Archive for the Now This Is Only My Opinion Category


Manga Censorship and Content Freedom on Otaku in Review Podcast

May 22nd, 2011

I’m just like any other fan. I like what I like and want other people to like it, too. I want anime and manga simulcast, subbed well and available on whatever platform I feel like using. I want to make my own choices about language, price, distribution and content.

Unfortunately, right now both the Tokyo government and the makers of hardware have begin to involve themselves in the above issues – and not in a way that facilitates freedom of choice or expression. No, the powers that be in government and in e-reader platforms have decided that the absolute most important thing they have to deal with is “protecting” people from things that they themselves don’t feel are appropriate. How’s that for ‘freedom’ folks? Apple says no to LGBT works on their shiny clean iPads, and Tokyo says no to marginal manga…are you really going to say “well, you know I think it’s okay to censor somethings I don’t like” and expect to be safe yourself?

I will stand up for the the rights of people I cannot stand to read manga I find repulsive because I stand up for the rights of everyone, everywhere to read whatever they damn well please.

This week on Otaku in Review,  I get up on this soapbox and have my say. I don’t agree with the episode title – I don’t believe I am going against the world. I stand with the world. And I’ll fight to the last to protect it.

I hope you’ll fight with me – don’t let Apple, Kindle, or anyone limit your freedom to chose content, don’t let Governor Ishihara limit your freedom to buy. Let’s stand up for the world, let’s stand up for freedom of the word.

Thanks to Scott and Michael for being such gracious hosts and giving me the chance to get my rant on. ^_^

Enjoy!





Translating Anime – Balancing Sense, Feel and Perception

May 1st, 2011

I find myself in conversations about translation of anime and manga rather often. Fans who have ever read a scanlation and/or have taken a few years of Japanese in school seem to have very fixed opinions of the the meaning(s), transliterations and adaptations of the anime and manga they read.

Recently on Twitter, Kazami Akira-san, a Japanese commenter on the overseas anime and manga market, was asking how well done the translations we see in anime actually are. Because so many western anime streams and broadcasts are region-locked, Japanese enthusiasts and journalists are not able to see these translations for themselves. I volunteered to try to do this. I’ve got enough Japanese that I’m the jerk in the room saying, “That’s not what they said” when reading the subtitles and I’m a writer, so I can tell when the translation/adaptation are or are not written with a skilled level of understanding of narrative or voice.

But, I want to start off with a basic fact about translation:

There is no one right translation. 

I know you think you know what “they really said,” but you (and I) don’t. We know what we think they really said, which is not the same thing at all. Just as art is in the eye of the beholder, language is in the ear of the listener. The more sophisticated a thinker you are, the more you know about the artistic, literary and cultural references, the more you have experience with language, the more you will get out of a sentence.  Different audiences need different things out of a translation.

This same goes for professional translators. Some work hard to capture each nuance of the original work, others make ballpark decisions based on best guesses. Obviously, this kind of thing will affect the overall translation.

Translators rarely work in a vacuum, either.  A translator, ideally, will be paired with a skilled adapter, who can write in their native language well, with an understanding of narrative, dialogue and voice. And, even more ideally, this will them get passed on to a skilled editor, who also knows the difference between a dialect and a spelling error. Unfortunately, this ideal situation is not always what happens. Sometimes translators really need a firm hand, but never get that good adaptation. Other times, the translator is awesome, but the adapter is not and ruins perfectly good language.

And no doubt it will come as no surprise that I have very strong views on being an editor. (^_^) Knowing how to speak English is not the same thing as knowing how to edit. Not only does an editor have to know how to fix mistakes, an editor has to know how to leave things alone. A good editor is truly a precious thing.

So, when it comes to anime and manga editing, anything that goes on between the translator, adapter (if there is one) and editor, can affect “the translation.” I know some cases where people were bitching about a thing, the translator had done it correctly and the adapter or editor re-wrote it and ruined it badly. It’s not the translator’s fault, although their name is on the translation, so they get the feedback.

As a translator, I still prefer to have an adapter, because I strive to get the best, richest, most sophisticated reading out of a line, so I may need an adapter to make it make sense in English. As an adapter, I smooth out pedantic, overly wordy or over-literal translations. As an a editor, I want the story to read as naturally as possible in English.

Then there is the issue with fan translation. Not every fan group has poor skills, not every group is good. Like everything else, there is a standard curve of deviation. There are a few groups that consistently produce error-filled, nearly incomprehensible scans or subs and some that produce professional quality work. The main body of groups is between these two extremes, providing varying degrees of good and bad, as their staff and inclination vary.

The problem with fan translations are not that they are “good” or “bad” but that they are often the first translation fans see. Otaku being what they are, the first is considered the benchmark and any changes after that are immediately perceived as negative. So, if a fan translation picks a name for a character – even if that name is not what the creator chose – that is the “right” name in fans’ minds. When a company “changes” that name to a creator-approved version, or a version that doesn’t violate western copyright, fans think it’s a bad translation. In this case perception is the problem, not the actual translation.

Okay, so that having been said, I’m going to do a short review of the top anime distribution companies in America. These reviews are filtered through my biases, not yours. They are, in fact, my opinion, based on my experience as translator, adapter and editor.

Viz Media – I watch very little Viz animation, so to prepare for this review, I watched some random episodes of a few series. In general, I feel that Viz anime is well-translated. As I am not familiar with the source material in most cases, it is easier for me to simply enjoy the anime and not focus on any changes being made. Their dubs are decent, their subtitles are not error-ridden and I find the stories to be easy to follow, so the narrative flow is preserved. Translations seem to fit the “voice” of the character well, which is really just the icing on the cake.

Overall – 9

Funimation – Funimation regularly makes choices in their translation that I would not personally choose, but I do not think that means they do “bad” translation. Overall, I think they capture narrative well. Subtitles are well-done technically. They do not always match the voice perfectly  – I feel pretty strongly about honorifics in the subtitles matching what is actually being said – but again, that is a personal issue, not an issue with the translation itself. Dubs are excellent, except they still maul the pronunciation of names. I want to hold a workshop with all the western VAs to teach them how to pronounce Japanese names. It is that, more than anything that keeps me from watching dubs.

Overall – 8

Media Blasters – Media Blasters has some issues. The translations are good, but they rarely capture voice or narrative flow. Even punctuation in the titles is frequently limited to periods and question marks, which gives the dialogue a flat, monotonal feel.  Their subtitles used to have many typographical errors, but that has improved significantly over the past few years. Their dubs, even the hentai…maybe especially the hentai…are pretty good, maybe better than most, because they don’t maul the names.

Overall – 6

AnimEigo –   Their translations earned early respect from folks in the bygone days, so I’d put them among the top in translation. They get tone, voice, narrative. Idioms are hard and in general, AnimEigo picks pretty difficult series to translate, so I can’t really find fault with the way they handle it, even if I dislike the way their subtitles look. ^_^

Overall – 8

Bandai – Bandai translations are as good as the team working on that series. If the team is good, the translations are good. If the team is bad, the translation is bad. More than anything else, Bandai has a serious lack in the editorial process. Good translators need help and bad translators need to be rewritten…but that isn’t happening. Technically the subtitles haven’t been edited and are so full of syntactical and grammatical errors, it makes me cringe. Get an editor, guys. You’re killing me.

Overall – 4

Crunchyroll – The same, times two. There is just no consistency from episode to episode; names change, sentences read like they were written by 8th graders, there is no narrative flow, no understanding of voice and the only consistent thing about their subtitles is that they are consistently terrible. I weep when watching CR, because they take sublime stories and crap all over them with a complete lack of adaptation or editing.

Crunchyroll has the worst translations in the industry, without question.

Overall – 3

Section 23/Sentai Filmworks – Again, sometimes I don’t agree with the choices, but on the whole, very good translation. They are great on everyday language and fall down most obviously on more poetic passages. This shows a lack of someone on staff with skill at writing (and perhaps no one who reads.) The subtitles are good, error-free and timed well. I like, but do not love their translations.

Overall – 7

Nozomi/RightStuf – Just to prove that I’m more objective than you think…while I love TRSI for their exceedingly high-quality work on translations, I still don’t agree with all their choices. ^_^ Nonetheless, I think they are among the best in translation right now. Subtitles preserve honorifics, or manage to translate the honorifics with some sense and consistency, they “get” literary and artistic references and, in general, do a really excellent job of things.

Overall – 9

So, we begin and end with the best of translation today. If you know of any other companies and want to add your two cents, by all means!





It’s time for Utter Nonense! Again!

March 30th, 2011

When spring rolls around (or, when in theory it should be rolling around again, but instead the weather steadfastly lingers at near-freezing and it pisses us all off…) I get the urge to answer questions. Why? I don’t know! But I do.

So, once again, I am taking questions from you, my dear readers about life, love, Yuri, whatever. As always, there are a few ground rules:

1) I will not answer questions about “what is your favorite….” I find them difficult to answer, as I really don’t have favorites.

2) No “ham or cheese” or “Coke or Pepsi” questions, please.  They aren’t all that interesting for any of us and I can tell you honestly, the answer is almost always “neither of the two.”

3) If you want to ask me what I see as the future of Yuri or why I like Yuri, I beg you to read all the previous iterations of my answers to these questions. If you have a real question about Yuri that I have not previously addressed, bring it on!

4) Please, please, no questions that can be answered by 30 seconds of actually READING one of my reviews here. Also, asking me “what do you think of so-and-so anime/fandom” is not going to give you the external validation you crave nor will I rise to the bait of using it as a springboard to rant about a fandom, either.

5) Lastly no “define the term” questions. The answers have been posted here: http://okazu.blogspot.com/2008/03/okazu-glossary-of-terms.html.

Now, I realize that this makes it harder to ask me questions. But the harder you work at the questions, the harder I have to work at the answering, so it’s a fair deal. The funnier the question, the better chance of an amusing answer. ^_^

I will also be cheating this time and perhaps using more of the questions I got for the UBC lecture, but didn’t have time to answer. ^_^

I don’t promise definitive answers, just the best I can come up with without moving an inch from my sofa.

Feel free to post your questions here in the comments! I very much look forward to them.





What You Need to Know To Become a Magical Girl

March 13th, 2011

I’m in the middle of watching Mahou Shoujo Madoka☆Magica (魔法少女まどか☆マギカ). A number of people mentioned I ought to watch it and a regular reader and commenter here suggested in conversation on Twitter that it would change the way I thought about Magical Girls Series. I replied that I felt that that was highly unlikely. Today’s post is why.

This is not a review of Madoka. I’ll do that when it’s complete. In short – I think there’s a lot of interesting elements in the story, both in terms of plot construction and visual design. I marathoned the first 8 episodes yesterday and am still watching, so that says something. ^_^ Today I want to explain, in a roundabout, allegorical way, why the plot complications in Madoka did not surprise me all that much.

Tools you need before becoming a Magical Girl:

1) Extensive reading of major literary works

This is why “average” middle-school girls are so often pegged by magical sidekicks to become Magical Girls. If you are an adult, former Comparative Literature major, you’d recognize irony and other literary plot complications when you saw it and not fall for things so quickly. So, make sure your kids read O. Henry and W.W. Jacobs as early as they are emotionally capable of reading them. Adam also suggests adding the story of Faust to the list and I agree. Perhaps some of the more annoying Arabian Tales, in which promises by genies are twisted, as well. dmunder7 also correctly suggests that Greek Myths – especially those involving Delphic prophecies be on your child’s early reading list.

2) A healthy dose of cynicism

Again, most middle-schoolers are not yet steeped in the ways of the world and actually think that they are important. If you make your kids aware of the larger world and the horrors humans perpetrate upon one another at a young age, they are much less likely to fall for a line, whether it be the guy who asks them to help him find his lost dog in the woods, or the cute magical creature offering to fulfill dreams.

3) A list of questions

If anyone offers you a chance to be a magical girl, start asking these questions. Unless you get a complete answer to all of them, say no and walk away:

– What are all my powers and what do I have to do to use them? This includes weapons, spells, mantras, poses, songs, familiars, etc….

– What is the downside/trade-off to using my powers (health, lifespan, suck energy from people, etc…)

– Who are my enemies, how do I recognize them?

– Do we have past connection, do we have a current connection? (If we have a past connection, how did I defeat them last time? If we have a current connection, how will defeating them affect their daily life now?)

– Why are they my enemies?

– What are the risks I am taking (death for me, death for my loved ones, destruction of everything in the known universe, etc….)

– What’s the long-term effect of doing this? (Do you wipe our memories, do we all die, but save the world, do we get to return to a normal life…how do I get out of it, once I’m done?)

– Do I have allies? How can I recognize them? What are their powers?

– Did we have a connection in the past and how does it affect our connections (if any) now?

– What else do I need to know that I haven’t explicitly asked, but will affect me if I don’t know it?

– What’s in it for you?

If you have any questions you’d add, feel free to do so in the comments. I’ll add the best in to the list.

I hope this gives you a better perspective of my perspective of Madoka, as well. I’m going to watch a few more episodes now. ^_^

***

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is not a list for Making a Magical Girl Anime. It’s a list to help you decide whether to become a Magical Girl…just like it says in the title.





The Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Publishing Your Manga

February 27th, 2011

I get an amazing number of emails asking how to become a published writer or mangaka. I’ve talked about some of the most important things a young writer or artist needs to know and about getting involved in the manga industry, here on Okazu.

Today I’m going to address the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing your work. This primarily relates to print models, but has a lot of application to online models (e-publishing, print-on-demand, apps, webcomics) as well. 

The Advantages of Self-Publishing Are:

1) Creative Control – No one will retitle your book, or pick a cover image you hate. From start to finish, this will be your vision.

2) Cutting Out Middlemen – Because you do not have to impress an agent who then has to impress a publishing company, you can bypass other people putting their fingers into your pie. Any profit you make is yours.

3) Takes Less Time – Again, because you are not spending hours of your time looking for or communicating with an agent, your book can go from manuscript to printed matter much more quickly.

The Disadvantages of Self-Publishing Are:

1) Creative Control – it is *up to you* to make every last decision down to the color of the border around the ISBN…heck, it’s up to you to get an ISBN at all.

2) Cutting Out Middlemen – Because you do not have an agent, you may not have guidance from an experienced person in the publishing company who can help you shape the book into something that has more sellability.

3) Takes Less Time – Again, because you don’t have agent or publisher, you may also be lacking steps like editing and proofreading which are *absolutely critical* for any publication, from poetry to non-fiction.

Also to consider: Publishers rarely provide serious promotional backing to a new author. They may give you leads to radio hosts or bookstores that might potentially welcome you for an interview or signing, but it will still be up to you to make it happen and to get to those locations. As a self-published author, you have no promotional assistance at all, so there’s no difference really. I believe strongly that you, as the author, ought to be out there pounding the boards whether you self-publish or go through a company.

What publishers offer are: editorial guidance, copy editing/proofreading and possibly, a modest advance. Publishers also provide distribution through bookstores and websites. You will still be responsible for selling that first book mostly on your own.

What self publishing offers is: A chance to learn the process from beginning to end, so you know exactly what it takes to get a book done. You will be responsible for lining up distribution and sales and promotion, but you’ll reap all the rewards, not just a portion of them.

The choice to look for an agent/publisher or strike out on your own is yours. Either way, there will be a lot of work ahead of you – some tears, possibly heartache. But whichever way you go, you’re sure to learn a lot about yourself and what you want from your creative life in the process.