I generally hope that the translations I'm reading are faithful in the most important ways to the original text, but my focus tends to be more on, "is this translation coherent? interesting? aesthetically pleasing?" rather than on minute details and literal meaning, which will generally escape me anyway. I wish the trend in licensed translations these days wasn't so much on literalism, because it doesn't make for any better a translation or more satisfying a reading experience, and it fuels a truly obnoxious and asinine sense of entitlement on the part of some of the more hardcore manga-reading population in the US, a sense that it is possible, desirable, and necessary that the English-language releases of Japanese comics perfectly reproduce the experience of reading manga in Japan...as a Japanese person, speaking Japanese as a first language, reading Japanese with some variable level of mastery, possessing Japanese cultural values and a Japanese understanding of history. And that's just not possible. It's an unrealistic, counterproductive goal, and an immature approach to intercultural exchange, which is always a two-way process. The literalism fetish is about the exotic other as much as it is about respect for the originating culture, and, argh, I could just go on and on.
(I don't mean to say I have no interest in the original material, or the nature of changes made, by the way, or to say that there's something wrong with people caring about how good the translation is--I just object to the puritanical proselytizing that's so common in the US manga fandom, and the negative influence they've had on the industry. I don't think it's healthy.)
If I had good Japanese language reading/speaking skills, I might also eschew the translations, because I'd be in a position to opt for a different relationship with Japanese cultural products, and it can be hard to adjust yourself to compromises and mistakes in translation, both major and minor. I might not, though--I find the process of adaptation absolutely fascinating, and a translation is, by necessity, a process of adaptation, so it might interest me more than it would irritate me.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-05-01 04:59 pm (UTC)(I don't mean to say I have no interest in the original material, or the nature of changes made, by the way, or to say that there's something wrong with people caring about how good the translation is--I just object to the puritanical proselytizing that's so common in the US manga fandom, and the negative influence they've had on the industry. I don't think it's healthy.)
If I had good Japanese language reading/speaking skills, I might also eschew the translations, because I'd be in a position to opt for a different relationship with Japanese cultural products, and it can be hard to adjust yourself to compromises and mistakes in translation, both major and minor. I might not, though--I find the process of adaptation absolutely fascinating, and a translation is, by necessity, a process of adaptation, so it might interest me more than it would irritate me.