Liar Game Chapter #113: Recapture
by Ryusui on May.18, 2010, under Scanlations
Or read it at:
The Harimoto Group takes the leader election, putting the Akiyama Group’s chairs in jeopardy. To combat this threat, Nao proposes a plan to shift the elections back in the Akiyama Group’s favor…but how long will this advantage last?
With this chapter, Liar Game is now scanlated in English all the way up to chapter #128. Enjoy!
May 18th, 2010 on 12:20 am
thank you very much ryusui and co. for being very understanding. you guys are extremely kindhearted! thank you!
May 18th, 2010 on 12:34 am
Hey! I’ve been a big fan of Liar Game for a while, and I’m SO glad that you guys have picked it up π Keep up the good work!
I’ll be rooting for y’all!!!!!!!
May 18th, 2010 on 12:39 am
sorry for this question by with “With this chapter, Liar Game is now scanlated in English all the way up to chapter #128. Enjoy!” you mean that you or somebody else already translated chaps 114-128 ? if yes where i can find them.
May 18th, 2010 on 12:43 am
sorry for this question do you mean that you or somebody else already translated chaps 114-128 ? if yes where i can find them.
about nao’s strategy with giving medals to extras as we saw its not a best idea because other people wil also give their medals and soon you will hand over many medals of yours with no result.
May 18th, 2010 on 12:52 am
@adien
yes, i believe it is in mangafox.
May 18th, 2010 on 1:48 am
Thanks for this!! :]
Question.. are you going to scan 114 to 128? I remember reading that those were translated a little too directly. I normally just zoom ahead without worrying about quality, but for a series like Liar Game, I don’t know. If you plan to do a version of 114 and up then i’ll wait :] Otherwise I’ll just read TDX’s scans.
May 18th, 2010 on 2:02 am
…They got rid of chair 14 in both this chapter and 112 ._.
May 18th, 2010 on 2:35 am
According to TDX at the start of 114, instead of 14 being removed it is 13 and 4 o.O (…although then in the actual chapter they say that it’s chair 14 instead of 4, so I guess that was a typo?) There’s also different numbers on the piece of paper Yokoya wrote than in your scanlations… this is weird o_O
Anyway, besides not translating some stuff (which I don’t like either =) TDX’s isn’t bad, so I don’t know what my opinion is on what you should scanlate now…
May 18th, 2010 on 3:25 am
Just dropped by from onemanga.com as I have finished reading your scanlation and just wanted to say a massive THANKS!
May 18th, 2010 on 3:30 am
I’m as confused as the other people here. Was the chapters after 13 translated by you via collaboration or some other group? You’ll still be t/n ing LG rite?
Thank you by the way π
May 18th, 2010 on 3:35 am
I couldn’t stop reading :0
TDX’s scans weren’t too bad at all. TDX is a different group that scanned 114-128 already. Watercrown did not do (and did not collaborate on) chapters 114-128 (yet?).
May 18th, 2010 on 3:37 am
We will be translating Liar Game. The only thing I helped TDX was cleaning their chapters, but it didn’t work out too well… As soon as we can get proper raws, we’ll continue.
May 18th, 2010 on 4:22 am
Really happy about this Liar Game marathon. I didn’t feel at all that TDX’s translation wasn’t fluent, so I’d have to be really picky to complain about it.
May 18th, 2010 on 5:25 am
Thanks for the release guys π
May 18th, 2010 on 6:50 am
Yeah, Shinobu Kaitani’s math is a bit fudgy in this story arc. Not only does Nao get rid of chair #14 twice, but apart from chair #7 at the start of the list, the chart that shows which chairs have been removed in chapter #114 doesn’t match any of the numbers that were actually called.
But then, no one hates on Harry Potter because Rowling’s timeline would mean that Dudley once trashed a game console that wasn’t even available in the UK at the time, right? ^_^;
May 18th, 2010 on 6:53 am
Thanks for the scanlation. it’s an awesome job. Enjoyed it so much
May 18th, 2010 on 7:28 am
Great job guys!
May 18th, 2010 on 10:15 am
thanks a lot!
May 18th, 2010 on 11:10 am
is the 128 chapter the newest one (in japan) or there are still some not translated
May 18th, 2010 on 2:10 pm
Maybe Kaitani realized he messed up, and then retconned the chair numbers at the start of 114 to fix it…
May 18th, 2010 on 2:20 pm
The chair numbers get shifted around again when Yokoya’s handler explains things: Nao apparently called #4 and #14. In any case, one of these is the chair that Nao saw bangs sitting in, and the other is the one that bangs stole from glasses…
Bangs screwed up major, apparently.
As for who translates future chapters, maybe you guys should do another setup like you guys just did. Find the latest untranslated chapter you can, and start translating backwards.
May 18th, 2010 on 3:57 pm
Hey, thanks a lot guys! When I saw the amount of chapters released, my face looked just like Nao’s on the first page of the first release of the bunch.
May 19th, 2010 on 5:19 am
Thanks for releasing Liar Game! It’s my all time favorite manga, and I’ve been waiting forever for this release! Great translations btw. π
May 19th, 2010 on 5:56 am
much love!
May 19th, 2010 on 7:13 pm
In regard to the whole issue of TDX’s translations, I don’t think it’s such a big deal that he (or she) leaves some terms, like gaya, untranslated. Whether or not it’s “lazy”, if the reader knows what it means or what a good translation in English would be, I don’t think it makes much of a difference. Also, sometimes it is better to leave something untranslated, especially when there’s no cultural equivalent, like “-san” or “-kun”. But either way, as long as the scanlations are released quickly and the translation is intelligble enough that I know what it is meant even if the grammar is a little bad (like with Dance! Subaru), I’m more than happy. But maybe that’s just me…
May 20th, 2010 on 4:37 pm
I’m really not like this situation at all. It’s one thing leaving untranslated words when they don’t have any real english equivalent, but these words did! This is just plain laziness on their part and creating confusion as a result. To be honest, this has become barely readable for me, especially after noticing the many grammatical errors on their part as well. Look, if something is going to be translated into english, it’s my belief that it should be fully translated. Gaya, Samue, Dealer, this is just turning into an “All according to keikaku” sort of situation that I cannot be a part of. I was a big fan of Liar Game, looking forward to the translations as they come out and when I saw that so many were released at once, I was beyond elated but then to see the laziness and absolute mess the translations had become, my elation turned into absolute disappointment. I hope Watercrown does more than cleanup for these hacks and get Liar Game back into shape. I don’t care if I have to wait for them, quality scans and translations are far preferred over shit.
May 20th, 2010 on 5:23 pm
I totally agree with Daniel, as long as the manga is translated in a way it is still enjoyable and you can still follow the flow of the story and everything that is happening, it’s completely fine. And as for it being lazy to not translate gaya to extra, where is the laziness in that? what because extra is 5 letters and gaya is four gaya is easier to type? samue and robes have the same amount of letters, so where is the laziness in that??? And it’s not that he did not know what a good translation would be, because you already called them extra’s right? imho it’s even better this way, as we get to learn a little something about japanese culture which I find, and I think most of you out there who read manga’s do, quite interesting. It’s true that the english spelling and grammar of TDX is somewhat lacking, but if it takes me 10 seconds longer to read a manga but I can read 15 back to back, I’m a happy camper XD! And all of you who have a problem with TDX’s releases, have a GREAT time waiting on watercrown, who, even though I am happy that he started translating LG for us, is kinda known to start slacking after a while. No offense. Also, everyone who called TDX lazy for not translating the words are lazy themselves, for not wanting to learn THREE simple words. well there you have my 2 cents, so yeah.
May 20th, 2010 on 5:23 pm
Oh yeah, forgot to mention, TDX releases 129 and 130 today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AWESOMENESS!!!!!
May 20th, 2010 on 7:23 pm
@ShadowCraze: Manga/Anime is one of the few areas of translation where it is somehow OK to leave things untranslated. If you watch a Chinese movie translated, they don’t leave words as is on the basis that it is the spirit of the series. If you read a book that was originally in German, they don’t leave words as is on the basis that people might want to learn some German along the way. As for your comment about the culture, we aren’t learning anything about the japanese culture from him leaving gaya/samue untranslated. We are learning about the language, and I fail to see why we need to, just because TDX knows the language.
And for the record, I kept forgetting that Samue was a nickname, as opposed to a first name that showed no respect for the guy. I honestly figured his name was Harimoto Samue. That is not a good thing.
Now, I’m not gonna get picky and only wait for Watercrown, but I am willing to say that it should not be appropriate for translators in any field to not translate the whole thing.
May 20th, 2010 on 8:17 pm
We’re pretty much on the same wavelength here, chaos redefined.
Look, I don’t like honorifics, but I can halfway understand why you’d want to leave them in. That said, untranslated vocab such as “gaya” and “samue” has no such excuse. It’s moonspeak for the sake of having moonspeak. It doesn’t enhance the story in any way; rather, it obfuscates it. And as I’ve already shown, they translate just fine into English as long as you’re willing to think outside the box a little, so that’s no excuse, either.
Mind you, anyone can go to Wikipedia and find out what “samue” means, so the damage there is minimal. However, it doesn’t change the fact that it conveys no information relevant to the story. Arguably, I might have done better calling him “The Monk” instead of “Robes” (in much the same way that Akiyama is “The Ex-Con”, Nao is “The Chick” and Yokoya is “The Sneak”), but then his appearance alone pretty much fills in all the blanks.
“Gaya”, on the other hand, doesn’t even have a weak excuse for its presence. It’s a snippet of Japanese onomatopoeia meaning “background chatter”. It’s a noun, sure, but it conveys no information at all to an English-speaker. It’s not unreasonable to think that someone who doesn’t speak Japanese might be familiar with the traditional work clothes of a Zen monk, but “gaya” is just nonsense.
People ask why I say TDX’s translations are “lazy”. The answer to this question is evident on the very first page of chapter 114, and I have to admit I facepalmed when I saw it.
“Steal-A-Chair Game” is a legitimate translation of “Isutori Game”. By this same token, your game controller has a Cross Button, and America’s national pastime is a game called Fieldball. If you’re not reading this article on your fancy new Web-capable Handheld, then odds are you’re sitting at your PersoCom, and if you don’t have enough money to buy a house, then you probably live in a Mansion.
Was this previous paragraph gibberish to you? You’ve probably figured out by now that “Isutori Game” is what they call Musical Chairs in Japan. We call them Directional Pads or D-Pads, not Juuji (or Cross) Buttons like they do in Japan, and while Yakyuu is a popular sport in Japan, in its country of origin, it’s called Baseball. A “Keitai” literally means a “Handheld”, or what we’d call a cellphone, and “Pasokon”, the Japanese term for a PC, is a four-syllable abbreviation of “Personal Computer”. And yes, an apartment complex is called a “manshon” or “mansion” over there.
“Steal-A-Chair Game” is a legitimate translation only as far as the literal meaning; actually calling it that is a mistranslation on the order of any of the examples I’ve illustrated above. Whatever you might assume about TDX, the bottom line is, he doesn’t give a damn about Liar Game, or else he’d take the effort to properly localize the manga, instead of do a slapdash effort and pretend it’s more “elite” that way.
May 21st, 2010 on 3:05 am
come on ryusui, you’re better than that! you don’t have to tell us that TDX’s translations are lazy for us to appreciate your work. WE DO APPRECIATE YOUR WORK AND RESEARCH FOR LOCALIZING THIS WONDERFUL MANGA.
just do your thing, and let him do his. let the readers do the arguing because that is what we leechers are good at. hehe.
May 22nd, 2010 on 1:23 pm
I partially disagree with you ryusui.
I do agree that there are some parts that prove TDX is lazy (though to be fair I believe he does a lot of manga, I could be wrong) such as “chair-stealing-game”.
However some people do prefer to read the literal Japanese such as -san or -chan (or in the case of Liar Game Samue and Gaya). I think this is where translator notes are called for. Without it, it does come off as “lazy” or “not giving a damn”. But the alternative – translating everything sort of westernizes the manga. I, and definitely others, do not want this.
I hope this doesn’t come off as dismissive, as it’s evident to anyone who has read both scanlations for LG that yours is the superior work by far. But I always mentally wince whenever I read things like “Mr. Robes” or “The Chick” in manga.
May 22nd, 2010 on 1:42 pm
@Shadownetzero: And I partially understand where you’re coming from. Leaving out the honorifics is a personal choice of mine; I can understand why you’d want to keep them, but I prefer a somewhat more natural English approach to translation. But as I’ve learned over the years, despite my initial knee-jerk reaction, leaving in honorifics does not automatically make your translation “bad” or “lazy,” as evidenced by FLCL and Persona 4.
“Samue” doesn’t technically need to be left in Japanese, but I will admit that you’re right that it technically doesn’t need to be translated, either; it’s a perfectly legitimate noun referring to a particular type of clothing. “Gaya”, though…that’s a sound effect. It needs to be translated; it’s just nonsense otherwise.
What I find odd to consider is that if “Gaya” is worth leaving untranslated, then why not “Oya”? “Oya” means “parent” or “boss”; TDX gives it as “dealer” (not a wise decision, as Leronira, Solario, Alsab and the others are already called “dealers”), while I give it as “leader”. In the context of Musical Chairs, it seems a bit odd to designate a “parent” or a “boss” to make a decision, so one thing we apparently agree on is that neither direct translation quite captures the intended meaning. Still, it surprises me that people would have issue with “extra” but not “leader”/”dealer”…
And to be honest, “The Chick” is an intentional reference to the trope as described on TVTropes.org; reading the page again, it does describe Nao Kanzaki rather well, I think (she’s even one of the examples given). The original translates as “The Lone Flower”, an idiomatic phrase meaning “the only girl in a group”. When I inevitably use the phrase “Demoted To Extra”, of course, it’ll be referring to quite a different phenomenon from the trope…
As for “Westernization”: considering that the names engraved on the medals are in Western given-name-first order, I suspect Shinobu Kaitani doesn’t have much against the prospect…
May 22nd, 2010 on 1:40 pm
I think that there’s a difference between technical terms for things (as ‘Samue’ appears to be the technical term for clothing worn by monks with no real technical English equivalent) and something like “gaya” that has a pretty good translation.
-san and -chan are honorifics, and whether or not they should be translated into English honorifics are more of a personal opinion, as while English and Japanese honorifics are somewhat analogous, they are not really equivalent.
I think stuff like “chair-stealing game” should be translated as what they actually mean, not literally mean. I mean, if LG was originally in English and was being scanlated into Japanese, I’m sure they would have no idea what this game had to do with music if it was translated as literally “Musical Chairs.” Things need to be localized (although not necessarily westernized) and it just so happens that in this case, the direct translation still gives an accurate picture of what it means.
I think something else that also shows TDX’s laziness is the bad English grammar >_> It looks like he is just directly translating the Japanese without checking if it really still makes sense in English…
May 22nd, 2010 on 4:58 pm
Ryusei, that was totally unnecessary. I can’t believe you would do that to me… Just those two links made me waste an hour on TVTropes!! >.<
May 22nd, 2010 on 6:32 pm
Sorry Ryusui, but I’m gonna have to ask for a reference on the dealer/leader thing.
Interestingly enough, “The Chick” has created a cycle. Since Nao’s nickname sorta translates to “The Chick”, you decided to give it the TVTrope name, and so the TVTrope reference mentions that the manga calls her “The Chick”.
In any case, I’m guessing TDX is taking over the series, considering TDX is spouting out chapters like nothing?
May 22nd, 2010 on 7:50 pm
What, you mean θ¦ͺ?
Here’s what http://www.alc.co.jp has to say about it:
http://eow.alc.co.jp/%E8%A6%AA/UTF-8/?ref=sa
Okay, so point to TDX: θ¦ͺ can mean a dealer, in the card or general game sense. That doesn’t change the fact that Leronira and his creepy masked buddies are explicitly called dealers in a previous chapter.
So: point to TDX for catching on to the intended meaning of θ¦ͺ in this context. Point to me, however, for preventing potential confusion with a simple (if unintentional ^_^;) letter transposition. Everybody wins!
As for TDX taking over: considering that there’s no way I can maintain my present translation quality and release future chapters faster than TDX, then yes, if you want the latest chapters, it’ll be TDX translating them. However, I’m still considering the prospect of retranslating the chapters he’s already done. So they don’t conflict, I’ll probably post them only on my site and on MangaHelpers.
May 22nd, 2010 on 9:05 pm
By reference, I meant something in the manga. But, at the time, I was blanking, since then I have realized you are talking about the elections to remove chairs.
May 24th, 2010 on 9:22 pm
Actually… It occurs to me that there are two chapters that need re-translating more than anything TDX has done. Chapters 84 and 85 were done with horrible quality which makes the use of gaya and dealer seem perfectly acceptable. These were the two that were done in transition between null and cityshrimp, by ShunsengFTW and FrugsAndFriends. (If someone else has already redone these, a link will be highly appreciated.)
May 25th, 2010 on 12:05 pm
@Ryusui
Honestly, I far prefer TDX’s work over your work, even with little spelling or grammar errors. No offense, but I’ve honestly been in despair the whole time you guys have been at the helm of the series. Your style just isn’t my cup of tea.
While I can’t peak for whether or not TDX cares about Liar Game, I will say that he/she doesn’t not care because he/she doesn’t localize stuff. As an aspiring translator myself, I can tell you for sure that I’d translate more closely to his style than your any day and I definitely care about the things I want to translate. It’s always honestly been my opinion that those who don’t translate literally don’t care at all about the series, but apparently, that isn’t the case, so I’d advise you not make the same generalization mistake I have. I also wouldn’t necessarily call him/her lazy or not, especially because I don’t know him/her at all, but I would guess that his/her work is a little rough around the edges due to lack of a team, though I could be wrong.
While I do think some things may or may not need translation, I think that for the most parts, various nouns are fine as long as they have translation notes.
I think that Japanese name order is important too. The way that a Japanese name flows is fundamentally different from the way an American one does and it just feels wrong to me to switch them around for localization. Of course I like translations to keep their original flavor, so to speak.
Honorifics are also an issue that I feel are desperately important. They can be very telling about relationships between people and they also do good job of keeping things Japanese.
@chaos_redefined
While you are pretty much right that Anime/Manga is generally the only place where translations are not completely localized, I don’t feel that should be the case. I personally would personally prefer a world with a lot less localization and a few more translation notes, but then, that’s just me. Point is, I’m about as happy as could be with the current setup of chapters in the style that I enjoy being turned out at overwhelming speeds.
May 25th, 2010 on 1:14 pm
We’ll have to agree to disagree there. TDX’s translations are painfully reminiscent of Capcom’s infamous work on Breath of Fire 2, which is about as literal a translation as you can get, apart from some flubs and minor, irrelevant edits. Personally, I think that it’s overly literal translation that’s disrespectful to the source material: a quick-and-dirty translation is a lazy effort that conveys meaning but none of the actual literary quality. Imagine your favorite English-language novel, or comic, or TV series, or whatever. Now imagine that it was originally in Japanese. How would TDX’s translation compare?
BTW, on the subject of Western-style name order: what do you think, then, of how the medals quite clearly use Western name order rather than Japanese? “Nao Kanzaki” instead of “Kanzaki Nao”, “Shinichi Akiyama” instead of “Akiyama Shinichi” and so forth.
Oh, and speaking of flubs: the blurb for chapter 129 is wrong, pure and simple. The verb at the end is εΎ γ€, not ζγ€: “Before Hope, An Even Deeper Darkness Awaits!”
May 25th, 2010 on 3:47 pm
@Ryusui: The only time we’ve seen the medals is in the translated versions that you and TDX have put up. We don’t know what it was like originally, so we can’t comment.
@Hikari Link: I think the best evidence that has been raised about how the literal sense is kinda bad is the use of the term ‘steal-a-chair game’. As Ryusui said, the game is clearly musical chairs, as shown when Nao compares it to musical chairs. If we went straight into TDX’s translations, the only reason we’d know that it is musical chairs is by Nao asking if it’s like the game she knows, which gets followed by a description of musical chairs.
May 25th, 2010 on 3:51 pm
Neither of us have touched the medals. Believe it or not, the original Japanese version has the names on the medals in Western, given-name-first-family-name-last format.
May 25th, 2010 on 4:36 pm
Ryussiu seem to spend a lot of time attempting to bring down TDX’s work but in the meantime TDX has been releasing more chapters. He is not the one who is looking lazy right about now.
May 25th, 2010 on 5:06 pm
Concerning the medals, I think it has little to do with which style of translation should be used. Their names were simply written in English.
The only thing I got out of that is that the LG may be turning more international (since I believe thus far it has only been Japanese/East Asian players).
I wouldn’t be surprised if the next game took place outside of Japan, with worldwide players.
At the end of the day, I just want LG released as quickly as possible. So I don’t think I’d be reading watercrown’s scanlations unless I decide to reread the series. It’s a shame, but in terms of manga, IMO speed>quality.
May 26th, 2010 on 12:53 pm
@Ryusui
I’m confused by your hypothetical. So you are telling me to imagine something like Futurama as being originally Japanese or what? So it would be exactly as it is now, only the original version is Japanese and f it were translated by TDX, it would be different than it is now? I’m going to need you to elaborate on that one.
As for medals, I think what it doesn’t matter. Japanese names are often Romanized in the Western, but they still say them in the Japanese order. I think that regardless of how they are written on the coins, if it says Kanzaki Nao in the text, it should be written as Kanzaki Nao in the translation. If, however, the text actually says Nao Kanzaki, say if a foreigner calls her that, then the translation should also say Nao Kanzaki.
I’ll take your word on the error because I don’t have access to the raw. I’m not saying TDX is infallible or without flaws, I just prefer that style of translating (not the flaws, obviously).
@chaos redefined
I don’t really see how that is bad. Throw in a translation note that says “Steal-a-chair is the Japanese name for musical chairs” and problem solved. It’s not rocket science and it is true that the Japanese have different terms for things than we do. I’d rather have that kind of literal translation than a more localized version that, for example, has a surprised person yell out “Jesus Christ!”
@Oh Please
That seems like an entirely unnecessary attack. You don’t even completely understand the situation and you are calling others lazy. There are any number of reasons that Ryusui isn’t releasing chapters at the same pace.
May 26th, 2010 on 1:17 pm
1. Yes, that’s exactly it. If Futurama had been Japanese to begin with, it’d pretty much lose all its humor in a straight, TDX-style translation. (But it might be funny for different reasons, i.e. the broken English…)
A proper localization would try to keep the spirit of the original intact, even if it means tweaking the literal meaning at times.
2. Calling it the “Steal-A-Chair Game” is a mistranslation, pure and simple: it’d be like a translator referring to baseball as “Fieldball”, or having the characters mention places like “Igirisu”, “Doitsu”, “Indo” and “Chugoku” and then having translation notes claiming that “these are the Japanese names for England, Germany, India and China.” Taking that logic to its utmost extreme, translators aren’t obligated to actually translate anything, since “that’s the Japanese word for it”: just romanize the text and rearrange the words to fit English grammar.
3. Most of the reason for my current inaction is because I’m still deciding what to do from here. However, I do have something you all might appreciate lined up…
May 26th, 2010 on 3:18 pm
@Hikari Link: Actually… TDX didn’t include a translation note. I was left to think that Abe thought the game was about stealing chairs, as Nao originally described it when Akiyama first asked her opinion of the game (although she didn’t refer to stealing chairs, she just mentioned getting as many chairs as possible). Which reflects poorly on Harimoto’s team, if the members still thought this was only about getting as many chairs as possible.
@Ryusui: Good to hear about #3. I personally didn’t want to see the drama involved in you re-translating the series, and I wasn’t too sure how many people would read it. I was personally hoping you’d do what TDX did, start at the current translated chapter and work backwards.
May 26th, 2010 on 4:11 pm
@Ryusui
1. I’ve seen plenty of comedy with literal translation that was still funny to me. GTO, Azumanga Daiou, and Lucky Star to name a few. I don’t think there is anything inherently lost just by directly translating. I think this is especially true when the joke is a pun.
2. That isn’t the same thing. That’s like saying it is a mistranslation to say football instead of soccer when you are translating something from Spanish to English about Mexico. In the context of Japan, chair stealing game is a legitimate translation. Obviously, there should be some sort of clarification to help people understand, but I don’t think that it is an overall inappropriate term. It’s more like calling a video game by it’s Japanese name as opposed to it’s American name e.g. Rockman, Dragon Ball Z Sparking, or Biohazard. It’s not wrong, just something Americans are less likely to be familiar with.
@chaos redefined
You are correct, though considering that TDX started after it was already fairly well established as musical chairs, it doesn’t seem like a problem. Had TDX been doing it from the beginning and there was no link given between this game and musical chairs, I imagine there would have been a note.
May 26th, 2010 on 4:36 pm
wow, a real discussion happened here.
first off @ryusui:
I’m sorry if I offended you in any way, as this was clearly not my intention. I merely gave my opinion, which stays that the words gaya and samue are a-okay in my book. I love them. Also, Liar Game has been through enough drama with scanlators, can’t we all just, get along?
May 26th, 2010 on 5:10 pm
Oh, I don’t take offense. I’m just a little surprised and disappointed that no one seems to quite get what I mean here.
Let’s say TDX encountered a reference to ιη and, having no familiarity with the game in question, decided to translate it as “Fieldball”. Technically, that’s exactly what “yakyuu” means, but there’s a problem: what the Japanese call “yakyuu”, we call “baseball”. So would he be justified in calling it Fieldball “since that’s what the Japanese call it”?
It’s translations like the ones TDX churns out that inspired me to sign up with d4s to do the English script for his Breath of Fire 2 retranslation project. You want literal translations, word-for-word from the Japanese? Apart from some minor, irrelevant bowdlerizations, Capcom’s original work on Breath of Fire 2 is about as close as you can get to the original Japanese script without actually speaking Japanese. After you’ve played that, I want you to try out my retranslation, and I want you to tell me which one you’d play again.
TDX can beat me in terms of translation speed, sure. But he can’t match my ability to turn out a moonspeak-free, quality product.
May 26th, 2010 on 6:44 pm
I see your point with the fieldball thing and it definitely makes a lot of sense. I agree with you on this, assuming that there is no fundamental difference between American musical chairs and its Japanese counterpart. However, if there are notable differences, such as the case is with shougi and chess, then I feel there would be some room for justification. Having never played musical chairs in Japan, I can’t rightly say which is the case.
I can’t say anything about Breath of Fire , as it isn’t a game that I have any particular interest in.
May 26th, 2010 on 7:16 pm
According to Wikipedia, the only thing different is the name:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_chairs
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A4%85%E5%AD%90%E5%8F%96%E3%82%8A%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0
But then, it should have been obvious from Alsab’s description of the game that the “Isutori Game” is what we’d call musical chairs. My issues with “Samue” and “Gaya” are just matters of stylistic disagreement, but “Steal-A-Chair Game” is unquestionably a mistake.
As for Westernizing other things, it’s on a case-by-case basis. For example, the prize amounts are always given in yen, but when Kurifuji explained the “Door-in-the-Face” technique, I converted the prices quoted into their rough dollar equivalents to make the example clearer (i.e. using $10,000 worth of gems to convince someone to buy a $20 bottle of vitamin supplements). If there were an actual shogi game depicted, I wouldn’t shy away from referring to it as such, but in a similar vein to Kurifuji’s psychology example, I changed Alsab’s shogi references into appropriate chess references.
May 28th, 2010 on 12:35 am
I agree. Even if the japanese musical chairs game isn’t identical to the western game, there’s no real problem in using the term “musical chair” as long as the concept of “sit or out” is still there.
Moreover, the “gaya” thing is starting to get on my nerves (especially when he uses it as “an extra” AND “extras”).
I don’t agree so much on the yen->usd part though. It may help understanding the amount of money that is in-game but that’s just a tad too much westernization for me ^^(but it’s just my opinion).
But we shouldn’t be that killjoy, retranslation for perfectionist maniacs should be out of question :p
May 28th, 2010 on 8:24 am
I only converted yen to USD for one little example in chapter 100 where Kurifuji is explaining how Nao and Akiyama got Butch and Slick to help them.
Kurifuji explains it as the “Door-in-the-Face” technique, where someone gets what they want out of someone else by playing off their guilt at an earlier refusal. The exact example she gives is a salesman who comes to your door selling $10,000 (1,000,000-yen) gemstones; obviously, you refuse, and then the salesman asks if you wouldn’t like a $20 (2,000-yen) bottle of vitamin supplements instead. If he plays it right, he’ll have successfully convinced you to “make up” for refusing his ridiculous offer by accepting his more reasonable one.
Every other time, it’s been yen with perhaps a helpful footnote.
May 28th, 2010 on 6:05 pm
Yeah, I’ll admit that he should have translated musical chairs. But wasn’t that his only mistake?
May 28th, 2010 on 6:06 pm
oh, and IMHO speed with readable and understandable translation trumps perfect translation but a lot slower. but again, that’s just my opinion.
May 31st, 2010 on 4:19 am
For all gaya means to us, he could have called the extras trees and made as much sense. Yes, I love fast chapters, but only because the terms have already been translated correctly.
May 31st, 2010 on 2:12 pm
well the translator note did translate it for us, so whats the prob there?
May 31st, 2010 on 8:28 pm
I do share Ryusui’s philosophy about language localization, but this isn’t a professional work and we aren’t paying anything for it, so I am not expecting any translation to be that much polished. The quality/price ratio will be awesomely high anyway.
In my country the editorial company that holds the rights just released the first volume and then it dropped it all together. Right now scanlations are the only source I can access to and I can forgive some little stylistical preferences; also not being a native English speaker, I often don’t even notice some grammar mistakes.
If Ryusui sure brings up some more logical choices in translating terms, TDX balances it with faster releases. I’m grateful to both to the same extent.
May 31st, 2010 on 10:42 pm
I prefer better terminology over faster speed, in the end, terminology shows better. However, since speed usually results in more people reading (especially since some sites, such as onemanga, only put the first translated up), I am happy to hear that Ryusui will be working on something different, allowing more people to get the better translations.
June 3rd, 2010 on 5:35 am
what will you be starting on?
will it be one outs? really disappointed that noones translation such a good manga
June 3rd, 2010 on 10:42 am
Hello,
First, I’d like to say thanks for the chapters you have done up ’til now. It’s because I enjoy your releases so much (that sounds so dirty…) that I’ve gotta ask- are you planning to re-translate those chapters that TDX has already done? I hadn’t read more than the first few pages of chapter 114 before deciding to wait for you to do that chapter.
If you don’t plan to continue with Liar Game, could you let me know? I only deal with mediocre quality when there’s no alternative.
June 3rd, 2010 on 11:40 pm
TDX just released another chapter. Good to know that rather then sit down and whine about their competitors quality, they have decided to keep scanning more chapters.
June 5th, 2010 on 5:24 am
@Nauf: Ryusui is currently planning something different. My guesses are towards Roots of A 2 or the character profiles.
June 5th, 2010 on 3:42 pm
We’re not planing on doing the chapters TDX did in the nearest future. Both of us are kind of busy with other things, but we will do Roots of A 2.