homasse kindly pointed out this community to me (thank you!) and I thought it would be a good place for my research. I'm in the middle of my final term paper, which is a comparative analysis between Tokyopop and Viz. It would be very much appreciated if you could answer a few question about the topic.

1. Which do you prefer, Viz or Tokyopop? Why? (Is it because of the titles, translation, packaging or anything else?)

2. Which is the better publisher, in your opinion? Why? (Again, is it because of the titles, translation, packaging or anything else?)

3. Why do you think other people prefer Viz/Tokyopop over the other?


Thank you for your help.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the subject line sucks. But hey.

Lately, I've been reading a lot of BL manga scanlations, and paying most attention to how people translate the "untranslatable", mainly because I've noticed a trend of Japanese expressions being translated literally (ie, slang like someone getting "eaten" meaning they were, shall we say, on the receiving end of sex: "Watch out, or you're going to get eaten!") even though the expression isn't really native to English. There are equivalent expressions (like, "Watch out or he's gonna jump you"), of course, but the trend is for literal. I'm not sure if this is true in the translated stuff in the West, but considering the attempt to Westernize manga to make it more accessible (ie, in Gravitation, changing references to Japanese stars to American ones), it made me start wondering about what exactly makes a good translation.

What, in your opinion, makes for a good translation? Is it more important to be literal or to make things more easily accessible? Do you think a translator should try to do translations that are close to the text and fully understandable but maybe not something a native speaker would say, or a bit looser with the text but that sounds fully native? Where is the middle ground? And can I ask a question that actually makes sense?

What are some examples of good translations, and what makes them bad? And conversely, what are some bad translations?