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| DKW
231th Post
 
Frequent Customer
    
|  "That Initial D Tokyopop butchering thing"
, posted Thu 10 Jul 22:13
[FYI, this is one of those "Posting here because it has the best chance of actually generating sane responses" threads.]
Okay, I'm sure you all know by now of the nicknames Tokyopop gave to most of the Initial D characters. (Takumi Fujiwara - Tak, Keisuke Takahashi - K.T., etc.) This has generated an almost unbelievable level of apoplectic rage, to use one of the more polite ways of putting it.
I'm not going to get into all the arguments and counterarguments as to the nicknames, mainly because I'd like to keep an OP under ten pages for a change.  There is one thing that I've been curious about since this all began...namely, who ARE these people?
New Initial D readers? I can see how some of them might be a little put off, but not to the point of mindless, screaming rage (unless they thought Tokyopop was racist or something, but that's pretty shaky).
Readers of the original untranslated comic who somehow learned enough English to read the Tokyopop translations (and write about it)? Well, if they can read the original Japanese, what's the problem?
Manga maniacs who feel that the original work was "compromised" or something and vehemently object to this on principle? Good lord, the arguments against Pump It Up: The Premiere made more sense.
Concerned that Shuichi Shigeno is being insulted here? See above comment.
The argument I heard the most often is that Initial D is about "a completely Japanese phenomenon" (or something) and that nobody should make even the slightest attempt to make this appeal to the American comic market. Okay, if this were about say, samurais, or judokas, or salarymen, or a Mt. Fuji tour conductor, I could see it, but c'mon...this is about car racing. A worldwide phenomenon. And don't give me any of that junk about Americans not drifting or racing on mountains or whatever, that's just splitting hairs.
One more thing, and I'm amazed this has never come up...what's wrong with race drivers having nicknames? Ever hear of, oh, The King? Or The Intimidator? How about Ironman, the Flying Dutchman, or Little Al? Or Drift King, for that matter? I don't remember anyone grumbling about how they were unfairly Westernized by catchy, easy-to-remember handles.
homepage - http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff
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| Grave 418th Post
Gold Customer
   
| "Re(1):That Initial D Tokyopop butchering thin" , posted Thu 10 Jul 22:47
Now, I have no problems with the nicknames. They never bothered me, but I haven't read Initial D since volume 3.
What people I know complain about are censoring, and falsification/removal of car details. Apparently the translation team is getting lazy, and they don't bother to translate the specs of cars properly, and for Initial D, that kind of thing is IMPORTANT. As someone who's interested in cars, reading the manga, I want to know these things!
I don't know what was censored, though, and I haven't seen these details portrayed wrongly firsthand, and if I did, I just didn't catch it. But the nicknames seem to be less of what's bothering people, at least, in what I've seen.
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| DarkZero
141th Post
Regular Customer
| "Re(1):That Initial D Tokyopop butchering thin" , posted Thu 10 Jul 22:57
I think a better question is why the names have to be changed. The anime and manga translation industries in the United States have long since gotten past the early '90s era where they felt a bizarre need to fool their customers into thinking that they were buying a home-grown American product full of good old familiar names like "Keith" and "Jason". None of the names are changed in the anime that Cartoon Network airs, which include names like Akira (which they pronounce properly!), Rieko, and Sesshoumaru. Shonen Jump, which I believe is the best-selling manga product in the United States right now, didn't even bother changing "shonen" to "boy/boys'". And none of the names are changed in the manga from ANY other translation company, even in kids' manga like Shonen Jump.
I guess I just don't understand the idea that there should be some justification for not changing a translated work. The opposite question, "Why are you changing it?", is the one that I think should be asked. If you order a meal at a restaurant and they decide to give you something completely different, the relevant question is why it was changed, not why shouldn't it have been. If you're watching a movie and someone picks up the remote and fast forwards through a part of it, the relevant question is why they did that, not why shouldn't they have. Changing all of the names in a manga is a very unusual practice in the manga translation industry right now and it should be up Tokyopop to justify why it was done to our satisfaction, not for us to justify why it shouldn't have been to theirs.
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| Jazzie D 1976th Post
Gold Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
   
    
    
| "My take on this" , posted Fri 11 Jul 10:39
Okay. First off, I will admit that I don't like the series. I still want to give my point on this though.
I can understand why TP would go on and do this. They think it could be the Speed Racer/Mach Go Go of the next generation. That's how I see it.
Do I enjoy this? No. Here's a problem when I said "No." I watched most Initial D in another language: Cantonese. I am not fluent in Cantonese or any other Chinese dialect for that matter. So, I don't know if their names in the Chinese dub are equivalents.
Ususally, I don't like name changes, but then there are cases in which the names do have to be changed for cultural reasons (i.e. DB's Chi Chi's name had to be changed in the Spanish dub). If a name has to be changed, the name has to come close to their translation. (i.e. It's okay for a girl named Yuki being renamed to "Winter" because Yuki means snow in Japanese and a name associated with snow is "Winter". It sounds silly, but it fits. I still don't like the change though.) Catch my drift?
Want changes that made me go a bit ballistic? They're making the tofu place a pizza parlor. Uh, isn't tofu a common food in America or in North America for that matter? If it's not, how will they fix the car then? (I don't know if there were changes in the manga. If you no clue what I'm talking about, the sign on the car reads "Fujiwara Tofu Shop" [w/ "Private vehicle" on the side], but it's not a tofu shop anymore in the dub.)
Name changes: the hot topic. You can keep a name like Shingo, but you can't keep a name like Kouichi? (Kouichi is Iketani's first name for those that don't know.) That, I don't get. Okay, it's easy to pronounce Shingo, but it's only because it has two words we use in every single day conversations: shin and go. Still, I don't get how you can do that. If you're going to change names, change them all. Don't taunt everyone by leaving in one name. This is why I hate the dubs of anime series like Card Captor Sakura and Yuugioh. They keep the original first names of the main characters (Sakura's last name gets changed), but they change the names of their friends/enemies.
The only reason why name changes happen in anime and manga is for marketing reasons. Let me rephrase that. The only reason why bad name changes happen in anime and manga is for marketing reasons. The major trade off here is you gain money, but a series loses its rep. Even if a series doesn't have a good rep from the beginning, it would only make its image worse with name changes.
Like I said, TP wants this to be the next SR. I don't know if this means that cigarettes will be removed. If they left cigs in GTO, there's no reason why cigs should be left out, if they're not going for the SR gig.
Okay. That's my point. Oh and if you're wondering why I don't like it, it has a small target audience, you really can't connect with most of the characters and the overall presentation is a love/hate gig. The only good part about it is the Eurobeat soundtrack.
Takino Tomo-chan - Kimura-sensei why did you become a teacher?
Kimura-sensei - CUZ I LIKE HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS AND STUFF!
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| Gen 1763th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Tokyopop" , posted Fri 11 Jul 12:58
Don't know about angry readers...
But from all I know about Tokyopop they are very hit and miss; lacking in Ruban Studard like consistency (yah I watched some of that show).
Tokyopop has kind of weak roots to me, they were original some zine that tried to combine American rap pop and Japanese animation culture or something like that, I guess they sort of grew out of that. So some stuff they do is really good, but at the same time they have no problem screwing the stiff fans to make stuff more marketable.
Personally I think that over treasuring the customer you don't have, meaning not caring about the customer you already have, isn't the best thing to do - it's a trap that a lot of companies fall in to. They obviously do this to some degree as do several other companies.
When they won some best porting company award at Anime Expo this year, big chunks of the audience were gasping and saying "What!?" and so forth. A few years before there was even more dislike for them, a lot of it from that they released newer, fluffier or less-deep titles compared to the other porting companies. But hey, the other companies probably already snatched up a lot of that stuff and thus limited Tokyopop's pickin's. I guess people have got more used to them like a lot of people who have accepted Microsoft (they're nowhere near MS' dark level) also they've probably picked some newer fans of their own that aren't going to have that attitude.
For a title example showing hit and miss: the Reign the Conqueror DVDs. In general these seemed like good DVDs. They couldn't keep Japanese name "Alexander" but I assume it was legal reasons so I can let that slide. The port seemed good until a few episodes in when they changed voice actors on us. wakala. Some of you who watched the show on Cartoon Network may have noticed this. Tokyopop told Chung that they would hire actors that could mimic the voices of the original English dubbing cast, but that obviously didn't happen. I think if they were going to switch casts, they should have at least dubbed the first few episodes too with the new cast (but left on the original cast too as a DVD track). The set of voices isn't as good as the dub of the first few episodes - Peter recommends watching the first episodes with the original English dub, then switching to the Japanese dub for the rest.
I'm not preaching that you hate Tokyopop or anything, you know. I've preordered the whole Reign series so I can see Mr. Chung & co.'s work, and own an English version of it. And I'm glad it's been brought over.
Tokyopop do have those backwards page books which is nice, but they still mess up now and then on the manga.
So they're not all bad...hit and miss.
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| DKW
233th Post
Frequent Customer
| "Re(1):That Initial D Tokyopop butchering thin" , posted Mon 14 Jul 01:24
Okay, I'm getting most of the arguments, but there are still a couple things I don't understand.
One, obviously, all the quibbling about specs. (I'm assuming that this refers to the "car profiles" they put at the front of each volume, which weren't in the original comic.) Erm...what exactly is the problem? Very few American readers are even going to see one of these cars in real life, and no one with half a brain is going to buy one of these things based on a few snippets of info in a comic. Furthermore, when exactly has anyone mentioned the exact specs in the actual story? Nobody ever says anything more specific than "heavy as a tank", "incredible pick-up", or "180SX with the front clip of a Silvia".
Two, has anyone considered all the tie-in merchandise, including, oh, the arcade game? Although manga may have a limited market (which, nowadays, I find dubious), video games most definitely do not. And guess what...lots of Americans have trouble with those tricky Japanese pronounciations. (C'mon, you expect people who can't get "karate" or "Nagano" right to ever nail down Koichiro Iketani?) Of course, Sega had no obligation whatsoever to follow suit with nicknames...except that they knew as much as Tokyopop that a mainstream, nationwide game with all Japanese names just wasn't a good idea from a marketing standpoint.
Who knows. If there was no video game, or no card game, or no Speed Racer, or speech balloons just a bit wider, maybe Tokyopop wouldn't have gone that route. As it is, I it was maybe a 50/50 decision, but perfectly justifiable.
I thought that "pizza" thing was something they were planning if the anime somehow made it to network TV. Anyone know the status on that?
(P.S.: What the heck's "Western" about Tak? Sounds Korean if you ask me.)
homepage - http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff
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| GekigangerV 558th Post
New Red Carpet Member
| "Re(2):That Initial D Tokyopop butchering thin" , posted Mon 14 Jul 06:30
quote:
Two, has anyone considered all the tie-in merchandise, including, oh, the arcade game? Although manga may have a limited market (which, nowadays, I find dubious), video games most definitely do not. And guess what...lots of Americans have trouble with those tricky Japanese pronounciations. (C'mon, you expect people who can't get "karate" or "Nagano" right to ever nail down Koichiro Iketani?) Of course, Sega had no obligation whatsoever to follow suit with nicknames...except that they knew as much as Tokyopop that a mainstream, nationwide game with all Japanese names just wasn't a good idea from a marketing standpoint.
Who knows. If there was no video game, or no card game, or no Speed Racer, or speech balloons just a bit wider, maybe Tokyopop wouldn't have gone that route. As it is, I it was maybe a 50/50 decision, but perfectly justifiable.
I thought that "pizza" thing was something they were planning if the anime somehow made it to network TV. Anyone know the status on that?
(P.S.: What the heck's "Western" about Tak? Sounds Korean if you ask me.)
I don't know about the pronounciation thing. I think the word Mitsubishi is harder to pronounce than most of the names in ID. And you would think if the voice actors pronounced it right fans would just follow.
Card game?
They could get away with the pizza thing if they make the driving training just the water cup and say he trains while delivering pizza by just trying not to spill water.
I heard that Tak was actaully a popular Japanese-american name, but I haven't heard it.
Don't make me angry you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
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| DarkZero
144th Post
Regular Customer
| "Re(2):That Initial D Tokyopop butchering thin" , posted Mon 14 Jul 12:17
quote:
Two, has anyone considered all the tie-in merchandise, including, oh, the arcade game? Although manga may have a limited market (which, nowadays, I find dubious), video games most definitely do not. And guess what...lots of Americans have trouble with those tricky Japanese pronounciations. (C'mon, you expect people who can't get "karate" or "Nagano" right to ever nail down Koichiro Iketani?) Of course, Sega had no obligation whatsoever to follow suit with nicknames...except that they knew as much as Tokyopop that a mainstream, nationwide game with all Japanese names just wasn't a good idea from a marketing standpoint.
Cartoon Network, as of the last time I checked, is still beating MTV in the ratings for the teenage demographic during the hours that Toonami is on, and Adult Swim dominates the teenage ratings during its time slot, as well. In all of the anime that they play except Dragon Ball Z, which includes anime like Rurouni Kenshin and Kikaider, none of the names are changed and all of them are pronounced correctly. They even pronounce "Akira" correctly, including the "R/L" sound on the "R". In addition to this, Capcom didn't think it would be a bad idea to release a game called "Onimusha", including a version called "Genma Onimusha" for the Xbox, with a hero named "Samonosuke", in the United States and sell tons of copies.
Tokyopop is simply living the 1980s, when companies translating anime felt that they had to hide the fact that the show was Japanese and change it as much as possible to make it more palatable to what they saw as a slack-jawed, xenophobic market of teenage American dumbasses. Cartoon Network, TechTV, a booming manga and anime DVD market, and the success of games like Onimusha have proven that this idea was wrong-headed and that the casual viewers and die-hard fans can enjoy the same unedited, unchanged product. I think it's unfortunate that a lot of longtime anime and manga fans still have that mindset, in spite of the fact that they only have to look up from their tankoubon for two seconds to see that there's a wide acceptance of anime, as well as Japanese culture as a whole, among American teenagers. Japanese anime, edited as little as possible and pronounced as correctly as possible, is more popular than MTV. Takumi doesn't have to be a pizza delivery boy with a girlfriend named Natalie and friends named Iggy and Cole. There's just no reason for it.
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| DKW
234th Post
Frequent Customer
| "Going back to the racism angle..." , posted Mon 14 Jul 14:10
I haven't seen any evidence that Tokyopop is attempting to Americanize the manga. They don't even translate the majority of the writing, which is pretty common practice. And the names of all the important things, like the mountains, towns, streets, and vehicles, are completely intact. If you're going to pick a bone with the anime, I think you have to start with the generous liberties the original anime took with the story and events. Starting with, oh, Tak facing Maya on Usui before the duel with Ry...you know, the one that inspires him to finally seek out a new challenge on another mountain. 
Again, who exactly is driven to apoplectic rages by this (and there are a LOT of them, believe me)? I suppose diehard manga readers with strong ties to Japan would be vehemently opposed on principle, but then why do some of them buy each volume and point out each and every tiny minute blunder (yes, this actually happens)? Shouldn't any kind of change be objectionable without nitpicky arglebargle about the components of a rotary engine or the exact length in centimeters of an S13?
Side issue...why does Sega get off the hook? I've hardly heard any kind of beef about them, and they were completely at liberty to use the original names. They call Kenta Nakamura Danny. Ye gods.
homepage - http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff
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| GekigangerV 559th Post
New Red Carpet Member
| "Re(1):Going back to the racism angle..." , posted Mon 14 Jul 15:33
quote:
If you're going to pick a bone with the anime, I think you have to start with the generous liberties the original anime took with the story and events. Starting with, oh, Tak facing Maya on Usui before the duel with Ry...you know, the one that inspires him to finally seek out a new challenge on another mountain.
I haven't really read much of the manga, I hope I can get my bro to pick it up when he goes to Japan this August, but those kind of changes you have to expect in ANY manga to anime changes. I can't think of one anime that doesn't change one detail. Marmalade Boy takes Yuu to America, Berserk takes out the skull knight, Nadesico takes away Gai differnly. each taking away from an important aspect of the manga I usually think of it as like alternate universe like with the 90's Spider-Man, although not keeping completely awesome the comics storylines, was a kick ass show to me. BTW I thought Ryosuke's nick name was RT?
quote:
Again, who exactly is driven to apoplectic rages by this (and there are a LOT of them, believe me)? I suppose diehard manga readers with strong ties to Japan would be vehemently opposed on principle, but then why do some of them buy each volume and point out each and every tiny minute blunder (yes, this actually happens)? Shouldn't any kind of change be objectionable without nitpicky arglebargle about the components of a rotary engine or the exact length in centimeters of an S13?
I don't visit any Manga/Anime ID boards just initiadarcade.com every other month and stop by gamefaqs arcade stage board. And the people there do thier quick bitching and move on.
[qoute]
Side issue...why does Sega get off the hook? I've hardly heard any kind of beef about them, and they were completely at liberty to use the original names. They call Kenta Nakamura Danny. Ye gods.
Because sega made a kick ass game 
Don't make me angry you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
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