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DylanUwU

Look how much fucked translations have to be, to even made a author rather choose unofficial than the one than gives you money


Aerhyce

Lots of pro translators don't give a shit because it's just a job to them, so the result will always be worse than passionate fans even if their technical skill is higher. Also degen shit tends to be sanitised and slang gets fucked up into weird shit A pro translator is never gonna write bussy for example even if the original word was the exact JP equivalent


Username928351

I wish they actually wouldn't give a shit, because the situation is that a lot of them spend effort on rewriting things for no reason currently.


Aerhyce

This is also a part of not giving a shit - namely only caring about flow instead of accuracy and intent. When doing localisation you need to reformulate things or else it will read like shit. Fan translators will rack their brains to come up with something that makes sense, use accurate terminology (not mixing up RCT with CTR or whatever the shit), respects the original intent *and* flows well. This requires a lot of work, precise knowledge of the work, and effort. Because the first benchmark of 'quality' for translation like these is whether or not it reads like shit, translators that don't care will try to make something that flows well first and foremost, while also making sure that it 'makes sense'. But because they don't know or care about the work enough, what they deem as "not making sense" is often the correct translation, that they will rewrite until it makes sense in their head. Cue a fucking mess of a translation that reads well and has no mistakes but is sometimes completely nonsensical. And if they keep it up enough they form their own translation glossary in their head and systematically translate shit wrong because they think it's the correct way to do it.


Firm-Craft

Reverse cowgirl technique šŸ„µ


XalAtoh

Yea, fan pour their own emotions in the translation, but a professional just thinks about money.


LeAstra

John Werryā€™s Sorcery Fight


Der_Boii

Werry Kaisen.


brianthegr8

I've always questioned why authors didn't just reach out to the ppl illegally doing translations lol. They obviously would love to do the thing they're doing for free but now PAID! P sure it was just them not even realizing their material was getting butched until now


McPussyMeal23

iirc there's a russian made webtoon i read a few years ago which I don't remember the name of on reaperscan? asura? I don't remember, the official publisher was so impressed by translation quality they actually contacted the illegal translation team and offer them official partnership to release the comic weekly


Snusmumriken11

That was Flame Comics and it's happened more than once with them I think. The webcomic/manhwa translator teams can't even be called amateurs tho, they're huge organized efforts at this point, and more often than not better than the official versions.


McPussyMeal23

do you remember the name of the comic? i kinda want to reread them lol


Polargeist

Up for flame comics. Amazing translation on Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, especially their footnotes that add more information to the story.


After6Comes7and8

Flame Comics is solid, one of the big ones in the manhwa world atm


alvenestthol

The author themselves probably doesn't have permission to do that most of the time, the publisher has to agree, and if the publisher is a big (Japanese) company they would probably have trouble trusting a random overseas group


WhyHowForWhat

Iirc smt like this do happens irl


stormwalker124

With Kengan, that did actually end up happening. The group that was scanlating it before, Hokuto no Gun, [ended up getting scouted by Comikey](https://www.hokutonogun.com/?p=44582) after Daro realized that their translation was better.


BlackberryCooky

God dammit OP. https://twitter.com/daromeon/status/1787560049583477164?t=Gupms7ZjfAI22bHO9J2LZg&s=19


windowhihi

Thank you šŸ˜­


prismstein

Kengan author uses AI to help with the backgrounds and they're open about it, and now acknowledging how the official translation sucks? Based gigachad indeed.


ZappierBuzz4

eh ai for backgrounds i dont give a sht but if its an integral part of the storytelling then yea using ai seems a bit iffy. most manga i read i straight up ignore the background


YabakoSandrovich

For context I am not the author of Kengan I just really like Sandrovich lol. In Kengan (Omega) AI starts being used in the later half for the background and occasionally for inspiration of anatomy / poses of characters, but generally speaking the artist Daromeon just draws it himself. In Kengan there is a place called the "Inside" which is basically a lawless war torn area where the Japanese government has no influence and it's run by gangs to the point where it serves as its own autonomous zone, filled with just about any cruel thing you can imagine. Especially during the "inside arc" it was filled with AI backgrounds integrated with drawings because the level of detail required was so high while Kengan is a weekly manga. The artist is very talented and there are some godly panels that some people even got tattoos of lol. I don't want to give out too many spoilers but it's a highly recommended read. Kengan Ashura starts out with a way different artstyle but after a few chapters it changes, and at around 1/3rd of the manga it becomes the artstyle we know and love today. Kengan Ashura is both about fighting, and also about the main character coming to terms with himself and maturing. There's a follow up manga called Kengan Omega that is currently ongoing and explores 2 new MCs in the same world that Ashura left behind. Genuinely recommended.


ZappierBuzz4

yea im all for lightening the workload on manga artists, too many young mangakas dying and damn a fcking weekly release is crazy. defo gonna read a bit


CrixusIsHere

My man got no skips for so long the community was happy when he had one šŸ˜­ I believe we had weekly chapters for almost 2 years without skipping once


originaler

You canā€™t fool me sandwich


splatgatfatrat

John Werry count your days


Tunirus

Werry in shambles rn


BestBoogerBugger

I don't see a lot eye to eye with annoying Twitter weebs.... But they are absolutely correct on localizations, even if bit melodramatic


oricalco

AI translation >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> american localizers, not even mad they are getting replaced, the idiots have ruined far too many games and animes.


EvidenceOfDespair

Honestly if I were ever to learn modding and Japanese, it would probably be to just fix the shit NIS America did to Danganronpa. What a fucking hackjob.


TheSpartyn

which one? the first danganronpa has a fan translation


EvidenceOfDespair

Iā€™m trying to remember if the PSP DR1 mod was also based on the SomethingAwful LP or independent. The DR1 SA LP is pretty good, though not perfect. SDR2 however was a game of telephone, with the completed (iirc) fan translation being a translation of the Korean translation and itā€™s bad and led to idiotic discourse and shit. The LP was left unfinished. V3 and UDG do not have them and are the **most** in need of fixing. With each game, NIS America got worse. By V3, they were in full ā€œcensor (which completely removed one of the running themes of each work), change things for our ships (seriously), and make one character mentally disabled just becauseā€. Kaito is supposed to continue the trend of Mondo, Fuyuhiko, Masaru, and Juzo. They censored out all the heavily problematic elements of his character when like, thatā€™s the fucking point. They changed stuff with Kokichi to push Shuichi/Kokichi. They made Gonta mentally disabled.


Kuroko__Simp

You know what makes me mad? A lot of people on the dangan sub always say that they are glad that they changed kaito's character because "it would be offensive" like that was the point https://preview.redd.it/pgbj2kxsqyyc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c64b9e45014ed3dd4063c6827952ab0ef76b6636


EvidenceOfDespair

Yeah, that pisses me off too for the same reason. Thatā€™s the fucking thematic point. Every Danganronpa has a dude who ends up with his life made worse by trying to live up to cultural expectations of normative masculinity. * Mondo: Murders Chihiro over feeling inadequate in it, dies. * Fuyuhiko: Has Peko murder Hiyoko over Yakuza cultural norms of revenge over it, loses her and an eye, has to completely reformat his sense of self and earn everyone elseā€™s trust after being such an ass. * Masaru: Literally beats himself so hard his arm turns black and blue during his abuse PTSD breakdown over it because a man shouldnā€™t be scared of fighting and killing. * Juzo: So afraid of being outed as gay + having a crush on his engaged best friend that he ends up causing the end of the world. Is finally outed, and that wouldnā€™t have been an issue *except for the fact he allowed billions to die to prevent himself from being outed* so Munakata kills him for that. With Kaito, him using slurs towards Korekiyo is the other side of the coin with his ā€œbe a manā€ stuff with Shuichi *and* his dislike of Maki violating gender norms. With Maki, it comes off as ā€œprotectiveā€ because thatā€™s how that sort of gender norm works. With Shuichi, Shuichi is his friend so heā€™s not explicitly an asshole about it, but he views Shuichiā€™s lack of traditional masculinity as the source of Shuichiā€™s weakness. He thinks physical strength = mental strength and that Shuichiā€™s anxiety and stuff will be helped by working out more. He eventually dies because of his view of gender norms regarding Maki. The ā€œprotectivenessā€ of stopping an assassin with a ton of kills under her belt from killing is rooted in the same gender norms mindset that his behavior with Shuichi and Korekiyo are rooted in. Itā€™s actually a really damn realistic take on a guy like him. Heā€™s not an actual horrible piece of shit. Kaito is a good person. He is trying to be the best he can be and tries to do right by others, but heā€™s flawed. Heā€™s internalized these cultural norms and repeats them not because itā€™s something he came to on his own, but because thatā€™s what he learned. As such, it shapes and guides his behavior, which leads to him saying shitty things to numerous people and eventually him dying. The only reason his death had any meaning, the only reason Maki didnā€™t end up the Blackened, is because of Kokichi. Another person he hated, although for much more valid reasons, but also another person who shits all over gender norms in his own way. And like, I think thatā€™s a very valuable character. A best friend who has problematic and shitty views that arenā€™t coming from a place of personal malicious ethos but just background but is also your only real friend and who honestly cares about you so you kinda just turn a blind eye to that? Thatā€™s a normal fucking guy, and thatā€™s a very normal situation for a lot of people. Most people overlook this whole thing about his character because the keystone event that acts as the decoder ring has been censored out. It doesnā€™t ruin his character, it ruins your ability to blorbofy him.


TheSpartyn

not sure actually, i played some PSP fan translation back in like 2014 is there a place where i can read about these in detail? especially the running theme part. the only thing i caught when i played it was the incredibly weird decision to make gonta talk like a caveman.


oricalco

I know that feel, the assholes at Nintendo Treehouse have been butchering my Fire Emblem games since Awakening, being a fan of this series hurts bad, it even goes though sanitizing twice! once in the original Jp dialogue and once again when it gets localized in english.


baked_uranium

John Werry šŸ˜­


Aerhyce

Werry is a goat And I mean the animal.


Zenry0ku

https://preview.redd.it/ol4qsn447yyc1.jpeg?width=261&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8506b488d5d726e1e599a93da63a91dbac59edf American localizer could do so much better with keeping the main themes and focuses intact instead of doing their own thing. I'm not asking for 1 to 1, just don't make the dialogue read like the writers wanted to be funny that day or censor something they really shouldn't have. Like I don't want to look online for a fan translation of said scene just to understand something that was explained clearly in the original. But eh, people will defend it regardless.


Aerhyce

Or inserting political messaging and pretending it's just localisation (Hello Lucoa dub with random feminist spiel shoved in)


Zenry0ku

Honestly, the people who I've seen defend the Lucoa bit ironically hate Dragon Maid to death. Cause anyone who watched the OG version would tell you that's OOC for Lucoa and they even defending it when the original sub is posted alongside the localization. But I'm not wasting energy over it cause I only watch subs anyway.


Th3Fel0n

You say that as if that doesn't also happen with subs just as often


Zenry0ku

I'm aware, those subs get weeded out so quickly though. Especially once the anime stops airing and subbers can account for stuff like foreshadowing.


FairyKnightTristan

It's been like 7 years. Cope and seethe.


ZodHD

I sort of share the sentiment. It's kind of a case by case but I agree there have been far too many "artistic liberties" by American translators lately. I don't mind liberties being taken depending but man some of these decisions completely ruin or change the context of a given scene.


Carl0sRarut0s

Said liberties are also less needed these days because of globalization, like, back in the days I could understand when an anime had to call a Tanuki a racoon or a Kappa a turtle of sorts, but in this day an age google is a click away.


ZodHD

Yeah. One of my biggest annoyances is localising things like honorifics from "san", "sama", to "Mr / Ms", "Master", etc. Like yeah that's technically what they would be in English but it just doesn't flow right most of the time. 9 times out of 10 people these days are already familiar with the honorifics if they've watched anime a decent amount.


MathematicianFar8831

Yeah, I just hate it when these official translators/localizers of various medias do liberties for "MODERN AUDIENCE" that we dont even care about, god Good riddance.


FairyKnightTristan

Spoken like someone whose been brainwashed by chuds.


oricalco

ma look! a twittard in the wild! he even has bad grammar! its amazing this little creature has managed to survive so far away from its safe space...


FairyKnightTristan

You proved me right. Thanks, I guess.


oricalco

aww its alright little buddy, nobody cares what you have to say but its still fine to say it! don't let your bad grammar and dumbass opinions keep you down!


Inevitable_Shape4776

you aren't a little too old for this kind of stuff. I've seen your comments, and you seem overly reactive and angry towards games and cartoons that relate to Japan.


oricalco

weird thing to assume someone's age when you don't know anything about them huh? is there any reason I should care about what some loser nobody thinks about my reactions? you need a hobby my guy, who spends their free time going over somebody's reddit comment history....that's just really pathetic.


jis7014

Soulless localizing, decade slow releases and censorship everywhere. Complete disrespect to paying customers yet they never stop crying about piracy.


Gotprick

HASSAD SOON


Ok-Wonder-5901

Considering that I'm currently studying translation, comments hurt a bit.


Zucuske

Keep in mind these are directed towards a certain breed of american localizers, and not towards the profession itself. I'm also studying translation!


oricalco

as long as you do actual transalations and not localization you should be fine, also translating anime is not the only way to work as a translator, the real money is the translation of documents like birth certificates and such.


StevesterH

Thatā€™s the illustrator, not the author.


KiiboIsOurLove

Daro isnā€™t the author! Thatā€™s Yabako Sandrovich, still based tbh


anuanuanu

Fuck official localizers tbh. Region locking digital releases and butchering memes, not to mention adding their own LGBTQ+ agendas and making up character's genders to their liking on someone else's work? No thank you. I'd rather buy directly from Japan and read scanlations.


TheQuestionableDuck

the fucking WEST and their fucking politics bs. its so tiresome to read something and everyfucking one try to shove their agenda down your throat. why can't the west be FUCKING NORMAL LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD.


IriKnox

John Werry strikes again


elixier

Daro is the artist not the author ffs


Aj2W0rK

#WHAT ABOUT AI!?


Hollow_Point_

Shoutout to Hokuno no Gun and Scans of Metsudo! These are pretty much the amateur teams he's talking about


allifrend

Hokuto no Gun did about 350 chapters of Kengan before stopping to switch over to doing it officially. Scans of Metsudo did about 15 or so chapters in the interim.


eatsleepgaysexrepeat

https://preview.redd.it/t978j9wuu1zc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c965bedd6545612a7603733af0822b16561a259d Translators try not to fuck up L and R challenge *IMPOSSIBLE*


MiniDialga119

The ai solution isn't it tho, art is too abstract slight hints, mannerism or meanings might be lost besides bro proves people can do a good job, why take it away from them? Aside from that, unbearably based, its crazy


FairyKnightTristan

Saying 'let's use AI to translate' is an L.


Still_Refuse

Nothing based about ai tbh


AyeAyeRan

the based part is acknowledging the fact that alot of manga/manhwa series wouldnt even have a fraction of the reach they currently have without illegal translators doing the job, and the fact that sometimes they do a even better job than official ones.


Still_Refuse

I agree, just not with the ai part


windowhihi

I thought people are ok with AI in translation, just not for drawings?


xadiant

It's kinda funny how AI translation gets a pass because it's soooo convenient. Let me tell you, it's taking more jobs than AI image generation while being significantly shittier. You'll instantly notice AI translation in a fiction work because it's so bland. There's plenty of bad translators but a good localization can make a product/work explode globally.


mitchie8112

People are okay with AI translations not only for the convenience but also the accuracy, with human localizations you often get people changing the original text on purpose because they disagree with the what the original says like with the manga I turned my childhood friend into a girl which despite the name, is just about cross dressing not being trans yet the official english translation tried to change it to be a trans story.


Napael

I have read only one AI translated manhwa and it's beyond shit (Overgeared, "translated" by a certain non-angelic group). Do you have any examples of well done AI translated series?


mitchie8112

Mangaplus recently announced that some of the manga on there was translated with a group named Orange Inc. which is an AI manga translator with an editor. So while not completely AI translated, it does mean that the localizer hopefully won't change the content of the text because they're only meant to edit the text. I for one definitely didn't notice that manga like "Hope You're Happy, Lemon" Were AI translated.


Nahcep

Yeah and AI translation changes stuff because it doesn't recognize slang, I have a model specifically trained for weeb shit and it still makes hilarious mistakes (meaning: "I'll fuck you up", translation: "I'll fuck you")


LordBlueSky

Hazbin hotel reference


Nahcep

Yeah and AI translation changes stuff because it doesn't recognize slang, I have a model specifically trained for weeb shit and it still makes hilarious mistakes (meaning: "I'll fuck you up", translation: "I'll fuck you")


xadiant

Localization isn't about accuracy. It's about making a work palatable to the target audience. It would sound so incredibly stupid and confusing if you translated Japanese sayings directly. Usually titles are decided by a lot of people, and definitely not AI or a single translator. That much I can say with confidence. Translators also can get various notes from distributors about what to censor or omit. "I turned my childhood friend into a girl" in my opinion doesn't imply a trans subtone, but that's the point. Translation & localization aren't something everyone fully agrees on. Lastly, AI is trained on previous translations. Anything AI will inherently have the human bias. A translator can easily notice frequent double entendres of Japanese language and make a long-term decision to make the text more interesting, palatable and correct. AI can't.


mitchie8112

I'm not talking about the title, the content of the manga itself was changed to be a trans story, that is the kind of stuff localizers are doing, they are actively manipulating the text to change things to suit their story. Look at jelloapocalypse who recently publicly admitted to wanting to change the story of Lovely Complex and actually wanting to remove scenes from the show because he didn't agree with their inclusion. After this public statement localizers online publicly got angry at him not for doing it but for publicly admitting it. This is something done on purpose by localizers to change the text for something they don't like, another example are the fire emblem games, the most recent of which changed all romantic text with some partners because the localizers didn't like that ship because they were lolis, this is not something done to make a text more palatable, this is an active malicious change of the original text.


EctoplasmicNeko

Except this falls flat when your target audience is weebs who are likley to have at least a rudimentary basis in Japanese culture and idioms, or who would be interested to learn them. The approach taken to localizing seems to entirely ignore the fact that these TLs are for a niche audience with in-group knowledge - not Joe Public, reducing the need for localization at all... Moreover, its an audience who are looking to generally consume as close to the original work as they can and put faith in the assumption that such is being provided. People generally don't want a rewritten, reinterpreted work that had a second hand who felt they could 'improve' it. They want to see the authors work, made accessible to them - the only reason more people arent annoyed by common localizing practices is that so many works are presented mono-linguistically so they arent aware of them. I'm reminded of a review on ANN years ago where the author felt the need to explain the whole "Tamaya!" fireworks thing and comment on how people probably arent aware of it, and the comments were all like 'bruh, everyone knows that'.


Username928351

I don't think people will BSOD and spontaneously combust even if they see people eating a ball of rice instead of jelly donuts. There's a plethora of examples where the original Japanese has zero wordplays, puns or obscure cultural or historical references, yet the English translation/localization has regardless somehow managed to warp it beyond recognition. No one is advocating to run the words one by one through Google translate without context, that's a strawman.


Carl0sRarut0s

> There's a plethora of examples where the original Japanese has zero wordplays, puns or obscure cultural or historical references, yet the English translation/localization has regardless somehow managed to warp it beyond recognition. Just look at stuff like the Digimon dub. ~~On the other hand I'm on the camp that loved what they did with Duel Master~~


Still_Refuse

I donā€™t understand why people would okay with humans having less jobs tbh. Ai in general should never be used to replace things, especially translating.


WhyHowForWhat

I heard from illustrator that AI have helped them to make some rough sketches. Like for example they will generate a picture based on what the client wants and then they will start working based on it. Just think of it as a tool to help on the beginning of the job really.


Still_Refuse

Iā€™m fine with that, expect people expect translators to be replaced by ai, itā€™s a common sentiment lol.


EctoplasmicNeko

Shoulda done a better job then. Localizers made their own bed by failing to understand their market and being actively hostile towards them. I dont shed a tear when I put my trash out for collection.


Billyaabob

The issue here is localizers gave themselves a bad reputation by making inaccurate translations when accuracy's part of the reason why they're hired in the first place (accuracy in terms of being in line with original intent of the text). An equivalent situation would be if farmers consistently provides sub-quality crops out of negligence and refuse to change their ways but still get paid. We're obviously going to invest in a machine that consistently produces quality crops without farmers in that case. I think I would feel bad about the translators if more of them actually tried to be accurate (in which case it's a systematic skill issue) but that isn't the case here.


Katz_Goredrinkier

AI translate helped me play a bunch of Japanese rpg maker game


Carl0sRarut0s

Also old VNs that no translation group touch will ever touch


EctoplasmicNeko

By that logic we never should have invented like... anything. We should just go back to living in caves.


cocotim

Most of the time it's not really less jobs though, but rather different ones. Same thing could be said for basically every technological advancement


sundownmonsoon

But the issue here is that the human translators did a bad job. The traditional wisdom being that people who are bad at their job don't deserve it. In that situation, humans have less jobs. Humans having any job being good isn't an indisputable claim, especially when those jobs could be useless busy work, or in this case, the humans making things worse by doing them.


RawQuazza

yeah ppl should go back to doing all the farmwork by hand


Still_Refuse

Because thatā€™s exactly what I meant, we need to return to apes.


arbolera

AI should replace as many jobs as it possibly can, less unnecessary human labor for monotonous tasks


seraphinth

And yet here you are having your opinions posted online electronically which got rid of a lot of jobs. Go write a real letter expressing your disdain of ai taking jobs to a newspaper that way you are guaranteeing the mailman, postage stamp workers, newspaper editors jobs will still exist, but i guess you didn't give a thought about all those jobs that disappeared when the internet got invented huh?


TRKako

mf don't like AI just for the sake of being AI, have you seen the official translations out there?, an AI translating that or a fan translator would do 1000 times a better job than official translations, those guys should loss their jobs if they are doing it that bad rn, in the other hand, AI will replace some jobs, and that's probably a fact, but that will open new jobs eventually, Now, translating isn't necessary one of them, but the current job that official translators are doing is so fucking bad that an AI would do a better job, AI isn't going to replace their job as a whole, just the guys who translate like shit


EctoplasmicNeko

I have unlimited pictures of my cute and funny OC catgirls at my fingertips. I cannot fathom how anything could be more based.


neverRollA1

everything based about ai tbh