Discussion Overlord Published Novels

Did anybody else buy the publications of Overlord? I did to support the author, but shit. The online translations are way better. It feels like the official translator (someone named Emily Balistrieri) has never interacted with fantasy before. Translates undead/death magic as ghost magic. Potions heal with justice energy and not positive energy. The angels in the first volume are named like a MTL. Principality of Observation became Principality observation. Sereph Aeonosphere became Seraph a sphere. Empyrean Seraph is Seraph the empyrean. All this and more is just the first volume. I'm really concerned about the quality of the other dozen now.

 

I often just buy the Japanese version of LN's to just support the author without putting any money in low quality official translations

 

I suggest you don’t read the official, if you want to support the author then buy the original ones.

 

Hahaha.. its Yen Press.. they either do MTL with no knowledge whatsoever and just put a total MTL into a book, or they would steal online translation, make a slight edits, and publish it themselves, calling it their own, ORIGINAL and VERY DEDICATED, and MOST importantly, LEGAL translation.. so much wow, topkek.

That's why you will never see they release any english translation faster than any online translation. why? Because they're waiting for online, ILLEGAL translation to pop up, steal it, then sue anyone who did the translation. This way, they got 2 times ez money, one from ez stolen translation, two from suing better translator who didn't take any penny for their works. Very much scumbag.

Its different case with other licensee though. For example, Seven Seas did very great job at their job, and very passionate about it.

That's why, whenever the book you are interested into are licensed by Yen Press, don't buy it
If you have want to support something, buy the original, Japanese version of it, and just read English version online.. much better. This way, author also got paid more because you only give your money to first publisher.

If you buy something from yen press, you are not supporting author, why? Because yenpress did their works even worse than most mtl i saw in my lifetime.. they're just making it worse to author's book. Those books require better licensee, and if you support yenpress, you will be supporting shytty translation..

I know some people would argue with me about supporting things, but before that, please prove how trustworthy yenpress is? Hell i doubt they're even in this forum as some anon to watch which translator to sue next.

P/s: if you need all the previous online translation, just pm me at my discord (Havissu#6326)..

Iirc skythewood have finished translating most, if not all of the volume of overlord LN.. but they were taken down by Scumpress. Fortunately some people saved and still have it as pdf or ebook.

 

I agree with UnGrave. I haven't bought any Overlord Eng version yet but if the translation is truly as bad as you've described, it's probably better that you buy the original Japanese version. Not only it's cheaper but the author should've gotten more money, I believe.

However, the downside of this is that by doing so, we're probably discouraging future English localization which potentially could be better than the current state of localization.

 

You should take any translation on a case by case basis but Seven Seas is currently in trouble because they have been caught changing parts of the light novels to include massive changes to the plot in some LNs due to mistranslations, intentional or otherwise. The huge backlash has caused Seven Seas to go back and reprint several LN volumes and offering free exchanges to those who own physical prints of the novels that are being reprinted.

 

My boy, you are correct, but when it comes to YenPress as licensee, thats where you are gravely mistaken..

When it comes to YenPress, they never get any better... All these thousands of years I waited and tried to believe in them like you did now, but I was wrong.. YenPress never even care about english translation, the authors, or even the book they lincensed itself.. NEVER DID, and NEVER WILL.. IMHO its better to just discourage them, but its alright to buy from other licensee.. as license holder, they have responsibilities too, and if they didn't do their responsibilities, why should we support them?

They do mistakes, yes, but they still cares very much about the book and its' reputation itself.. the proof in this is that they are offering free exchange, which would do them a lot of cost damage..

Yenpress? No. Never did. They don't even listen to people asking them to do better translation than some MTL.. but nein, they don't care. They got the money, thats all they care.

 

Businesses are businesses. They are offering free exchanges probably in part because they don't want to lose the license because they might have been breaking contract by changing stuff and because they want to try to appeal to their customers. Trust me, businesses don't care except about money. No matter the business. Any company trying to put on some "feel good, we care" appeal is just lying for some kind of publicity.

 

This, i cannot argue..

But at least they did better job than that scumpress..

For all i care, every time scumpress licensed something, everything will fall apart. They're just... the most horrible licensee i ever known. Heck they don't even try to looks good, or make that "feel good, we care" things you said.. they straight up just sue people left and right, but their own translation don't even start yet.

Do your work ❌
DMCA/Sue anyone who did your work for free ✅

 

So i guess they don't bother updating their translations in earlier volumes?

 

Yeah, I'm just talking about light novel/manga EN localization in general. It is so disheartening that many, many titles of my favourite has been licensed by Yen Press

But I guess that growing amount of original JP series on my shelves means that I gotta learn Japanese myself.

Oh, btw... what do you think of Viz? I had been avoiding from buying any titles by Viz because I heard their attitude towards translations is on the same level, if not worse than Yen Press.

 

iirc Viz only deals with manga and anime right? Especially shounen manga like Naruto and Bleach, Kimetsu no Yaiba, etc... but I've never seen anything like novels being published under them.

Spoiler: Not me, but this rant makes sense

Viz Media is great when it came to popular manga, even i know this, but I didn't know they're taking almost the same attitude as Yen Press towards underrated mangas.

Some people also did complaint about the translation being bad sometimes.

But recently, they released BD version of Bleach anime... and as someone who's waiting for Bleach's last arc to be adapted to anime this year or next year (its announced), I think their BD version is so good too, but some volumes quality, even in BD is so freaking bad.

But back to the topic.
I don't think Viz is worse than Yen Press.
Why?
Because, have Viz licensed a manga, just to not publish anything related to that manga for years?
No right?
However, Yen Press always did that.
Whenever I saw Yen Press lincensed something, i would always pity those who read those novel they licensed. Because the probability of them never translating them, even volume 1, is just that big. Of course, most of the novels they licensed are always the novels that i love.. fck it. They don't even care if it's a popular novel or not, they just won't translate it. Their source of income comes from stealing translation or MTL-ing novels without edits.

Viz on the other hand, always release only a few volumes of the manga first, and depending on sales they would continue or stop releasing them. Totally corporate move too, but at least they tried.

 

The other thing that irks me on Yen Press is that physical release & digital release have the same release dates rather than separate dates

Digital releases tend to be a month earlier or so faster than Physical release and if there are mistakes you can easily fix them but NOPE let's have physical release & digital release be released on the same day.

It was straight-up censorship summarizing spicy events into simple paragraphs by their editorial department. Besides, that happened several months ago and they've already apologized and updated the affected novels..

 

well actually i bought Little, Brown & Company publisher as i checked it just now and it is ok