YenPress or Qidian International

My comment on the time it takes per release was based on quality, if the quality was higher I would not be bothered by the wait and even be willing to wait longer; as I do with many English books such as Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle. The yen press releases I have purchased have been lacking in care shown to the original work and the very act of translating. For example volume 1 of Danmachi; Daedalus street is translated directly from the phonetic translation in Japanese daidaros street. That is why I have a problem with yen press.

 

I remember reading the book and haven't experience quality issue.
In fact, if you compare their works with some new publishers out there, they are better.
The wait for new volume is pretty much the same with many book publisher (around 3-4 month).

And Daidaros is not from Japanese.
It is an alternate name of Daedalus.
Daedalus (also spelt Daidalos)

 

There is an r where there should be an l this isn't a misspelling and Daedalus is the common spelling. how likely is the translator going to use an uncommon spelling that looks surprisingly close to the Japanese phonetic translation of the commonly used spelling but get then get one letter wrong

 

So you hate Yen Press because they don't cater to your tastes...You know who their target market is? Not the ones familiar with the Japanese culture. It's the young adults mostly unfamiliar with the culture.

If I have to translate according to what you want, a certain copypasta will probably end up like this:

Do you see how stupid that is? And no, before you try to defend further, let me define the meaning of the word 'translation' as according to wikipedia:

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text.

What is the source-language text? Japanese. What is the equivalent target-language? Japanese honorifics again? So you want to leave honorifics untranslated, what is the point of calling it a translation?

As I will note over the years, I have people acting like experts in the matter despite not being in a qualified position to comment (before you call watching anime subs for years 'qualified')

I'll give you that the translation quality of Danmachi isn't the best out there. It's one of the weaker ones. Worst thus far is still the NGNL series.

Looking at stuff like Book Girl, which is one of the best translations out there, or Black Bullet and Hatamaou, still better than the average translations out there, it really has to depend on the translator, I feel.

Of course, if there's one particular saying I will like to make, it's that "There is no perfect translation out there. The best is something that is appropriate for your tastes. That's for you to decide."

^While that can also imply that 'you have a poor taste', which is what I want to say to the community at large

Though I am curious about the 'lack of care' part. if it's because of the printing errors (if I'm not wrong), I don't plan to absolve them on this, but if it's about different translation nuances, just don't think hard about it. If I had followed Japanese terms one for one directly, the loli shogi series being translated will be having 550 translation notes instead of the 127 now.

 

Your statement of "There is no perfect translation out there. The best is something that is appropriate for your tastes. That's for you to decide." is indeed accurate however this does not imply poor taste but poor luck, if you were to say that the problem lied with the source material this would imply poor taste. If you find the translation lacking this implies that you find the writing style of the translator is not to your taste, as translating is an imperfect transmutation which combines the original authors work with the feelings of the translator therefore if a translation does not suit your tastes this does not mean the story itself poor but that you do not share the same feelings as the translator resulting in poor luck.

My "lack of care" comment was targeted to: printing error, kindle adaptation error and some minor grammatical error as it is my honest belief that such things show a disregard to the content within which is an insult to all parties involved, whilst this may make me seem like a pedant and maybe even a hypocrite as my own grammar is quite often atrocious; I am not in the business of translating and publishing other people's work, Which is my problem with yen press; they are.

You say that some of the translations are of high quality and I believe you however "a chain is no stronger than it's weakest link" and "tarred with the same brush" are quotes that come to my mind, if even one translation is of sufficiently poor quality then in the eyes of the reader if one novel is this poor then what is to stop the rest of the novels being of that same quality; and the price of a yen press book is expensive, why would they wish to spend more money on another possible poor translation therefore potentially stopping someone from reading what could be their favourite story such is the consequence of a single poor translation by a publishing company. one is quite often remembered by their greatest failure

 

Neither fucked over fans at all. The fans who wanted a market established in the western world fucked over fans the worst.

YP gave the fans what they wanted, an official licensed translation of some popular work that supposedly also gives the author some kind of payday, though most likely not.

Those god-awful "English" translations without honorifics however make me sick. Honorifics do translate from JP-EN you know...
that -sama in JP? it's -sama in EN also, because it's a fucking honorific! The translation note should give a small explanation once and it should remain the back of the reader's mind, or perhaps be * marked and referenced on an appendix page at the end of the novel for any and all necessary untranslated loan words that occur with any regularity. Anyone going into reading foreign material without taking even a cursory 10 minutes to understand the most basic language/cultural dialogue nuances and complaining instead is IMHO beyond saving, and should off themselves for the betterment of the human race.

So, does that mean when 'I'm Really a Superstar' gets an official translation by the big QI for the western audience, cultural honorifics like calling someone old wei, or little qi or teacher chen are going to be dropped because it's not "English"? Lord knows explaining the concept of those bunch of grandsons! isn't gonna fly in a normal official translation when it's being thrown around 5 to 6 times a chapter. It's no different in CN than it is in JP.

Weeb translations are simply the superior form, especially when one has a degree of immersion in the target culture and understands a significant amount of the subtleties despite being unable to read the native language.

"No business can thrive without customers."
Don't like QI? Don't like YP? Don't like JNC or 7Seas? Don't buy their shit. That way they won't license shit, and you get to keep your freebies. This isn't the time before computers and the world-wide-web, in this modern era people are so connected that someone who translates moderately well a ridiculous story written by some NEET half a world away can actually make a pretty penny off of it by generous nerds who have excess funds that actually want to support the scene that is in a strong way, an important part of their life.

TL;DR
Official Authors should have a Patreon and a social media contact same as the fan translators so they can be thanked (MTL-style) via google translator and have a couple cups of coffee or enough for a pizza donated to them from time to time by the people who do support the scene!

...because it's a scene. First and foremost that's what it is. Corps always come in and fuck up the scene because shilling bastards can't just enjoy watching other people being happy enjoying nice things.

 

honestly if i hadn't watched anime i would never touch a single Japanese LN so by default i would think of anyone reading JP LN a weeb

as for how stupid it is i cleary remmber typing this:

so quick question does it improve the translation quality if the feelings that are supposed to be there are changed and the culture is also lost?
Shinigami isn't the angel of death its something more along the lines of death god
so you can just go ahead and translate it as angel of death but the thing is they don't even have angels in their culture
i don't even want to know how you would translate Tengo
as someone who is not a native speaker of either of these languages i most certainly am not qualified to comment thats why im just stating my personal opinion and preference

 

I'm a bit lost here, maybe cause i'm new, but i think the focus of the discussion got a bit deranged.
Btw my answer to the question is none of them. Maybe the real problem are the money involved.
From a fan point of view the start of official translations is both a bliss and a tragedy.
A bliss cause you can get a copy of a work (LN - manga etc.) in your own language.
A tragedy cause the official release starts from chapter zero (which is not the case for CN, if i'm not wrong) and you have to wait for year till the official trans. caught up with the unofficial one.
Usually the "official" start their operation when there's already a "market" (fanbase).
Usually a fanbase is formed when there's the work of unofficial translators.
Most users got pissed not only cause they have to wait years till the official trans. caught up with the unofficial one, but cause they have to pay for things they used to get for free.

ps
sorry for my poor en.

 

As someone who doesn't really care about both of the company, i'm going to say that i came here just to see how much hate both of these company will get until it all turn hilarious when @Hell_ping decide to clear everything out.

But hey, if i have to choose one, it's QD
Why? Because at least the DMCA from Kadokawa didn't started from the company trying to publicly shaming someone and it has more clear-cut matter compared to what QD is doing now