Archive for the Publishing Manga Category


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!





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. 





Why Your Story Was Rejected – The Query Letter Conundrum

December 1st, 2009

Hello –

“Thank you for your submission to “Yuri Monogatari.” We know just how much time goes into the creation of a story, and we appreciate your effort. Unfortunately, your story doesn’t really fit our criteria, and so we’re going to have to pass.

Of course we wish you the very best of luck in your quest to be published, and hope to hear from you again when you have another story that is suitable for the “Yuri Monogatari” series.”

***

There’s nothing fun about rejecting a story. I don’t enjoy it, the creator in question doesn’t enjoy it. We’re all unhappy. But it has to be done.

There are a zillion “so you wanna be an author” books and magazines, and all of them talk about the rejection process. They say it’s inevitable and that it isn’t you and that if you do it *just* right, you’ll get that magical request for more.

This is all true – and it’s all totally, completely untrue, as well. Like mostly everything, there’s an almost random combination of luck and hard work that goes into being published. When people receive a rejection, many want to know “why?” they were rejected. That conundrum obsesses most new artists and writers. I thought I’d discuss *why*. It won’t make you feel better, probably. It might even make you feel worse. But here’s what it looks like from my end.

Here’s some of the things that might help you understand *why* your story was rejected:

1) Have you EVER picked up any of that publisher’s books?

No? Why not? By actually reading a couple books in that imprint you might have a good clue what the publisher likes and dislikes. Your query letter may be making it plain that you have never read one of that publisher’s books. That’s not going to give a favorable impression. This is true for other media as well. Know what the publisher publishes.

2) Have you read and grokked the Submission Guidelines?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you have three lines to impress me. One line has to be, “Hello, my name is… and I am writing to you because/with/for…”

That leaves you two lines to be intelligent, polite and show you “get* what I want. No, that isn’t a lot of space. Almost without exception, that is more than enough. If you are sending me a story in which a character drinks herself to death over a breakup and nothing *happens* as a result of that, there’s a good chance I’ll reject your story. If your email is filled with typos – or a really poor grasp of grammar – I’ll reject your story. It’s not personal, I just don’t have any interest in teaching you how to write. Or draw, so don’t tell me that you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m looking for some sign that your work is *what I want to publish.*

3) Your vision is obscure.

No, I really do not understand what you mean when you say, “they work it out” or “there is a disagreement” or “wackiness ensues.” And frankly, I don’t think you know what you mean, either. Using a filler phrase or marketing copy is not the same as telling me what your story is about. Don’t be clever. Just tell me what I want to know.

4) You reply to my inquiry with a million questions.

“Here’s my story. How do you want that? In your guidelines you say this size – does that mean this size? Or can I use some other size? How about color? Can I do a color page? What about the artist, because I have a story but no artist and…”

Hold off there for second. We don’t have a done deal yet and if I do accept you into the publication, don’t you think I’d tell you some of that important stuff? Puppy-ish behavior is cute in some places – not in a query letter. It shows a lack of professionalism and an inability to understand the process that has to occur for things to happen.

5) I don’t like your story.

No, really. I think your story idea bites. It’s misery with no meaning to it. It’s not nihilistic, it just sucks. You had an idea and didn’t flesh it out, so any reader reading it would want to stab themselves in the eye after three pages of your character doing nothing but exposition on a situation that happened previously and basically has little to no relationship to the now.

Or maybe your story is over-complex, because you don’t really get that an anthology is filled with short stories that must stand alone and you’re convinced that your Prelude to the Prologue of the Great American Graphic Novel will work just fine on its own without any explanation of the characters or situation.

Or, you’ve sent me the 10000000000000th version of “Girl Meets Girl. They like each other. The End.”

Or, you’re 16 and you write like you’re 16. It’s no one’s fault. You just need a LOT of practice and polishing before you learn to write well. At 16, very few people write well.

Or you’re 40 and you write like you’re 16. Then you just aren’t the writer you think you are. If I can’t follow your story in 3-4 sentences or 3-4 paragraphs, I’m not inclined to try 24 pages of it.

I don’t have to like every story in our books. But I do have to stand behind them. I have in the past made exceptions – great story/bad art, vice versa or something else. But don’t count on me doing that for you.

6) It’s personal

This is REALLY, REALLY rare, but yes, there are times when I’m rejecting *you*. You rubbed me the wrong way by writing a jerky query letter and I don’t care if you’re Shakespeare and Rembrandt rolled into one, you blew it.

***

The best way to fix all of these things is to do your research. Actually pick up a book or two from that publisher (or that the agent said they represented.)

Look at what the publisher is not saying in their guidelines as well as what they do say. If the publisher says, “It doesn’t all have to be happy, but we prefer that” then when you send a Goth-dark wallow in angst, don’t be surprised if it’s rejected. Also, if the guidelines say “we’re only taking completed stories at this time” and you send something you haven’t even begun to write much less draw, then don’t be offended when the answer is “no thank you.”

Most agents, editors, publishers are as gentle as possible when they reject you. (Okay, some aren’t as gentle as possible, but most are) and yes, we are aware that it sucks to be you. I swear we aren’t chortling on the other end, glad to have crushed your dreams. And you may, yes, have to internalize the fact that you are not as good as you think you are. There’s no soft, nice, easy remedy for that. Hurtful truth is hurtful.

Honestly, knowing “why” I rejected your letter probably won’t make you feel better. But you can be darn sure that I take no pleasure in telling you no. What I’d like is to have a glut of amazing lesbian stories to tell. The answer to the conundrum of “why” is always “because we’re sorry, but you just aren’t doing what we want to publish/edit/represent.”





The Difficulties of Advertising and Promoting Manga

November 16th, 2008

A few months ago, I wrote a little essay detailing some, but not all, of the many problems faced by publishers and fans when it comes to the process of publishing, selling and distributing manga. One of the themes that came up in the comments was that readers felt that if only companies promoted their manga more, sales would be better. I felt that the misunderstandings driving this issue were worth a whole separate essay.

Let me begin by once again apologizing for being confusing when I mean to clarify and for oversimplifying complex and multipartite issues. Also, this is once again kind of long….

One of the least actionable suggestions on the previous essay about distribution was that companies should not even start to do anything unless they have “enough” money. This is not only very childish, it’s simply not doable. I’m fairly certain that very few fans have the vaguest idea of what it costs to license, translate, edit, retouch, letter, layout, publish and distribute a book. I’m equally certain that very, very few fans have the slightest idea of what would be “enough” money for a comprehensive advertising campaign. With multitrillion dollar companies failing every day, I think it’s safe to say that no one ever has “enough” money.

The core of advertising is saturation. One of the tenets of advertising is that repetition is the key. The ad for XYZ car may annoy the heck out of you, when you see it on TV, hear it on radio, see it in a magazine and on billboards, but chances are, you’d recognize the car if I showed you a picture. Buying *one* ad won’t make a difference. A company has to buy many, many ads to establish in our thick brains that a series is out. :-)

For the moment, let’s set aside the issue of selling manga to a non-comics reading audience. It’s a whole different can of beans.

Let’s just go over the most common forms of promotion in the anime and manga world:

1) Press Releases (which go to news sites and bloggers)
2) Company Forums/Website
3) Social networking
4) Reviews
5) Articles on and off-line
6) Ads on websites
7) Ads in print

As soon as they license a title and can officially announce it, most companies send out a press release. These go to on- and off-line media sources and will likely to be posted on the company’s website. A company might send this to several dozen media outlets, maybe even hundreds. Not all of those will publish the press release. Online sources are usually pretty good about that, and something like ANN will have forum space to comment. Of course, most companies have forums as well, and will gladly encourage discussion about the upcoming title.

People who read those press releases or visit those forums will know about the series. Perhaps a magazine or blogger who aggregates news will mention that the series has been licensed. All of those will expand the news out to a wider audience. There’s also word of mouth and other consumer-generated media such as mailing lists, groups on social networking sites, twitters, etc. Anyone mentioning a license in those spaces will spread the word that much more.

All of this goes for when a series is released, as well – at which time it also has the added advantage of being listed in Previews and books catalogs, which might raise awareness another notch.

And then there’s articles, and reviews. Companies send out review copies as early as possible. Magazines and online sites review their books. Perhaps someone will write an article about the company, the artist, the genre. There’s no guarantee that the review will be positive, however.

The problem with this is that you, a potential reader of this series, have to *be* in one of these spaces. You have to read a newsite, a magazine, a forum, a mailing list, a group, a blog, to hear that news. Which is why most manga companies rely heavily on fan advocates. One blogger with a larger or more targeted following might spread the news faster than a press release to ANN or a review on AoDVD.

My wife makes a good point here – she said, “Up until now, there’s no outlay of money.” She’s wrong, but the fact that she didn’t know that means you might not, as well. The press release is written by and distributed by a person who is being paid for doing that job. And, if the company has hired a professional marketing firm, they may in fact be paying to get the press release out there. Not all PR sites are free. So it’s not a direct buy, but it isn’t free, either. And while the cost of sending out a review copy isn’t back-breaking, you’re still paying per cost of book and the shipping, so it’s not free, either.

Then there’s advertising. There is an entire career one could make doing nothing but buying media space for advertising. It’s not a simple task.

It’s been proven over and over that most people who are at least vaguely familiar with the Internet simply tune ads out when looking at a page. I’m not making it up, trust me. And, like real estate, in advertising everything is location, location, location. If my ad is above the cut, in the reading space, you *might* notice it. Chances are, not unless you see it a dozen times though. If you have an adblocker, are a member of a site which gives you an ad-free view or, like myself, steadfastly refuse to look at ads on a webpage, the money for that impression just went {poof}.

When was the last time an ad popped up on a webpage and you went “Oooh! I wanted that!” and clicked through and bought it? How many times are you paging through a magazine or newspaper, see something for sale and run right out and buy it? You see my point.

Big ads on websites are expensive. Ads in magazines are prohibitively expensive, even though anime/manga magazines are super cheap compared to national print media. (For example, I could very seriously spend more to buy *one* smallish ad in The Advocate than I actually make on a book in a year.)

Little ads placed on the lower portion of websites might never be seen. Cheap, yes. But how *many* impressions do you think XYZ store needs to serve to make one sale? Thousands.

And advertising *still* is predicated upon the simple fact that you read the magazine or website and actually look at the ads there.

Now, given the fact that most companies promote and advertise at least their major, likely-to-sell-alot new series on heavily trafficked spaces online and in print, can you think of any other reasons why you might not have heard of a series before?

I can.

Because you are not *on* those spaces. You hang out at ABC forum, where the ads are either adult to pay the bills, or semi-related, like games or, also likely, has no ads because the space you’re on is private, subsidized, lives by donation and/or talks about illegal activities like warez, scans and subs. Perhaps you hang in irc, or on a private mailing list or group.

Companies have limited dollars and are likely to advertise on, not only the most seen spaces, but the spaces where the readers are most likely to convert their passion for a series into sales. ANN is more popular, but AoDVD readers tend to buy more. If you’re company Z, which site are you throwing your money at? 4chan is undoubtedly a massively popular site. And in some ways, culturally significant. But not in terms of sales. Channers are not an audience likely to buy a series. So, even though an ad buy there might be seen by many people, its another {poof} of money. It’s far better to sink money into a print magazine (already a higher likelihood of buying, because they *buy* the magazine) or a blog or website where the readers are likeliest to convert into buyers.

Now, all that having been said, when I read “companies don’t promote enough” what I actually hear is “companies don’t beam relevant information directly to my brain.” Because it’s not that hard to bookmark the maybe half dozen companies that release material that interest you, or one or two news sources that track relevant information. You can’t expect a company to send press releases to the irc channels you’re in, but you can expect them on the company website – and many companies offer informative forums, lists, and email newsletters with *news* that get beamed directly to your email box, that you will, sadly, still have to read in order to know.

In the comments of my last essay, Seven Seas detailed the multiple ways in which they had promoted a book and the response was, “well I never heard about it.” There is no fix for that. If you are not reading reviews, looking at ads, checking forums or news, following on Twitter, or somehow actully collecting information in some way, there is *no* way the company can reach you. It is next to impossible to inform you about a new series you *might* like, unless you’re paying attention to places where things you like are promoted.

Do companies promote enough? No. There is never *enough* promotion. There will always be some person who just walked in from the rain, who looks around and says, “I never heard of this before,” even after the largest freaking media blitz on the planet.