Fed-Kun's army
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2019
- Messages
- 757
Well, and the whole issue of the scouts' "sexuality" getting scrubbed—🤣the ladies be lesbians! 🤣💯 They like-like other ladies!—because of US censorship.
The crossdressing vs transgender issues as far as representation goes is problematic in translations since cultural attitudes have WILDLY swung. Like, again—see Sailor Moon in the 1990s vs the growing uptick in trans hate going down now and the rise of fascism. Heh… We went through a wide shift.
There's also the whole issue of not every culture or artists thinks the same way. I get not wanting to support or promote something on bigotry grounds (like, for example, when it was revealed that at least one illustrator for a major US comic label was including secret Nazi coding and antisemitic imagery into the comics—yeah, that's fucked and should be axed). But, if it's the artist's intentions, then you have to ether EXPLICITLY talk about that—we chose to avoid this issue due to us viewing it as bigoted and what not, but we felt that the rest of the work has immense cultural value. Though, I feel like at that point it's like you might as well just write a ⚠️ warning and explain the issues with the work if it has historical or cultural significance.
Otherwise, you aren't so much being a translator as a remixer, which is a thing and has value, but translation at its basis is, supposedly, trying to change the language without losing or significantly changing the underlying meaning. If you are going so far as to radically change something for cultural indoctrination or cultural sensitivity reasons, then that effectively constitutes a firm of censorship.
I may personally have some issues with some comics in how these depict characters—like the number of Japanese comics with as you mentioned "crossdressing" characters [re: see Cloud in the original FFVII. Sorry, I'm too poor to afford the remake. =P] vs those who actually view THEMSELVES with a fluid or differing sense of gender or gender representation — like a certain crossdressing teen in Maid-Sama!. Heh. That kiddo may well be described as an example of a trans woman being forced to fit in—assuming they view gender and sex as highly related. Yeah, I know—it's confusing and complicated, and it varies and is HIGHLY sensitive and volatile subject wise.
Unfortunately, that's where translators have to work with the source in order to effectively translate the content. I mean—one thing is a fan translation (and, yeah, I know of at LEAST one where the publisher blatantly blocked the exportation of the comic, so the artist is secretly working with the artist to translate their comic into English. It's awesome so is the comic. DM me if you want a title. I don't wanna be a snitch [at least not until their publisher goes to hell so they can't be sued. Heh. And don't get me started on the evils of the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese publishers or we WILL be here all night!], but the comic is awesome!) where the fan has ZERO access to the artist. Though, I have personally helped a number of artists translating their works from Engrish to English, but that's a separate issue. =P And isn't usually s something that the average scanlator has access to—like, we can't exactly message the artist & be all—so, hey! We're illegally scanlating your work into language x and we wanna know what you intended here, here, and here…—I'd give props to someone who has the audacity to do that, but chances are that you would get a cease and desist (unless they were in a fight with their publisher or were a member of the community themselves. =P gotta keep shit on the down low, though! 🤣💯⚠️).
When it comes to PROFESSIONAL FOR-PROFIT TRANSLATION AS PART OF A LICENSED PORT—not checking with the creator(s) about intended meaning is so outrageously lazy as to be automatically disqualifying. Now, I GET that it sometimes happens or perhaps the ability to access the person is non-existent — we wrote the person at game company x, but never heard back. Hey, at least you out in the effort! That counts for something!
But, just making huge changes without an explanation or even the goddamned common decency to include your choices in an editor's notes (something that seems to be an every more rare feature. Actually, one translator, fan translator I should add, does a better job that most of the commercial ones I've seen in years. Every chapter has significant translator's notes that go into great detail ok their choices. 🤣💯 It broke me when some people got frustrated that the chapters weren't coming out fast enough and sniped, and now I don't get my LUXURIOUS TRANSLATIONS, DAMNIT! Yeah… times when sniping kills… heh…).
If you make those sorts of changes, you gotta note it. Any decent scholarly translation will be peppered with *†‡¹²³ and more marks to indicate varying meaning when the word choice significantly alters the meaning of the passage in question. That's basic—it doesn't take the leading scholars in a language to learn this. It's foundational translation. And, yeah—if you're doing it for funsies that's fine, but if folks are paying out the ass for ART to help keep their sanity in an every crumbling dystopian capitalist hellscape, I feel like there's an extraordinary duty attached to do things right. Though, maybe that's my Star Trek esque anarchotechnosocialist idealism coming out. =P
But whatever the case—yeah, it matters.
