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Manga Update
So, I'm home, and the first thing that happened to me was that I went out to hang around with Mike, who -- in my absence -- has somehow become cool and intellectual. I'm unbearably proud of him. His GPA is a 3.45! He may have been abducted by aliens or something.
He's a history major and he seems to have a fascinatingly in-depth understanding of how it affects people. He's reading history textbooks for fun now. It's bizarre. I mentioned to him my Last Dreamer universe and asked for his help on a few things, and he had several brilliant suggestions to make and just, argh, so cool. The things he suggested to work with the ruling class and the history of the Dreamerverse government...! And that's not even counting the suggestions he made regarding the plot.
Then, of course, we went to a bookstore, where I spent $50 on manga and Neil Gaiman.
XXXholic volume 1 and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle volume 1 as produced by Del Rey are, as I hadn't even dared hope, brilliant. The translations are good, the quality is amazing -- God! -- they included the color inserts, I've never seen that happen before. They have detailed notes at the end of each volume to illuminate you as to the suffixes (which are retained in the original!!) and the cameo appearances (although, I pickily note, they were sketchy on the titles that aren't American: ie, Ashura-ou was mentioned but not Souma in Tsubasa, and Kazahaya and Rikuou of Gohou Drug nonfame weren't mentioned at all in spite of their XXX vol 1 appearance) and the little cultural foibles you may not have noticed. They are simply charming and I'm ecstatically happy.
I knew I would be happy with Del Rey the moment I saw the statement "Manga is not a genre, it is a medium," on their website. They seem to take publishing manga seriously, the same way they take publishing their books, and they have clearly put a lot of effort and consideration into the finished product. I wish I could contact them to be sufficiently worshipful.
Hellsing volume 2 as produced by Dark Horse Comics is also an exercise in rare accomplishment. They are not afraid to have their characters call each other nasty names; they do not hold back on the weird or on the creepy. The dialogue is quite well-translated for each character. Alucard in particular is remarkably convincing in his evil and in his playfulness; it may be a headache to have to poke through Anderson(g)'s brogue, but it's understandable and a nice, personal quirk. I especially like the note of including Kohta's wacky extra drawings on the inside covers -- that's a first. I devoured this volume and can't wait for more vampire/Nazi/KKK goodness from them. Of course, I expected nothing less from an honest-to-goodness comic publisher.
All of these enthralled me, sucked me in, and inspired me. They were truly good, even true-to-the-original-ly good. You can tell that these publications are serious, professional publications, equal in their own rights to their Japanese counterparts.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and instead of being inspired by, I was angered by Candidate for Goddess volume 2. I have long suspected Tokyopop of being unprofessional, especially considering the butchering of Planet Ladder that they've been reluctantly cutting back on, but this volume I had confirmation.
I have noticed a disturbing trend, which TJ has cleverly termed at my explanation the "Davis Syndrome", of personal bias on behalf of the people producing these volumes.
I don't know how it happens. Maybe it's a stressed overworked translator. Maybe it's an editor or a producer who's picky about how he takes his characters. Either way, someone, somewhere, decided that Zero -- the main character, the hero, of Megami Kouhosei -- is stupid. Incurably stupid. Therefore they are going to seize every opportunity to make fun of Zero, to have other characters insult him, and to phrase his lines in such a way that he seems less noble or intelligent a character than he really is. There are several incidents where lukewarm amiable insults are made more outwardly criticizing, and where Zero has been made to sound like he doesn't give a thought to anything.
Distinctly memorable, I feel, is the comment in the discussion about Yamagi's new haircut: a line where Clay changed the topic back to Yamagi's hair from Zero's word-fumble, and it was replaced with a biting insult of Zero, which makes Clay sound like a jerk and Zero sound retarded and Yamagi just plain weird for then babbling about his haircut egotistically.
You assholes. Zero doesn't speak their language, remember? He fumbled for a colloquialism, missed it, and you guys assume that he's so totally inept that he genuinely thinks that Yamagi got his head cut.
The name of this hideously unprofessional character disease is taken from Daisuke, ne Davis, of Digimon 02 notoriety. The producer of the show hated him, had characters mock him at every turn, and gave him not a single ounce of respect. The American Davis is so unworthy of being a main character it's not even funny -- he's the comic relief, not the hero. I don't want this to happen to my Zero.
Here's hoping it's just volume 2. But I become more and more disenchanted with Tokyopop, I swear. I do have to note with massive amusement that they left all the color inserts in at the back of the book, but, um, they're not in color. So we have a bunch of random black and white illustrations back there. Ooookay. At least the spelling (while inaccurate in places) is consistent, which is more than can be said for Planet Ladder, and the names are all spelled correctly. Although I wish they hadn't gone with "Crow" for Dr C's first name. (Speaking of, I wonder what Yuuko's connection to Clow is? *hee*)
Anybody else got any manga commentary to share? Recommendations?
He's a history major and he seems to have a fascinatingly in-depth understanding of how it affects people. He's reading history textbooks for fun now. It's bizarre. I mentioned to him my Last Dreamer universe and asked for his help on a few things, and he had several brilliant suggestions to make and just, argh, so cool. The things he suggested to work with the ruling class and the history of the Dreamerverse government...! And that's not even counting the suggestions he made regarding the plot.
Then, of course, we went to a bookstore, where I spent $50 on manga and Neil Gaiman.
XXXholic volume 1 and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle volume 1 as produced by Del Rey are, as I hadn't even dared hope, brilliant. The translations are good, the quality is amazing -- God! -- they included the color inserts, I've never seen that happen before. They have detailed notes at the end of each volume to illuminate you as to the suffixes (which are retained in the original!!) and the cameo appearances (although, I pickily note, they were sketchy on the titles that aren't American: ie, Ashura-ou was mentioned but not Souma in Tsubasa, and Kazahaya and Rikuou of Gohou Drug nonfame weren't mentioned at all in spite of their XXX vol 1 appearance) and the little cultural foibles you may not have noticed. They are simply charming and I'm ecstatically happy.
I knew I would be happy with Del Rey the moment I saw the statement "Manga is not a genre, it is a medium," on their website. They seem to take publishing manga seriously, the same way they take publishing their books, and they have clearly put a lot of effort and consideration into the finished product. I wish I could contact them to be sufficiently worshipful.
Hellsing volume 2 as produced by Dark Horse Comics is also an exercise in rare accomplishment. They are not afraid to have their characters call each other nasty names; they do not hold back on the weird or on the creepy. The dialogue is quite well-translated for each character. Alucard in particular is remarkably convincing in his evil and in his playfulness; it may be a headache to have to poke through Anderson(g)'s brogue, but it's understandable and a nice, personal quirk. I especially like the note of including Kohta's wacky extra drawings on the inside covers -- that's a first. I devoured this volume and can't wait for more vampire/Nazi/KKK goodness from them. Of course, I expected nothing less from an honest-to-goodness comic publisher.
All of these enthralled me, sucked me in, and inspired me. They were truly good, even true-to-the-original-ly good. You can tell that these publications are serious, professional publications, equal in their own rights to their Japanese counterparts.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and instead of being inspired by, I was angered by Candidate for Goddess volume 2. I have long suspected Tokyopop of being unprofessional, especially considering the butchering of Planet Ladder that they've been reluctantly cutting back on, but this volume I had confirmation.
I have noticed a disturbing trend, which TJ has cleverly termed at my explanation the "Davis Syndrome", of personal bias on behalf of the people producing these volumes.
I don't know how it happens. Maybe it's a stressed overworked translator. Maybe it's an editor or a producer who's picky about how he takes his characters. Either way, someone, somewhere, decided that Zero -- the main character, the hero, of Megami Kouhosei -- is stupid. Incurably stupid. Therefore they are going to seize every opportunity to make fun of Zero, to have other characters insult him, and to phrase his lines in such a way that he seems less noble or intelligent a character than he really is. There are several incidents where lukewarm amiable insults are made more outwardly criticizing, and where Zero has been made to sound like he doesn't give a thought to anything.
Distinctly memorable, I feel, is the comment in the discussion about Yamagi's new haircut: a line where Clay changed the topic back to Yamagi's hair from Zero's word-fumble, and it was replaced with a biting insult of Zero, which makes Clay sound like a jerk and Zero sound retarded and Yamagi just plain weird for then babbling about his haircut egotistically.
You assholes. Zero doesn't speak their language, remember? He fumbled for a colloquialism, missed it, and you guys assume that he's so totally inept that he genuinely thinks that Yamagi got his head cut.
The name of this hideously unprofessional character disease is taken from Daisuke, ne Davis, of Digimon 02 notoriety. The producer of the show hated him, had characters mock him at every turn, and gave him not a single ounce of respect. The American Davis is so unworthy of being a main character it's not even funny -- he's the comic relief, not the hero. I don't want this to happen to my Zero.
Here's hoping it's just volume 2. But I become more and more disenchanted with Tokyopop, I swear. I do have to note with massive amusement that they left all the color inserts in at the back of the book, but, um, they're not in color. So we have a bunch of random black and white illustrations back there. Ooookay. At least the spelling (while inaccurate in places) is consistent, which is more than can be said for Planet Ladder, and the names are all spelled correctly. Although I wish they hadn't gone with "Crow" for Dr C's first name. (Speaking of, I wonder what Yuuko's connection to Clow is? *hee*)
Anybody else got any manga commentary to share? Recommendations?
no subject
While we're complaining about Tokyopop, I'm going to point fingers at the Sorcerer Hunters manga... "translations." They're flipped for starters. The character and place names can change from manga to manga, and there were some instances when it was just something like "Spool er" or equally poor formatting. And then there are the speech bubbles that simply don't have anything written in them. o.O I could do a better job translating those manga.
I think with Tokyopop, it depends on what you're reading. There are some that I think they do an okay job with, like... er... I think they did the CLAMP Campus Detectives, and that was pretty good. But then we look at Sorcerer Hunters and... cry. And Zero being an idiot, as you mentioned. (Argh, that reminds me - I really want 02 of Digimon subtitled or... just in raw Japanese. The dub burns my soul.)
I think we need to support the lovely companies like Del Rey, who actually want to give us manga that's as true to the Japanese as possible. Or else I'm just going to get better at reading and kanji and buy manga in Japanese instead.
I'll have to look through my manga to see if I have anything to recommend. ^^ If you haven't read Demon Diary, I suggest you do - it's insanely cute. <3 And it's all out now! It's from Korea, I think. ^^ I might have fangirled to you about it before. ^^;