Monday, February 28, 2005
GRAVITY'S RAINBOW: MISCELLANY
It's been too long since I've done one of these. At one point I started to write a major post, but realized that my thoughts weren't settled or coherent enough. So instead I'll just point to things I've come across that struck me as interesting.
One more metaphor that I can't resist quoting: "the suspended storm of a green treetop" (p. 440, Bantam edition).
On the other hand, I don't understand the paragraph on p. 584 about the "Bicycle Rider in the Sky" at all. What is Pynchon thinking here? The Rider is mentioned again on p. 594, but the second mention doesn't make things any clearer.
My abandoned major post would have been about the way that the second half of the book seems to be "deconstructing" the first half. (Yes, I know that technically this is a misuse of the word; but I can't think of a better word to express what "deconstruction" has loosely come to mean.) One manifestation of this is that paranoia, which had earlier been presented as a way to the truth, is increasingly presented as untrue. There's an early example of this on p. 410, with Tchitcherine's belief "in his moments of sickest personal grandeur" that the only purpose of Rapallo (a treaty of friendship signed between Germany and Russia in the 1920s) was to enable him to discover Enzian's existence. A more extended example of this is Enzian's paranoid vision on pp. 606-8. Of course, my assertion that these instances of paranoia are untrue (within the book) is a matter of judgment. I think so, both because Tchitcherine's and Enzian's beliefs here are just too far-fetched, even given what we've seen in the rest of the book, and because they don't cohere with what's been presented as true elsewhere in the book. Another instance of this "deconstruction" is the way Enzian's thoughts, on pp. 611-2, parody the idea of interpreting a "text." Interpretation has been central, both to Slothrop's quest in the first half of the book, and to our reading of GR itself.
On p. 614 von Goll predicts home movies. One thing that the ongoing "deconstruction" doesn't change is Pynchon's antipathy towards films, which is clear both in the scenes with von Goll and in those with Greta Erdman. But I can't say I understand this; I keep thinking "what makes films so bad, anyway?"
On pp. 618-9 we have the nightmarish scene where Slothrop is forced to confront Bianca's dead body. This scene is reminiscent of Pokler's discovery of what really went on in Dora. But unlike Pokler, Slothrop doesn't come to any realization of his own responsibility: another step in Pynchon's campaign to demonstrate Slothrop's moral unworthiness.
Almost immediately, we get another poem, not song: a sonnet, yet. Unlike the previous poem, which was written by Pointsman, there's no indication which of the book's characters, if any, wrote this poem, or by whom it is being spoken. More importantly, who is it about? The allusion is to Tannhauser, whom Slothrop was compared to earlier; and the final couplet--
No song, no lust, no memory, no guilt:
No pentacle, no cups, no holy Fool. . . . [ellipsis Pynchon's]
--seems to allude to Slothrop's loss of "temporal bandwidth." (593) But on the other hand, unlike the poem's speaker, Slothrop did leave a "sick Lisaura's fate behind"; nor does he share the speaker's masochism. This latter trait may be borrowed from Brigadier Pudding, whose death is reported in the next paragraph. Considered as poetry, I don't know how well the sonnet holds up as a whole, but there are some nice lines: the final couplet quoted above, and lines 7-8. But line 12 puzzles me: "Here, underneath my last and splintering wind". Wind is clearly an important symbol for Pynchon. In the first glimpse of the "other side" we see, the spirit at the seance talks about "the wind" (34), and the mysterious superhero Sundial came from "across the wind." (550) But, as with much in this portion of the book, I don't understand its significance.
(0) comments
It's been too long since I've done one of these. At one point I started to write a major post, but realized that my thoughts weren't settled or coherent enough. So instead I'll just point to things I've come across that struck me as interesting.
One more metaphor that I can't resist quoting: "the suspended storm of a green treetop" (p. 440, Bantam edition).
On the other hand, I don't understand the paragraph on p. 584 about the "Bicycle Rider in the Sky" at all. What is Pynchon thinking here? The Rider is mentioned again on p. 594, but the second mention doesn't make things any clearer.
My abandoned major post would have been about the way that the second half of the book seems to be "deconstructing" the first half. (Yes, I know that technically this is a misuse of the word; but I can't think of a better word to express what "deconstruction" has loosely come to mean.) One manifestation of this is that paranoia, which had earlier been presented as a way to the truth, is increasingly presented as untrue. There's an early example of this on p. 410, with Tchitcherine's belief "in his moments of sickest personal grandeur" that the only purpose of Rapallo (a treaty of friendship signed between Germany and Russia in the 1920s) was to enable him to discover Enzian's existence. A more extended example of this is Enzian's paranoid vision on pp. 606-8. Of course, my assertion that these instances of paranoia are untrue (within the book) is a matter of judgment. I think so, both because Tchitcherine's and Enzian's beliefs here are just too far-fetched, even given what we've seen in the rest of the book, and because they don't cohere with what's been presented as true elsewhere in the book. Another instance of this "deconstruction" is the way Enzian's thoughts, on pp. 611-2, parody the idea of interpreting a "text." Interpretation has been central, both to Slothrop's quest in the first half of the book, and to our reading of GR itself.
On p. 614 von Goll predicts home movies. One thing that the ongoing "deconstruction" doesn't change is Pynchon's antipathy towards films, which is clear both in the scenes with von Goll and in those with Greta Erdman. But I can't say I understand this; I keep thinking "what makes films so bad, anyway?"
On pp. 618-9 we have the nightmarish scene where Slothrop is forced to confront Bianca's dead body. This scene is reminiscent of Pokler's discovery of what really went on in Dora. But unlike Pokler, Slothrop doesn't come to any realization of his own responsibility: another step in Pynchon's campaign to demonstrate Slothrop's moral unworthiness.
Almost immediately, we get another poem, not song: a sonnet, yet. Unlike the previous poem, which was written by Pointsman, there's no indication which of the book's characters, if any, wrote this poem, or by whom it is being spoken. More importantly, who is it about? The allusion is to Tannhauser, whom Slothrop was compared to earlier; and the final couplet--
No song, no lust, no memory, no guilt:
No pentacle, no cups, no holy Fool. . . . [ellipsis Pynchon's]
--seems to allude to Slothrop's loss of "temporal bandwidth." (593) But on the other hand, unlike the poem's speaker, Slothrop did leave a "sick Lisaura's fate behind"; nor does he share the speaker's masochism. This latter trait may be borrowed from Brigadier Pudding, whose death is reported in the next paragraph. Considered as poetry, I don't know how well the sonnet holds up as a whole, but there are some nice lines: the final couplet quoted above, and lines 7-8. But line 12 puzzles me: "Here, underneath my last and splintering wind". Wind is clearly an important symbol for Pynchon. In the first glimpse of the "other side" we see, the spirit at the seance talks about "the wind" (34), and the mysterious superhero Sundial came from "across the wind." (550) But, as with much in this portion of the book, I don't understand its significance.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
MANGA CORNER: QUICKIES
I'm in the middle of reading another multi-volume series, so to tide you over until it's done, I'll do some brief descriptions of manga I haven't read, but look interesting. As it happens, the three I've picked out for today are all by artists who've been licensed, or already published, in the U.S., though these specific titles haven't been licensed afaik.
The first is R by Kaneko Atsushi (the Japanese title is the English letter "R"). DMP, two of whose manga I reviewed recently, lists as one of its forthcoming titles Bambi and Her Pink Gun by Kaneko. R is a collection of short stories, unrelated to Bambi or to each other as far as I can tell, but seemingly in much the same vein as Bambi, going by DMP's description of that title: "Tarrantinoesque" is the word that springs to mind. The art is more distinctive. For a manga it's very Western-looking, reminding me most of Paul Pope (himself influenced by manga, of course). Robert Williams' paintings are also a clear influence -- the front cover in particular could almost be a Williams painting. (Here's the amazon.co.jp page for the book, with a picture of the cover. Unfortunately it's small and somewhat blurry, so most of the impact is lost.) Gary Panter's influence is also visible. And it's printed from left to right, presumably as a further tribute to American comics.
R is 160 pages, and costs 905 yen. It's published by Shodensha, and its ISBN is 4-396-76186-4.
Isshuku ippan (I'm not certain what the title means, but if I had to guess I'd say something like "a meal on the fly") is a series of humor strips by Monkey Punch, best known in the U.S. for Lupin III; but I like this better than the two volumes of Lupin III I've read. The hero of these strips, a wandering samurai, resembles Lupin III in some ways, particularly his lechery; much of the humor is bawdy. Other strips revolve around his pursuit of money and food. But unlike Lupin III, his efforts fail as often as they succeed. Most of the strips are one or two pages long, though a few are longer; and most of them are wordless. The manga is notable less for the gags, which are simple, though often ingenious, than for Monkey Punch's lively cartooning. The book is the third is a series entitled "Monkey Punch: The Manga Selection"; the fourth volume is/will be called MP gaaruzu ("MP Girls").
Isshuku ippan is 240 pp. and costs 552 yen. It's published by Kodansha, and its ISBN is 4-06-334874-1.
Oingo Boingo Brothers Adventure is by Araki Hirohiko, creator of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, a very long, and very popular in Japan, series which Viz recently licensed. I've seen one volume of Jojo, though, (one of its sequels, to be precise) and this doesn't look anything like that. In fact, it doesn't look anything like any other comic I've seen, manga or not. The closest thing I can think of, believe it or not, is Maya glyphs. (Again, here's the amazon.co.jp page for the book, with a small, blurry picture of the cover.) I can't tell from looking at the manga what it's about, if it's about anything other than random violence and weirdness..
The book is very slight, just 24 smaller-than-usual pages of story (and fourteen more pages which inexplicably repeat the same two illustrations of one of the brothers over and over). Still, I don't regret the four bucks I spent on it. Unfortunately, it appears to be out of print; and the cheapest used copy amazon.co.jp is offering is 999 yen (approximately ten bucks, not including shipping). The publisher is Shueisha, the cover price was 286 yen, and the ISBN is 4-08-617720-X.
(0) comments
I'm in the middle of reading another multi-volume series, so to tide you over until it's done, I'll do some brief descriptions of manga I haven't read, but look interesting. As it happens, the three I've picked out for today are all by artists who've been licensed, or already published, in the U.S., though these specific titles haven't been licensed afaik.
The first is R by Kaneko Atsushi (the Japanese title is the English letter "R"). DMP, two of whose manga I reviewed recently, lists as one of its forthcoming titles Bambi and Her Pink Gun by Kaneko. R is a collection of short stories, unrelated to Bambi or to each other as far as I can tell, but seemingly in much the same vein as Bambi, going by DMP's description of that title: "Tarrantinoesque" is the word that springs to mind. The art is more distinctive. For a manga it's very Western-looking, reminding me most of Paul Pope (himself influenced by manga, of course). Robert Williams' paintings are also a clear influence -- the front cover in particular could almost be a Williams painting. (Here's the amazon.co.jp page for the book, with a picture of the cover. Unfortunately it's small and somewhat blurry, so most of the impact is lost.) Gary Panter's influence is also visible. And it's printed from left to right, presumably as a further tribute to American comics.
R is 160 pages, and costs 905 yen. It's published by Shodensha, and its ISBN is 4-396-76186-4.
Isshuku ippan (I'm not certain what the title means, but if I had to guess I'd say something like "a meal on the fly") is a series of humor strips by Monkey Punch, best known in the U.S. for Lupin III; but I like this better than the two volumes of Lupin III I've read. The hero of these strips, a wandering samurai, resembles Lupin III in some ways, particularly his lechery; much of the humor is bawdy. Other strips revolve around his pursuit of money and food. But unlike Lupin III, his efforts fail as often as they succeed. Most of the strips are one or two pages long, though a few are longer; and most of them are wordless. The manga is notable less for the gags, which are simple, though often ingenious, than for Monkey Punch's lively cartooning. The book is the third is a series entitled "Monkey Punch: The Manga Selection"; the fourth volume is/will be called MP gaaruzu ("MP Girls").
Isshuku ippan is 240 pp. and costs 552 yen. It's published by Kodansha, and its ISBN is 4-06-334874-1.
Oingo Boingo Brothers Adventure is by Araki Hirohiko, creator of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, a very long, and very popular in Japan, series which Viz recently licensed. I've seen one volume of Jojo, though, (one of its sequels, to be precise) and this doesn't look anything like that. In fact, it doesn't look anything like any other comic I've seen, manga or not. The closest thing I can think of, believe it or not, is Maya glyphs. (Again, here's the amazon.co.jp page for the book, with a small, blurry picture of the cover.) I can't tell from looking at the manga what it's about, if it's about anything other than random violence and weirdness..
The book is very slight, just 24 smaller-than-usual pages of story (and fourteen more pages which inexplicably repeat the same two illustrations of one of the brothers over and over). Still, I don't regret the four bucks I spent on it. Unfortunately, it appears to be out of print; and the cheapest used copy amazon.co.jp is offering is 999 yen (approximately ten bucks, not including shipping). The publisher is Shueisha, the cover price was 286 yen, and the ISBN is 4-08-617720-X.
Friday, February 18, 2005
MANGA BUST?
Via Fanboy Rampage, an interesting column by Heidi MacDonald asks, in light of recent events (the closure of Studio Ironcat, CPM Manga's layoffs and cancellations, and ComicsOne's temporary hiatus), if the much-predicted "manga bust" is finally upon us. Her conclusion is that it isn't, but that bookstores have become more selective in what they stock, and we may see more manga publishers contract or disappear as a result.
On the other hand, today MacDonald reports that the latest volume of Fruits Basket has cracked USA Today's top 100 books, and also ranked #15 on BookScan's adult fiction trade paperback listing, the best showing by a manga on that list ever. Icv2 (via Fanboy Rampage reports that manga continues to dominate the BookScan graphic novel listing as well. And my local Borders just moved the manga section in order to expand it.
Speaking of CPM, Irresponsible Pictures reports that it has just announced a new title, so apparently it intends to stay in business despite the recent cancellations.
(0) comments
Via Fanboy Rampage, an interesting column by Heidi MacDonald asks, in light of recent events (the closure of Studio Ironcat, CPM Manga's layoffs and cancellations, and ComicsOne's temporary hiatus), if the much-predicted "manga bust" is finally upon us. Her conclusion is that it isn't, but that bookstores have become more selective in what they stock, and we may see more manga publishers contract or disappear as a result.
On the other hand, today MacDonald reports that the latest volume of Fruits Basket has cracked USA Today's top 100 books, and also ranked #15 on BookScan's adult fiction trade paperback listing, the best showing by a manga on that list ever. Icv2 (via Fanboy Rampage reports that manga continues to dominate the BookScan graphic novel listing as well. And my local Borders just moved the manga section in order to expand it.
Speaking of CPM, Irresponsible Pictures reports that it has just announced a new title, so apparently it intends to stay in business despite the recent cancellations.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
MANGA REVIEWS: IWGP AND WORST
One of the perks of having a comics blog, apparently, is that you get sent review copies. I got my first pair of review copies a few days ago: two manga from Digital Manga Publishing. Neither of these are titles I would have picked up on my own: both are seinen (young men's) manga, as far as I can tell, and very little of the seinen manga I've seen has appealed to me. So I may not be the ideal person to review these.
The better of the two is IWGP: Ikebukuro West Gate Park vol. 1, written by Ira Ishida with art by Sena Aritou. The park of the title is a popular teen hangout in Tokyo. The teens who hang out there, though, are somewhat less wholesome than Archie's pals 'n' gals (though there's little more depth to their characterizations, at least so far); they get involved with gangs, have sex, and some of them even engage in "subsidized dating," a euphemism for casual prostitution. At the start of the book, Makoto, the hero, is leading a happy-go-lucky life, with a friend who's a gang leader and a voluptuous girlfriend. But when a girl he knows is murdered, and turns out to have been involved in subsidized dating, he decides to hunt down the killer himself, enlisting his gang buddies to help.
The first two chapters read like a bad teen comedy: if I'd been browsing the book in a bookstore (not that I'd be able to, because it's shrinkwrapped), I'd have stopped reading at this point. But after the murder, things pick up, and the book becomes a mildly entertaining thriller, though hardly original or deep. The art and visual storytelling also improve, with a couple of sequences being genuinely impressive: the gang meeting in chapter five, and a scene where Makoto and some gang members interrogate a suspect (not for the squeamish). The book is shrinkwrapped and gets an 18+ rating for some naked breasts and a few panels depicting heavy petting. In a storyline revolving around sexual violence, this cheesecake strikes a jarring note; and the main female character is primarily there to be protected by the hero (though there is a hint of something deeper going on with her). But I suppose these things come with the territory.
The other book I received is Worst vol. 1, by Hiroshi Takahashi. Worst follows the adventures of a group of boys who have just entered Suzuran High School, the worst and most violent high school in the city. It's so tough that on the first day of school they hold a tournament of the freshmen to see who's the strongest. In particular, the book focuses on Hana Tsukishima, a country boy who is still wet behind the ears but is an amazingly strong fighter, and who announces his determination to someday be boss of the school. Worst is in a genre that has no appeal for me at all: manga in which people fight just for the sake of fighting. And it doesn't bring anything fresh to the genre, either in story or art: it's predictable from start to finish. Not recommended.
Both IWGP and Worst are $12.95. As partial compensation, they're handsomely produced, with larger pages than most English-language manga, and with dustjackets like Japanese-language manga have.
THE COMICS REPORTER
I've added a link to Tom Spurgeon's excellent news site, The Comics Reporter, to my sidebar, something I should have done a long time ago. The reason I didn't, to be honest, was that I didn't visit the site very often myself, because I didn't find most comics-related news to be that interesting. But now Spurgeon is covering manga too, so I have no excuse.
(0) comments
One of the perks of having a comics blog, apparently, is that you get sent review copies. I got my first pair of review copies a few days ago: two manga from Digital Manga Publishing. Neither of these are titles I would have picked up on my own: both are seinen (young men's) manga, as far as I can tell, and very little of the seinen manga I've seen has appealed to me. So I may not be the ideal person to review these.
The better of the two is IWGP: Ikebukuro West Gate Park vol. 1, written by Ira Ishida with art by Sena Aritou. The park of the title is a popular teen hangout in Tokyo. The teens who hang out there, though, are somewhat less wholesome than Archie's pals 'n' gals (though there's little more depth to their characterizations, at least so far); they get involved with gangs, have sex, and some of them even engage in "subsidized dating," a euphemism for casual prostitution. At the start of the book, Makoto, the hero, is leading a happy-go-lucky life, with a friend who's a gang leader and a voluptuous girlfriend. But when a girl he knows is murdered, and turns out to have been involved in subsidized dating, he decides to hunt down the killer himself, enlisting his gang buddies to help.
The first two chapters read like a bad teen comedy: if I'd been browsing the book in a bookstore (not that I'd be able to, because it's shrinkwrapped), I'd have stopped reading at this point. But after the murder, things pick up, and the book becomes a mildly entertaining thriller, though hardly original or deep. The art and visual storytelling also improve, with a couple of sequences being genuinely impressive: the gang meeting in chapter five, and a scene where Makoto and some gang members interrogate a suspect (not for the squeamish). The book is shrinkwrapped and gets an 18+ rating for some naked breasts and a few panels depicting heavy petting. In a storyline revolving around sexual violence, this cheesecake strikes a jarring note; and the main female character is primarily there to be protected by the hero (though there is a hint of something deeper going on with her). But I suppose these things come with the territory.
The other book I received is Worst vol. 1, by Hiroshi Takahashi. Worst follows the adventures of a group of boys who have just entered Suzuran High School, the worst and most violent high school in the city. It's so tough that on the first day of school they hold a tournament of the freshmen to see who's the strongest. In particular, the book focuses on Hana Tsukishima, a country boy who is still wet behind the ears but is an amazingly strong fighter, and who announces his determination to someday be boss of the school. Worst is in a genre that has no appeal for me at all: manga in which people fight just for the sake of fighting. And it doesn't bring anything fresh to the genre, either in story or art: it's predictable from start to finish. Not recommended.
Both IWGP and Worst are $12.95. As partial compensation, they're handsomely produced, with larger pages than most English-language manga, and with dustjackets like Japanese-language manga have.
THE COMICS REPORTER
I've added a link to Tom Spurgeon's excellent news site, The Comics Reporter, to my sidebar, something I should have done a long time ago. The reason I didn't, to be honest, was that I didn't visit the site very often myself, because I didn't find most comics-related news to be that interesting. But now Spurgeon is covering manga too, so I have no excuse.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
THE GOLEM'S MIGHTY SWING
The Golem's Mighty Swing by James Sturm is another graphic novel which was highly acclaimed when it came out, but which I didn't buy because what I saw of it didn't appeal to me. Now, three and a half years after its publication, I finally got a chance to read it thanks to my local public library. (A lot of ink has been spilled over the phenomenon of "waiting for the trade"; has anybody given any attention to "waiting for the library"?) And, as with Louis Riel, I was underwhelmed.
In the case of Golem, it's the writing that's weak. The big problem is the characterization, or lack of it. Sturm's characters are such ciphers that it's hard to care about what happens to them. Nor does the story supply the interest lacking in the characterizations; there's little plot, and what there is ends in an anticlimax. Perhaps Sturm intended his story to by symbolic of the Jewish experience in America in general. If so, the messsage would be that no matter how much Jews try to assimilate and become "Americans," they will never be accepted by gentiles, but always be regarded with suspicion and hostility. But the setting of Golem is too idiosyncratic to draw any general conclusions. The situation of Sturm's barnstorming Jewish baseball team, touring small towns where Jews are seen even more rarely than professional baseball players, has very little relevance that of most American Jews in the 1920s, or even Jewish entertainers.
What partially redeems the book is Sturm's artwork, particularly his visual storytelling, which has a restrained, classical feel to it. Sturm's storytelling, and the book, are at their best when he is simply depicting baseball being played. In fact, I ended up wondering if Sturm hadn't really just wanted to draw baseball, and come up with the storyline about anti-Semitism to give himself an excuse to do so.
(As an oddity, in the acknowledgements Sturm cites "Shonen Champion Manga" as one of his references, though on the surface his style seems as far removed from manga as possible. (It's a pity he doesn't name the precise series he used.) As another oddity, one minor character bears a close and distracting resemblance to Charley the Australopithecene from Ruben Bolling's Tom the Dancing Bug.)
(0) comments
The Golem's Mighty Swing by James Sturm is another graphic novel which was highly acclaimed when it came out, but which I didn't buy because what I saw of it didn't appeal to me. Now, three and a half years after its publication, I finally got a chance to read it thanks to my local public library. (A lot of ink has been spilled over the phenomenon of "waiting for the trade"; has anybody given any attention to "waiting for the library"?) And, as with Louis Riel, I was underwhelmed.
In the case of Golem, it's the writing that's weak. The big problem is the characterization, or lack of it. Sturm's characters are such ciphers that it's hard to care about what happens to them. Nor does the story supply the interest lacking in the characterizations; there's little plot, and what there is ends in an anticlimax. Perhaps Sturm intended his story to by symbolic of the Jewish experience in America in general. If so, the messsage would be that no matter how much Jews try to assimilate and become "Americans," they will never be accepted by gentiles, but always be regarded with suspicion and hostility. But the setting of Golem is too idiosyncratic to draw any general conclusions. The situation of Sturm's barnstorming Jewish baseball team, touring small towns where Jews are seen even more rarely than professional baseball players, has very little relevance that of most American Jews in the 1920s, or even Jewish entertainers.
What partially redeems the book is Sturm's artwork, particularly his visual storytelling, which has a restrained, classical feel to it. Sturm's storytelling, and the book, are at their best when he is simply depicting baseball being played. In fact, I ended up wondering if Sturm hadn't really just wanted to draw baseball, and come up with the storyline about anti-Semitism to give himself an excuse to do so.
(As an oddity, in the acknowledgements Sturm cites "Shonen Champion Manga" as one of his references, though on the surface his style seems as far removed from manga as possible. (It's a pity he doesn't name the precise series he used.) As another oddity, one minor character bears a close and distracting resemblance to Charley the Australopithecene from Ruben Bolling's Tom the Dancing Bug.)
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
My post on the translation of Fruits Basket picked up a couple links (thanks!), and also some feedback. Johanna Carlson said, referring to my list of errors, "I didn't see any of them as terribly significant, but I wasn't reading the list with the manga at hand." No, I wouldn't say that they were terribly significant. Certainly they don't affect the plot, for the most part. On the other hand, I think they all do affect the characterizations to some extent. This is particularly important in a manga like Fruits Basket, which largely revolves around the slow unfolding of character; especially since a good deal of the characters' psychologies so far (I've only read through vol. 6) have only been obscurely hinted at.
In a comment to Johanna's post, Ed Sizemore "wonder[s] if the translation mistakes pointed out might be problems of trying to convey the same thought and nuance of a Japanese sentence to a general audience. Sometimes those that can read Japanese, or another foreign language, forget they are doing more than just word for word substitutions when they read a text. They are actually entering into a different culture and perspective. They forget all the unspoken subtleties they are projecting into their reading of a text." (I've fixed a couple of typos.)
Actually, I'm willing to allow manga translators a good deal of leeway, and did so in the case of Fruits Basket. A word-for-word translation of Japanese is likely to be flat and dull, because much of the emotion and "color" in Japanese derives from particles and grammatical constructions which can't be translated. In a certain sense, a literal but lifeless manga translation is less accurate than a freer but lively one (unless the original is lifeless, of course). I only counted as errors those instances where the translators had substantially changed the original thought (as I had thought was clear from comparing Tokyopop's translations and my literal translations).
As for Ed's final sentences, I only wish that I could "enter into a different culture and perspective" when I read Japanese! I'm not nearly fluent enough, nor do I know that much about Japanese culture. Usually the best I can do is to be aware that there are "unspoken subtleties," without knowing what they are.
(0) comments
In a comment to Johanna's post, Ed Sizemore "wonder[s] if the translation mistakes pointed out might be problems of trying to convey the same thought and nuance of a Japanese sentence to a general audience. Sometimes those that can read Japanese, or another foreign language, forget they are doing more than just word for word substitutions when they read a text. They are actually entering into a different culture and perspective. They forget all the unspoken subtleties they are projecting into their reading of a text." (I've fixed a couple of typos.)
Actually, I'm willing to allow manga translators a good deal of leeway, and did so in the case of Fruits Basket. A word-for-word translation of Japanese is likely to be flat and dull, because much of the emotion and "color" in Japanese derives from particles and grammatical constructions which can't be translated. In a certain sense, a literal but lifeless manga translation is less accurate than a freer but lively one (unless the original is lifeless, of course). I only counted as errors those instances where the translators had substantially changed the original thought (as I had thought was clear from comparing Tokyopop's translations and my literal translations).
As for Ed's final sentences, I only wish that I could "enter into a different culture and perspective" when I read Japanese! I'm not nearly fluent enough, nor do I know that much about Japanese culture. Usually the best I can do is to be aware that there are "unspoken subtleties," without knowing what they are.
SOME MANGA LINKBLOGGING
Via The Comics Observer and the TCJ Message Board, Time briefly profiles Rieko Saibara, whose Chikuro Kindergarten I discussed here. She's profiled along with Paul Hornschemeier, Marjane Satrapi, and Joann Sfar under the collective heading "Comic Book Heroes: How four daring young artists are shaking up the world of cartooning." I'm not sure why Time is profiling a creator who hasn't been published in the U.S. and whom there are no plans to publish afaik, but I'm all for of it. (Now if they would just publish a profile of Kotobuki Shiriagari...)
Speaking of untranslated manga, the AnimeonDVD Manga Forum reports that selected Borders and Waldenbooks are selling selected imported Japanese-language manga titles. These are being shelved with the English-language manga, not with the foreign language books, and are appearing in places without a substantial Japanese community (not in my town yet, though), so they're apparently being aimed at English-speaking fans. Unfortunately, they're being priced for considerably more than you would pay at a Japanese bookstore or by mail order. Still, it'll be interesting to see if this experiment succeeds. In the AoD Forum thread, some eyebrows are raised over one of the titles, Boku wa imouto ni koi o suru, which apparently contains some rather graphic scenes of incestuous brother-sister love. (The official English title is "Secret sweethearts," but a literal translation would be "I love my younger sister.")
The AoD Manga Forum also reports the series which will appear in Viz's forthcoming shoujo manga anthology (to be called Shojo Beat). These are Nana, Zettai Kareshi, Crimson Hero, Kaze Hikaru, God Child, and Akachan To Boku (Baby & Me). The big news here is Nana, a highly acclaimed series by Ai Yazawa, creator of Paradise Kiss (everyone I know who's read both says Nana is better). The only other title I'm at all familiar with is Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend) by Yuu Watase of Fushigi Yuugi, Imadoki etc. fame. I've seen a little of this in scanlation, and it looked fun.
In less happy news, CPM Press has cancelled thirteen upcoming manga titles. They had recently laid off several people from the manga side of their operations, citing "market factors." Nobody on the AoD Manga Forum knows quite what this means for the future of CPM Press, but one can't help worrying about their survival, especially given the recent closure of Studio Ironcat. CPM deserves credit for having published Alien Nine and Alien Nine: Emulators, at least. I recently picked up one of their manhwa titles, Mythology of the Heavens vol. 2 by Hyun Se Lee, which has attractive art; someday I may even get around to reviewing it.
(Edited to fix an embarrassing mistake in translating "boku wa imouto ni koi o suru.")
(0) comments
Via The Comics Observer and the TCJ Message Board, Time briefly profiles Rieko Saibara, whose Chikuro Kindergarten I discussed here. She's profiled along with Paul Hornschemeier, Marjane Satrapi, and Joann Sfar under the collective heading "Comic Book Heroes: How four daring young artists are shaking up the world of cartooning." I'm not sure why Time is profiling a creator who hasn't been published in the U.S. and whom there are no plans to publish afaik, but I'm all for of it. (Now if they would just publish a profile of Kotobuki Shiriagari...)
Speaking of untranslated manga, the AnimeonDVD Manga Forum reports that selected Borders and Waldenbooks are selling selected imported Japanese-language manga titles. These are being shelved with the English-language manga, not with the foreign language books, and are appearing in places without a substantial Japanese community (not in my town yet, though), so they're apparently being aimed at English-speaking fans. Unfortunately, they're being priced for considerably more than you would pay at a Japanese bookstore or by mail order. Still, it'll be interesting to see if this experiment succeeds. In the AoD Forum thread, some eyebrows are raised over one of the titles, Boku wa imouto ni koi o suru, which apparently contains some rather graphic scenes of incestuous brother-sister love. (The official English title is "Secret sweethearts," but a literal translation would be "I love my younger sister.")
The AoD Manga Forum also reports the series which will appear in Viz's forthcoming shoujo manga anthology (to be called Shojo Beat). These are Nana, Zettai Kareshi, Crimson Hero, Kaze Hikaru, God Child, and Akachan To Boku (Baby & Me). The big news here is Nana, a highly acclaimed series by Ai Yazawa, creator of Paradise Kiss (everyone I know who's read both says Nana is better). The only other title I'm at all familiar with is Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend) by Yuu Watase of Fushigi Yuugi, Imadoki etc. fame. I've seen a little of this in scanlation, and it looked fun.
In less happy news, CPM Press has cancelled thirteen upcoming manga titles. They had recently laid off several people from the manga side of their operations, citing "market factors." Nobody on the AoD Manga Forum knows quite what this means for the future of CPM Press, but one can't help worrying about their survival, especially given the recent closure of Studio Ironcat. CPM deserves credit for having published Alien Nine and Alien Nine: Emulators, at least. I recently picked up one of their manhwa titles, Mythology of the Heavens vol. 2 by Hyun Se Lee, which has attractive art; someday I may even get around to reviewing it.
(Edited to fix an embarrassing mistake in translating "boku wa imouto ni koi o suru.")
Monday, February 07, 2005
A CLARIFICATION OF MY PREVIOUS POST
Dave Fiore responded to my previous post, "A Pitfall of Long-running Narratives," with a post which is well worth reading in itself, but which revealed that I hadn't made myself sufficiently clear. (That's the trouble with posting when I'm tired.) Here's the comment I posted to Dave's post in hopes of clarifying my position:
I knew I should have explained myself better, rather than hoping that Spurgeon's quote would make my meaning clear. I certainly was not saying that it's potentially a bad thing for events in the later portions of a narrative to depend upon knowledge of the characters, or of earlier events, for their full impact: that would be to reject long narratives entirely. The best I can do is to go back to what R. Fiore said, as far as I can remember: that Schulz, at the time of writing (the late 90s or early 00s, iirc), seemed to approach the strip as if the characters were personal friends of his readers, who would be automatically interested in whatever the characters did. It's the difference between Lucy's coming to fetch Linus being interesting because it's part of an intrinsically interesting story, or because it says something about the real world (although you may need to be familiar with the characters' past histories to get what it's saying), and Lucy's fetching Linus being interesting solely because it's Lucy and Linus. That's what I was trying to get at with my talk of the characters becoming "icons." Of course, whether or not this applies to a particular case is a matter of judgment. And yes (to anticipate another objection), it is possible for a "self-referring" narrative to say something indirectly about the real world, as I tried to indicate with my reference to Krazy Kat; but I don't think that the "self-referring" tendencies in late Peanuts and recent Locas and Luba stories serve such a purpose, though I'm open to argument on both counts. (I can't speak to Marvel Comics, as I've read very little of them.)
(And just to avoid misunderstanding, what I'm talking about has no necessary connection with metafiction.)
(0) comments
Dave Fiore responded to my previous post, "A Pitfall of Long-running Narratives," with a post which is well worth reading in itself, but which revealed that I hadn't made myself sufficiently clear. (That's the trouble with posting when I'm tired.) Here's the comment I posted to Dave's post in hopes of clarifying my position:
I knew I should have explained myself better, rather than hoping that Spurgeon's quote would make my meaning clear. I certainly was not saying that it's potentially a bad thing for events in the later portions of a narrative to depend upon knowledge of the characters, or of earlier events, for their full impact: that would be to reject long narratives entirely. The best I can do is to go back to what R. Fiore said, as far as I can remember: that Schulz, at the time of writing (the late 90s or early 00s, iirc), seemed to approach the strip as if the characters were personal friends of his readers, who would be automatically interested in whatever the characters did. It's the difference between Lucy's coming to fetch Linus being interesting because it's part of an intrinsically interesting story, or because it says something about the real world (although you may need to be familiar with the characters' past histories to get what it's saying), and Lucy's fetching Linus being interesting solely because it's Lucy and Linus. That's what I was trying to get at with my talk of the characters becoming "icons." Of course, whether or not this applies to a particular case is a matter of judgment. And yes (to anticipate another objection), it is possible for a "self-referring" narrative to say something indirectly about the real world, as I tried to indicate with my reference to Krazy Kat; but I don't think that the "self-referring" tendencies in late Peanuts and recent Locas and Luba stories serve such a purpose, though I'm open to argument on both counts. (I can't speak to Marvel Comics, as I've read very little of them.)
(And just to avoid misunderstanding, what I'm talking about has no necessary connection with metafiction.)
Sunday, February 06, 2005
A PITFALL OF LONG-RUNNING NARRATIVES
In the course of a review of The Thing: Night Falls on Yancy Street, by Evan Dorkin and Dean Haspiel, in The Comics Journal #265, Tom Spurgeon makes an insightful observation:
"The real-world elements which [Dorkin and Haspiel] put into play end up being judged not on their usefulness in exploring an issue or theme, but in terms of their appropriateness for marching these characters around a while. Like many Marvel comics, even something halfway evocative about the human condition quickly becomes a servant of the license and the larger story that has accured around it. Dorkin and Haspiel have hit on an unfortunate truth: Marvel Comics are mostly about themselves, the way long-running television shows nearly always lurch away from their original concepts and adopt the characteristics of soap opera." (p. 185)
Spurgeon's insight here is even more widely applicable than he suggests. The same thing happened to Peanuts in its final three decades: it changed from a strip about childhood to a strip about icons named Charlie Brown, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, etc. (R. Fiore said something similar once, though I can't remember it exactly now.) But it's not just commercial long-running narratives to which this happens. A year or two ago, I decided to stop buying individual issues of Los Bros. Hernandez's titles, and wait for the trades. At the time, I said that it was because the wait between issues, and the complexity of the plots, meant that it was impossible for me to follow the new issues without going back and rereading all the preceding ones. While this was true, I later recognized that it was only part of the reason; in fact, Bros' two main sagas no longer excited me as they once had. And reading Spurgeon, I realized why this was: like Marvel Comics and late Peanuts, "Locas," and the saga of Luba and her family, had become mostly about themselves when I stopped reading. In the case of Los Bros. Hernandez, it's clearly not a case of franchises being kept artificially alive for commercial reasons. Rather, it seems to be that Jaime and Beto have fallen in love with their characters and can't bear to let them go.
I can't say how prevalent this is generally, because I haven't read that many long-running comics. I stopped reading Cerebus early in "Reads" (before the infamous #186); at least up to that point, Sim had avoided having Cerebus be only about itself by shoehorning his real-world concerns into it, whether they fit the characters or not. As for manga, the longest run I've read is eighteen volumes of Kare Kano (in Japanese). So far Masami Tsuda has done a good job of keeping her characters real, though it must be admitted that there's a good deal less story in those eighteen volumes of Kare Kano than in the first 160 or so issues of Cerebus, though the page counts are approximately the same.
And to preempt the objection Dave Fiore is probably poised to make, for a narrative to be primarily about itself isn't necessarily terrible -- Krazy Kat, one of the greatest strips ever, was about little more than itself throughout its run. But both Peanuts and Los Bros. Hernandez's work were damaged by it.
SPEAKING OF TCJ #265
In case anyone cares to read more of my opinions on comics, I have two reviews in this issue, a one-page review of Prophecy Anthology vol. 1 and a "bullet" review of Soap Opera, by Emily Blair. (For the record, I did not choose the panels which illustrate the Soap Opera review.) The issue also contains a bunch of other stuff, naturally, including two appreciations of William Steig, thirty color pages of 1950s crime comics drawn by Harry Anderson, and an interview with Eric Shanower.
UMM...
I just finished watching the first disc of Gantz, a new anime that just hit the shelves of my local video store. And I may have been too pessimistic a few days ago about the possibility of Inu getting licensed.
(0) comments
In the course of a review of The Thing: Night Falls on Yancy Street, by Evan Dorkin and Dean Haspiel, in The Comics Journal #265, Tom Spurgeon makes an insightful observation:
"The real-world elements which [Dorkin and Haspiel] put into play end up being judged not on their usefulness in exploring an issue or theme, but in terms of their appropriateness for marching these characters around a while. Like many Marvel comics, even something halfway evocative about the human condition quickly becomes a servant of the license and the larger story that has accured around it. Dorkin and Haspiel have hit on an unfortunate truth: Marvel Comics are mostly about themselves, the way long-running television shows nearly always lurch away from their original concepts and adopt the characteristics of soap opera." (p. 185)
Spurgeon's insight here is even more widely applicable than he suggests. The same thing happened to Peanuts in its final three decades: it changed from a strip about childhood to a strip about icons named Charlie Brown, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, etc. (R. Fiore said something similar once, though I can't remember it exactly now.) But it's not just commercial long-running narratives to which this happens. A year or two ago, I decided to stop buying individual issues of Los Bros. Hernandez's titles, and wait for the trades. At the time, I said that it was because the wait between issues, and the complexity of the plots, meant that it was impossible for me to follow the new issues without going back and rereading all the preceding ones. While this was true, I later recognized that it was only part of the reason; in fact, Bros' two main sagas no longer excited me as they once had. And reading Spurgeon, I realized why this was: like Marvel Comics and late Peanuts, "Locas," and the saga of Luba and her family, had become mostly about themselves when I stopped reading. In the case of Los Bros. Hernandez, it's clearly not a case of franchises being kept artificially alive for commercial reasons. Rather, it seems to be that Jaime and Beto have fallen in love with their characters and can't bear to let them go.
I can't say how prevalent this is generally, because I haven't read that many long-running comics. I stopped reading Cerebus early in "Reads" (before the infamous #186); at least up to that point, Sim had avoided having Cerebus be only about itself by shoehorning his real-world concerns into it, whether they fit the characters or not. As for manga, the longest run I've read is eighteen volumes of Kare Kano (in Japanese). So far Masami Tsuda has done a good job of keeping her characters real, though it must be admitted that there's a good deal less story in those eighteen volumes of Kare Kano than in the first 160 or so issues of Cerebus, though the page counts are approximately the same.
And to preempt the objection Dave Fiore is probably poised to make, for a narrative to be primarily about itself isn't necessarily terrible -- Krazy Kat, one of the greatest strips ever, was about little more than itself throughout its run. But both Peanuts and Los Bros. Hernandez's work were damaged by it.
SPEAKING OF TCJ #265
In case anyone cares to read more of my opinions on comics, I have two reviews in this issue, a one-page review of Prophecy Anthology vol. 1 and a "bullet" review of Soap Opera, by Emily Blair. (For the record, I did not choose the panels which illustrate the Soap Opera review.) The issue also contains a bunch of other stuff, naturally, including two appreciations of William Steig, thirty color pages of 1950s crime comics drawn by Harry Anderson, and an interview with Eric Shanower.
UMM...
I just finished watching the first disc of Gantz, a new anime that just hit the shelves of my local video store. And I may have been too pessimistic a few days ago about the possibility of Inu getting licensed.
Friday, February 04, 2005
FRUITS BASKET TRANSLATION
Judging from my limited experience, I'd say that the most difficult type of manga to read in Japanese is shoujo: I've found it more difficult, not just than shounen (boys'), but than manga written for adults, either men or women. This is not just because shoujo manga has more dialogue, but because the characters tend to analyze their emotions a lot, and they do so using complex or difficult grammatical structures, which is the most difficult part of reading Japanese for me. Of all the manga I've read so far, the most difficult one has been Fruits Basket. There've been a number of places where, though I knew what the individual words meant, I didn't understand the sentence as a whole until I looked at Tokyopop's English-language version, translated by Alethea Nibley and Athena Nibley.
This doesn't mean that Tokyopop's translation is completely trustworthy. I recently checked out vols. 2-4 from my local public library, hoping to polish my Japanese comprehension by checking it against the English. I didn't compare the two line-by-line, but I did notice a number of places where the translation seemed clearly wrong. Most of these errors weren't all that important, but a few did seem important, primarily for what they reflected on the characters. I've listed the ones that I think are, or may be, important. In each case I'll present Tokyopop's translation, the original Japanese, and my best attempt at a literal translation (page numbers refer to Tokyopop's editions):
Vol. 2, p. 40, panel 2
Tokyopop: "I am well aware of when my glass is half empty."
Japanese: "Doose boku wa naimononedarisa."
Literal translation: "At any rate, I'm asking for the unobtainable."
Vol. 2, p. 174, panel 5
Tokyopop: "They say that being with another person can make you feel so much more alive. I realized then what people those meant [sic].
Japanese: "Hito wa kanshou de ikurademo tanin o bika suru koto ga dekiru. Dekiru keredo..."
Literal translation: "It's possible for a person to idealize another person out of sentimentality to any extent. It's possible, but..."
Vol. 3, p. 114, panel 4
English: "You and Akito are doing a fine job of using Honda-kun as your pawn for your own selfish reasons."
Japanese (phrase corresponding to final five words): "... sorezore no mokuteki to ritoku no tame ni."
Literal translation: "...for your respective goals and benefits." Tokyopop's translation here seems to imply that Shigure and Akito are collaborating to use Tohru, whereas the Japanese makes clear that this is not the case.
Vol. 3, p. 152, panel 1
English: "lucky"
Japanese: "itoshii"
Literal translation: "dear" or "beloved" (alternatively, "pitiful," but "dear seems to fit the context better).
Vol. 3, p. 173, panel 3
Tokyopop: "I thought it might endanger my son and the others even more."
Japanese: "Watakushi no kodomo ya botchantachi no kokoro no kizu ga sara ni fukamaru n' ja nai ka ... tte." (Ellipsis in original)
Literal translation: "Wouldn't it deepen the wounds in the hearts of my child, Yuki and Kyou, and the others even more, I thought."
vol. 4, p. 59, panel 1
Tokyopop: "The thing I want to understand the most is why Akito-san would hate me!"
Japanese: "Demo ima ichiban taisetsu ni shitai no wa naze Akito-san ni kirawarete iru no ka de wa naku."
Literal translation: "But the most important thing now isn't why I'm hated by Akito-san." (Emphasis mine.)
vol. 4, p. 92, panels 1-2
Tokyopop: "You start to understand rather than regret. It may be closer to repentance."
Japanese: "Iro-iro wakatte kuru. Kore wa koukai to iu yori zange ni chikai kamoshirenai."
Literal translation: "You start to understand various things. This may be nearer to repentance than regret."
vol. 4, p. 142, panel 1
Tokyopop: "... I wonder if I'd be able to smile again."
Japanese: "onaji you ni ichinengo waraeru kashira."
Literal translation: "would I be able to smile after a year like her, I wonder." Uotani isn't saying that she'd never be able to smile again if Tohru died.
I don't mean to single out the Nibleys. Mistakes are inevitable; and on the Anime on DVD Manga Forum I've seen several Tokyopop series singled out for complaints about the quality of translation, but Fruits Basket hasn't been one of them. The only other manga for which I've done this sort of comparison was Kare Kano vol. 9. I found a lot more mistakes there, but none as significant as those above, which is largely a reflection of that volume's subject matter.
(The title of this post is a bit of a private joke. Every month, I get a few hits from searches looking for "Fruits Basket translations," or something equivalent. In my naivete, it took me a while to realize that these people probably weren't looking for opinions on the quality of Tokyopop's translation, but for free online translations. Until now, my blog didn't contain either. Now it has the former. I did see a scanlation of Fruits Basket once, and it was riddled with errors, far more so than Tokyopop's translation.)
(0) comments
Judging from my limited experience, I'd say that the most difficult type of manga to read in Japanese is shoujo: I've found it more difficult, not just than shounen (boys'), but than manga written for adults, either men or women. This is not just because shoujo manga has more dialogue, but because the characters tend to analyze their emotions a lot, and they do so using complex or difficult grammatical structures, which is the most difficult part of reading Japanese for me. Of all the manga I've read so far, the most difficult one has been Fruits Basket. There've been a number of places where, though I knew what the individual words meant, I didn't understand the sentence as a whole until I looked at Tokyopop's English-language version, translated by Alethea Nibley and Athena Nibley.
This doesn't mean that Tokyopop's translation is completely trustworthy. I recently checked out vols. 2-4 from my local public library, hoping to polish my Japanese comprehension by checking it against the English. I didn't compare the two line-by-line, but I did notice a number of places where the translation seemed clearly wrong. Most of these errors weren't all that important, but a few did seem important, primarily for what they reflected on the characters. I've listed the ones that I think are, or may be, important. In each case I'll present Tokyopop's translation, the original Japanese, and my best attempt at a literal translation (page numbers refer to Tokyopop's editions):
Vol. 2, p. 40, panel 2
Tokyopop: "I am well aware of when my glass is half empty."
Japanese: "Doose boku wa naimononedarisa."
Literal translation: "At any rate, I'm asking for the unobtainable."
Vol. 2, p. 174, panel 5
Tokyopop: "They say that being with another person can make you feel so much more alive. I realized then what people those meant [sic].
Japanese: "Hito wa kanshou de ikurademo tanin o bika suru koto ga dekiru. Dekiru keredo..."
Literal translation: "It's possible for a person to idealize another person out of sentimentality to any extent. It's possible, but..."
Vol. 3, p. 114, panel 4
English: "You and Akito are doing a fine job of using Honda-kun as your pawn for your own selfish reasons."
Japanese (phrase corresponding to final five words): "... sorezore no mokuteki to ritoku no tame ni."
Literal translation: "...for your respective goals and benefits." Tokyopop's translation here seems to imply that Shigure and Akito are collaborating to use Tohru, whereas the Japanese makes clear that this is not the case.
Vol. 3, p. 152, panel 1
English: "lucky"
Japanese: "itoshii"
Literal translation: "dear" or "beloved" (alternatively, "pitiful," but "dear seems to fit the context better).
Vol. 3, p. 173, panel 3
Tokyopop: "I thought it might endanger my son and the others even more."
Japanese: "Watakushi no kodomo ya botchantachi no kokoro no kizu ga sara ni fukamaru n' ja nai ka ... tte." (Ellipsis in original)
Literal translation: "Wouldn't it deepen the wounds in the hearts of my child, Yuki and Kyou, and the others even more, I thought."
vol. 4, p. 59, panel 1
Tokyopop: "The thing I want to understand the most is why Akito-san would hate me!"
Japanese: "Demo ima ichiban taisetsu ni shitai no wa naze Akito-san ni kirawarete iru no ka de wa naku."
Literal translation: "But the most important thing now isn't why I'm hated by Akito-san." (Emphasis mine.)
vol. 4, p. 92, panels 1-2
Tokyopop: "You start to understand rather than regret. It may be closer to repentance."
Japanese: "Iro-iro wakatte kuru. Kore wa koukai to iu yori zange ni chikai kamoshirenai."
Literal translation: "You start to understand various things. This may be nearer to repentance than regret."
vol. 4, p. 142, panel 1
Tokyopop: "... I wonder if I'd be able to smile again."
Japanese: "onaji you ni ichinengo waraeru kashira."
Literal translation: "would I be able to smile after a year like her, I wonder." Uotani isn't saying that she'd never be able to smile again if Tohru died.
I don't mean to single out the Nibleys. Mistakes are inevitable; and on the Anime on DVD Manga Forum I've seen several Tokyopop series singled out for complaints about the quality of translation, but Fruits Basket hasn't been one of them. The only other manga for which I've done this sort of comparison was Kare Kano vol. 9. I found a lot more mistakes there, but none as significant as those above, which is largely a reflection of that volume's subject matter.
(The title of this post is a bit of a private joke. Every month, I get a few hits from searches looking for "Fruits Basket translations," or something equivalent. In my naivete, it took me a while to realize that these people probably weren't looking for opinions on the quality of Tokyopop's translation, but for free online translations. Until now, my blog didn't contain either. Now it has the former. I did see a scanlation of Fruits Basket once, and it was riddled with errors, far more so than Tokyopop's translation.)
