The Manga-Anime-Asian Drama Confessional Thread

[yukihime03]

I confess I mostly read shoujo because I'm a hopeless romantic inside.

[Ancy]

I confess that the only shoujo manga I've read was Yokujō Climax... I confess it was too much for me!

[cearon]

Considering how popular it is, I'd expect a second season soon. It's been dominating popularity polls in Newtype, Doraku posted some over in Theater. Magi has even managed to breach the anime ratings top ten from time to time. Not every week, but even every once in a while is a big accomplishment. Most of the shows in the top ten have been there for ten years, or more. Sazae-san, Conan, One Piece, Chibi Maruka-chan. I'd expect a second season, movies, toys, everything. Not sure about a musical though. And the best part: no filler.

2. season is almost certain with the amount of material left in the manga and the popularity, thou it might be next year or this winter earliest probably. Thou i would not celebrate yet about the fact of no filler; if the earlier information is true (and so far they were), balbad arc is the last of this adaptation.and there was supposed to be some sort of story concerning a person with djinn equip.

i have to confess i would like a little slower pace on the anime it is still much better than some other manga adaptations. A-1 clearly did it justice.

[Kaiten]

I got my seasons wrong. Magi debuted in October, for some reason I put my foot in my mouth and said July. There's no actual guarantee of when they would debut a second season. A year after season one debuted is not an unreasonable expectation. You never know with these type of things. April 2014, October 2014. The may even do a movie before starting the next season. Whenever it comes, it's a safe bet this is not the end of the Magi anime. It's just a matter of treating it like a more conventional anime, rather than four cour shounen adaptions.

[MiyamotoMusashi]

Well, right now there are not really enough chapters for a second season to begin with, at least not with the immensely quick pacing. I think they put approx 72 chapters into 16 episodes till now, so you can expect this season to finish with approx 100-110 chapters.

[Doraku]

Concerning Magi, there was a rumor back then, I already shared that in Magi Anime thread. A Bones show would take its current time slot for several months, then it's highly likely that the Magi would return after that. Still, it's only a rumor, but it's better than no information at all.

I confess that the only shoujo manga I've read was Yokujō Climax... I confess it was too much for me!

You picked a bad manga as a starter , I randomly read this one month ago, it's just too random, yes, even according to Shoujo manga standards.

[Asarii]

I confess that no matter how proficient a translator is at his/her job, they'll never be able to truly obtain the essence of the Japanese language- by essence, I mean traits that go beyond vocabulary and grammar.

Japanese has several first person pronouns (watashi/atashi/boku/ore) as I'm sure many of us know, and depending on which one is used, we can get a general impression about the character even if they only spoke one line. On the other hand, English would translate all these pronouns into "I". A full sentence example would be, "I ate": in Japanese we can say, tabeta (literal translation), tabemashita (more polite), meshiagarimashita (even more polite), tabetaze (masculine/informal/definitive like "yes, I DID eat it"), kutta (informal), etc. Those are just simple examples, and a lot more can be interpreted from complex sentences where two characters speaking standard Japanese can alter speech patterns to fit their personality.

[Doraku]

^

I read a Japanese translator's blog months ago, he was disappointed by the same problem too, especially with VIZ translation. Too bad I forget where did I read it, but if my memory serves me right, even the way how a person throwing an insult and swearing could imply a person's social status. Asian languages are tend to be more.. dynamic in the way they address themselves, so I don't put the blame entirely on translator's fault.

[Teeba]

But the problem isn't that we will never get the true meaning of what is being said, its that translation companies need the localization in order for them to market manga. And the localization that occurs depends on what the company deems is suitable. Translation companies also do demographic studies to see what sells and what doesn't, and that affects localization too. Do teenagers swear in manga? Is it suitable to show them saying things like fuck, shit, asshole? Would you lose potential buyers if you depict showing the teenagers actually swearing as oppose to mildly swearing? Its a wonder how scanlation groups and license companies can keep up with it, if at all.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think its an issue with the proficieny of the translation, its an issue of business strategy over academic accuracy. Its a bittersweet feeling, that you have to lose the culture manga is steeped in just to be able to follow along. But at the same time, the original scanlation groups and foreign license companies had to cross that bridge too, otherwise we wouldn't be able to read manga in this kind of environment we do currently. In an ideal society, of course we should strive to making the translations as close to the original meaning as possible.

Confession: I am really psyched about Beelzebub vol. 20 coming out, because I have sinking suspicion its going to have a lot of extras in it. I finally bought volume 19 today and it seems Tamura-sensei is trying to promote the Tissues Arc. I was so sure he was going to troll the fanbase by having emphasis placed on the Christmas Arc instead, but I'm a wrong (much to my delight).

[Doraku]

^

The funny thing is sometimes the translation of insults in Manga is more.. acerbic than the actual sayings in Japanese language. If, for example, a translator decides to censor harsh words due to business issues, I wouldn't mind, that reason alone is ample as an underlying basis for censoring words that could be harmful to teenagers and toddlers. But what would happen if the case is the other way around? In my previous post, I remembered that a professional translator is lamenting on his blog about how the words of Shinichi Chiaki of Nodame Cantabile is translated as "bitch" in the official translation. My memory is a bit hazy concerning the details of his argument, but one thing I could remember is considering the background of Shinichi's character as a whole - his social background coming from a noble class etc - such word is illogical to be said by him. This professional translator further made a research into the original Japanese text, and found out that the nuances given by the actual word is not really that condescending.

I know probably this is an over analyzing on his part; Probably the word "bitch" would not make any difference if it is being read by Western audience. One thing that I want to emphasize is, there is something that you couldn't translate because of different mindsets caused by language barrier.

[Asarii]

I read a Japanese translator's blog months ago, he was disappointed by the same problem too, especially with VIZ translation. Too bad I forget where did I read it, but if my memory serves me right, even the way how a person throwing an insult and swearing could imply a person's social status. Asian languages are tend to be more.. dynamic in the way they address themselves, so I don't put the blame entirely on translator's fault.

It's probably because Asian societies place huge importance on hierarchy more so than the West. It's not just between commoners and nobles either: adults talking to children will be different than a child talking to his/her grandparents. French has tu and vous; German has du and Sie; English used to have thou, but now we're just using "you" instead.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think its an issue with the proficieny of the translation, its an issue of business strategy over academic accuracy. Its a bittersweet feeling, that you have to lose the culture manga is steeped in just to be able to follow along. But at the same time, the original scanlation groups and foreign license companies had to cross that bridge too, otherwise we wouldn't be able to read manga in this kind of environment we do currently. In an ideal society, of course we should strive to making the translations as close to the original meaning as possible.

I agree that the audience (i.e. the Western audience) is been taken into account, and I don't blame the translators at all. It's just that the "personality of the speaker" can get lost in translation because English is not as flexible as Japanese in how its sentences can be manipulated. The reason why I wrote the post in the first place was because some fans have thought that a character said a particular line when it was actually another character who said it instead. There would be a distinction as to who said what in Japanese that is unfortunately not clear in English.

I'm sure it's the same for English being translated into Japanese as well. Japanese fans who understand English aren't too pleased with the Japanese translations of Harry Potter, and I had a hard time reading some Japanese translations of European classics because the translator made the dialogue much more complicated than it had to be.

[destiny4ever]

I confess that I have enjoyed reading the latest chapters of Bleach a lot!!

Isshin’s arc has been very good so far. It has made me see Isshin in a new light. Ichigo’s mom is awesome and it is really fun to see how Ichigo is similar to his dad in some aspects and similar to his mom in other aspects. Another character I find very cool and interesting is Uryuu's dad.

So yep, I confess that the latest chapters of Bleach have renewed my fondness for this manga.