Is it just me or has Viz really gone downhill lately?

[obseletrix]

I've been following the World Trigger official release since the series came back from hiatus (world trigger is the only series where i give enough of a shit to actually read simulpubs) and it really feels like the quality of the offical translation has devolved to the point of being almost unreadable. Like, I remember what it was like in the early volumes- it was basically fine. Charecters had distinct voices and didn't all sound like they were Bay Area 40-year-olds who have fits about their child going to a public high school and think that the public library is "dangerous". I also noticed this in MagiLumiere and most other recent series where I've had to use official sources. Am I going insane or is this an actual issue?

 

[Angry_Panda]

Would not be surprised if they were resorting to some AI translation to increase translation rate, and just putting some polish on that on the back end.

 

[Basic_human]

Would not be surprised if they were resorting to some AI translation to increase translation rate, and just putting some polish on that on the back end.

pretty sad but sometimes necessary action, people already using MTL since long ago and abysmal. the object name change every chap

i often get confuse because weird translation. even the official can be weird

 

[Robinisback]

I despise Viz's translation, it's usually filled with so many mistakes and the translations are so bad that you can't make any head or tail of what they're talking about. My experience with JJK translations have been very bad, to the point it made me question whether it was actually the official translation or not.

 

[undeed]

I haven't read World Trigger, and I've been kind of putting MagiLumiere on hold for a while, so I don't know.
But I feel like the other digital manga from Viz that I have are fine.
Dandadan's translation in the volume release is exactly the same as the chapter release.

The only official English volume that I truly regret buying is Smoking Behind Supermarket.
I HATE the re-translations in volume releases compared to chapter releases.
But it's not Viz.

 

[Manko-sensei]

If I had to talk specifically about Viz then yes, not only translation-wise but also regarding typesetting the quality is deteriorating and sometimes looks like a fan did it for the first time in digital versions. It happens as well with the other big publishers, as time passes they keep offering crappy conditions so crappy workers accept those, best-sellers may have decent quality on it but the efforts are put in cutting corners. Have they started using MTL for some series? Yes, but both translators and localisers/proofreaders have been messing around for quite some years, it may be easy to read for the average burger-eater but quality-wise...

 

[Angry_Panda]

it may be easy to read for the average burger-eater

Hey. HEY. HEY.

I resemble that remark. 🍔

 

[Manko-sensei]

Hey. HEY. HEY.

I resemble that remark. 🍔

You're not average, you're our dear burger-eater panda!

 

[Angry_Panda]

You're not average, you're our dear burger-eater panda!

Darn tootin'.

 

[alrightcock]

viz translations are usually "toned-down/censored" and fucking dog shit i absolutely hate Viz Localizations, Especially in their volume releases they change the japanese sfx to giant english fonts (that sometimes take up more space) and most of the time they usually have shitty letterers working on it smh

AI is not a solution tho Lol, really all they need is a Good Editor (that are usually the ones that would make the change/corrections to a translator's works) & a Good Translator, Personally i think Kodansha & Yen Press' Localizations are good (but ofc they also have flaws tho) but that's just my personal opinion tho lol

 

[obseletrix]

I haven't read World Trigger, and I've been kind of putting MagiLumiere on hold for a while, so I don't know.
But I feel like the other digital manga from Viz that I have are fine.
Dandadan's translation in the volume release is exactly the same as the chapter release.

The only official English volume that I truly regret buying is Smoking Behind Supermarket.
I HATE the re-translations in volume releases compared to chapter releases.
But it's not Viz.

I finished MagiLumiere. I had to pirate the official TL and it was really noticable how all the charecters started talking like they worked at Twitter. I personally pay a lot of attention to World Trigger specifically because I write fic for it, and trying to get any sort of recognizable idea of what phrasing or thought process a character would use from most of the translations post-2021 has become pretty much impossible because the dialogue has become so boilerplate that it's not recognizable who's talking- which I know isn't an issue with the author, because I read fantrans back when those were being produced.

viz translations are usually "toned-down/censored" and fucking dog shit i absolutely hate Viz Localizations, Especially in their volume releases they change the japanese sfx to giant english fonts (that sometimes take up more space) and most of the time they usually have shitty letterers working on it smh

AI is not a solution tho Lol, really all they need is a Good Editor (that are usually the ones that would make the change/corrections to a translator's works) & a Good Translator, Personally i think Kodansha & Yen Press' Localizations are good (but ofc they also have flaws tho) but that's just my personal opinion tho lol

I don't know if anyone here is into Western webcomics, but the Director's Commentary on Narbonic is written by someone who works as a freelance editor at VIZ and has some insight into this. Viz localizations are pretty much unreadable to me- not only do I hate how you lose a level of social inflection when you take out honorifics, the dialogue is so West Coast Techbro Trying To Pretend He Works At Twitter that I actively want to break into the Viz office, kidnap every editor, and make them work retail in the South or Midwest for a year so that they learn how real human beings talk in real life (techbros in the bay area do not qualify as real human beings for the purpose of writing manga dialogue).

 

[alrightcock]

I don't know if anyone here is into Western webcomics, but the Director's Commentary on Narbonic is written by someone who works as a freelance editor at VIZ and has some insight into this. Viz localizations are pretty much unreadable to me- not only do I hate how you lose a level of social inflection when you take out honorifics, the dialogue is so West Coast Techbro Trying To Pretend He Works At Twitter that I actively want to break into the Viz office, kidnap every editor, and make them work retail in the South or Midwest for a year so that they learn how real human beings talk in real life (techbros in the bay area do not qualify as real human beings for the purpose of writing manga dialogue).

100% agreed, absolutely hate how VIz Editors remove honorifics and add NO translation notes in the official volumes (most of the time), Literally Jujutsu Kaisen suffered a shit ton from 2 dogSHIT translators and a horrid editor, it would have absolutely helped if they added Translation Notes in the back of the volumes and to explain certain things or why they translated it this way... Plus a lot of cultural references are just straight up removed lmao or replaced by ones americans would recognize its absolutely so fucking stupid lol

also very early one piece is dog shit too

its like they just dumb their localizations the fuck down so that even the dumbest person to read the story... instead of sticking to the original work

 

[obseletrix]

100% agreed, absolutely hate how VIz Editors remove honorifics and add NO translation notes in the official volumes (most of the time), Literally Jujutsu Kaisen suffered a shit ton from 2 dogSHIT translators and a horrid editor, it would have absolutely helped if they added Translation Notes in the back of the volumes and to explain certain things or why they translated it this way... Plus a lot of cultural references are just straight up removed lmao or replaced by ones americans would recognize its absolutely so fucking stupid lol

also very early one piece is dog shit too

its like they just dumb their localizations the fuck down so that even the dumbest person to read the story... instead of sticking to the original work

lmao yeah. i still remember how in the I Am A Hero official TL, the translator quoted the panel right after
as "translator forgothisname thinks that this is the greatest line in manga history" or something. we need more of that sort of thing. I really hate the Viz translations because they feel kind of condescending.