meaning that their choices on adaptation are going to naturally be more in line with what the fans would enjoy. There certainly are plenty of very skilled fan translators out there that put out high-quality work, but in terms of overall accuracy, the fan community loses out to professionals by a significant margin.

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[this message was edited by Seizya on Wed 5 Feb 15:20]

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Although I don't have anything to say in response, your manga life story was a fantastic read.

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Thanks for this interesting post!

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Was the scary manga gegege no kitaro, or perhaps yokai ningen bem?

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[this message was edited by nobinobita on Wed 5 Feb 17:18]

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The comic I read was made expressly for the purpose of giving children nightmares, more along the lines of something from Hideshi Hino or Junji Ito, but drawn much much more realistically. It's burnt into my memory. It's about a little kid (Oh hey! He's my age!) who has an imaginary friend that of course, no one else can see. The odd thing is that his imaginary friend is a very mundane looking old man. He seems friendly enough at first, like an affable grandpa, but as the story progresses he starts asking the kind to do stuff that makes him uncomfortable and as the kid resists his appearance slowly changes, his expressions become more perverse, his mood grows darker and then it culminates in a scene where his neck starts distending and spiraling around the room

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[this message was edited by karasu on Thu 6 Feb 03:00]