Otaku ni Yasashii Gal wa Inai!? - Vol. 7 Ch. 47

[waldo220]

If people are on Mangadex reading manga like this, then they either:

1. know enough Japanese to understand what Oshi means or
2. should really learnt to pick up some commonly-used, not-easily-translatable terms like Oshi or titles/suffixes they use for names like -sama, -chan, etc.

 

[guygarelard]

And honestly, I can't believe people still prefer oshi, even though they can all see the "I'm gonna oshi you" line.

In this regard, I think you've misunderstood what I initially tried to say. Your localized line of "I have decided to push you forward" was totally fine, and probably how I would have done it myself too. I just meant that I personally prefer the use of "oshi" in instances where the word "fave" was used. i.e., this:

That being said, I agree with you. The line "I'm gonna oshi you" feels weird, and translating the pun is practically impossible afaik. So in instances like that, going with the localized first version (with the the word "oshi" instead of "fave" like the image above) and leaving the exact same TL note from the first version at the end, is completely fine. But if the point of this alternate version was to show a more literal translation, I'd suggest something like this:

I know the asterisk and parentheses can be aesthetically off putting, but it reads much better than "I'm gonna oshi you", and Ijichi's explanation on what an "oshi" is to Otaku-kun works as an explanation to the reader as well. The mid level weebs will have learnt something new, and the normies reading this will understand what Amane was referring to when she first used the word earlier in the chapter.

The "oshi (fave)" line could also be placed when Amane brings up the word (The first and only instance where the word "oshi" was used in the chapter before the pages) so you don't have to have too many parentheses in the same speech bubble, resulting in this sequence:

Ultimately, you guys did release this alternate version. Whether that was to gauge reader opinion, satisfy demand, or to prove a point, we do not know. All we can do, is give an opinion on something that was uploaded to a public platform, and it's up to you guys to move forward with those opinions, whether you'd like to implement them, or ignore them.

P.S. I do hope this long post doesn't come off as rude, as that isn't the intention. I'm pretty sure all of us still appreciate the work you guys do in translating the manga so far, so please don't let the more rude and poorly worded forum posts convince you otherwise.

Edit: I also may have gotten the oshi and oshikatsu meanings mixed, but my point still stands I think

 

[Shamgarsan]

”Oshi” is a pretty decent candidate for a loan word here. It has specific cultural connotations not carried by the closest English equivalent but the rough meaning can be inferred from context, and it is highly relevant to the story. Judicious use of loan words can be a form of emphasis and is hardly jarring to anyone who has ever learned new words by reading them in context. It’s reasonable to be cautious about loan words as they draw attention that may be needlessly disruptive, but it’s just as easy to underuse them as to overuse them.

 

[chusetto]

Omg they're so dumb dumb 🥰

 

[PreStoneX]

In this regard, I think you've misunderstood what I initially tried to say. Your localized line of "I have decided to push you forward" was totally fine, and probably how I would have done it myself too. I just meant that I personally prefer the use of "oshi" in instances where the word "fave" was used. i.e., this:

That being said, I agree with you. The line "I'm gonna oshi you" feels weird, and translating the pun is practically impossible afaik. So in instances like that, going with the localized first version (with the the word "oshi" instead of "fave" like the image above) and leaving the exact same TL note from the first version at the end, is completely fine. But if the point of this alternate version was to show a more literal translation, I'd suggest something like this:

I know the asterisk and parentheses can be aesthetically off putting, but it reads much better than "I'm gonna oshi you", and Ijichi's explanation on what an "oshi" is to Otaku-kun works as an explanation to the reader as well. The mid level weebs will have learnt something new, and the normies reading this will understand what Amane was referring to when she first used the word earlier in the chapter.

The "oshi (fave)" line could also be placed when Amane brings up the word (The first and only instance where the word "oshi" was used in the chapter before the pages) so you don't have to have too many parentheses in the same speech bubble, resulting in this sequence:

Ultimately, you guys did release this alternate version. Whether that was to gauge reader opinion, satisfy demand, or to prove a point, we do not know. All we can do, is give an opinion on something that was uploaded to a public platform, and it's up to you guys to move forward with those opinions, whether you'd like to implement them, or ignore them.

P.S. I do hope this long post doesn't come off as rude, as that isn't the intention. I'm pretty sure all of us still appreciate the work you guys do in translating the manga so far, so please don't let the more rude and poorly worded forum posts convince you otherwise.

Edit: I also may have gotten the oshi and oshikatsu meanings mixed, but my point still stands I think

I agree, and I'd have done that too if not for people complaining about how I tried to localize the word oshi, so to prove a point I uploaded a version with oshi instead of trying to localize it, to show that no, it wasn't a simple "oshi" or "fave" choice, and we had other concerns too in this chapter with the word oshi.

I dislike it when people keep assuming things, like how everyone knows what oshi means. As a translator I have other concerns too than trying to cater to hardcore followers of this fandom, as there are casual readers too who are not deep into this culture. I personally only knew oshi from Oshi no Ko, and even then I didn't know what oshi is exactly.

Sooo yeah, while I agree it should've been similar to what you mentioned (maybe without the asterisks and extra words in the bubbles, or writing "push you" which is taking the easy way out imo), I just did it this way to show what everyone wanted was not as simple as they make it out to be, plus the phrasing we used in the english came from when we were trying to fit the translation around the word 'fave' and not from the original oshi usage as you could see in this chapter... (what I mean is, its much easier to replace fave with oshi AFTER we did the hard part to fit the translation around fave, but the japanese wasn't like that)

 

[frankieMuniez]

Anyway, I'm sorry for delivering such an awful translation...

Oh no, the translation is great, it’s just tue fave thing felt super unnatural. We cant always get a 1:1 translation, so in those cases stick with the japanese terms.

 

[Encyclopedium]

Aww he's wearing the cap they gave him

 

[jokerxhisoka]

I don't understand this oshi stuff at all. I mean, I understand when we are talking about a character or an idol, but a colleague/friend? Makes no sense to me.

 

[LupusVir]

I'm European (still west, I know), some of our discord members are from Asia, and we all associated fave = favorite (along with how none of us really knew what oshi means)

And honestly, I can't believe people still prefer oshi, even though they can all see the "I'm gonna oshi you" line.

Am I the only one here who considers it weird as hell, or am I just the loudest one and everyone else who considers it weird doesn't comment on the issue?



Edit: If I could go back in time to when we first translated the chapter, I'd still use the word fave.

95% of the readers have no clue about the oshi = push, and not everyone has clue about the word oshi. The readers are not just all pure weebs, but casual fans as well, and during translation we had to consider all of them, that's it.

I never said its a good translation, but its a good replacement for the current situation.

I think the ideal would have been to use oshi everywhere except for where push could be substituted in that one sentence, and then the tiniest little TL note saying "oshi also means push".
Using the word oshi over fave did not mean you had to also use it in that one instance. It kind of feels like you did that to show everyone how dumb it sounds, but if that's the case, it's a misrepresentation of what people were asking for, imo. Oshi is a word that is actually known by a lot of people in the context of being someone you follow and admire and whatnot, but not in the context of also meaning push.
I'm kinda surprised that you and your team didn't know the word or felt it wasn't familiar to people, as I'd heard it used well before I got into manga. I thought it was on the level of otaku in western familiarity.
Anyway. I think you got caught up in the middle of a major disagreement between people who prefer more localization and people who prefer to keep the original words intact when translation would get rid of too much context and nuance. So a lot of people also assumed you don't like honorifics and such and lumped you in with the localizers.

At the end of the day, I don't agree with every scanlation decision your team makes, but way more than that, I appreciate having the scanlation in the first place. And I appreciate that you use honorifics and onee-san and so on way more than I dislike not using oshi in this one chapter.

 

[PreStoneX]

I think the ideal would have been to use oshi everywhere except for where push could be substituted in that one sentence, and then the tiniest little TL note saying "oshi also means push".
Using the word oshi over fave did not mean you had to also use it in that one instance. It kind of feels like you did that to show everyone how dumb it sounds, but if that's the case, it's a misrepresentation of what people were asking for, imo. Oshi is a word that is actually known by a lot of people in the context of being someone you follow and admire and whatnot, but not in the context of also meaning push.
I'm kinda surprised that you and your team didn't know the word or felt it wasn't familiar to people, as I'd heard it used well before I got into manga. I thought it was on the level of otaku in western familiarity.
Anyway. I think you got caught up in the middle of a major disagreement between people who prefer more localization and people who prefer to keep the original words intact when translation would get rid of too much context and nuance. So a lot of people also assumed you don't like honorifics and such and lumped you in with the localizers.

At the end of the day, I don't agree with every scanlation decision your team makes, but way more than that, I appreciate having the scanlation in the first place. And I appreciate that you use honorifics and onee-san and so on way more than I dislike not using oshi in this one chapter.

I dont have a team, I just didnt know about it XD but well, I know people won't accept every decision I make, but in my views, I prefer translating in a way thats not too "japanese-y" but still not western-y.