Mangagamer (Previously "Hell may have frozen over?")

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#241

The point was that English does have honorifics since you argued that they don’t. Using honorifics in general is perfectly good English. Using Japanese honorifics was part of that argument.

I haven’t read it (and it’s not even translated), but I know Memoirs of a Geisha keeps -san. Go to Amazon and search inside the book. You’ll see. So even books originally written in English use Japanese honorifics.

The Makioka Sisters is a translated novel and uses -san at least. I haven’t read it, but a quick Amazon search shows that.

Have you read pretty much any European novel translated into English? They almost always keep the original honorifics. Look at any French book translated into English. You will invariably see Monsieur, Madame, etc.

I’ll pick some random foreign books from my library and show you examples of novels translated with explanatory notes.

Noli Me Tangere

A book from the Phillipines. It has over 15 pages of notes in it. Much of it is used to describe the culture, explain honorifics, or explain nouns with no equivalents in English.

This Earth of Mankind

Originally written in Javanese. Three page glossary with just honorifics or nouns without an English equivalent.

I could list more, but if you look at pretty much any foreign novel, especially ones from Europe, you will find translation notes or the original honorifics intact. Modern translations acknowledge the existance of other cultures. You need to accept this already. Works in Japanese are one of the odd exceptions that do not follow this trend, which is why I am trying to argue for change.

English is built upon foreign languages. It can use foreign words and still be English, therefore it is perfectly acceptable for translators to include foreign words or honorifics when they directly pertain to the culture and there is no direct English equivalent. Translating a work while hiding the original culture from the audience is just assuming your audience is ignorant.

#242

There are some manga, mostly from Del Rey but also some from Tokyopop, that keep the honorifics in the translation.

Also, not sure if anyone here is a fan of Basilisk: Koga Ninpuchou, but its English dub keeps the honorifics in it. Also, the dub of Persona 3 kept the honorifics too.

#243

That’s exactly it though - those companies are appealing to the tastes of anime/manga fandom. However, where mainstream novels are concerned, I don’t see it very often. Among translators, I think there’s much resistance against what they see as silly, literal localization (or lack of localization).

I have the book with me here, and the translator excised all Japanese honorifics except in reference to Taeko’s nickname. Depending on the context, they’ve either removed all formal address, or replaced the original honorifics with Mrs., Miss, Mr., Dr., etc.

#244

Wow. Reading this latest discussion, I can clearly see why there are so few English distributors for eroge games out there.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I just want to play some English translated eroge. I mean, damn… tearing MG a new asshole because they didn’t translate Japanese honorifics, or didn’t have Mizuki introduce herself like James Bond? Translation notes? I mean, Edelweiss isn’t a Japanese literary treasure here… it’s an eroge.

Typos and bad grammar? Yeah, that’s a problem.
DRM and no physical copy? I can see how some view that as a problem.
Lack of honorifics and adjustments made to make the game read like regular English? Now we’re just nitpicking.

In the choice between more translated eroge and the need for translations to have “proper” Japanese honorifics and introductions that sound weird in English but are culturally correct in Japanese… I’d MUCH rather have the translated eroge, thankyouverymuch. Beggars, as they say, cannot be choosers.

#245

Maybe you have a different version. I looked at the first one that popped up on Amazon. Go search inside the book and click on the excerpt. The first line uses -san.

This discussion really is getting out of hand. My biggest complaint in the first place was that they changed the names from the ones spoken. There’s really not much defense for that in translation since people call each other by last names in America too, but just less often than in Japan. I was saying even most mainstream works don’t change last name to first anymore, but this did.

I’m not tearing MG a new asshole for not including honorifics. I’m tearing an asshole in olf_le_fol for arguing that honorifics can’t be used in good translations even though it’s commonly done today when books are translated from other languages.

They didn’t even have to translate it literally. They could have just included the full name, which they didn’t (even during the times when other characters introduce themselves). This doesn’t make sense as sometimes in the story your character knows the girl’s last name without ever being told it in the script, or the girl asks you to stop calling her by her last name when you’ve only called her by her first name in the script.

#246

If you are certain, and they haven’t fixed it even after having this pointed out to them, report them to the credit card processing agencies. I have no proof, or I’d do it myself, but they Are. Not. Allowed. to do this according to the terms when they signed up for their merchant account. It is just not safe.

#247

Going through Edelweiss some more, another thing I find odd about their script is they often drop sentences from what the characters say. It’s not a translation thing, it’s just they decided not to include a certain sentence.

Here’s an example from early on:

Game:
“How did you get here?”

Voice:
“Who are you? And how did you get here?”

I mean the missing lines usually aren’t critical, but I wonder why they sometimes dropped them. Sometimes they’re dropped due to the translation, but sometimes they’re just dropped completely.

And for the encrypted credit card thing, you could always just use a virtual card. You can get one from Paypal I believe. Even so, if the page it submits to is secure, it should be fine. The page you enter it on doesn’t matter.

#248

Ah … that is OK then. The other post wasn’t 100% clear on that; if the credit card numbers are encrypted when they’re sent over the wire, then there’s no problem. Problem only comes in when there’s NOT encryption applied when the card number is sent, so it gets sent in cleartext.

#249

I guess it was my post the confusing one. Yes, freakazoid, you are correct but you would not have realized that unless you look at the source code. So, would you enter your credit card info on a page that does not have SSL set up by default? I guess you would not…

#250

Regarding the recent discussion in this thread regarding translation, I have mixed feelings. Both sides of this argument have valid points. Personally, I prefer maintaining honorifics and use of family names rather than given names. I don’t consider it lazy translation either, because isn’t part of being a translator understanding for whom the translation is intended? While it might be best to cut honorifics and such in a mainstream publication, with an eroge it is a much different situation. We players of eroge are much different than the mainstream. I may be wrong about this, but I believe that rare is the eroge player who wasn’t heavily in to (or at the least quite familiar with) anime, manga, and so on already. You have to be extremely new to anime and manga to not know about and understand honorifics, surname first, etc. I hold the translation of Yume Miru Kusuri as a shining example.

#251

The use of honorifcs when translating Japanese has become accepted. They have colorations of tone that are just not found in English, and which are quite hard to translate properly. Olf’s insistence it isn’t proper English is simply incorrect, any more than “karaoke” isn’t proper English. English is not French, it has no official committee. Proper English is whatever comes to be used as proper English, and the anime community has come to accept and understand (more or less) what the honorifics mean. The honorifics simply make translating to preserve the meaning easier, since the honorifics let Japanese structure sentences in a way that just doesn’t work in English.

#252

No, the point was about the Japanese honorifics, since it was what you quoted. The “Japanese” part was implied since we were talking about translation from Japanese.

Whatever the anime community uses and isn’t accepted outside of their community is hardly “proper English”, no more than some weird usage of a word by a small circle of people is proper English. It’s not because the Hippies or the Chav “had come to accept and understand” some weird word of their invention that said word had became “proper English”. So, no, it’s “fanboy English” at best, an English that may only be understood by anime fans.

I would because, to be honest, the added level of security given by the SSL protocol over the normal http protocol, on an instant data post such as this is… ridiculously useless, and foremost exists to put at rest the people who don’t know a damn about the Internet (nor the protection any credit card company gives them) and fear giving out their credit card number on the Web.

#253

Sometimes I wish there was some sort of official body. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cringed at poor grammar (e.g. ending sentences with the words “is” and “at”) and accepted morphs of words (e.g. using the word “orientated” instead of “oriented”). (Yes, I’m aware that my signature uses bad grammar, but it works until I can figure out a better way to phrase it.) On the other hand, if such an official body existed, there would probably be such hilarious debacles like the French trying to ban the word “email”.

#254

also what about my post Olf or did you completely skip my post. :roll:

#255

It’s useless paranoia because the probability of such data being “stolen” while travelling as http data is negligeable in relation with the difficulty of the task and the possible gain.

About the fact that it’s not your potential idiocy but the store from which you’re buying, of course you understand that part of what you pay for your credit card goes to provision an insurance for such events. Therefore that “everybody” already pays “for your idiocy” but only the bank profits from it since people are so ignorant about their protection in that matter or so afraid to use it.

#256

Well, you’re absolutely right. This IS a translation problem. Regardless of how the translator translates things, there must maintain a continuity within the work. (I think if you had mentioned this earlier, it would have been better to illustrate problems in the translation.)

Again, agreed. But I guess my question arises from whether inclusion of honorifics is a requirement or a preference. I mean, on a personal level, I like honorifics myself, but the lack of them isn’t going to stop me from buying a MG title. In a more global sense, I could make a case for the lack of honorifics, since their exclusion makes it easier for non-anime-familiar gamers to get into the eroge market. It’s a long shot, I know, but every person that can get sucked into the wonderful world of eroge is another person spending money to support the industry. :slight_smile:

Really, though, knowing that MG has translated their games without Japanese honorifics, would that alone make anyone -not- buy their games?

#257

There is proper English, only what is widely accepted as being correct. What is accepted as being correct changes all the time because English is such an international language that it morphs all the time, with foreign words or even words coined on the internet being added to the dictionary all the time. Words such as fanboy, lurk (in the internet forum sense), and other similar words only used by a small circle of people are being added all the time. Look here: http://www.merriam-webstercollegiate.com/info/new_words.htm (That list is from a 2003 revision. There are many words added after that.) If new words like those are being added all the time, what stops English, which is built from foreign languages, from adding commonly used foreign words to its list of acceptable words? The words don’t even have to be in the dictionary for them to be acceptable since it usually lags behind what society considers acceptable.

#258

Mangagamer just recently updated their website with a comment. I think it might be encouraging.

I really want to help them. At the same time we should also point out there mistakes. So we should continue to write to them and support them at the same time. As soon as I get some money I am going to buy some more of their games. Mangagamer needs all the support they can get.

#259

Oh, so true, I now see the errors of my way!
Therefore I admit that something “the anime community has come to accept and understand” is part of the English language. Next time, I’d agree with you that “OMG, such a lousy translation!! Do you imagine? They didn’t leave “kawaii” but translated it as “cute”? How could they? Every anime fan knows that it means so “she’s so kawaii” is proper English! She also wears “neko mimi” and could you believe they translated it as “cat ears”? “Neko mimi” is so much more kawaii!”
Yeah, right.
Of course, and about the fact we “lose an important aspect of how they view each other” by removing the Japanese honorifics: “OMG, such a lousy translation!! Do you imagine? The protagonist addresses himself as “ore”, another guy and one girl use “boku”, another girl uses “atashi” while most other people use “watashi”. THEY ALL TRANSLATED IT AS “I”!! Can you imagine how we lost an important of how they view each other? Every anime fan knows that these words mean, so they should have translated the sentence as “ore cannot come”!!! Let’s also not forget the removal of “desu”! I mean, it should be “atashi want to try because it’s so kawaii desu”, not “I want to try because it’s so cute”.”
Proper English, indeed! \o/

#260

Anyways, I finally finished one path of Edelweiss, so here’s a review. There will be minor spoilers, but nothing that reveals actual plot details.

The game took me 12-13 hours to play through the loli tsundere Natsume’s route. Your time will vary of course by how much voice you skip and how fast you read.

The other characters are the airhead Haruka, the tomboy Mizuki, the easy-going, money-loving Ran, and the (occasionally) odd teacher Mei. The characters don’t deviate too much from stereotypes from other games.

When I first saw the game, I expected it to be something like Green Green (the anime because I haven’t played the game) since the set-up and artist are the same. However, the game is much less perverted and there are much fewer ecchi scenes. Your character and your friends still are big perverts, but not much comes about from their actions (CG-wise anyways). It plays much more like a slice of life game with supernatural elements for the majority of it with the obligatory drama being added near the end. In this aspect, it’s sort of similar to Snow Sakura, but with an inferior slice of life portion. (The setting/feel of the games are nothing alike. Don’t come back later complaining thinking I said they were similar in that regard.) Overall, the story is above average, but don’t expect the same quality in the slice of life portion as Snow Sakura.

The voice acting of each character fits them well and is generally well done, but none of them are memorable to me except Natsume’s (but then I have a thing for tsundere characters).

There aren’t many event CGs in the game. Natsume only had 17 CGs and 1 sex scene. The other characters might have 2 (one may have even 3) sex scenes because there are 10 slots for scene replays, but this is NOT a game for you if you want a sex romp. The sex seems like it would be all mutual, and only happens after much character development.

Now, for the most biggest part of the review: the translation. You can read my previous posts for further comments if you wish to know more. First of all, the quality of English is REALLY bad. There are mistakes in pretty much every other line, and many of them could have been easily fixed with a spellcheck. There are many particle, capitalization, and punctuation mistakes too, such as missing periods, using periods instead of question marks, misusing “a” and “the,” and many others I can’t remember. The name changing also interferes with the script’s consistency. For example, Natsume has a tendency to call people by the wrong name. She calls Sakura “Umeko”, but in at least one instance, the script has her calling Sakura by her real name, even though the voice says the wrong name, Umeko.

The translation also frequently drops entire sentences from the script, which could be confusing in some situations. In one instance, someone says something along the lines of:

Script: “Will you go out with me?”
Voice: “I love you! Will you go out with me?”

The missing line there is important, especially since the girl asks him to repeat what he said several lines later because she’s shocked by the confession, and the script includes the full line the second time around.

The translation also has a problem with consistency. They usually convert money to dollars, but in one instance when I playing, they used yen instead. The names they use are also inconsistent. When the boys call the teacher Mei, the script used both Mei and Ms. Ibuki, with no consistency on which was used. The game sometimes changed to referring to a character by her last name, even though we were never told it in the script and her first name was used exclusively beforehand.

The translation is distracting, but during the beginning portions, it didn’t hamper my comprehension too much since I’m used to fixing bad English automatically since I read it all the time online, but during the end, the bad English seriously hampered my comprehension of what was going on, and I either spent too much time trying to understand what the script meant or I just had to skip the line.

Bottom line: If you want an above-average ren’ai game, already beat all the ones by JAST, and can stand all the English errors, get this. If you just want sex or can’t stand all the English errors, look elsewhere.