companies ain't learning anything. lol 'manga has "continuously suffered" damages from online piracy and illegal English translations'

[phil777]

If you kill the thieves, there would be no more stealing.

Nature, and human nature especially, has the void in horror. It will try to fill the void with something else. If you get rid of a criminal gang, you can be sure another will rise to take its place.

 

[Dwander1219]

With all this stuff going on about bastardized translations and all that, I honestly think it's better to just learn the native language.
Western influence, though uninvited, will generally creep it's way into eastern content eventually. If you want it raw you may as well just read the raw s.
Learning a language is very difficult but I know even if it takes time it'll be a skill I'll eventually use more and more often. Over the last 10 years I've been coping with MTL and waiting for free translations, when I could have just started to learn the language instead!
I ingest too much Japanese material to remain ignorant of the actual language. That's why I started to learn this year and will keep at it as time goes on. Maybe in 5 years or so (honestly a blink of an eye) I'll be good enough to just read the raws. I never want to deal with abandoning a series because of untranslated chapters ever again.

 

[undeed]

Here's an objective analysis from someone who's read the shit they drop for $2/mo in their app: It's garbage lmao. It's not necessarily a matter of "accuracy," (it's obviously hard to tell if a translation is accurate without knowing and reading the source language) but rather it has zero ability to "voice" characters, so every single bit of dialog ends up sounding like an out of character summary of what they would be saying rather than feeling like an actual distinct character talking. The end product is essentially completely sucked dry of flavor except from what scraps you can glean from the art alone. Anything that's subtext will be lost. More than half of any given character's personality will be lost. Most jokes will fall flat, you might not even notice they were trying to be funny. It'll pass the time, you'll technically know the plot, but at that point you might as well just read a fandom wiki summary of the manga instead.
It's like the manga version of grinding up meat to make a slurry. You might enjoy the cheap hamburger on some level, but it'll never be anywhere near the steak it was before they dumped it in the grinder.

I kind of agree
and it is not a new thing, unfortunately
it has been like that since the beginning of fan translation

it's the reason although I buy the official manga (physical and digital),
I still, most of the time, prefer to read the fan translations

I'll try to pitch in to this

Subjective hyperbole aside, do you have some concrete examples to back up your conclusions?

one example from an old, old, translation

Spoiler: One Piece

raw, fan, official digital

I really do have fun reading all those jokes, notes, and trivia provided by translators

another example from manga that I purchased a few months back

Spoiler: Kusuriya

raw, fan, official digital

it's not that different, I'm just showing the panel that made me "huh, this has different feeling from what I remember" kind of thing when I read it

so, yeah
there are many subtle feeling and jokes that are missing from official translations
but it is understandable if you think about it
fan translations are driven by love and passion to the manga, and get very thankful if they get money from it
so most of the time, i find the results are very lovely
official translations, well, it is a JOB
so... money talks
there's nothing I can do about it

 

[undeed]

there's no way i'll accept this statement "manga has "continuously suffered" damages from online piracy and illegal English translations"

well, I have to separate between "online piracy" and "illegal English translation" here, because those two can have significant different effect,

if everyone only relies on online piracy, without ever buying the manga even though the means are there, the IT DOES damages the manga (authors and publishers), because the manga can't get any money from it
because "online piracy" also includes ripping/scanning the official translated one
no sell = no money = loss = damage

now with "illegal English translations", yeah I agree that instead of bringing damage, fan translations give publicity and spreading out the title to even greater public

that's why, to anyone out there, please still buy the actual manga whenever you can to support the industry
especially if the means are within your reach

if you can't buy it for whatever reason and have to resort to piracy,
then at least when you recommend a manga to your friends, don't promote piracy as the first pick

 

[undeed]

That's why I started to learn this year and will keep at it as time goes on. Maybe in 5 years or so (honestly a blink of an eye) I'll be good enough to just read the raws. I never want to deal with abandoning a series because of untranslated chapters ever again.

good luck
6-12 months of learning Japanese I believe will be enough for anyone to be able to read like romance and high school setting manga.
give it another half a year, you'll be fine reading complex drama stories and novels

now if you want to read all those fantasy and isekai, though....
all those made up words and foreign terms written in katakana still give me a headache when I read them
not to mention the weird royal nobility lingo that you'll never learn in standard Japanese lessons

 

[Intrigbagarn]

If you kill the thieves, there would be no more stealing.

Hollywood couldn't kill the thieves. Microsoft and Sony couldn't kill them either. But you think some dinky little Japanese manga publisher can do it?

 

[Jetsetlemming]

I kind of agree
and it is not a new thing, unfortunately
it has been like that since the beginning of fan translation

it's the reason although I buy the official manga (physical and digital),
I still, most of the time, prefer to read the fan translations

I'll try to pitch in to this

one example from an old, old, translation

Spoiler: One Piece

raw, fan, official digital

I really do have fun reading all those jokes, notes, and trivia provided by translators

another example from manga that I purchased a few months back

Spoiler: Kusuriya

raw, fan, official digital

it's not that different, I'm just showing the panel that made me "huh, this has different feeling from what I remember" kind of thing when I read it

so, yeah
there are many subtle feeling and jokes that are missing from official translations
but it is understandable if you think about it
fan translations are driven by love and passion to the manga, and get very thankful if they get money from it
so most of the time, i find the results are very lovely
official translations, well, it is a JOB
so... money talks
there's nothing I can do about it

That Apothecary Diaries example is perfect. Sure, it's got the same meaning, it might even be a more literal translation, but the timing of the dramatic reveal is completely flat with her saying "I..." in the first dialog bubble. It's not how she would actually say that line if this were a native English drama. Moments where one line is split across bubbles like this is especially where I notice these rushed cheap translations falter because they never take that physical spacing into account with the phrasing. It's just text in text out without caring about the context of any part of it on the page.

 

[Basic_human]

This thread so intellectual lmao. I want to join but my research on it only something like "I made the source"

 

[TestAddress]

Hollywood couldn't kill the thieves. Microsoft and Sony couldn't kill them either. But you think some dinky little Japanese manga publisher can do it?

Thieves don't kill each other "they have an --honor-- code."

 

[TestAddress]

This thread so intellectual lmao. I want to join but my research on it only something like "I made the source"

We are an amalgalm of experiences caused by external forces after all. We can reject or accept, but everything affects our being in a way.

 

[araya_tatsuya]

That Apothecary Diaries example is perfect. Sure, it's got the same meaning, it might even be a more literal translation, but the timing of the dramatic reveal is completely flat with her saying "I..." in the first dialog bubble. It's not how she would actually say that line if this were a native English drama. Moments where one line is split across bubbles like this is especially where I notice these rushed cheap translations falter because they never take that physical spacing into account with the phrasing. It's just text in text out without caring about the context of any part of it on the page.

that's a really good breakdown based/10

 

[OisE]

it might even be a more literal translation

Not at all, the fan TL is more literal (haha).