AnimeSuki Forum - View Single Post - Licensed Monogatari Series Light Novel discussion

Da~Mike · 2009-09-01, 17:37

^Lummie Hellsing (the 2001 anime adaptation) was pretty good up till about episode something... basically just past the mid point, when the story became garbled the further it deviated from the manga. That said, I've never read the manga but I do know the Hellsing Ultimate OVA is more or less identical to the manga (more gore and other stuff). I personally prefer the 2001 series over the OVA, though that's contrary to popular opinion.

And hey, cut Bakatsuki some slack.
Translating and editing novels is a far more painful process than one might think.
Moreover, comparing anime subbing with novels, it's far more difficult to translate all those reams of text in a novel, whereas the main thing translated in fan subs is speech, and that's generally quite straightforward.
Furthermore, the way those Japanese light novels are written can make speech a nightmare to follow.

Main limiting factor for novel translation projects would be the availability of translators.
And how willing they are to spend X amount of time (that's a lot of time mind you) to translate every single kanji & kana into English as accurately as possible, then be badgered by editors and asked for source text, and debate the most accurate translation/adaptation of any given phrase in a particular novel.

The Bakatsuki group put a lot of time and effort to produce effectively print-worthy translations as far as I can tell (or compared to the Viz and Tokyoppop novels). They certainly deserve much more credit than people give them.

That aside, if Bakemonogatari gets picked up, it would be a very big challenge to try and translate all that Nisio-in meta-humour into something coherently amusing in English, without it sounding like Japlish or worse yet, leaving too many romanised Japanese words in and needing to explain it somewhere.

Take the title Bakemonogatari. Works well in Japanese but doesn't have a good equivalent in English. 'Ghostory' is not entirely correct as a translation, though it seems to flow better than 'Monstory'. I would stick with 'Monstory' as it remains closer to the original translation of Bakemonogatari.

And then a friend reminded me of some film where an Analyst-Therapist abbreviated his profession to Anal-Rapist.

Many thanks again for all the excerpts ickem.

2009-09-01, 17:37	Link #96
Da~Mike Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: London	^Lummie Hellsing (the 2001 anime adaptation) was pretty good up till about episode something... basically just past the mid point, when the story became garbled the further it deviated from the manga. That said, I've never read the manga but I do know the Hellsing Ultimate OVA is more or less identical to the manga (more gore and other stuff). I personally prefer the 2001 series over the OVA, though that's contrary to popular opinion. And hey, cut Bakatsuki some slack. Translating and editing novels is a far more painful process than one might think. Moreover, comparing anime subbing with novels, it's far more difficult to translate all those reams of text in a novel, whereas the main thing translated in fan subs is speech, and that's generally quite straightforward. Furthermore, the way those Japanese light novels are written can make speech a nightmare to follow. Main limiting factor for novel translation projects would be the availability of translators. And how willing they are to spend X amount of time (that's a lot of time mind you) to translate every single kanji & kana into English as accurately as possible, then be badgered by editors and asked for source text, and debate the most accurate translation/adaptation of any given phrase in a particular novel. The Bakatsuki group put a lot of time and effort to produce effectively print-worthy translations as far as I can tell (or compared to the Viz and Tokyoppop novels). They certainly deserve much more credit than people give them. That aside, if Bakemonogatari gets picked up, it would be a very big challenge to try and translate all that Nisio-in meta-humour into something coherently amusing in English, without it sounding like Japlish or worse yet, leaving too many romanised Japanese words in and needing to explain it somewhere. Take the title Bakemonogatari. Works well in Japanese but doesn't have a good equivalent in English. 'Ghostory' is not entirely correct as a translation, though it seems to flow better than 'Monstory'. I would stick with 'Monstory' as it remains closer to the original translation of Bakemonogatari. And then a friend reminded me of some film where an Analyst-Therapist abbreviated his profession to Anal-Rapist. Many thanks again for all the excerpts ickem.