Viz's Print Edition of the "Full Colour Comics" Discussion

[IIMaxII]

RE: IIMaxII

I never said you weren't allowed to play Devil's advocate, but that doesn't preclude me from challenging it. But you didn't really answer my question at all or address anything I said. You're still going on about the odd, non-literal translation choices they made that also happen to go against FUNimation's choices. I'm asking whether that applies to all the things VIZ got right that FUNimation got wrong. I'm pointing out to you that, when VIZ was making those choices, FUNimation's naming schemes weren't as ingrained as you seem to think, and that a much larger percentage of the fanbase was made up of those people who got into the series before FUNimation existed as a company. And, again, as for contradicting their "intentions," you're rather assuming what their intentions were. If their intention was simply to translate the Dragon Ball manga, well, they did that. You assume their intention was to grab the same audience as FUNimation. In fact, from that same interview I linked Kid Buu to, there's a quote from VIZ addressing this very thing when someone presumably asked a similar question to what you're positing, although you have to dig through the PR politeness.

"In terms of the difference between the U.S.-published manga as compared to the U.S.-broadcast anime, we figure the difference is that we're able to keep more of the original Japanese names and cultural touches intact, whereas the broadcasters-for reasons dictated by Federal law-were obliged to 'tone down' and 'mainstream' their version. Call us cretins, but even if we disagree with some of the individual name choices (Krillin vs. Kuririn), we still think the U.S. anime series is great-if nothing else, think of all the new people it's brought into the fandom!"

So basically, it seemed their intention, at least originally, WAS to be as accurate as possible to the source, not pander to the FUNimation audience. In fact, in that very quote, they tout those features as selling points and very implicitly say they're not trying to be "mainstream."

RE: Kid Buu

It exists uncensored in VIZ's release of the first daizenshuu.

Alright, so they stated that they were trying to be as accurate as possible to the source material. Considering that it's touted as their selling points as they said. What are their reasons for not going back to fix some flaws in their translation then? My best guess is that they're lazy any other reasoning that I originally stated is absurd.

[Kid Buu]

Found it

[thatdbzguy]

Does anyone know if Books-a-Million has these in store? I got all of my VizBigs from there, so I was curious to see if they've got these Full-Color ones, too.

[Freeza Soldier #156]

Does anyone know if Books-a-Million has these in store? I got all of my VizBigs from there, so I was curious to see if they've got these Full-Color ones, too.

The Books-a-Million near me does.

[Puto]

Just my 2 cents about the VIZ edition of the DB/Z manga.

I have seen much better fan translation(s) of the DB/Z manga than anything that VIZ has done. Take a look at the DB Minus manga. In the VIZ version Gine says "infiltration baby". In a fan-translated version she says something completely different.

Spoiler:

Who to believe?

I'm far more willing to believe Viz than a random fan-translation which may or may not be any good. Maybe worth asking somebody who actually knows Japanese...?

[Freeza Soldier #156]

Just my 2 cents about the VIZ edition of the DB/Z manga.

I have seen much better fan translation(s) of the DB/Z manga than anything that VIZ has done. Take a look at the DB Minus manga. In the VIZ version Gine says "infiltration baby". In a fan-translated version she says something completely different.

Spoiler:

Who to believe?

I'm far more willing to believe Viz than a random fan-translation which may or may not be any good. Maybe worth asking somebody who actually knows Japanese...?

I'm pretty sure that the Kanzenshuu staff has commented on the fact that VIZ's translation of Jaco and DB Minus are pretty accurate. Also, I honestly would rather read VIZ's translation over a fan translation anytime, unless I was sure that said fan was extremely proficient in reading Japanese. Most of the fan translations I've seen go down the normal route of trying to "spice" up the dialog by adding unnecessary language that I know for a fact was not in the original version. I've even seen a few fan translations that just pulled lines from the anime, dub lines no less. The point is, you never really know what you're getting with a fan translation. While VIZ did take some liberties in their translation in order to appeal more to Western audiences, their translation overall is still pretty accurate.

[VegettoEX]

It's a tough thing to put into words. If it's the same word there as it is in the title of the chapter - 放たれた or hanatareta - that's the word Julian here on the site ended up going with as "castaway".

In fact, referring back to our text messages back and forth, we went down the line of translating Hanatareta Unmei no Kodomo as:

- "The Destined Child who was Shot Away"
- to literally describing it as "the child with a destiny that was shot away"
- to "The Child of Destiny who was Shot Away"
- to the eventual final translation of "Castaway Child of Destiny"

Even if it's not the same word (hanatareta) in both cases, you're splitting hairs over getting the same idea across, and hopefully a little insight into our own deliberation here at Kanzenshuu can get you to ease off being unnecessarily pedantic over it.

And that's coming from someone who had a text message conversation with someone half a world away to iron out a translation for a fansite to make sure we got it as accurate and natural as possible in as timely a fashion as we could.

[rereboy]

The reason why all those are absurd is easily identified when you can understand the audience for the manga. Lets look at a few important details.

-The manga is being released in the US in English

-The manga's largest demographic is the English dub fans who have watched the funimation dub

-The anime is insanely popular among people from ages 8-35 in the US


Now let's just say for hypothetical reasons a casual DBZ fan happens to be at a book store, they come across this manga and decide to buy the first volume. Viz's main reasons for changing Majin to Djin and Ki to Chi are because the latter are more recognizable by western audiences. However, the main demographic who will be buying this manga will have already watched DBZ and be confused by the glaring changes in names, counteracting their intentions of making the manga easier to understand for their audience.

I am in no way upset by the translations, I just think it's idiotic to not use more "Funimation friendly" terms. The hardcore fans I.E. us, are not the target audience, you have to think in perspective from a business standpoint.

Then I guess Viz should have used "over 9000" instead of "over 8000". Afterall, the american public is much more familiar with that right?

Viz has no obligation to follow Funimation's choices, but they do have a obligation to follow the translation that they think is best.

We can criticize them if we think that their translation has mistakes, but criticize them for not following the dub's choices? That makes no sense.

Just my 2 cents about the VIZ edition of the DB/Z manga.

I have seen much better fan translation(s) of the DB/Z manga than anything that VIZ has done. Take a look at the DB Minus manga. In the VIZ version Gine says "infiltration baby". In a fan-translated version she says something completely different.

Spoiler:

Who to believe?

The translations of that group better than Viz? No.

Occasionally fan translations can be better than official ones, but that's not the most common thing.

[SaiyaJedi]

It's a tough thing to put into words. If it's the same word there as it is in the title of the chapter - 放たれた or hanatareta - that's the word Julian here on the site ended up going with as "castaway".

In fact, referring back to our text messages back and forth, we went down the line of translating Hanatareta Unmei no Kodomo as:

- "The Destined Child who was Shot Away"
- to literally describing it as "the child with a destiny that was shot away"
- to "The Child of Destiny who was Shot Away"
- to the eventual final translation of "Castaway Child of Destiny"

Even if it's not the same word (hanatareta) in both cases, you're splitting hairs over getting the same idea across, and hopefully a little insight into our own deliberation here at Kanzenshuu can get you to ease off being unnecessarily pedantic over it.

And that's coming from someone who had a text message conversation with someone half a world away to iron out a translation for a fansite to make sure we got it as accurate and natural as possible in as timely a fashion as we could.

From memory, the word used by Gine is 飛ばしっ子 tobashikko, which is composed of the noun-form of the verb tobasu ("to send flying") and the noun ko ("child"). It doesn't have any connotations of "infiltration" in itself. I can see that the Viz translator was hard-pressed to come up with a decent translation, so he or she took some liberties. While I think the scanlators' "rocket baby" was a decent attempt to get the meaning of the original word across, it still adds something that wasn't present in the original (if less than the Viz version). This is why I didn't try and translate the word directly in my summary of the chapter on the site, so I'm sorry if having intentionally left that vague is part of the reason the arguments over it have gone on for so long.

[VegettoEX]

Let's not forget that Viz began translating the Dragon Ball manga in 1998. FUNimation didn't even have an in-house cast yet and hadn't moved on to the rest of the Freeza arc.

Viz was absolutely under no obligation to use terms, phrases, and translation choices that didn't even exist yet over in some other company's adaptation ("reversioning", if you will).

[Freeza Soldier #156]

While we're on the subject of VIZ being lazy, won't they have to do some work if they do decide to release these through the Majin Buu arc, because the Full Colors use the Kanzenban ending, which they have yet to translate? If they do this maybe they will decide to go ahead and fix some of their odd translation choices in that arc (slim chance, I know.)

[FortuneSSJ]

Doesn't affect me much but I still find stupid how Popo lips were censored, seriously what the.

About the translation, so far I would only change chi for Ki. Even though its the same, I always used the latter.

[MagicBox]

Saiyan Arc Volume Three was out early at my local bookstore, so I went ahead and picked it up. The next volume of those three-in-one books was out as well, but I didn't do anything with that beyond a quick flip-through.

Anyway, Viz actually left in Mister Popo's lips this time!

... By accident.

... On the rear cover.

Aside from that, everything's the same as expected. Mister Popo is edited in the book itself. Print quality is still amazing. Still no chapter title pages. I'm really hoping these get enough sales to continue. Go out and buy 'em, folks!

[KentalSSJ6]

Saiyan Arc Volume Three was out early at my local bookstore, so I went ahead and picked it up. The next volume of those three-in-one books was out as well, but I didn't do anything with that beyond a quick flip-through.

Anyway, Viz actually left in Mister Popo's lips this time!

... By accident.

... On the rear cover.

Aside from that, everything's the same as expected. Mister Popo is edited in the book itself. Print quality is still amazing. Still no chapter title pages. I'm really hoping these get enough sales to continue. Go out and buy 'em, folks!

"Racially Insensitive" lips edited out.

Child nudity left untouched.

Selective censorship is a bitch aint it?

[dbboxkaifan]

Doesn't affect me much but I still find stupid how Popo lips were censored, seriously what the.

About the translation, so far I would only change chi for Ki. Even though its the same, I always used the latter.

Think of Tama but in a human-sized version, except that even Mister Popo isn't really a human.

I read the DBZ Booklet and it says Kuririn is a human but Tenshinhan is a Tree-Eyed race. He's more human than Kuririn 'cause he at least has a nose (there's the possibility at birth he wasn't born with it lol), imo.

[rereboy]

"Racially Insensitive" lips edited out.

Child nudity left untouched.

Selective censorship is a bitch aint it?

Censorship is always selective. I have no idea why you think its not always selective.

Anyway, yes, we get it, they censored his lips, they are terrible and so on and so forth, even though it basically it doesn't matter at all and doesn't affect anything in the manga.

[linkdude20002001]

I read the DBZ Booklet and it says Kuririn is a human but Tenshinhan is a Tree-Eyed race. He's more human than Kuririn 'cause he at least has a nose (there's the possibility at birth he wasn't born with it lol), imo.

Tenshihan's descended from the Three-Eyed clan (I believe is how it was worded), so he could be mostly human; even then, the Three-Eyed clan might've been coincided human (they were still from Earth, right?). Saiyans are considered human and they're not even from the same planet.

[Herms]

even then, the Three-Eyed clan might've been coincided human (they were still from Earth, right?)

They're said to be space aliens (宇宙人).

Tree-Eyed race

Now there's something I'd like to see.

[linkdude20002001]

Okay, thanks. But they're still be human, I guess, according to Dragon Ball. Unless they looked vastly different from how Tenshinhan appears, and, like I suggested, Tenshinhan is actually mostly human/earthling.

[Herms]

like I suggested, Tenshinhan is actually mostly human/earthling.

Yeah, Daizenshuu 4 is the first place (as far as I know) to introduce the whole "Tenshinhan is descended from the Three-Eyed Clan" thing, and even there he's placed in the "Earthling" section of the racial guide. He's said to be an Earthling with some unusual abilities due to being descended from aliens.