Last night in my mythology class a guest lecturer and expert in ancient Greek came in to talk about translation and the difficulties of making something understood, but at the same time keeping the original meaning of the original story. This was in reference to the Iliad, the book we're currently reading and one of the most often translated works in English.

Two thoughts that came up during this class were

A) I have taken way too much freakin' math because I could read most of the Greek letters the woman wrote on the board.

I am well aware of the issues of translation having been an anime fan for years and years.

And this lead to me thinking about problems that I'm seeing today with anime and manga and translations today.

Follow up:

10-15 years ago, anime was generally very poorly translated, and generally very carelessly dubbed. There were good dubs that existed of course, but generally, most anime was dubbed either to appear on TV and thus was heavily edited for content and to be understood by American audiences, or just done on the cheap. Today, because of the demand, anime is getting much better dubs, even with a lot of anime companies folding left and right. Funimation used to be the bane of the dubbing world (much like 4kids is today) and today it's considered one of the best.

The same problem existed for a long time in manga. Manga was terribly translated, with big changes to the storyline, and often colored or flipped around. While anime in general today is in good shape, mangas today retain many of their problems for a decade ago.

Thankfully, manga is no longer flipped around or recolored but translation remains a huge problem. Translation is very, very hard. In order to be a good translator you can't just know two languages, you have to be experienced in two cultures with a wide vocabulary--essentially you are a writer, a diplomat and editor all rolled into one. There are great translators out there, but they are few and far between. The problem with most manga I've noticed is one of two major problems: either the meaning is entirely changed and incorrectly translated. Or translated so literally that it loses the artistic, literary meaning that makes for good dialog.

Examples of really bad translation is Viz and to a large extent, Tokyopop. I have a personal vendetta against Viz. Their translations often change the storyline, taking out important honorifics that often make or break a joke or plot point within a story without replacing them with anything that makes sense. Or out and out changing the story or scene with something Americans will find funny or easier to understand. Granted, there is nothing wrong with small tweaks, something that means the same in Japanese, but is phrased differently in English. In addition, when they translate sound effects and put in text in text bubbles Viz often doesn't clean up the art well, making the art, old sound effects and new English text look like a big mess. As an artist, I take that kind of stuff personally. Tokyopop has a similar problem, their translations aren't bad, per se, as when story-lines depend on nicknames or honorifics Tokyopop chooses to keep them in. My problem is Tokyopop often forgets to translate text, especially the small aside comments that appear to the side of a text bubble.

On the other side of the spectrum is the literal translation, which basically is taking the dialog word for word. Which isn't any more fun to read than a bad translation. Japanese grammatically, is completely different than English, and often describe things in a way that make no sense to an English speaker, or someone who isn't intimately familiar with Japanese culture. For the most part, it's usually Fan-Trans that go this route, but I've noticed more companies doing the same thing. I suspect it's because of all the harping fans have about an 'accurate' translation, and as a result you have a faithful translation to the meaning of the dialog, but not necessarily a well written one. The irony is the fans who usually whine the most about bad dubs or bad translations are usually the ones who know the least about Japanese.

Here's what I mean by faithful translation, but lousy writing. Black Butler uses a LOT of subtext within it's dialog, especially when Sebastian speaks. As I've said in my last blog, Yen Press did a pretty good translation job---except for one line that drives me crazy.

When the mafia boss from Chapter 4 asks Sebastian what he is, the Japanese line is 'aku made shitsuji desu' which just means 'I am but (just) a butler'. And here is where the subtext comes in. Akuma de means I'm a devil/demon. So though the line is 'I'm just (but) a butler' but the subtext is 'I'm a demon butler'. Keep in mind, all of this is *in* the back of Yen Press's notes at the back of the book. The line Yen press chose to use in the English manga?

"I'm a devil of a butler"

Is it an accurate line? Yes. Is it a well written line? It could have been better. Arguably, the meaning is there, since Sebastian is just saying 'I'm one heck of a butler', but the subtext is lost by being translated so literally. The Japanese line was taking advantage of a pun within their language, one that doesn't exist in English. So what could have been an alternative? Taking advantage of synonyms that exist in our language. If there is one thing, there isn't a shortage of synonyms for the word 'demon' in English. A more subtle line with the exact same meaning is 'I am merely my master's minion.' This is not a direct translation, but it does mean the exact same thing. Minion means both a servant, as well as a demon.

I don't judge the translator too harshly, as the other 98% of the book is really well done, and the 'I'm a demon butler' line is probably the most migraine inducing translation of the series. But this does indicate how tricky translation is, and problems that remain within the industry.