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Originally Posted by StonerPenguin
Hmm, I was agreeing with you... and you still became offended.. awesome.
I was merely pointing out that even people who don't mind paying have strong temptation for free online translations. If manga publishers want to make money 1.) they should offer fairly cheap downloads. 2.) they should try to keep a better pace with the Japanese releases (I realize that licensing, editing, and printing take time. However, if they offer manga through the internet the process should speed up considerably -- thus, their impatient fans won't stray as much.) 3.) By "dick up" translations, Viz tries to westernize Japanese jokes and it comes out horrible. Also, Viz edits out gays and lesbians to a disgusting extent; why would I pay for a butchered story? I don't really have much of a problem with the translation so to speak. I dislike the editing Viz does to make it "more appealing" to Western readers. They need to give age warning and leave it unedited or offer two versions.
By "this is a great opportunity for manga publishers" is, look at everyone here who's upset over the loss of manga sites. If manga publishers make manga available for immediate download, it will be easier for people to learn to pay for it rather than find the next site.
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I wasn't sure what you meant by "opportunity". I see now.
I don't disagree that online options would be nice for manga. I can't imagine that won't be seen and expanded on soon.
The problem with Japanese humor in manga is that it rarely translates into something comprehensible (or funny) for an English speaking audience. You have to Westernize the jokes or else it comes out as gibberish.
I was actually part of a team of translators that worked on certain Viz titles. The book would be translated in Japan, then I would check and "explain" all the jokes to the next person, who would transfer those "jokes" into something that would makes sense and be funny in English. Without doing that people would have put the book down after five pages...trust me.
If you want to read the original Japanese, then read the original Japanese, but it is literally impossible to translate both the exact same joke, and the experience of reading it 99 times out of 100. So you have to choose one or the other. Sometimes companies choose A), which means pages and pages of footnotes which is an accurate translation but isn't funny, or transfer the joke into something funny in English. Thankfully most publishers choose to do that.