@Robby:
It stuck out particularly badly given Dragonball, and knowing that it is in fact supposed to be God. Without knowing either of those thing I dunno how bad it would be, but it was pretty rough with that knowledge.
WHen one of the strawhats says "I don't fear God" or "I'm going to beat up God", that has a very specific sound and meaning to it. "I don't fear the Sky Lord" loses a looooot of the meaning and punch.
@Kaiolino:
The weirdest thing about the Kami and Vassals stuff is that the Viz manga is rated Teen. It’s not advertized as an all-ages comic!
@FelRes:
Knowing that kami is a Japanese word, and knowing its meaning, does hurt its use in the English version. And even if you didn't know what it means, it's still an obviously Japanese word. It simply does not fit the setting of Skypiea. If it were a title used in Wano, or by swordsmen using Japanese swords, or by characters with distinctly Japanese influence (Jinbe, Zoro, etc(and you could argue Enel, but his design has a lot more going on)), then it would work I think. It matches. The way kami got used with Viz just breaks immersion, and is a constant reminder that they couldn't be arsed to just translate it somehow.
Hm. God, I still think, really doesn't work for the title of Skypeia's ruler because the connotations just aren't the same in English. Hearing Ganfor saying "I was the previous God of this land," in the scanlations the first time I read it was really freaking weird to me, because that term just does not work as a transferable title. It's too deified, but as Robby pointed out, something more mundane like Sky Lord isn't deified enough, because the leadership position does also have religious connotations. You almost wish Oda had made up a term from the same roots he got Shandora from that we could use.
That's why I'll tend to disagree with people who argue it to be "censorship" of the religious aspects like Kaiolino or call it laziness like FelRes. It's not an everyday conversational world like "friend" or "crewmate" that everyone should automatically know. It's a title for a foreign leader that, yes, uses an existing Japanese word, but is given connotations that clash with the direct translation of that word. I can't imagine Kami was a choice made lightly. I wasn't personally bothered by its use, but as someone who has railed against inexplicably untranslated Japanese in other areas of the story, I'm 100% sympathetic with people who were.
One Piece is an epic, world building-driven work of fantasy that's occasionally going to need its own in-universe terminology just by virtue of that genre. Finding a way to reconcile the original Japanese with the cues Oda took from other cultures in his world building, and with being understandable and coming across as well written in English is a nightmarish task for translators, and there's never going to be one perfect translation of the story that pleases everyone.