@HikaruYami:
I am… bothered, to say the least, by mangastream's choice of Dogtooth. But I'm downright disgusted by how the staff make fun of people in their comments who call them out on this blatant overreach. They act like everyone who disagrees with them must either not know Japanese or be a weeaboo. Their translation has never been the best but they've convinced me to turn adblock back on for their site over this.
(Like, it's not an inaccurate translation, but even a toddler could tell you, after giving them full context for the word katakuri in modern use, that a more thematic name if you reeeally felt obligated to translate it, would be "starch"
Though an actual toddler would probably go straight for potato because that's hilarious)
God damn, I actually went and had a look at some of them and…
As if anyone working on mangastream's releases think they have they have the right to be elitist.
Interestingly, googling the relevant terms again for the purpose of writing up this comment, the wikipedia page for the dogtooth violet no longer has the word katakuri on it at all. The only page with that is for the Asian fawnlily, a related species that was once classified together with the European dogtooth, but is now considered separate, so the connection gets even more dubious as we go.
But the biggest issue, I think, is a misreading of the intent of the original name. The crew is food themed. The names are food words, or derived from them. And in that context, choosing between connecting the name to katakuriko, an actual food word with a present and direct meaning, or connecting it to the name of a lily that was once used as a source of starch, but not anymore, the intended reading is clear. Stephen and Greg both rejected Dogtooth outright, and they're the people in the best position to be say what Oda intended.
And like, I have no problem with changing a character's name in a translation, if it's done for the sake of clarity. But Dogtooth or the name of any other lily doesn't clarify a thing to the English-speaking audience. They haven't made the intended "potato starch" meaning more obvious, they've obfuscated it behind having to google dogtooth to find out it's the name of a plant, then research further into that to find out that plant is a European variant of a Asian plant that was once used as a source of starch. Yeah, Katakuri is oblique in English too, but there are far fewer layers of research separating us from understanding that as opposed to a new reader with no context trying to make sense of goddamn Dogtooth.
They don't have a leg to stand on. If the argument is that is was done for clear meaning, there was no reason not to call him Starch or Potato, as silly as they sound. The argument they wanted a western name to keep with the crew's aesthetic doesn't hold water, because we have Linlin, Daifuku and Perospero representing eastern sounds with no changes.
Dogooth came about because they found a very, very loosely related word that sounds like it's trying to be cool, and thought it would fit with Katakuri's character design, which tries very hard to look badass. And you know what? I don't disagree with that, conceptually. I legitimately think the name, with all the images the words that make it up conjure before you know it's for a flower, fits how he looks. But it's obviously not what Oda was trying to say. It's a rewrite, not a translation.
And I don't actually care that they're rewriting things. Who caaares if a fan-made, pirated work alters the script? They can do that if they want. There are other groups out there that shoot for accuracy, and the official translation is more accessible than it's ever been. We're not stuck reading them and only them. The problem is that they act like their choices are objectively right and accurate, when all the evidence says otherwise. Mangastream is pretending to be something they're not. That's all there is to it.