I'm working on picking up this series (published).. but everywhere I look I tend to see less than a positive feeling regarding Tokyopop's (it is Tokyopop right?) work on it. Any idea exactly why this is?

And on the same tip, has anyone got any experience with the Chaung Yi versions of it? Coz I can pick those up instead. I know they tend to stick close to the source material which is good.. but then I also heard they weren't very lenient with riske type stuff back in those days (and somewhat nowdays even).

Or should I just forgo them all and get my scanlations on? :P

Go theft! I say scanlations.

I like tokyopop's job. I have no complaints. It's not perfect, but it works for me.

TOKYOPOP does that annoying "American slang" thing. They butchered Someday's Dreamers with all sorts of bullshit American girl sass. I don't need that. I haven't picked up Love Hina, but I can't believe it's too far off, considering the subject matter. Oh, and let's not forget how they love to trim out those sexually driven conversations, involving butts and all. Maybe they didn't for LH, but they certainly cuttons of "lewd" (prudish American pig-dogs!) conversations if they can be written out without the reader knowing that something is up.

EDIT: Also, I resent the idea that scanslators have to stop subbing manga when it gets licensed as, other than Del Rey, I have not been wholly satisfied with how any American company has handled all their series. It's WAY too hit or miss. I mean, look at the start of Azumanga. Osaka is a Jersey Girl? I mean, say good bye to Osaka's cute, reserved style. The whole point of it is that she is from Osaka, but doesn't have the laid-back, outgoing Osakan stereotype in full effect. To contrast, grab Gacha Gacha 4, and see how they write the Osakan. There is no stupid southern accent or Jersey girl slang, the translator just does an AWESEOM job of writing a much less reserved, more outgoing Japanese character, and it comes across perfectly.

But then, I guess you need to understand the culture to care about shit like that, so it's your pick. 

I thought I saw a bilingual version of Love Hina somewhere before. That would be pretty cool for learning Japanese while reading manga. Maybe I should pick some up as well...

But yeah, giving southern accents to characters is the worst thing ever. 

Oh yeh.. I think maybe Chuang Yi did the bilingual as well their normal translations? Whoever did it I think they only did the first 4 volumes and no more.

Digiwobat: Interesting that Del Rey are the only publishers you give a pass as their Negima makes me want to tear the word processing part of my brain out. (Let's go dated colliquialisms and sleeping editors!) That's just me though :)

But ignoring negima, they've done a great job with everything else. (Even if they charge more $$, I guess they can justify it for doing a good job)

I actually thought their work on Negima has been pretty ok. of course, you have to take into account that the first two or three volumes were put together completely by an incompetent translator who was fired after things came to their attention. But still, even for the few short comings that they have, they far surpass the competition, if only because their company policy is that there is to be no removal of honorifics. Although there was one "Mrs." in Kagetora vol 1. Although, I'm not entirely sure if that manga is just bad, or if Weir/Defillipis just did a bad job adapting the translation. Probably both.

Kondansha did the Bilingual version of Love Hina for release in Japan, before Tokyopop did the US release (I'm thinking 2000/2001-ish). That translation leans a little too far the other way than the Tokyopop version - its a little stiff - and to accomadate the extra text they shift the panels around a bit so it looks a bit odd. The bilingual version are also two or three chapters short of a full volume, and more expensive, and only part of the run. Not worth tracking down, basically. I think they did a few other titles like Cardcaptor Sakura back in the day as well, but LH is the only one I've grabbed.

I have to admit, I think the non-removal of honorifics smacks of lazy translation to me, but since I suspect I'm probably in the minority I'm not going to get into that discussion.

I will just point to the opening of Del Rey's books for my response about the honorifics:

"Honorifics can be expressions of respect or endearment. In the context of manga and anime, honorifics give insight into the nature of the relationship between characters. Many translations ... leave out these important honorifics and therefore distort the 'feel' of the original Japanese. Because Japanese honorifics contain nuances that English honorifics lack, it is out policy at Del Rey not to translate them."

At least with the School Rumble version by Del Rey, I noticed that the translations tried really hard to stay very close to the original. 

I think ADV butchered Azumanga, which is why I didn't buy it, but Yotsuba& seems okay. Maybe they're doing a better job than they were before. 

CY has improved a lot over the years. I should know. I bought the floogin' series.

Still, being the ONLY local manga distributor here (aka LOL SINGAPORE), they can get lazy with stuff. Missed bubbles, bad printruns, slightly offish translations... And the ruddy fact you can't sell them outside of SE Asia. They're good, but the monopoly made them lazy. 

About Yotsuba&!:

I have noticed ADV has gotten better, and that some TOKYOPOP titles seem to be trying harder, but I think that could have something to do with Del Rey sort of raising the bar on them, as I've noticed it largely since Del Rey started picking up market share. I guess when you have no one trying harder than you, you don't need to try any harder yourself. 

Tokyopop's translation of Sakura Taisen is REALLY good with regards to what gets translated and what gets left with notes.  I was really impressed.

 (That said, when I talked to the person at Tokyopop who edits it, she said "Ha, actually I was just like 'BUT THE KANJI ARE SO PRETTY!' and left them in.")

 (That said, when I talked to the person at Tokyopop who edits it, she said "Ha, actually I was just like 'BUT THE KANJI ARE SO PRETTY!' and left them in.")

 haha I'm a sucker for pretty kanji too, which explains my Touhou fetish partially.