Neko Majin - Vol. 1 Ch. 1 - Neko Majin is Here!

[MangaDex]

 

[Zoltier853]

Yeah, I really dislike this translation. Too many changes that are just wordy and baffling. Like, why change the Pi-chan joke? It's hilarious. The change to being about baby chicks isn't funny at all. This feels like a crappy old anime dub. It feels very disrespectful to Toriyama.

 

[AspiringMangaReader]

Yeah, I really dislike this translation. Too many changes that are just wordy and baffling. Like, why change the Pi-chan joke? It's hilarious. The change to being about baby chicks isn't funny at all. This feels like a crappy old anime dub. It feels very disrespectful to Toriyama.

Changing stuff in translation is a necessity to a degree. It's not a perfect science of course. You will make decisions inevitably that will be questionable or in some cases considered bad by the individual. Comedy especially has problems when translating because Japanese comedy is based so heavily on puns and wordplay. You make calls where you can and based on what works for you. This is not being disrespectful to Toriyama and frankly to read that sentence is more than a little wince-inducing considering it's using the name of a dead man to just crap on a translation. You honest-to-Kami could've just said "It's not my thing." and left it at that. For the record, I'm sorry it wasn't to your liking, I of course never aimed to upset or disappoint people. I was just a fan of Toriyama who felt translation-wise, this could use a bit of a facelift. The originals are still available to read if you so choose and of course if you're someone who wants to a ground-up retranslation? By all means go for it! I'd be very happy to see that especially since it takes so much pressure off of these.

 

[Zoltier853]

Changing stuff in translation is a necessity to a degree. It's not a perfect science of course. You will make decisions inevitably that will be questionable or in some cases considered bad by the individual. Comedy especially has problems when translating because Japanese comedy is based so heavily on puns and wordplay. You make calls where you can and based on what works for you. This is not being disrespectful to Toriyama and frankly to read that sentence is more than a little wince-inducing considering it's using the name of a dead man to just crap on a translation. You honest-to-Kami could've just said "It's not my thing." and left it at that. For the record, I'm sorry it wasn't to your liking, I of course never aimed to upset or disappoint people. I was just a fan of Toriyama who felt translation-wise, this could use a bit of a facelift. The originals are still available to read if you so choose and of course if you're someone who wants to a ground-up retranslation? By all means go for it! I'd be very happy to see that especially since it takes so much pressure off of these.

Of course changing things in a translation is necessary, but the vast majority of the changes here are completely unnecessary, especially considering this is an edit of an existing translation by someone who doesn't know Japanese. Most of Neko Majin's humor is simply Toriyama's typical dry situational comedy and not wordplay. Please don't give me this "you're using a dead man's name!" crap. I would still feel like prioritizing the dub's propensity for wordiness and unfunny added humor over accuracy is disrespectful even if he was alive. I feel like this for any translation and have always hated Funimation's dubs as well for that reason.
Even aside from that, this is just hard to read because it's so much more wordier than the original translations.

 

[AspiringMangaReader]

Of course changing things in a translation is necessary, but the vast majority of the changes here are completely unnecessary, especially considering this is an edit of an existing translation by someone who doesn't know Japanese. Most of Neko Majin's humor is simply Toriyama's typical dry situational comedy and not wordplay. Please don't give me this "you're using a dead man's name!" crap. I would still feel like prioritizing the dub's propensity for wordiness and unfunny added humor over accuracy is disrespectful even if he was alive. I feel like this for any translation and have always hated Funimation's dubs as well for that reason.
Even aside from that, this is just hard to read because it's so much more wordier than the original translations.

I will still give you crap over that because I think it's fair to note it's rude and wholly unnecessary. Like I said, you could've just noted your criticisms and left it at that, especially because your criticisms are fair. The wordiness is something that I've noticed myself and I am gradually working on that. Heck, maybe I'll revisit this at one point and trim up the fat or if someone wants to use this as a basis? I mean I don't care, feel free. I have no skin in this game at all because my focus was on just trying to get more of Toriyama's work out there and I'm sorry if you found things unnecessary. Really it's one of those things I thought about and really, you can't win with any translation, any adjustment or whatever because everyone's got their own preferences. For instance, I don't mind the dub changes except for the original dub of Z because I feel like most of them still convey the story at its core but also it captures the spirit. Toriyama was about dry situational comedy but there's a sense of fun and whimsy and also insanity to his work. I've read Manga Theater and plenty of other material and it's pretty wild what goes down so to me, stuff like this is what I like to see but if you don't vibe with that? I mean the original translation is available and you can find pretty much whatever. Heck if you can speak another language like say Spanish or French? You could find the manga with ease.

To me, true disrespect to the man and his legacy would come in when you take one look at his work and go "Eh, he didn't do much." or you insist that your choices made his work better as though Toriyama sucked at his job and you, the random baka gaijin, are I guess the savior who made his material good. You don't have to like it, in fact like I said, I wish you the best of luck in finding stuff you do like. But the least you can do is be kind and respectful. Life is too short to be hung up on this sort of thing and hey, I was as honest as I could be about what this was, my intentions because if I really wanted to? I could've just pretended and that would just not be good.