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Old 2007-06-09, 17:05   Link #117
zalas
tsubasa o sagashite
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Robotnik View Post
Any specific sentences or references that seemed watered down?
Original:
受験や将来について深刻ぶる時期は、遥か未来にある。
Viz's translation:
Some part of his brain knew another exam was coming up, but it seemed like the distant future, and he wasn't too worried.

The original is saying that things like entrance examinations (for college, presumably) and times that will be important to his future were still far off in the future. The Viz version dumbs it down to "another exam" and adds in explicit interpretation, like "Some part of his brain knew..." and "and he wasn't too worried," where the meaning would've come across implicitly anyway.

Original:
おっとりした誇りある専業主婦である母・千《ち》草《ぐさ》と、学校から徒歩二十分ほどの一戸建てで二人暮 らし。
Viz's translation:
... Yuji alone with this doting mother. A gentle soul, Chigusa maintained their small home with pride. And every morning Yuji made the twenty-minute walk to school.

The first half of the original says that Chigusa, Yuji's mother, is a gentle and proud full-time homemaker. Nowhere is "doting" mentioned. The second part of the sentence says that they live together in a house (by itself, as opposed to a condo or apartment) that's around a 20 minute walk to school. The Viz translation here made explicit that Yuji walks to school, as opposed to the original, the purpose of which was to give the distance their house was located from Yuji's school and properly establish the setting.

---

All throughout the prologue, these things keep popping up. It would seem that the person at Viz was deliberately removing details that he deemed inconsequential and then adding in explicit interpretations as opposed to letting the reader derive the implied meaning. It makes the story feel a lot more childish, as if the "writer" were holding your hand and taking you through the story in small, gentle steps.
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