Kodomo wa Wakatte Agenai - Vol. 2 Ch. 14 - He Won't Tell Anyone the Name of the Technique He Used That Day

[MangaDex]

 

[DjAlexDubCheck]

It's very sorry to see that translators feel obliged to apologize on behalf of a character

 

[DjAlexDubCheck]

Memo: never set your scanlation base on tumblr

 

[Darklight99]

The scanlator did a great job and clearly worked very hard at this. I've seen this with various manga but western commenters really don't seem to realise that the eastern and western culture are very different and languages do not work as simply as one might think, there is a lot of subtlety, as someone who knows multiple languages, not japanese though, I understand that not everything can be easily explained without context.

 

[livesofflight]

Thanks for the thoughtful explanation of your translation of the transgender and "brother" scenes.

 

[elefantine97]

cultural sensitivity is not “tumblr”
social activism has been a thing long before the internet was even a concept, and this was a great explanation on the translator’s part
that said, i think it’s more than just east vs west, as i am from an eastern culture and we still acknowledge pronouns (as far as he/she/they goes) of a person based on their social identity, usually very binary tho - just like the other characters
as far as the context of this manga, it makes sense the brother’s insistent on using male pronouns with the trans sister, and even she does the same when talking to him, it’s their relationship

 

[screwtheturtle]

commenting on another topic, that part where shouhei traced sakuta's name on the sand though 🥺🥺🥺

But really it was just vexing how he kept misgendering aki.. So the explanation was truly helpful and enlightening.. Thank you so much!!

 

[liquid_2]

thank y'all so much for the explanation around the translation choices One Showshoe, being caught between cultures complicates any kind of translation, especially when the language itself functions quite differently.
i still feel frustrated by Aki's introduction--the "transwoman character immediately discussing her gender/physical transition w total strangers" is so played out--but i feel much better about Moji's way of referring to his sister

for a nice discussion of the problems with this trope i just referred to (from a western perspective, it should be noted!), here's a paragraph from this article on WWAC, discussing the introduction of the character Petrichor from Saga:

the failing of the character was that her role as a transgender character was only validated by directly confronting the reader with the fact that she has a penis. Within the scene, this in-universe outing is done against her will; she has no control over who’s seeing her like this, and yet has no qualms about the blatant breach of privacy. In fact, her apparent reaction to a small child seeing her naked is to gladly start teaching her about gender concepts. “Of course, tiny toddler person, I’ll gladly inform you about the various ways I’m still a valid person while you awkwardly stare at my various bits.”

 

[Amphguy]

It's really unfortunate how language and culture interfered with how these characters appear when translated to English. The translators did a really good job explaining things, but I can't help but feel like the end result is a manga that needs a disclaimer to not be dismissed due to its seemingly socially regressive viewpoint with a selfish view of trans people. Like, I wouldn't recommend this manga to anyone that I know who is trans, even though there's a lot of context as to why they speak the way they do, absent of that context until the end of chapter 14, it just feels like one of the main characters is being offensively selfish. Honestly, even though it may have been a bit confusing and still a bit iffy to go with the 'she' pronoun + 'brother' combo, it would be much less off putting on a first read than the 'he' + 'brother' combination was. Of course all of this is coming from a 'western viewpoint', but anyone who is reading this manga in English is most likely reading it from a mostly 'western viewpoint'.

Unfortunately, no matter how this manga was translated, it would feel like Aki was being done a disservice (the 'she' + 'brother' combination or repetitive 'brother' methods aren't good either and she was forcefully outed as being trans multiple times in this manga), and that really sucks because she was my favorite character in this manga.