Slow forum load is sl_ooooooo_w.
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Oh god, now my computer beeped at me. What the fudge is with the lag on this board?
@TakinawaTonfa:
Viz has been very faithful to this manga, I think some people like to just like to blow tiny things that they don't like completely out of context.
Allow me to point how you are obviously trying to distort the issues of debate; not once do I speak of "faithfullness", since it's assumed that VIZ Media by default be faithful to the manga.
The topic at hand is adaption quality; generally, VIZ Media's artwork touchup is good, the durability of their publishing below average (but with a below average price), "extras" average, sound effect translation/editing mediocre, and adapted dialogue all over the place, ranging from poor to good but rarely excellent and worthy of the outrageous praise some of the folks here are giving it.
@Ubiq:
Because American tastes and Japanese tastes are precisely the same and the relative success of a property in one country should automatically translate into another.
Typically, that's assumed to be the strongest trend; Japanese success is what anime/manga companies use as the primary basis for evaluating success in another country, followed by a test market and finally the internet in last. I would surmise this to be related to what omae said a while back; children are children regardless of where they grow up, even if adults are different. What would entertain a child in Japan would probably entertain another child in a completely different country with a different culture and values.
@Ubiq:
A great example would be how The Simpsons charged right into Japan and became the massive media powerhouse there almost overnight that it was in the United States.
?…not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, since all I remember The Simpsons being famous for there is for some lemon company. o_O;
A better example would be the explosion of popularity for Harry Potter. Even though in the context of a different culture, people of all ages (especially children) enjoyed the series to the point of breaking all book selling records in Japan, including a treasured spot held by our very own OP.
@Ubiq:
The manga has just recently reached the point that many fans have stated that they first truly became interested in One Piece. Since that point, sales of the volumes seem to have picked up a bit, which isn't all that unexpected as there seems to be a general consensus that the series doesn't really pick up until then.
I should point out that individuals who read more than a hundred chapters to get to this point have already attained some love for the series, else they wouldn't have drudged through what people cite as Oda's weakest work. Therefore, the "general consensus" among those who read the manga is already significantly more narrow (and biased) than those who started with chapter one but dove off during Kuro.
That being said, the initial sales of the newest volume of anything is probably the most reliable measure of a series popularity; but we can't assume ceteris paribus for everything else in the market environment. For all we know, the comic book industry could be experiencing a receding tide right now and OP just looks a bit bigger by comparison.
@Ubiq:
Huh, I really don't ever recall saying any of that. Mistakes were made in the past ("Arlong destroyed my father!" was particularly wince-worthy as was the old editorial blip of Colonel Nezumi), but many of those have since been corrected.
By that, I mean that the mistakes were so minor "normal people" (as apparently I am not classified as) wouldn't take offense or notice to them, implying that the mistakes had little impact on the series success in the long run. When I was in the second/third grade, I remember comparing my Power Rangers memorabilia with stuff I didn't have and requesting I not be bought said stuff because it was inconsistent with what I saw on television.
I would assume the same trend for OP; children, the intended audience of OP, read the OP manga but feel disgusted since it's not "as seen on TV" and do not continue to purchase it. This is why I more strongly advocate greater edits to the OP manga rather than fewer; if consistency, rather than story, is a stronger factor in regard to choice, why preserve the status quo for the entertainment of a minority when a majority cater is more profitable?
Assuming VIZ has no contractual agreements or corporate policies to preserve "authenticity", of course (of all the manga translating companies, I would believe CMX followed by VIZ to be the least likely to have such reservations).
@Ubiq:
I truly hate such distinctions which have largely came about over the past few years as many people continue to equate "Children" with "Simple-Minded" when it comes to entertainment. Especially when it's literature; I absolutely loathe the notion of Children's Literature. It's either Literature or it's not. It's entirely possible to make something appeal to all age groups if it's well-written.
Although my phrasing was a little inaccurate (since VIZ uses "All Ages" as the designation for 'literature not offensive to children') that's what VIZ Media has decided to do as its marketing strategy; the VP of VIZ said a year or two ago that she strongly believes in "brands" and that people are conditioned to strongly identify certain connotations with brands.
This is why I loath beyond all rationality the branding of OP as a "TEEN" manga, which is almost as misleading as the one-line description of "pirate manga"; by American standards, OP is not a "TEEN" manga, just like how Detective Conan is not a "TEEN" manga. Both are tales intended for all audiences but with children in mind but are seen as "inappropriate" (an ambiguous term with definitions ranging from graphic violence to logical complexity) and therefore are disqualified from being "all ages" and are bumped up to a range-limiting brand.
Problems with brand associations is that people commonly associate negatives, not positives, with brands; seeing a brand of TEEN 13+ implies that the manga is intended for thirteen year olds, rather than "appropriate for children ages thirteen and up". To the common mind, that label invalidates any reason for readng the manga; such is no different from my argument a while back about people from NarutoFan reading OP because it was popular, not because they actually enjoyed the story; people will not readily delve into details.
Which is, sadly, a fact of life; if such was not a case, political party identification wouldn't be so strong and the US wouldn't be in the sorry state it is right now.
@Ubiq:
If you'll excuse a momentary digression, one of the single worst aspects of this is the whole anti-smoking movement. I don't smoke, I don't like smoking, and I wouldn't shed a tear if it were permanently banned tomorrow, but I will be damned if it isn't stupid to pretend that children don't see somebody doing it every day of their lives and that seeing a fictional character doing so will influence them more than a real person that they have an actual relationship with. Digression over.
It's a sad byproduct of the atmosphere of anti-smoking promotion; if smoking is bashed on all turns, people expect it'll eventually die out of existence. People can't do much in regard to parents, but a fictional character glorifying an act said people find despicable? To change such would be a minor case of editing.
@Ubiq:
Outside of the alterations to artwork like Helmeppo's hammer-gun/vise-gun, Lucky Rou's popgun, and the fact that they skipped an entire arc in Little Garden as well as everything in Reverse Mountain. I genuinely don't understand how you can consider skipping entire arcs to be less of an alteration than what Viz has supposedly done to the series.
That's not exactly what I think, but more importantly, how did you arrive at that conclusion? My comparisons of the two companies was meant to illustrate that the OP "themes" are consistent between manga and anime, which are overtonal and would require more than what 4Kids did to erase. As such, if people dislike the "theme" in the 4Kids anime, it wouldn't be outrageous to assume they would hate the same "theme" in the VIZ manga.
@Ubiq:
So… uh... you have proof that Viz is losing money because it licensed One Piece? Because if it isn't, then the manga is a success by your own standards despite not being a spectacular hit.
I wasn't talking about VIZ in that instance, but to address your inquiry, it's tough to make any analyses without numbers; one would assume that VIZ Media is paying some fractional proportion in licensing fees to Shueisha for the OP manga, but it's also possible that given Shueisha's equity VIZ Media is being partially subsidized as part of an investment plan by Shueisha. I'd say something like that is more likely for VIZ than Del Rey.
The only statement I can support conceretely is that OP's success in America is not relative to its success in Japan, which by my definition identifies it as "failed potential", though such a definition is likely not shared by VIZ Media or Shueisha. They could just as easily maintain the stance that marginal profitability (provided that is the case for OP) is a success, though I find that hard to believe given the monster properties of FMA, Bleach, and Naruto; comparisons among those manga are almost mandatory.
@Ubiq:
Oh, come on. If it were even reasonably worthwhile for them to continue producing it, they would. So it was either breaking even or they were actually losing money. Production costs alone would have vastly higher for the dub that the manga.
For a normal "anime" company, yes. But 4Kids? These are the people who assert that everything they do will be a huge success and make pouts/excuses when the fiscal quarter report comes in poor. As of right now, they've abandoned anime as a feasible option for success (which, given its historical profitability for the company, is extremely surprising) and are gambling on foreign-country gimmick games in the hopes they'll make another huge killing at least equivalent to YGO again.
From what GATSU told me on ANN, 4Kids had stellar ratings for Ultimate Muscle during its 2002 run, but when the DVDs didn't sell up to their projected standards they stopped producing them at all, leaving fans of the original series and the dub dry. There obviously was a market for the DVDs, else 4Kids wouldn't have commissioned Toei to produce a second season of UM, but since the series didn't live up to their outrageous standards they didn't even bother pleasing the fans of their work.
Which royally pisses me off, since I'd love to have Fighting Foodon DVDs to listen to while I cook morning pasta; Yakitate!! Japan is far too 'facist' and overrated for my tastes.
@Ubiq:
Because Loguetown couldn't possibly be a case of Engrish, I suppose. I prefer Roguetown and always have, even back to well before any official English translation of the word came about. I've bowed to convention in the past and used Loguetown on numerous occasions, but that's because there isn't any real evidence that Loguetown was Engrish.
My general heuristic is that Engrish is only most evident in sentences, and that for specific words unless there was a freak mistake the spelling was intended. An example of this would be, in Fate/stay night, "Erukidu" for a chain Noble Phantasm of Gilgamesh, which is so obviously wrong given the context (Gilgamesh's friend in legend was Enkidu, who helped Gil rope the Bull of Heaven with a chain) it's permissable to go with the inference. But with the l/r issue, Oda's shown he's aware of the distinction (Luffy/Zoro) so I trust his judgement of the spelling as fully intended.
Granted, we've only seen one instance of Loguetown's sign, so I won't be 100% confident until additional insignia are provided; this is due to the Alabasta/Arabasta dilema.
@Ubiq:
If anything, you're the one who is confused about the two terms as both ocean and stephen have told you in the past that translating anything into a different language is going to require some alteration of the dialogue.
Yes, yes, I know that, but what I'm saying is that the additional "processing" is most critical to the current OP dialogue incarnation. The 4Kids dialogue for OP wasn't 'adapted' from the original script, it was inserted after a first script was produced and the dialogue molded to form around it.
What I'm saying is who actually translates the OP manga is basically irrelevant given that the "adaption" process involves peer-editing to "improve" the drafts. As I noted, there's exceptions to this case due to information I lack (namely the status of "peer editing" in regard to the JUMP releases), but such an observation is well applicable to the English volumes.
Unless Lance Caselman actually does nothing. -.-
@Ubiq:
Good heavens, they think that a person with nautical experience ought to use nautical terminology? Perish the thought.
I could counter with the idea that a generally funny person like Luffy should say a lot more dumb things, which would justify what 4Kids did with their dub dialogue. Just because it's thematically consistent doesn't mean it was needed or even wanted.
@Ubiq:
Same applies to people who are put off that they would occasionally use "piratey" dialogue. Gee, why would anybody think that pirates would talk in a stereotypical pirate fashion, especially when Oda even used the Japanese equivalent for said dialogue?
From what I understand, Oda just uses what would be equivalent to Cantonese; a slang form of Japanese that, while unusual, isn't something exotic. Outside of a single little-known yearly holiday, "pirate" talk is viewed as astoudingly foreign and fabricated, so as in the case above, just because it could be considered thematically consistent (I would disagree) does not imply that it was necessary.
@Ubiq:
Apparently difficult? In some cases, it's entirely impossible to localize Japanese puns, which is why some people don't even bother. The other option is to simply transliterate the joke; one example of that was the version of Super Milk-Chan that aired on Adult Swim. It didn't do very well.
Then why not invent something new? Even if a pun can't be localized, inserting a new pun where one once was is equivalent exchange.
Ugh, now I have to fight that blasted Sandman. ~.~;
@Ubiq:
And what happens if an entire team is switched out editors and all? If nothing else, the continuity editor might not be available and things will slip through.
Frankly, it's astounding that, even if such an incident were to have occured, that the new team did not look over previous volumes of manga to make sure that what they were doing was consistent. The 300,000,000 berry error, which was a translation error and not a typographical one, could have been easily caught if at least one person on the JUMP team had read the previous volume and retained any knowledge of the story.
What kind of people are working for VIZ…poorly programmed astromechs?
@Ubiq:
Depends on what you classify as a professional standard (which, in your case, would be "anything not by Viz"). There have been a few odd turns of phrases and typos over One Piece's run in Shonen Jump, but I can't really think of anything outright unprofessional. The single closest thing I can of it was the chapter that substituted Colonel as Nezumi's rank, but that was such an egregious aberration that something had to be going on behind the scenes.
Even though I dislike VIZ's adapted dialogue, I'd still label it as professional-standard work provided there were no plot-related, typographical or translation errors; in many instances such errors are undisputed and contradicted by the Japanese text, and in other instances we have ambiguities. I can hardly call VIZ idiots for screwing up Loguetown, but continuity checks and proof-reading are still well within their domain of accountability.
Granted, most of the companies I like better than VIZ have historically produced "worse" translations (which is ironic given the same translators for VIZ are providing scripts for my favoured companies), but why I value them higher than VIZ regards the domain of customer and marketing relations.
VIZ forsakes its fans and tries to avoid interacting with them whenever possible; take the FMA edit controversy a while back. VIZ quitely issued a press release regarding the issue…but to ICv2, not ANN where the controversy erupted and had the most discussion. In that same brief, VIZ implicity mocked the people who brought up the issue. They're not the most pleasant bunch of folk, and they're not the most caring, which is why I spend more time criticising their products when, in relative comparison, they (were) producing higher quality material.
As of the last year Del Rey has stabilized; TOKYOPOP is still probably a messm and CMX is...out there, to say the least.
@Ubiq:
Provide some specifics on those errors please. Choices of translation (Elbaph for instance) don't really count as we don't have an existing English translation. Even then, name changes might have been dictated by Shueisha itself; we know that they've done so once in the past.
Recent or dated? I'll have to recheck the JUMP magazine to search for new ones, but off the top of my head "Devil Fruit tree" and "Neptunian" come to mind, the latter of which has been discussed to be a creative choice but can still be seen as incorrect as far as translation goes. Is it thematically consistent? Yes. Needed? No; "Sea King" was a fine term to use, and unlike the "Moku Moku" issue there wasn't an ambiguity that could have resulted in variable translations.
@Ubiq:
A typo cannot be blamed on the translator either. The editor is different as they should have noticed said error, but it can be difficult to pick out a single letter or number, especially if you are just scanning through it. Quite a few books make it to market with typos (I've found at least one in each of the last two Harry Potter books) and they would have far, far more time to review said book than a magazine editor would.
HP books have page numbers in hundreds, whereas OP scripts are typically nineteen pages mostly dominated by pictures. The OP adaptors have it relatively easy in comparison to, say, AK_of_Troy with DN, since attack names have katakana and kanji is short. Given how few chapters are serialized in weekly JUMP, and noting how quickly even fan-translators can pull out a first-draft script, it's not outrageous to expect perfection from VIZ's adaptors. From their transcripts on ANN those folks are not involved simultaneously in a lot of projects, so I'd assume they've got enough time on their hands to proof their work more than just a couple times.
@Ubiq:
See, this is why people shouldn't take you seriously on anything that has to do with Viz. Your criticisms are based on the fact that you just don't like how they do business rather than anything… well, rational. What other reason could there be for the snarky quotation marks in this line and the next?
While I do dislike their business practices, such a distaste wasn't just spontaneously concieved; it grew from a disappointment with the inconsistencies and bizarre adapted dialogue, to annoyance at the continual errors and percieved apathy, to anger at additional and preserved faults coupled with corporate propoganda ignoring or implying a lack of said faults. Through comparison with companies I initially hated, like Del Rey, and noting the aura of concern as well as noticeable self-improvement of said companies(which, given DR's terrible quality in 2003, is all the more dynamic), I (rationally) arrive at my current stance on VIZ; I criticize them both on my original grounding (quality) and on an ideological one ('ethics').
@Ubiq:
Because it's not the most popular manga in all of America and One Piece wound up with the crew that it wound up with?
While that's a suitable argument for the current state of affairs, the "poor translation" days of the early OP volumes, where the series was at its most vulnerable in terms of hooking an audience, does raise the question of "what happened to VIZ's dream team, the folk who worked on manga for the company all through the 1990's"? Strong treatment for OP in the beginning 'could' have made up for the relatively weak start (?) the manga got off to; given that Naruto was basically in the same boat until the anime came around, I'd say that's a very solid "could".