Oh man, I am SO excited that I don’t have to keep THIS quiet any longer. (Remember my post about industry secrets?)
If I’m working on major titles like Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V, does it mean I’m no longer a rookie editor?
This means that Kodansha totally listened to my suggestions.
Aw, yeah.
Just a reminder: This news is terribly exciting, but please don’t forget that Northern Japan still needs our help. If you can, donate to our fundraiser at Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan or help us spread the word online, if you cannot donate money right now.
(Takes a deep breath) YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYyYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was out with my friends when I found out about this news on Twitter… so of course my friends and I are reeeeeeeallly excited by this.. ^_^
Congraduations on working on this!!! I hope to be able to read it once again soon. I have older version of the Minx, so I wonder how would you go about editing this. ^_^ Don’t tell me this is the title that you are working with mutual Twitter friend in Japan. ^_^
Ack.. congratulations!
Thank you!
I love you so much right now. *bows to your greatness* Thank you so much for suggesting that they do this and I’m so glad to hear it’s being done! I could cry right now. /overdramatic I also want to congradulate you on being the editor for the series, since I assume you’ll be sure a fantastic job is done on this? ;D
I hope you don’t mind, but can I ask a few questions? I realize if you can’t answer all of them, but I was wondering….
-What will the release schedule for Codename: Sailor V be? I know Moon’s will be bi-monthly, but what about V?
-This rererelease will include a brand new translation for all of the volumes of Moon correct? I know Codename: Sailor V’s will be new, since there is nothing old to reuse XD, but Sailor Moon’s will be too right?
-Will the original Japanese names and terms be used for the characters and transformations/attacks/ect. , or the Americanized ones?
-Will Japanese honorifcs be used?
-There won’t be any dialogue or visual censorship, right?
Thanks in advance if you can answer any of these. ^___^
Thank you for all the wonderful compliments, but I’ve been asked not to answer any questions from anyone.
I’ll be working hard on this title, so I hope you like the Kodansha release!
You’re very welcome! And okay, I understand. I was kind of afraid of that. ^^; I will be pleased though, right? :3
And I’m sure you will, and I’m sure I’ll like it! 😀
I can only hope you’ll be pleased! Really, I cannot tell you whether or not you will be, that’s for you to decide when you read the finished product.
True. I’m pretty sure I will be though. 🙂 I mean you are a fan of the series too (right?), so I definitely trust that a fan as passionate as us will be a fantastic editor for the series. And I definitely plan to get at least one or two of the volumes (most likely all of them) and I’ll be sure to tell you what I think when I do!
Man, I can’t believe I have to wait ’til September for the first volume though. OTL It will be nice since I can get it for my birthday, but the waiting for this is gonna kill me, lol.
Actually, I first got into Sailor Moon by watching the anime (but I didn’t know it was anime & I could only watch it sometimes at my dad’s house), so I never got a good chance to read the manga because I was too young. But I assure you that I am totally falling in love with it as I work on it. ^_^
I hope you get all of them. It sounds like Kodansha is planning to go all-out for this particular release. It would be a shame to just get a few. (And I’m sure you’ll manage to hold on somehow!)
Hey, congrats about this. =D I’m wondering something though; I know you can’t answer questions according to your reply above, but can you at least tell us whether these releases retain their proper right-to-left format or not? Or can you not answer that either?
Also, will you be able to answer these questions at some point in the future or will we have to wait for the volume releases to see everything we’re wondering?
I think that question answers itself. Not a lot of manga publishers flip manga anymore and a number of them only do it because the Japanese rights holders ask for it or because they’ve done it for so long now that it would ruin the consistency of a long-running series (and that publisher cares a lot about the consistency.)
As for answering the rest of the questions at some future point…That I really don’t know the answer to! Some of that stuff is just not up to me at all. Some of that stuff has actually been answered in the press release now that I think about it. Best to go look really closely at the wording of the press release. It won’t give you all the answers, but some of the most basic questions fans have about things are addressed. (Albeit, a little bit sneakily at times.)
Hmm, you’re right, it does answer itself when I think about it. With very few manga publishers flipping manga anymore and with this being a rerelease (not a series already being published and flipped) then I would assume it will retain it’s right-to-left format. Especially since the company’s other releases have been right-to-left, as far as I know. I never knew that the Japanese right holders occasionally ask for it though, that’s interesting. I always assumed that some companies just did that once they got the rights because they had the right to if they wanted, and some thought it would be a good idea. Although you mentioning that now makes me wonder if that was the case with the original release of the Sailor Moon manga, and that this rerelease will still have to follow suit. Curse my (most likely) overthinking things…
Haha! I didn’t expect to ask something that you didn’t know the answer to. I just figured you’d know the answer to it and/or you couldn’t comment on it, but not that you actually didn’t know. Interesting. I did figure that some of the stuff wasn’t up to you though. I didn’t know that some of the stuff had already been answered in the press release though, huh. I’ll have to take your advice and go back and reread it closely to see if I can pick up on something I didn’t notice before. Thanks for letting me know!
I think that’s a safe thing to assume, especially since flipping manga is extra work for the publisher. Anyway, there are a few flipped manga out there. Most of Vertical’s Osamu Tezuka manga are flipped, supposedly at the request of Tezuka Productions in Japan. They also flipped Chi’s Sweet Home in order to let the manga shine as a kid’s title (because some kids and/or parents would be confused.) Dark Horse also flips Blade of the Immortal, which is very complicated because apparently the art itself isn’t actually flipped, the reading order of the pages is just left to right. (I think, that instance always confuses the heck out of me. I could have it wrong.)
What I meant by “I don’t know” is that there are certain topics that haven’t been reached yet. It’s just too soon to say on some things. A few questions could definitely be answered by the press release though. Those things are always carefully worded.
I think so as well; hence why I’m going to take it as a fact unless confirmed otherwise. Since flipping manga is extra work, doesn’t make fans happy, and is a less common practice these days I just don’t see it happening. You’re correct that there are still a few flipped manga out there tho, I know since I read a few of them myself. I never knew about most of Vertical’s Osamu Tezuka manga being flipped, yet alone that it’s ‘supposedly at the request of Tezuka Productions in Japan’. If that’s really true I’m surprised, actually. Flipping a kid’s manga doesn’t surprise me tho, since the practice seems more commonplace with kids. Luckily I’ve noticed that most kids mangas now are retaining their right-to-left format, which is a good thing IMO. Dark House flips Blade of the Immortal but in a way where it’s only the pages that read left to right??? What the heck? That’s…very confusing. I don’t even know how that’d work without making the mirrored feeling even stronger…Huh. I can see why it confuses you, it’s confusing me as well. I’m going to have to look this up for myself now, heheh. I do believe you though.
Oh, my mistake. That makes sense though, since it is still very early (the announcement was just made a couple days ago) and with the release still being a few months away. And that’s odd that those things are always carefully worded. I knew they were to an extent but I never knew they did it in such a way to where it can actually answer some fan questions. I’ll have to start paying more attention to them. And okay, after rereading I did see some of my questions were already answered. It also helped that that other commenter said some things he/she got from it since it kind of helped me to know what to look for more.
Just please don’t be disappointed with me if I’m wrong! I’m making that statement as speculation, so it’s not like I couldn’t be wrong. (I just doubt I will be.)
There are a number of Tezuka manga that are flipped, but that it’s supposedly a Tezuka Pro request could be wrong. I know about Blade of the Immortal because my boyfriend reads it. He’s tried to explain it to me a number of times, but I’m still not sure I get it.
You’ve got to remember though while the release is only 6 months away, the whole series isn’t going to be released all at once. So I just don’t know about certain things because we haven’t reached those volumes yet. Glad you could glean some answers from the press release though! I thought they nicely addressed some of the key issues fans had with the previous edition.
Oh, I see. I actually just meant Sailor Moon fan in general, but that’s cool to know. I got into Sailor Moon the same way myself, actually. I got into it by watching the anime as a little kid (and I too didn’t know it was an anime at the time) and I watched pretty much every episode and movie since I was such a big fan. Then, as I got older, I rediscovered the series and realized that what I had watched as a kid (well, the first two seasons anyway) were heavily censored so I got into the series again but watched all 5 seasons (including the 5th season that was never dubbed here) of the show in their original uncut Japanese format with English subtitles, and I loved it and enjoyed ti even more. As for the manga, I never got a good chance to read it myself either. I also was too young at the time it was released, so because of that I didn’t know about it so obviously I didn’t get it. And while I know about it now, I still don’t bother to buy the original English release here since not only are they hard-to-find and very expensive (due to being out-of-print and having to buy used copies from people), and because the original release just wasn’t that good honestly. The releases were flipped, the quality of the translation wasn’t that great (English names, lot of errors, ect.) and even the quality of the books weren’t that great either. (since the people I know who have them say the binding of their books have already fallen apart) So because of that I’ve never gotten a good chance to read it either. I’ve always wanted to, since I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about it (I see people online say it’s even better than the anime all the time) and since what I’ve read about it online it sounded great as well. (I found a fansite that noted some of the differences between the canons, and the manga just sounded awesome from what I read) The closest I’ve ever been able to get to reading them was a friend of mine who speaks Japanese and has some of the Japanese volumes let me come over and let me look through them and he would translate the pages for me as I ‘read’ each page. And even then, I’ve only read the first two volumes (and the first chapter of the third volume) of the 2003 rereleases (ironically the very ones Kodansha is publishing XD) and all the volumes of Codename: Sailor V. I must say though from what I ‘read’ I LOVED them and as long as Kodansha’s releases will be right-to-left and with a new translation I’ll most likely (about 95%) get every volume. ^___^ And if the releases end up using the Japanese names (honorifics would be nice too, but even if they aren’t used I’d still buy them) then that 95% will become 100%, lol. So I’m definitely looking forward to the releases and have a pretty good feeling I won’t be disappointed. And I am glad to hear that you are falling in love with them as you work on them! ^_^ I figured you would, haha. Seems anyone who gives the manga a chance (especially if you’re a fan of the anime) tends to fall in love with them.
Now you got me curious though, you mean you guys are already working on the volumes? :3 If so, that’s cool. If you don’t mind me asking, how do companies usually go about working on volumes anyway? Do you guys just start doing all the volumes as soon as the title is announced or do you guys work a bit as you go along or what?
Don’t worry, I most likely will. ^_^ I’m not as picky as some fans are so unless something really disappoints me with the release (which seems unlikely, at this point) then I can almost guarantee you that I will buy the volumes and everyone of them too. I definitely want all of these rereleases and the release of Codename: Sailor V as well. And I agree with you that with something like this happening it really would be a shame to not get them all, unless something really bad happens. And it really does! That’s part of what’s making me so happy and excited that they are going to do it! (Thank you! And I’m sure I will. Especially since I kind of have no choice. XD; )
Out of curiosity, do you know (or should I say ‘can you say?’) when we might start getting to see the volume covers for the American rereleases? :3 I’m sorry if I’m asking too many questions. ^^;
Ah, I thought you were asking me the question. Honestly, I’ve heard that the use of English names was at the request of the rights holders. Manga adaptation was way different back then. You could do a lot of things you can’t do now in terms of localization. Not that I think localizing manga is a good idea, just that there was a different outlook on things back then. Actually, some of the things you’re mentioned that would sell you even further on the Kodansha Comics release is slyly mentioned in the press release. Go look it up and read it carefully, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
I’ve written a number of posts detailing the editing process on this blog. If you care to look through it… I’d give you them myself, but I’m swamped with work right now. @_@
As for your other question: with manga, production can start at least a year to 6 months in advance. That’s just typical industry stuff that you can count on with most any manga.
No idea when you’ll see covers though! That’s not really my department as a freelancer. Check Amazon.com or RightStuf, as they’ll post that kind of stuff up when it’s made available to them.
But Kodansha Comics is working really hard on this. It would be a shame to see fans be disappointed despite all this effort being put into it.
I know some fans are really critical, but sometimes I just have to wonder… Why do fans get so worked up about the tiny details? It seems like such a waste to bash a good manga just based on some minor changes… Just to be clear, we’re not talking about major changes like the old Sailor Moon adaptation or Sailor Moon at all, just more recent titles where the changes are much less important than the manga’s quality as a whole. I’ve seen people whine about how “suicidal ghosts” was changed to “earth-bound ghosts” in Rin-ne and I thought that was really not a good reason to dismiss an English adaptation… Sorry for that tiny rant, it’s just something that makes me think. ^_^
It’s okay, I can see how you would have thought that. ^_^ And I actually didn’t mind anyway, since I always love to hear how people get into series. (I actually find it interesting) I hope I didn’t ramble on about how I got into it too much though. ^^; I just kind of went off explaining myself when you actually probably don’t even care, lol.
That’s very interesting about English names sometimes being used by request of the rightholders though. I always assumed it was just something that the American publishers themselves decide, kind of like how Viz Media will always localize the names and what not of their titles if there is a dub or an English version of the game, ect. But that makes sense too. In my experience as a manga fan I have seen rights holders make some odd requests with the American version of different mangas before, so it doesn’t really surprise me when I actually think about it. And you are also right that manga adaptation was just different way back then which was probably why they requested it for Sailor Moon in the first place, if that was the case with it. That’s very true. And I’m didn’t think you meant that you thought localizing manga was a good idea by your statement, just more of that you were explaining it to me. (since you’re AWESOME enough to do so) I am glad to know you also don’t think it’s a good idea though. And really? That’s interesting. And I just did, you’re right! Now of course I could be wrong, but when I read it carefully I believe I noticed a few things pointing at a new translation and possibly keeping the Japanese names in tact. I didn’t notice too much pointing at it being right-to-left, but based on your replies to some other commenters on this post and with how manga is usually released nowadays I’m pretty sure it will be. Interesting how I never noticed those first two things were slyly hinted at though; thanks for telling me! (although I don’t get why they can’t just flat-out say things instead of hinting them, lol) I must say that I definitely plan to buy all the volumes now. ^^ To be honest I always planned to from the beginning XD, but I feel even more confident about doing so now. I really have a feeling (always have since the announcement, actually ^^) that I won’t be disappointed with these releases in the least.
Oh that’s cool! I’d love to check them out. ^__^ Don’t worry about not being able to give them to me right now though, I understand with work and everything. If it’s not a problem I would appreciate if you could just give me the links when you get a chance though, since you have a lot of posts and it would probably take me a while to find them all. ^^; I apologize for asking you though. The reason I don’t know already is I didn’t find out about your blog until this rerelease was announced, so since I’m new to your blog I haven’t had a chance to look through or read all the posts yet. I’m really sorry about that and any trouble I’ve caused because of that.
And thanks for answering! I didn’t know about the 6 months to a year in advance thing, but I was always pretty sure that manga companies work on all the volumes in advance since it wouldn’t make sense for them not to, lol. It’s nice to have confirmation and a bit more info about it though, so thank you. I really appreciate all of this. ^_^
Hopefully soon! Lol. I understand that though, to be honest I was kind of afraid you wouldn’t because of that. But I’ll definitely be sure to do that, since that’s what I usually do with a lot of other series I follow. ^_^
I’m hoping the covers stay as close as possible to the original covers (i.e. the same besides putting the series name in English, artist name in English, backcover summary in English, ect.), since the original covers, backcovers and side binding all are very beautifully done.
I’m sure that since Kodansha Comics is working hard on this and with how much fans want it they’ll be happy. Especially with it (most likely) being right-to-left and with a new translation, and the possibility of using the original names. So I’m pretty sure you won’t have to worry about fans being disappointed, since everything about this release will be better than the original Mixx release, lol. I do agree that it would be a shame if fans were disappointed regardless though, but I really just can’t see that happening, especially with the nothing but positive comments I’ve been seeing about this online.
I would imagine it’s because fans want everything to be as close to possible as the original Japanese version. So when something isn’t like it, no matter how big or small, they are displeased. And I can kind of see their point. You never want there to be any kind of changes, big or small, in adaptation of a series if you can avoid it. All you really want is for the series to be in English, but other than that that’s the only changes most people want. That said however, I do completely it is a waste to bash and/or not buy a good manga just based on some minor changes. Like you said, I can understand it when it’s big changes (like everything that happened to Sailor Moon here, pretty much. lol) but when it’s minor changes not really important to the manga’s quality as a whole I don’t really see the problem. Especially if there is a small number of them. We should just be glad it’s not worse like it could be and that very rarely will an anime or manga get butchered like they used to. That said however, I do have to agree that I hope we’ll eventually get to a point where nothing has to be changed besides the language, just since it would be nice to not have any edits or changes in anything manga or anime-wise ever. But atlas I fear that is a pipe dream, at least for a while longer… And really? Sadly I’m not familiar with Rin-ne, so I didn’t know about that. I can see why people would be a bit disappointed with that though. People weren’t happy because suicidal got censored out, and they didn’t even use a word with a similar meaning which means you could technically say it’s a minor mistranslation or error. From what I’ve seen people have less of a problem with changes if they still carry the same meaning but in a milder form, like swapping damn out for darn or something. I get that couldn’t exactly be done with suicidal (at least, not as far as I know…) but I can see the annoyance over it. That said however, (man, I keep seeming to repeat that…sorry about that.) I do agree that something minor like that isn’t a good reason to dismiss the English adaptation completely over it. And it’s okay, it makes me think too. ^_^ I’ve often thought about things like that before myself. And I can definitely see why you’d feel kind of rant-worthy about that, so no need to apologize. ;]
To my knowledge, Viz doesn’t often localize names anymore, even with an English dub of a title. They are still one of the companies that censors their manga the most, that I know of, but a lot of it is avoid problems with an audience besides manga fans. They still get crap from concerned parents about Dragon Ball where Goku is running around with nothing on. >_>
Anyway, the reason why the press release wasn’t more straightforward is because it’s not really supposed to be for fans. It’s for news sites and they aren’t usually thinking about anime & manga blogs, they’re thinking about the bigger newspapers & news sites that could pick the story up. Thus, they aren’t just going to go into “by the way, fans, it’s not going to be like the old version at all, don’t worry.” (Especially because it would be impolite to be nasty to another publisher in an official public document like that.) I thought it was pretty obvious reading the press release, but I suppose it didn’t catch everyone’s attention instantly. Press releases are very carefully worded though. It’s important to pay attention to what they’re saying & how they’re saying it.
I do have a search function on the blog in the right hand column. If you want to type in the keyword: editing, you’ll be able to find my posts on the subject a lot faster. (Hope you don’t mind, I’m going to be swamped with work for awhile.)
Like I said, the covers aren’t going to be my business. Sorry I can’t provide you with more info on that, but I am limited in what I can tell you and what I know, even.
Honestly, some changes do have to be made sometimes otherwise reading manga would be a much bumpier ride. 99% of editors and adapters do try to keep it as close to the original as possible, but if our manga is hard to read because of the way the English dialogue flows, it means we’ve failed at our job. Sometimes that means going with another definition of a word or phrase. Sometimes it means changing an idiom because no one would understand it in English and there isn’t any place to put an explanation in the book. The rest of the time, we’re happy to keep in Japanese names, Japanese references and everything else as original as possible.
I always thought that the suicidal v. earthbound ghost example was an awful one, considering how the person who gave me the example could not come up with anything else that was wrong with Rin-ne’s English adaption. Even if it makes you upset, you could easily just substitute “earthbound” for “suicidal” as you’re reading. That one thing is a pretty poor justification for making scanlations of a comic that is being released on the same day as the Japanese, but that’s what was happening.
Really? That hasn’t been my experience recently. I’ve bought plenty of manga from them that was either based off of a game with a localized adaptation or that has an English dub of the series’ anime and they have still been localized. And they aren’t old releases either, but new releases or releases in an on-going series right now. That is true that they are still one of the companies that censors their manga the most though. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen censors visually and/or dialogue wise in pretty much any of their mangas. I do know that a lot of it is to avoid problems with an audience besides manga fans since they want to avoid controversy, but it still doesn’t stop it from being annoying and unnecessarily sometimes. >_> For example, sometimes I’ll see them edit something that they never edited in another series and they never got a single complaint about. (and both series will have the same target audience too) Viz just doesn’t seem to have any consistency with their edits anymore, which makes it a problem since some mangas can get no edits at all while others can get quite a few. It was so much better when they just stuck to the guidelines of their age ratings where nothing but stuff not allowed (based on the target audience they set for the manga) was edited, since it was at least consistent and less stuff got edited that way. That sucks they still get crap about Dragon Ball though, I didn’t know they still had problems over it even to this day. (I had just assumed it had died down by now) I’m sure that that and some of the other complaints they got is one reason why they are so much stricter on their edits now and so inconsistent with them though.
Oh I already know that; and I didn’t mean that they should just be like “by the way, fans, it’s not going to be like the old versions at all, don’t worry” either. >_> I get it’s not just for fans and I get they can’t be unprofessional and attack other companies. What I meant by my comment was why couldn’t they say stuff like “The rerelease of the series will also feature a brand new translation.” and/or possibly even mention it keeping it’s right-to-left format or something? That way it’s still sounds like part of a press release but answers fan questions and potential buyer questions. I get it isn’t for the fans, but they could still do things in a way that directly answer questions in a way that doesn’t make the release insulting to another company or make it seem too fancentric but at the same time pleases everybody. There is a middle line they could do of being perfect for publishing on any news site but also answering that kind of stuff. Don’t get me wrong, they do pretty well now, but they could still do a bit better in my opinion. I get some stuff is obvious, some stuff they aren’t sure on yet or don’t want to announce, and some stuff they hinted at anyway, but they could have just flat out said it but still in a professional press release kind of way instead of just alluding to things?
Well, it’s not really one of those things that catches your attention instantly, lol. When you first read it you just (well, in a fan’s case, anyway) get excited and you just read the words as they are, you don’t go over it and scope for hidden info and meaning you didn’t catch before because you don’t think there is any since they didn’t just flat out say it. (or I would assume most people wouldn’t think there is any because of that) That said however, I did catch it now and will pay closer attention to future press releases to make sure not to miss any details, lol. So don’t worry, I’ll be sure to follow your advice from now on.
Oh, my bad then. I don’t think I really noticed it too much, and I think when I did earlier I wasn’t sure exactly what to search so I didn’t try to look anything up. Thanks for the help though; I finally did it and looked at all your posts about it. Pretty interesting, I knew more than I thought actually but there were a couple things I didn’t know, so it was nice to learn them and get confirmation on what all you do. (And no I don’t mind at all. Like I said I understand and now you’ve officially helped me find your answers to it, so I’m good.
Oh I know, I was saying that as more of just an out-there statement not really directed at anybody. Sorry for not being more specific though, it’s my fault for including it in my direct reply to you, lol. And it’s okay, I definitely understand all of that by now.
Oh I know that too, and I understand that as well. I definitely get that you have to make sure the English dialogue flows well, that sometimes you have to go with another definition of a word or phrase, that sometimes you have to change an idiom because no one would understand it in English and there isn’t any place to put an explanation in the book, ect. I have no problem with that and understand it fully. My only problems are with edits usually, but even then I get why they’re done too; but it does nothing to change the fact that I don’t like them. That said however, very rarely will I not purchase a series over edits unless they are just lots of them and/or lots of really big ones, which luckily doesn’t happen often in this day and age.
I agree, it isn’t that great of an example at all. I could come up with much better examples (for other series) myself. However, it is still one, albeit a minor one. I’m glad to hear that that was all that person could come up with though, and I completely and utterly agree with you that that one minor dialogue edit is definitely not worth not buying the series over and/or worth bashing the English adaptation about. And well, it does bother me, but it doesn’t really upset me or anything since it’s one edit (as far as I know) and not that bad at all. It’s just one of those minor annoyance things. I can see why people would be annoyed, but I definitely think most people took their complaints over it too far by the sound of it. And lol, that’s actually what I would do if I ever end up reading that series. When there is a minor edit like that I’ll usually try to just substitute it with what it’s supposed to be while reading. And wow, really? Scanlations just over that? If that really was the case then I definitely agree that that was very poor justification. If someone was going to make scanlations for a series they should at least do an unlicensed in the US one or one that never got completed or an old one that was badly adapted or something, and that’s only if they really felt like they had to in the first place. Although, are you sure that the releases weren’t going off before the manga even got licensed and/or just to keep up with Japan? I know a lot of scanlators will tend to continue doing scanlations of an already licensed series either because A.) They were already working on the title before it was licensed and brought over, so they usually feel like since they started and worked on it so long they should at least finish it. or B.) The American release is very far behind the Japanese one so they do it in order to stay up to date since the company is so far behind.
Perhaps we’re reading different manga, but I haven’t noticed huge differences. Then again, I don’t watch as much anime as I read manga and I don’t usually watch dubs. You’d have to give me concrete examples in that case. Also, other editors working on different series, even if they’re in the same marketing line, have different styles. You really should just brush off things being done differently as stuff like that. (Or, if the editor is the same, perhaps their style changed or they were asked to do something differently.)
The other stuff I know about mostly through internet talk & a friend who works for them. Some of the stuff she has to cover up is understandable as they’re trying to hit a certain age-rating though.
With press releases, as with anything, there’s always the chance that they simply didn’t realize it or that they didn’t feel the need to. That’s all there is to it.
Glad you found my posts on editing. I hope you found the post you were looking for. It’s in there somewhere, but I can’t remember what it’s called. I try to be thorough with tags so people can find things easily.
Rin-ne was the first manga to be released in English simultaneously with the Japanese chapters right from the get-go, so I’m pretty sure the scanlators were NOT scanlating the series before the English-language version. These people were just doing it because they could. There are plenty of scanlators who will scanlate a series despite the English release being pretty close to the Japanese one or will even scan in the legal English-language version right from the book & put it up online for free. While I can kind of understand why scanlators do it with series like Naruto or One Piece…Those series are licensed in English too. If people bought more of the books, Viz would release the books at a faster pace. It would be the same for any manga, actually. The better the sales, the more attention a manga will get.
I never said there were huge differences (or I didn’t think I did?) because there aren’t. All I was saying was that names and terms have been localized in some of the manga I’ve been buying recently from Viz, including newer stuff. We most likely are reading different mangas though, since most (if not all) of the ones I’m referring to I haven’t seen you post about. And actually, I don’t watch as much anime as I read manga either, and I also don’t usually watch dubs. The video game mangas I was referring to I knew about the localization already from playing the English games, and the manga I was referring to I knew the difference from the different names than the original and from researching and realizing that the names being used were the localized ones used in the anime dub. Most of the series I’m referring to though are video game mangas so that isn’t really that surprising since games still tend to get localized, but I was surprised by a few mangas using localized dub names instead of the original now. So I was just pointing that out that Viz not localizing much anymore isn’t exactly true. And I could give you some examples if you’d like, but I’m kind of busy today so that’d have to wait a bit. I actually already realized that about every editor having different styles though, I’ve known that for a good while now I believe. It’s especially apparent with Viz, who’s editors seem to have quite a variety in their style compared to other manga company editors. So it’s kind of funny you mention that since that’s actually what I’ve been brushing it off as, lol.
And interesting. And yeah, I understand some edits are understandable since they’re trying to hit a certain age-rating. Sometimes there will be one or two though I’ll think is just being a bit overly sensitive about something (i.e. thinking it’ll come across as worse than it does) but meh, doesn’t usually happen in my experience at least.
That’s true. Never said it wasn’t really.
Sure did! I can’t remember what it was called either at the moment, but I did read it and find it very interesting and informative. And I noticed that! That’s very impressive of you since some bloggers aren’t as thorough, but I’m glad you are since it makes it so much easier to find things.
Oh I see then, I obviously didn’t know not being familiar with the manga or anything about it. Was just speculating possibilities is all. That’s cool that it was the first manga to be released in English simultaneously with the Japanese chapters though, that’s awesome! 😀 I hope more series will end up getting the same treatment sometime. And yeah, I know that there are plenty of scanlators that will scanlate a series despite an English release being pretty close by. As long as a series has enough fans scanlations seems to be a thing bound to happen. I was just saying that in a lot of cases scanlators will be more likely to scanlate something if the English release of something is far behind or a series was never released in English or the original release is out-of-print or never finished. That doesn’t apply to all cases of course, but that seems to be a common one. As for ripping a series (ripping is what you call it when people put scans of the English version online), that’s a lot more uncommon, if not downright rare. I have seen it a few times, but very very rarely and it’s usually with an out-of-print series or a series that had an official English release in someplace hard to get, like Singapore. (since Singapore has their own English-Language releasing manga-company, believe it or not) Again though, this is just some cases not all. And well, Naruto and One Piece aren’t good examples. Saying “if more people bought more of the books, Viz would release at a faster pace” doesn’t really fit the fan’s situation with Viz there. Those two titles are two of the most popular ones Viz has and fans HAVE bought them enough to get Viz to release them at a faster pace, since they even released four volumes a month to catch up before and what not. Sales is not the problem with those two series, Viz is. Not saying Viz is bad, but once Viz gets fairly close to catching up to a series, no matter how popular or well it sales, they ALWAYS slow down to where they are a few volumes behind the Japanese release. I don’t know why but that’s been my experience in every Viz release I follow and even others I don’t, the only time it doesn’t seem to apply is to already completed series. My guess is Viz fears catching up for the possibility of infrequent releases of future volumes, but most manga series have some sort of release schedule in Japan so I’m not too sure if that’s really the case or not. While there always will be scanlations no matter what pretty much, if Viz was completely up to date with more series and translated volumes pretty much as soon as they came out, I think it would decrease the demand for them even more and make there be less readers of them. Just my opinion on the matter. I do agree with you though that if fans bought more of the books for any manga series it would (most likely) make companies release books at a faster pace. (although I have known Viz to do some different things instead when they get good sales, on a couple manga) Because like you said, the better the sales the more attention a manga will get. And most if not all companies are pretty good at that.
Hmmm, OK. I definitely do not buy a lot of video game manga. (I don’t play video games much so it’s something I never really felt the need to buy.) Although it’s certainly understandable to me why they do it. For one, most of the video game companies releasing English versions of games don’t go to other video game publishers to do so. They have their own US entities. These manga and anime and everything else tied to video games is all controlled by the video game publishers. So, if they make the decision to localize names in the US version, they’re going to want the company publishing the manga to do the same thing. It also happens with anime dubs because often the manga and anime publishers in the U.S. want to be on the same page. (For example, with Hetalia, the editor was in constant contact with Funimation & they decided on certain style matters to be the same in both the anime and manga English releases. It’s not something the fans can control, especially when it’s at the request of the Japanese rights holders. (I realize the Hetalia example does not fit that, but I don’t think there were too many complaints about localizations in Hetalia.)
You’d think that scanlators are more likely to work on something that’s not up-to-speed with the Japanese or something that’s not released, but I’ve seen plenty or recent scanlations that work on something that’s awfully close to the Japanese release and I’ve seen rips of almost every single one of the titles I work on.
Anyway, what I meant by the “if people buy more Naruto & One Piece” comment was that if we had a manga-buying culture as large as Japan’s (basically, if we went to a whole nother scale of manga consumption,) the attention paid to catching titles up to the Japanese releases would be so much more. One Piece and Naruto were just good examples since those two are scanlated with that excuse to back the scanlators up. But since we don’t have 3 million people buying every volume of One Piece now, our current market won’t support speedy release schedules, even of extremely popular titles.
Also, it’s an ignorant fan who complains about slower release schedules when the new volume of manga isn’t even out in Japan yet. That sort of thing just isn’t fair to the U.S. publisher. They basically slow down so as to not disappoint the U.S. reader with long pauses between volumes. This is kind of a snail’s pace industry no matter how you look at it. We have to wait for mangaka to create something before we can publish it! The large publishers in the U.S. try to alleviate the wait by publishing manga that might appeal to fans of a certain series in the mean time, but it’s just not enough for some people, despite the fact that the publisher can’t do much about it. (i.e. Nana is on hiatus in Japan and in the US because of the mangaka’s health.)
i wonder what age rating this series will get….
No clue! Probably a teen or older teen rating though. Technically speaking, there is some violence.
that would be good. i remember reading the japanese volumes and there definitely is so violence and some other content in there, but as long as it has a teen or older teen rating it should be fine and be able to all remain.
Don’t worry, I won’t be! I understand that you are speculating just like I am. I’m glad to know that you doubt you will be wrong, and I doubt you and I will be wrong too. And I hope we won’t be wrong too, hahaha.
That’s very intriguing. I’ll have to research on that since I’m curious; must say if it was a request of someone on the Japanese side then I can tolerate that kind of change a bit more. And ah, I see. That makes sense then. And I can see why, it’s very confusing not to mention hard to believe so I can definitely see why you don’t get it. If he ever gets frustrated if he tries to explain it again tell him you’re not the only one who doesn’t understand, haha!
I knew it wasn’t going to be released all at once, but I never thought about you not knowing since you hadn’t reached those volumes yet. That makes perfect sense. Apparently that thought just hadn’t dawned on me, haha. I’m pretty glad over that myself, haha! And I thought so too, once I got to looking at it closer. It was just subtly was all.
May I ask you a question? Two of them, actually? The first question I wanted to ask is since you’re already working on the volumes I’m sure, what have you thought of Sailor V so far? (since you’re the editor for it too, right?) And the second question I wanted to ask you, is there any Sailor Solider(s) that you like better in the manga version than the anime version? That’s something I always like to ask fans who read the manga versions. 🙂
The Blade of the Immortal thing is true. I’ve seen the books, I just can’t keep it straight in my head. It was at the request of the creator, though. Something to do with wanting to present his material as close to the original format as possible in a time when flipped manga were popular.
I don’t think I should answer those questions. Sorry about that! (Hope you understand, I’m just trying to protect my career a bit here.)
Thanks for the confirmation. Wow. And that’s good it was at the creator’s request. I can tolerate changes like that better when the creator okays them. I must say though what a clever idea he came up with by requesting that. What a brilliant way to try to bypass the left-to-right format change that was done at the time but while keeping his artwork completely in tact. The only problem with it is it sounds like it would be confusing to read, but maybe not. That’s just how the idea sounds in my head, anywya.
Oh, darn. It takes all the fun away that us fans can’t really ask you anything! But don’t worry about it, I understand. I would do the same thing if I was in your place too, even though I would be tempted to do otherwise.
I do hope you know that once the volumes come out though I’ll come back and be sure to ask you! (since surely you could answer them then, right?)
Yeah, I think they actually had to cut out the panels or something to flip the page, but not flip the art. Like I said, REALLY CONFUSING, but the creator maintained some control… So that’s all good. I think the fact that they wanted to flip it was not his decision, but A+ for making sure he had his say! 😀
I’m not sure what you’d want to ask once it’s out and there for you to read, but I guess so? There will probably always be certain questions I cannot answer no matter what and if you come back to nitpick about my editorial decisions I retain the right to be a little miffed. (Mostly because it’s never fun to try and argue with fans who are convinced you did it wrong. >_< I just don't even want to think about fans potentially coming back to this blog & doing that. I wouldn't be happy!)
Probably. They probably scanned the pages into some machine before they printed them, and then moved around the panels to where it would be read left-to-right but still be in tact. This has me so curious now that I’m going to have to look through a volume next time I’m at a bookstore to see what it’s like. XD I’m really glad the creator maintained some control. Yeah, I don’t think the fact that they wanted to flip it was his decision either, but I have to agree that he totally deserves an A+ for making sure he had his say! 😀 That’s really cool of him and I think more mangakas should be involved with the adaptations of their work around the globe like that.
I meant asking fan questions, like what did you think about Sailor V and are there any characters you like better in the manga, ect. You know, like the ones I tried to ask but you said it’s best you don’t yet due to your job. XD I’d still like to know them so what I meant by my comment was I’ll be sure to ask when the volumes come out, since I assume you’ll be able to answer questions like those then? ;P And don’t worry, I won’t come back to nitpick about your editorial decisions, since I’m fairly certain you won’t make any bad ones. ^_^ Plus I’m too grateful to.
I’m not sure if I should even answer those kinds of questions. I do think highly of both series, but it just could be too risky for me. You know?
Pingback: Weekend Links – Heroes | Diary of a Bookworm
Sweetness! I just checked Amazon and I see that Codename: Sailor V volume 1 and Sailor Moon volume 1 of your release will be available on September 13th, and Codename: Sailor V volume 2 and Sailor Moon volume 2 will be available November 15th. I’m excited! 😀
The only sad thing is that Amazon hasn’t updated with the covers yet…
Yay! I’m glad!
But don’t worry, the covers will show up sooner or later. It’s not like we’re going to print the book without them. XD
😀
True. XD I just hope it’s sooner not later!
I have no idea! I’m not in charge of that stuff.
:O I can’t believe I didn’t find out about this until like a week later. XD But this is awesome news! Man, I can’t wait for the releases! Although I am slightly disappointed at the dates. Based on the info of the first volume being released in September and the bi-monthly pattern, I managed to calculate all the dates we’d get the volumes. (yeah, I’m a big nerd XD) And I also got on Wikipedia to see what volumes contain what arcs as well, and came up with this chart:
Sailor Moon
Volumes 1-3
Vol.1 September 2011
Vol. 2 November 2011
Vol. 3 January 2012
Black Moon
Volumes 3-5
Vol. 4 March 2012
Vol. 5 May 2012
Infinity (Mugen)
Volumes 5-7
Vol. 6 July 2012
Vol. 7 September 2012
Dream (Yume)
Volumes 7-10
Vol. 8 November 2012
Vol. 9 January 2013
Vol. 10 March 2013
Stars
Volumes 11-12
Vol. 11 May 2013
Vol. 12 July 2013
It’s not bad, but this means we won’t get all the volumes until 2013, which is really sad. I mean, it could be worse and at least we’re getting them, but the wait will be killer! XDDDDD Especially for me since I mainly want the last three arcs, although I do plan to buy every volume. Ah well, I’ll manage, I suppose. (barely XD) Although I can’t help but wish this would have started just a year or two sooner…
I have a question for you though. I realize it’ll probably be one of those ‘can’t answer’ questions based on the comments above, but I was wondering, will the release keep all the coloured pages in the volume in tact a la Del Ray and occasionally Tokyopop, or will it be the Viz way of ‘everything-is-black-and-white except the front and backcover’? In case you can’t answer that question though, I have another one to ask along the same lines — do Kodansha’s other releases keep colored pages in tact? ;P This way I’ll at least have an idea of whether or not they’ll remain in colour. The series has really beautiful artwork though so I’d love (and am hoping ~<3) for the pages to remain in color, but if not I'll still get them anyway. Excited!
Um… I’m sorry? I don’t quite know what to say here because a) I have no control or part in deciding the release schedule of certain manga and b) it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. It’s a pretty quick release schedule for an old manga, all things considered, and Sailor Moon is likely getting that treatment because it’s so popular with fans. Hopefully devoted fans like you will continue to buy the later volumes (because manga sales usually drop off after every volume of manga) & Kodansha Comics might increase the publication rate.
You’ve got to remember too that Kodansha Comics only recently started publishing a lot of comics. Two years ago, they weren’t publishing anything AT ALL, except reprints of Akira, so this wouldn’t have happened two years ago. I would advise you not to be so impatient about it. For one, it’s tough for the production staff to keep up with large amounts of releases. Two, it’s really tough on a publisher financially to put out some much content at one time. Kodansha is kind of just starting out here in the American market and things may not go smoothly further down the line that make it hard for them to keep up. That’s just an if that really depends on fans and how much they buy from Kodansha Comics, but it’s a very likely if, considering the state of the manga industry.
Anyway, I cannot answer those questions. The thing that fans asking me questions here don’t understand is that I’m a freelancer. I don’t have control in certain areas of production. I pretty much do the actual editing side of things and that’s it. I’m not hesitating to answer because I don’t want to, I just have no idea what my clients are doing aside from the tasks they assign me. That’s just how these things work.
I’m sorry, apparently my comment came across the wrong way. I didn’t mean that it was unreasonable because it isn’t, it’s no different than most other manga release rates in America and it’s actually better than some. Especially considering Kodansha is a new company and this is an old manga from the 90s. I understand that Kodansha comics is fairly recent to publishing hence why they didn’t do it sooner and that it’s hard to keep up with large amounts of releases and that no company would release a whole series at once. I also didn’t mean to be impatient about it, I just meant I wish it would have happened sooner but I understand why it didn’t and I’m still happy with it and will buy every volume. I definitely plan to support the release and Kodansha and am happy with it, I was just slightly disappointed when I realized how long a wait it’s going to be before they’re all released. That’s all. Sorry about that, will be more careful next time.
And I definitely plan to get all my friends to help support the release too, especially if there is a chance (no matter how tiny) that if it does well enough they might increase the publication rate. I realize it won’t happen but I’ll definitely hope for it and do my best to increase the chances!
Figured. And I had no idea, but that makes sense then. I don’t know about others, but don’t worry, I won’t bother you with anymore questions.
If you don’t mind me asking, could you tell the typesetters (I believe that’s what they’re called?) that I appreciate everything they’re doing? Looking at the pages of the manga the series look like it would be really difficult to type-set, so definitely tell them I appreciate all they’re doing. And all that you and everyone else working on this are doing too. I know I haven’t seen the volumes yet but I have faith that you guys are doing a great job. =]
Ah, I just wasn’t sure how much you knew about manga publishing. I’m sorry if I was a bit rude about it! Anyway, I’m glad you understand why it’s going to take so long, but I hope the wait doesn’t seem too bad once the volumes start coming out!
I don’t really have contact with the typesetters, but if I ever get the chance, I’ll pass the message along. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. :3
Uh Justin, the release date pattern you posted is exactly like the one I posted at the Kuri-ousty blog. XD Whether it’s just an odd coincidence or you copied it doesn’t really matter, but I do feel the need to correct you. You see, I realized my pattern was wrong a while back (I got slightly mixed up about what arcs are covered by what volumes) and hadn’t gotten around to posting a comment there correcting my error so the info you either got from me (or possibly came up with yourself) is wrong. The dates the volumes will be released at is still right, but the ‘what volumes cover what arcs’ thing isn’t. Least not completely. Here’s the actual ‘what volumes cover what arc’ thing, and I know it’s true since I looked through my friend’s copy of the Japanese volumes myself to double check.
The only ‘what volumes cover what arcs’ things that were correct were for the first arc (as far as I know it doesn’t have a name, but is usually referred to as Sailor Moon or Dark Kingdom), which is covered by volumes 1-3, and the Stars arc, which is covered by volumes 11-12. The rest is wrong though. The Black Moon arc is actually only covered by volumes 3-5, Infinity is actually only covered by volumes 6-8, and Dream is actually only covered by volumes 8-10. Just thought I’d clear that up, especially if you got that from me since it was my fault for posting something that was a bit wrong.
I do want to say though…if you did take it from my comment I don’t mind too much, but if you are going to take something from someone else you should always credit them. It’s the least you can do if you want to use something someone else said and that way you wouldn’t be held accountable for it if it turned out to be wrong. Just a heads-up, because if you did it again you might not be so lucky to get someone fairly mild-mannered about it since it’s something minor.
In order to prevent further mix-ups (in case you came up with it yourself based on what Wikipedia said as well) I fixed the info at Wiki and I’ll also post another comment (or see if I can get one of the blog admins to edit my comment) on Kuri-ousity pointing out and correcting my error. Some other people may have been like you (granted you took it from there) and take what I said as fact so I think I should clear up the what arc covers what volume thing. Luckily I had the foresight to mention the dates were just speculative of what the release dates most likely will be granted they follow the bi-monthly pattern. XP
I don’t buy a whole lot of video game manga either (tend to buy more video games and manga series that are their own thing than video game mangas), but I do buy a few; and definitely enough to know that, in Viz’s case, it’s not a one time thing. And really? Well I can see why you wouldn’t then, although I must say I’m surprised you don’t play video games much! And oh I know, it’s definitely understandable and I don’t mind it at all. I was just pointing it out as an example that, regardless of reasons, Viz still does localize some manga even now.
I have too. And that’s true. While being close to being caught up to Japan (or caught up, in some cases) does help with reducing the number of people trying to get scanlations out for something, it never completely gets rid of them. As long as there are people willing to do it and/or a demand for them it’s just going to happen, sadly. And really? Wow, that’s surprising. I’ve only seen rips of three series before and that was a few years ago when they came up in Google results when I was searching for info about the manga; not actually looking for scans or raws myself, lol. Then again, maybe I’m just not reading the series that these rips exist for; and I hardly search for stuff like that so that’s probably another reason I haven’t really seen them either.
Ah, I see now. Sorry about my response to that then. I didn’t know how you meant it and took that the wrong way. But you’re right that our manga industry isn’t anything like Japan’s and you’re also right that in order for us to be able to be like that (releases shortly after Japan’s release) the industry here would need to reach Japan’s levels. I must say I’d love for that to happen one day though. I really hope it might, although I have no idea how likely it is.
And I agree with you about the ignorant fan thing as well. It makes no sense to complain about something not released here or a quicker schedule if the volume isn’t even out in Japan yet. That just makes no sense.
Slowing down to not disappoint the U.S. readers with long pauses between volumes definitely makes sense though. I never thought of that! I’ve never really had problems with slowing down releases though when there’s a good reason for it. The only time it bothers me is like, say there is a manga that is released at a set pattern in Japan, yet the publisher still slows down once they start getting closer to the volume count. That kind of annoys me since I think as long as the Japanese volumes have a scheduled release it would be easy just to follow their release pattern for it instead of suddenly slowing down.
I still think video game manga is a bad example to bring up for a discussion of localization. Video game companies localize a lot of stuff, because they feel the game won’t sell to a lot of Americans who don’t give a crap about authenticity and don’t read manga. So anyone publishing the related manga must go through the Japanese company to license the manga and that company will make them adapt the manga to their game’s localization. It’s really only natural in those circumstances.
As for why I don’t play video games, it comes down to time and money. I don’t have a lot of either and/or I’d rather be reading manga.
Rips exist all over the place. They have for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has ripped every single volume of manga published in America since 2002 or so.
The big problem with the US market is that as a nation we’re still pretty closed off to comics. Comics are for kids and nerds, despite the fact that we have blockbuster action movies intended for adults making huge box office bank on a regular basis. But probably about 80% of the people who see those movies do not go out and get the comics. If 60-70% of those movie goers bothered to read the comics behind the movies, we’d have a culture that could support large amounts of same-day manga releases. But the manga industry is doing much worse than the comics industry as a whole right now, so that kind of change is not going to happen soon.
As for slowing down releases, fans are just too impatient. It takes time to translate, adapt, letter and edit a manga into something publishable. People always counter this argument with mentioning how much faster scanlators do it, but legitimate publishers take the time to bring a better quality product. Plus, there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of business-wise. The cover designs must be approved by the licensors, sales associates have to convince retail buyers to give the book shelf space in their stores, the comic needs to be printed and distributed. If that was all digital, it would be a bit faster, but we’re clearly not at the stage where a lot of big manga have digital-only releases and no print copies at all.
You’re right, they are. I was just rushed at the time when I was making the original comment and just brought up whatever came to mind. I do have a better example though of a non-video game manga still being localized: Yu-Gi-Oh!. Yu-Gi-Oh! GX was localized and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s may or may not be localized, we don’t know yet for it. What made the situation with Yu-Gi-Oh! even weirder though is the two series before it, the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and the spin-off of the original manga Yu-Gi-Oh! R weren’t localized at all, even when they easily could have been since they came out a little bit after the dub first started here. So much for consistency, lol.
And that makes sense. I just love video games too so I balance my time between them, but just like you I don’t have a lot of time or money for them either so I definitely know how it is.
Wow. But that’s very possible.
That’s true, unfortunately. And I wish 60-70% of them would bother to do that. And yeah, unfortunately it’s not, if ever. And really? I didn’t know the manga industry is doing much worse than the comic industry! Mangas seem so popular that I always figured it was the other way around, especially when considering the fact that when I go to bookstores I almost always see manga and hardly ever see comics. (except for specialty stores)
Oh I know that, what I meant by my comment was making a schedule to where you guys could do that but still have a consistent releasing pattern and (most likely/hopefully) not slow it down too much. As for the quality thing, that’s true that legitimate publishers take the time to bring a better quality product forward than some of the quickly-released scanlations. But not all scanlations are bad though, there are some that are just as high quality. (although ironically, those ones usually take about a month or so. Just goes to show whether professional or not quality takes time.) And that’s true too, I’m sure a lot of the business-side stuff takes time too. I must say I never knew that the cover designs have to be approved by the licensors though, that’s cool! Learn something everyday, heheh.
And that’s true that if it was all digital it’d be a bit faster. And that’s also true. To be honest I don’t really mind that though. While having a digital buy option would be nice I’d really prefer if the manga and book industry never went down the digital-only releases route if possible. (although I’m beginning to worry with how many things are going digital now) As a fan I always love to buy books and manga in person when possible since I love having access to it whenever and being able to hold it in my hands. It’s just such a special (and almost magical) feeling that no computer screen could ever hope to re-create. <3
But Yu-Gi-Oh! is now a huge franchise and one that I think was always backed by a card game, right? It makes perfect sense to me that the Japanese licensors are demanding certain changes of the Viz people, it just doesn’t make sense why they did that after the first two series weren’t localized.
The two biggest comic book publishers are owned by Warner Bros. and Disney. Both of them have blockbuster movie franchises either set for release or in development. I think they’re doing alright. Meanwhile, we’re hearing a lot of layoffs and shutdowns at manga publishers. Only Dragon Ball Z, Akira and Priest have been/are being made into major studio movies. The first one flopped, the second one will probably flop and the third is so far from the original source material it won’t flop based on the fact that it might as well be too original to even be based on the manhwa it came from.
Comic sales might not be very high, but they don’t depend on bookstores (one which is bankrupt and isn’t paying publishers and distributors, the other which is trying hard not to become bankrupt.) Comic book readers generally know to go to comic book stores if they want to find what they’re looking for. Because of the fact that manga selection became better at bookstores than it was at comic book stores, a lot of comic book stores have given up on manga. Now that Borders is bankrupt, it’s been a matter of too many eggs in one basket for manga. A lot of people are hurting, Tokyopop was shutdown and Dark Horse laid people off, including a manga editor. Most of the remaining manga publishers are only OK because they have U.S. book publishers and/or Japanese book publishers backing them up or some of them don’t publish JUST manga. The manga publishing industry is kind of on a thin tightrope here and with people not buying manga for whatever reason, there’s no net for pubs to fall back on. It’s a scary situation.
It’s very hard to find the right release balance, which is why I’ll still say that complaining about slow downs is just fans being impatient. Slow downs also might have to do with how much money a publisher has or how much the book makes, so it’s really not so simple as “it takes time to publish a book.”
Honestly though, before I was an editor and read scans more regularly, about 99% of the scans were awful and made the story more confusing to read.
Yes you are correct. Yu-Gi-Oh! is a huge franchise now (and has been for a good few years now) and has always been backed by a card game as well. But it was a huge franchise when the original manga was being released by Viz too – and it was released at the time that the dub had already existed for a good while and was really taking off. That’s what makes it so weirder. The licensors obviously didn’t mind them using the original names then even though the situation is no different now. And you want to know something even more confusing about all of this? While we’re not sure about 5D’s yet (it could go either way), it looks like they might use the original names for that series as well which just makes the situation even weirder. To be honest I wish Viz and/or the Japanese license holders could just make their minds up on whether to always use the dub names or never use them because fans of Yu-Gi-Oh! would have an easier time dealing with it if the just new what to expect.
Ah, I didn’t know a lot of that so but it makes a lot more sense now. That’s really scary about the manga industry though, but I know I’ll at least continue to do my part by buying all the manga I can. Thanks for all the info!
I can understand that. There’s a lot a company would need to take into account to find the right release balance so I can see why it’s just easier (and better) sometimes to slow down the release. I personally have no problem with it as long as there is some reason behind it. I hadn’t thought of how much money a publisher (or the series) makes as reasons for a slow down either. Interesting. Wow, I had never realized how many factors affected it before.
Really? Wow, that’s so odd! I’m shocked it’s such a small percentage that were good (or at least decent) since releases now usually are pretty good.
Viz probably just does what they’re told in regards to the Yu-gi-oh franchise. While some publishers can set certain terms with the Japanese licensors, the licensors usually make most of the demands, it seems. I’m sure it’s just as aggravating to the people working on Yu-gi-oh at Viz as it is to the fans.
Yeah, see, all these problems would be solved if more people justified spending money on legitimate manga publishing. Of course, there are plenty of other factors that could kill the remaining publishers, as long as there is money coming in from somewhere, they can hold on.
There’s usually a reason behind it, but a lot of fans don’t want to hear: “this series is selling too poorly to justify a faster release schedule.” (Or any of the other reasons.) That’s why I keep saying fans are too impatient because they think that kind of reasoning is an excuse. The publishers COULD release this title faster, but they don’t… (because money doesn’t grow on trees!) So in other words, the manga industry needs more fans to be reasonable.
Well, as an editor, I did research on scans (mostly to see whether a title would be a good fit for the publisher) and the quality still didn’t improve. I have no real hope for scans on that matter. Not the vast majority of scans.
Probably. The only other thing I could think of is maybe Viz has permission to do it either way so they just let their editors decide? Each of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series so far have had a different editor, and I do remember the first one who did the first series said that Viz gave him a surprising amount of leeway with the series and that a lot of it he was able to do how he wanted to. (although if that is the case, I don’t see why they didn’t try to create a consistency of always using dub names or never using them) If it because of the rights holders though, I do have to wonder why they constantly change their minds on the subject.
Sadly there’s just nothing we can do about that. The good news is there is at least a large enough amount still buying them to support the industry here as a whole and to support at least a few different companies, although I agree it would be nice if more people would join in helping.
That’s the truth of the matter, sadly. And actually it’s not just the manga industry; there are a LOT of things out there that need fans to be more reasonable.
Really? Well, I can definitely tell you that there are some good ones out there, that are pretty much like the quality of an official release. They definitely aren’t the most common, but I have seen some of them. Scans are like almost anything in the fact that there are plenty of good ones, plenty of bad ones, and plenty of them inbetween. To say all of them is good or all of them bad is just not the case. In fact I have proof of that: There is a website being built right now that is going to release manga online for free LEGALLY and is working with American manga publishing companies and the original Japanese creators on being allowed to use their series, and a lot of mangakas and quite a few American publishing companies have already agreed to it. (and there’s still working on others so they’ll probably get even more to agree as time goes on) And the website said that they will allow scanlators of all kinds (translators, scanners, typesetters, ect.) to work with them on releases since they know that there are some great scanlators out there, and even said the ones that work with them (if they’re good enough) will get jobs with an American publishing company for their work. I think that right there goes to show that not ALL scanlations and that there are some good ones and some talented people working on them if they’d be willing to do that. They also said they’ll help ones working for them to improve if they need it as well.
I really doubt Viz would do it that way or that an editor would take it upon themselves to change the names just because they could. Most editors just stick to the original source material and only change things when they deem it necessary to understand a passage, phrase or joke, because translation notes aren’t common anymore. Japanese licensors are notoriously finicky about what they want. Then again, we don’t know the minds of either the editors or the licensors, so who’s really to say? As an editor myself, I just feel doubtful that it’s another editor’s decision.
There is something you can do about that! You can teach scanlation readers about the value of the hard work and time put into making manga and how losing sales can really hurt less popular mangaka, their editors, the magazines that run their manga and the English-language production teams. Making comics is not a job without health hazards (too much time sitting, bent over, not enough exercise) or financial instability (mangaka are all freelancers/independent contractors, so if their manga doesn’t sell well, it’s much harder for them to get their next manga published.) No one in production, on both the English and Japanese side of things makes a lot of money. Editing jobs certainly don’t pay and while lettering and design jobs do pay considerably more, they require a lot of hours. Any one who has ever worked a job will understand how hurtful it would be to lose money because all of a sudden, people are stealing the product they create or sell from right out under their noses. People brush it off as “it’s just entertainment,” but I’d really like to meet the person who can point to a particular vein of popular entertainment that doesn’t a lot of hard work behind the scenes. To give an example, last month, before Tokyopop announced it’s shutdown and that it wouldn’t print the books I had just turned in, I worked my ass off to complete five volumes of manga. There were a lot of technical problems that made my work harder and a lot slower. I almost didn’t want to work ever again. Now that Tokyopop is closing, I’m devastated no one will get to read the product of all my hard work. Especially since a number of the manga I handled that month were either finishing up or very close to doing so. A number of those titles were manga I personally liked and wanted to finish as a reader.
Proof of a website that is trying to offer free, legal manga isn’t proof that the majority of scanlations are really high quality. I don’t totally disagree with the fact that there are good scans out there, but the majority of them aren’t that great. Because of that, I’ve been largely uninterested in scans since before I was an editor. (I majored in Journalism so incoherent writing and poor grammar have bugged me for quite awhile.) Also, I’d like to know the name of this website. It sounds vaguely familiar to an effort I saw a number of months ago that promised a lot, but never got off the ground. I don’t mind scanlators trying or wanting to go legit, but I’m doubtlful of any website that’s making these claims unless the company has a long-established business history.
I don’t know. I agree with you that I doubt Viz would do it that way, but I do know that two of their editors who work on Yu-Gi-Oh! took it upon themselves to change things just because they could. Like the editor of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series said (in an interview) that Viz gave him a SURPRISING amount of leeway with the series, and he even admitted himself that although he kept the original translation in tact for the most part, that he added and changed a few lines in the course of the series. He only did it a few times and to tiny stuff thank goodness (like changing one line describing something to referencing an old 80s movie that a situation was like and a few other things) but he did admit to it. And the editor of the GX manga randomly changed card names (and a few lines) at will too. For example, cards used in the manga that never came out in real life or were only used in Japan he would change their names. Instead of using the direct translation like he was supposed to he would randomly change them for no reason at all which I (and a lot of other fans) found quite weird. So while I don’t know about Viz or the right-holders, I do know I wouldn’t exactly put it past some of their editors.
To be honest I don’t have to do it though. Not because I don’t want to help (because I do), but because it’s not necessary with the series I read scanlated. There are only four series that I bother to read scanlated, and on all four of them a lot of the people who read them (myself included) buy and support the official English version (when possible), and people will quite often post and tell others to do the same as well. So there’s not really a need for me to since some other people already do such a great job of it and most people are supporting the series anyway, out of the four I’m reading. I know that’s very rare but I think it’s because of the situation with all of those series that the majority of the readers are buying them. You see, one of the series is out in America but is very hard to find since it’s an older manga and not very popular, so I and quite a few of the other readers are just reading it online ’til we can finish buying the rest of the copies. Another series I read I’m (and quite a few others are) buying copies of as well, but we still read it online to read the future chapters since the American release is FAR BEHIND the Japanese one. (they won’t catch up to Japan’s current amount ’til 2014 (granted their release rate stays the same), and no telling how many more volumes Japan will have at that point.) We still buy it anyway though since the American release is pretty good so far and we want to make sure they keep releasing the series here. One of the other series is one that’s going to start being released a few months from now and most of the people reading it online are like me and have said they love it so much they plan to buy it once it starts coming out; but until then we’re reading it online. (in fact the scanlators are even so excited that it’s licensed they said they’re dropping the series once the first volume comes out) And the last series is one that’s sadly unlicensed, so we have no choice but to read it online. I will admit that that’s the most selfish one out of the bunch, but the scanlators (and even some of the other readers) actually import the Japanese volumes themselves to translate it, so they’re still supporting the series in that way at least. And as readers we’re actually supporting the series as well, since if the series becomes popular enough online it might inspire a manga company to license it here. We found out that sometimes manga companies will try to license a series if it’s popular online due to seeing how much of a potential audience of buyers they might have due to the manga’s online popularity, so we’re hoping that’ll be the case with this series if we work hard enough at getting people interested. XD In fact some of us have even been trying to message companies to see if anything will happen, although we know it’s unlikely. xD; Otherwise I (personally) don’t read any other scans online since I’m fine with just buying the actual volumes myself. (although I will admit I’ll occasionally read a few chapters of a series online time to time (if it sounds interesting) to see if I like it enough to buy it. :3 But that’s it.)
I’m really sorry about all the books you worked so hard on that didn’t get published though. D: I had heard about what happened to Tokyopop and it’s really unfortunate for all the workers involved and all the fans who buy and support their manga, myself included.
Oh, I didn’t mean to say that the majority of scanlations are really high quality, because that definitely isn’t true. xD If that’s how my comment came across then I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way because I actually agree with you that a lot of them aren’t. And I also didn’t realize that you knew there are good scans out there — I misinterpreted your comment and thought you meant there were no good scans at there, hence why I brought up that that isn’t exactly true. Wow. Sorry about that, that was a big misunderstanding on my part. ^^; And sure! I”ll gladly share the name of the website with you! I meant to do it in my original comment but I had to look through a few pages of my friend’s Journal on dA to find it, so I thought I’d just save it for my reply. But the website is http://openmanga.org/, and you can read more about it here: http://mangahelpers.com/news/details/377
I don’t know if it’s the same site you saw or not, but I do know that they are still working on this site. It’s not up yet either, but they are working on it. It’s just taking time to get it all sorted out as one can imagine with how much is involved. And I can understand that. To be honest I’m not 100% sure myself now upon re-reading the article, since it says they don’t have any publishers with them yet. (sorry about that, was going off of what I remember in my comment above) The job thing is going to have to wait ’til the site gets started and for a company to agree to it first. (if that even happens…)
What you said is that the editor got some leeway from the publisher and the examples you just mentioned didn’t say that the editors changed the character names. All the rest of that stuff is, frankly, pretty normal. I’m still left believing that the licensors made Viz change the character names. You don’t just do that kind of thing on a whim anymore, so I’m pretty sure the Japanese rights holders would have been upset if major things had been changed by editorial whim.
While it’s nice that everyone who reads the scanlations you read encourages people to support the official releases, there are thousands of people not doing so. And that’s just four scanlations. There are thousands of scanlations out there, you do the math, it adds up. Be reasonable here, encouraging ANYONE you know who doesn’t buy might help sales even just a tiny bit! It’s not that you don’t do your part or that a lot of people you know reading scans don’t do their part, but that there are still people out there who don’t realize what a tremendous effort it is to put out a manga. I’m fine with fans reading scans of unlicensed series, but fans and scanlators don’t usually drop a series after it gets licensed any more. Plus, you really have to realize how much income a mangaka loses if one person buys a volume, but lets hundreds of thousands of people read it for free online. You absolutely cannot depend on manga companies publishing popular scans because it’s no longer an indication of how many people will buy a title and because a number of Japanese companies won’t license it out if the scans are too popular.
No, I meant only that a large majority of scans are bad and a very small minority are any good. Sorry to confuse you, but it was probably my comment that I dislike scans in general because the majority are bad.
That was the site that I was thinking of and it looks like absolutely nothing has changed in almost a year. I’m not surprised as I thought their original pitch sounded like too much promising and not enough locked in place. It’s nice that they wanted to become legit, but it’s not a great idea to announce a big project like that before you’ve gotten anything solid. It’s like serving someone a bowl of soup, but there’s nothing but the bowl there.
Sorry, let me be more clear. The first editor for the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series (who added the movie reference XD) didn’t change any names. The second editor who worked on GX did change the names to their dub name. The reason I didn’t say that in my second comment was because I said it in my first and the examples I gave were to say that at least two of the Viz editors for Yu-Gi-Oh! so far didn’t always just translate things like they were supposed to; since you said that as an editor you didn’t think they would just change things like that I was just giving a couple examples where they had. (Some of Viz’s editors seem a bit…’different’ compared to some other manga company’s, to be completely honest.) Very possible, but it’s odd that they didn’t make them change them for the first two series yet made them do it for the third. I guess once we figure out whether they’re changed to the dub names for the fourth (5D’s) or used the original we’ll be able to better guess if it was a request by the licensors or not. (since 5D’s has a different editor than GX; and since it’s the same editor who did Yu-Gi-Oh! R (the spin-off of the first Yu-Gi-Oh! series and left the original names in tact) I swear though if 5D’s uses the original names, while I’ll be happy, I’ll be even more confused than I am now. XD; And that’s true, which was why I said maybe they got permission to do both somehow? You’re most likely right it’s something with the Japanese right holders though. And well, one major thing was changed by editor whim. The editor for GX changed the name of the major villain of the entire manga, Tragoedia, into Kar, for no apparent reason. And no they weren’t localizing his name since Tragoedia is a manga-only character, and no it wasn’t because he’s a manga-only character because all the other manga-only characters had their original names in tact. And well, I guess it’s probably not too major to the Japanese rights holders, but changing the manga-only card names (one of the main things in the manga) for no reason in the GX manga is pretty weird, especially since in Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! R and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s the manga-only cards retain their Japanese name.
Oh I know that. And I would, but I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t buy manga is the thing. All of my friends (both online and real life) who read manga buy it, it’s as simple as that. I assure you though if I ever make a friend who doesn’t, or see one on a site I’m on say they don’t buy manga I’ll be sure to give them the message, granted I’m not beaten to it. That’s all I’ll really do though, because as much as I like to help I don’t exactly have the time, energy or power to go to every last person that scanlate manga or read scanlations and tell them to support the official release. xD; It would be awesome if I could, but I can’t; but the good news is I’ve already seen numerous people and blog posts about it so there are definitely people who are trying to get the message across.
As for the licensing thing, we do realize that but it has happened with a couple of series before so it still is a slim possibility. I think even though we realize it (most likely) won’t make a difference it feels good to at least try, you know? Regardless of whether we tried or not when it comes down to it we just have to hope some company might give it a shot sometime anyway, but at least this way we feel like we’ve done all we could and have increased the slim possibility of it happening by trying to tell companies about it and trying to show there is some kind of market for it.
The Japanese company thing does make sense though, but I don’t think we have to worry about that because sadly even with our efforts the series hasn’t really become that popular. xD;
I think that’s what caused the mix-up. Don’t worry about it though, I understand you now so it’s all good. And it was still mainly my fault anyway since I was the one who misunderstood it.
And that’s interesting that you know the site I’m talking about. But yeah, sadly nothing has. I notice they’re still using it (blogs are still being posted in Japanese) and I haven’t seen anything say that they aren’t still working on it, so there still is a chance it might happen. It is kind of disheartening that nothing has changed though. I agree that their original pitch sounded too promising and not enough locked in place. And I completely agree. While it’s nice to know about what’s coming and what might happen, I definitely agree it would have been better to wait on announcing anything until they actually had some stuff done and ready to go so they wouldn’t have gotten our hopes up. Not only that, but we’d know exactly what all we’d get out of that and not just ‘this might happen, and that might happen!’.
Hm. Whatever is going on with Yu-gi-oh, it really seems like both the editors and the licensors could use a measure of consistency. Moving on…
I’m not saying you’re solely responsible for turning around all those readers who don’t buy (that would be impossible), just that it would be nice if occasionally the effort was made to convince someone who won’t buy the official versions. If you don’t know anyone who doesn’t buy what they read, then that’s one thing and that can’t be helped. I was just making the point that there are scanlation readers beyond the ones who buy manga and actively encourage others to do so and those are the people who need to be convinced.
About licensing, for most publishers, a more surefire way to gauge a manga’s popularity is by seeing the activism of it’s fans. Do they have tons of websites and forums dedicated to it? Are there a large percentage of cosplayers doing costumes from that manga? If a manga just has a large number of readers on the scanlation sites, then it better have something else going for it too. An editor (or whomever is making the pitch) can’t really get behind licensing a manga when all it has going for it is a bunch of people who have read the scans. So you might want to take what I’ve said and mention it to your friends. Sailor Moon is a GREAT example of a license that an editor could really get behind. The reason why it’s being reprinted is because there has been a large, extremely strong fanbase for all these years. The same with Hetalia: Axis Powers. You just couldn’t *ignore* either manga. There were cosplayers, fansites, fan art, fanfic and other signs of devotion everywhere. It’s pretty much a great way to guarantee a license. There are still some obstacles to overcome, but any manga with a sizable, extremely dedicated fanbase will capture the attention of manga publishers.
Honestly, I think the Digital Manga Guild has more promise than OpenManga does. First of all, Digital Manga Publishing is already a respectable manga publisher with strong ties to Japanese manga publishers. For them, it was just a matter of negotiating with the Japanese publishers and setting up the framework. Since DMP is already making money, they have the resources to fund the development and pay for the licenses. They’re not promising to hire anyone, but I think their promise of payment once a manga begins to be sold to readers is more credible than Open Manga’s. If nothing comes of OpenManga’s efforts, I don’t think the manga world will be missing out. There’s already a system doing what OpenManga has promised, but better and more respectably.
Completely agree. And the sad thing is I haven’t even told you everything. ^^;
I assure you if I see someone who don’t support the official version I’ll be sure to.
Thanks for the info and advice! I’ll definitely mention that to my friend and the scanlator for the series since they’ve actually been the main ones coming up with different things to try.
Huh, I had never heard of Digital Manga Guild before, but then again I never heard of OpenManga before until a friend of mine posted a Journal about it on her Deviantart account. It sounds very promising though and I’ll be sure to look into it and tell my friend about it! Thanks for the info!
Well, I’m glad to have introduced you to the Digital Manga Guild. I think once it gets up and running, which seems like that will be soon, it should see some moderate success. ^_^
I think so too. ^__^
Just FYI, several of the questions people are asking in this blog were answered long ago here: http://manga.about.com/b/2011/04/18/new-editions-of-sailor-moon-manga-will-stay-true-to-original.htm
And I can’t wait for this release~! ^_^
Well, this post was originally published a month before the link you provided. I’m sure most of the fans have already gotten their answers. (Or will be getting them soon.) 🙂