Comments on: Is That Really You, Father Virgil?

By: The Animanachronism

The Animanachronism — Sun, 17 May 2009 20:03:07 +0000

There was a manga Bible (Superbook comes to mind) ? If so, I can see it not doing that well!

I think the crowning glory of this manga adaption is that it is not only adapting Dante, but that it’s Go Nagai, of all people.

By: moritheil

moritheil — Sat, 16 May 2009 14:09:29 +0000

Hilarious and awesome. Hopefully it fares better than the manga Bible.

By: The Animanachronism

The Animanachronism — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:30:09 +0000

I can’t think of many people whose ‘new spin on things’ is more likely to be interesting than Go Nagai! I think the idea of verse interacting with the concrete form of a comic book is quite interesting, too.

By: The Animanachronism

The Animanachronism — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:24:19 +0000

I think if nothing else these arguments can help us pick apart the processes involved in the business of translation itself. And I think we’re entitled to say how we’d like to have translation done, without necessarily expecting translators to agree or blaming them if they do something else.

I’ve read quite a lot of translator’s prefaces and the best ones always give you an sense of the translator’s choices. In scholarly editing, which is a similarly interpretive process, I’ve heard it argued that the best editions not only overtly describe the editor’s choices, but also make an effort to still be useful to people who disagree with those choices. It’d be nice to see that done with a translation, but the only way I can imagine it being achieved would be with lots of notes . . . hmm. Maybe not.

During my A-Levels, everyone in my Latin class collaborated on a ’simple’ translation of the second book of the Aeneid: it was a column of English words and phrases, each corresponding to one Latin word, in the syntax of the original poetry; we called the resulting language ‘construese’ and, while it was a useful preparation for our exams, it was completely incomprehensible to anyone who didn’t know the original. And of course nothing survived of the poetry’s quality as poetry.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:48:48 +0000

I can say I’m decently versed in modern classic literature, but I’ve never been familiar with the ancient ones (and I’ll qualify DC as ‘ancient’). I’ve read the Aeneid, and while I appreciate the depth of its history, it never really grew on me.

But I read it, nevertheless (as per your recommendation)! I do welcome adaptations of these classics, because they’re often most welcome: most of the time, they put a new spin to things.

By: adaywithoutme

adaywithoutme — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:33:19 +0000

I would argue that, honestly, none of the larger arguments for or against doing such a thing matter, as a scanlation is a labor of love – there is no monetary reward for the work, so one is perfectly free to do howsoever they please with it, so long as they make their audience aware of what exactly they are doing. The last part is, truly, only to avoid confusion on the part of the reader, who may be unable to detect the fact that the scanlator has decided to take a different tact with the project than ’simple’ translation (’simple’ since translation is never just translation, but a process of interpretation).

By: animekritik

animekritik — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:34:30 +0000

ha! i can do layered comments too! (though I can’t remember what they’re actually called, not layered that’s for sure).

Anyway, in theory I agree with you guys, but think about it, what are the friggin chances the scanlator is going to have better taste than the original creator?? Heck, if I could create cool stuff I wouldn’t be translating, right?
In any case, creative translating should be very clearly noted for the reader to be aware of..

By: The Animanachronism

The Animanachronism — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:11:10 +0000

Honorifics interest me. Have you come across any subtitles that retain honorifics even though the characters aren’t Japanese or speaking in Japanese? There’s an infamous (well, infamous on /m/) set of subs for the Zeta Gundam movies which retains words like ‘kisama’ and ‘yatsu’, even though the characters are probably, in theory, not speaking Japanese.

By: The Animanachronism

The Animanachronism — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:05:30 +0000

Eh, don’t thank me, thank Nagai, Dante and the translators!

By: The Animanachronism

The Animanachronism — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:04:11 +0000

I’m probably rather more radical than most, if not all, actual translators on this one, as I more-or-less side with lelangir’s essentially hedonistic criterion: if it makes it more entertaining, then the ‘translator’ can feel free to depart completely from the original text.

Of course, most people are most entertained when they’re reading something that’s relatively faithful, so most of the time we want a faithful translation. I’m not particularly bothered about faithful translations: if I really cared I’d try to learn Japanese in the hope that after some years I wouldn’t have the problem. If I didn’t make an effort to learn Japanese, but continued to complain about creative translation, I’d be acting in bad faith.

Since you actually do translate manga, your point of view is probably more practical.