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Dhomochevsky · 2013-12-30, 11:05

1.) I think your explanation nails it. Anyone producing english manga will be aiming for the U.S. market, because it is so huge. That market does not seem to be 'ready' yet for some of the good stuff.

2.) Without any more insight, I'll go and blame licensing issues here. IP the bane of culture...
Once a company has aquired a license, but does not see it profitable to continue using it, they will still sit on it, stopping anyone else from taking over.
This will usually happen if the sales of the couple first volumes is bad. As it's a series anyone picking it up will likely start at volume 1. So if volume 1 has bad sales, it is very unlikely that will suddenly change with later volumes.
Unless the japanese IP owner revokes the license, or it comes with some clause that requires active use, you may have to wait for a long time...
You may have some luck searching in other english/french markets, such as Australia or France. If the license your companies got was for north america only, there may be entirely different translations in english/french being released in other places.

3.) This is usally the case. For one thing, fan translations have a better feel and understanding of the material. They are fans after all.
It is also a community effort, which means errors are caught and translations improve over time.
Commercial translations will not have such an easy way to get feedback from the fanbase.

In this light, it always seemed like the logical choice to me, for the translators to just buy up the fan translations. I wonder if this is happening at all?

Now for translations in german... it just struck me that I am strangely oblivious to that.

Having followed english fansubs from the early 2000s I am so used to it, that english interspersed with random janpanese words feels completely natural to me. But hearing the same thing in a german dub, or reading german manga doing the same thing makes me cringe.
I really have no idea what is going on in the german anime scene...

But I think this feeling that something sounds wrong or right in a certain language is purely an aquired taste.
I tried watching the french cartoon 'Wakfu' in order to recover some of my school french and it had the exact same 'wrong' feel, even though it's in the original language. Just one I am not used to.
Another example would be the "The Middle East's first anime" in another topic here. Very weird to listen to at first, but I am sure that feeling would go away after some time.
These are both examples from dubs, but it seems to work the same for text.

2013-12-30, 11:05	Link #2
Dhomochevsky temporary safeguard Join Date: May 2004 Location: Germany	1.) I think your explanation nails it. Anyone producing english manga will be aiming for the U.S. market, because it is so huge. That market does not seem to be 'ready' yet for some of the good stuff. 2.) Without any more insight, I'll go and blame licensing issues here. IP the bane of culture... Once a company has aquired a license, but does not see it profitable to continue using it, they will still sit on it, stopping anyone else from taking over. This will usually happen if the sales of the couple first volumes is bad. As it's a series anyone picking it up will likely start at volume 1. So if volume 1 has bad sales, it is very unlikely that will suddenly change with later volumes. Unless the japanese IP owner revokes the license, or it comes with some clause that requires active use, you may have to wait for a long time... You may have some luck searching in other english/french markets, such as Australia or France. If the license your companies got was for north america only, there may be entirely different translations in english/french being released in other places. 3.) This is usally the case. For one thing, fan translations have a better feel and understanding of the material. They are fans after all. It is also a community effort, which means errors are caught and translations improve over time. Commercial translations will not have such an easy way to get feedback from the fanbase. In this light, it always seemed like the logical choice to me, for the translators to just buy up the fan translations. I wonder if this is happening at all? Now for translations in german... it just struck me that I am strangely oblivious to that. Having followed english fansubs from the early 2000s I am so used to it, that english interspersed with random janpanese words feels completely natural to me. But hearing the same thing in a german dub, or reading german manga doing the same thing makes me cringe. I really have no idea what is going on in the german anime scene... But I think this feeling that something sounds wrong or right in a certain language is purely an aquired taste. I tried watching the french cartoon 'Wakfu' in order to recover some of my school french and it had the exact same 'wrong' feel, even though it's in the original language. Just one I am not used to. Another example would be the "The Middle East's first anime" in another topic here. Very weird to listen to at first, but I am sure that feeling would go away after some time. These are both examples from dubs, but it seems to work the same for text.