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Gegege no Zack Profile picture
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22 Feb, 6 tweets, 2 min read
Caleb Cook, translator of My Hero Academia and soooo many others has been harassed off Twitter by toxic "fans" who were objectively wrong about his translation choices. Caleb has been nothing but a force for good in manga. To all of you who harassed him: Fuck. Off.
Fans could not wish for a better translator than Caleb, in every way. Passionate about the material. Engaged and open with fans. Absolutely skilled in translation. You should have all been wearing Caleb t-shirts instead of nitpicking single words you learned last week.
The idea amongst some "fans" that professional translators are somehow out to actively destroy manga is bonkers beyond belief. Do you really think we go into translation for any reason other than we love it? Like, with all our hearts and souls? That's. Why. We're. Here.
Here is the truth for you: Its takes an immense amount of effort to get good enough at translating that companies are willing to pay you for it. The pay is... minimal. We spend our lives deeply involved with these comics. The reason we do it is passion. We are the UBER FANS.
Just know that no matter how much you love My Hero Academia, Caleb Cook loves it more. I promise you that. And in return for his love, passion, learning, and skill, you took a big shit on his head. Repeatedly. For no reason. So again. Fuck. You.
Gyah, I am pissed off about this. Me inside right now.

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More from @ZackDavisson

Gegege no Zack Profile picture
23 Feb
One of the goofiest things in the 70s was "Pyramid Power." It was this belief that the shape of a pyramid focused magical energies into you, like an antenna. As a kid I totally believed this. Image
People had these glass pyramids you were supposed to meditate in to focus the magic energy. I didn't know what meditation was but I wanted one so badly. Image
Focus those energies over the bed, baby. Yeah! Pyramid power!!! Image
Read 6 tweets
Gegege no Zack Profile picture
21 Feb
One of the key differences in translating manga as opposed to other media is you should be working with the art on the page. Comics are a visual artform, you need to take in the entire scene. Do the words match the visuals? (1)
Do they express the emotions on the face of the characters? How is the lettering? Does it emphasize the words? In comics, if you only focus on the words, then you are missing the entire point of the artform. (2)
A translators job is to translate the emotions of the scene, not only the words. And not only of a specific panel. The entire scene needs to flow together, and the story and characters. Its not about isolated words. (3)
Read 4 tweets
Gegege no Zack Profile picture
8 Dec 20
Translation student asked my advice on onomatopoeia, so sharing it here. Think of what the sound is like to you, then saying it aloud. Really say it. And then try to figure out how to write that. For example, heavy rain. (1)
Does your rain go Shaaaaa or Sheerashh or Patanpatanpatan? Is it Zaarraasshhaaaa? Or Shrrsshshhs? Get inside your head and figure out how that rain sounds. You're not limited by a small vocabulary of existing words. Use your imagination and invent something new. (2)
My personal trick with FX is to write something out and then remove the vowels. So "plop plop plop" becomes "plp plp plp." You can also control tempo. "Plp plp plp plplplplplplplpl" is increasing volume of plps (3)
Read 4 tweets
Gegege no Zack Profile picture
7 Dec 20
Experiment. I head someone say the Twitter algorithm is not racial, but features the smiling person over the non-smiling person. Let's test that.
And here are the pictures in reverse order:
Lets try both smiling and see what happens.
Read 11 tweets
Gegege no Zack Profile picture
6 Dec 20
Arrived safe and sound and can still hardly believe it. A Shigeru Mizuki KITARO and a Go Nagai CUTIE HONEY sketch. Never thought I would have either of these, much less both. ImageImage
The problem with both of these is there are SO MANY forgeries out there. Mizuki's family has actually issued warnings to buyers, saying that almost all "Mizuki sketches" are forgeries. But the provenance of these two are indisputable. Directly from both artists.
Back in the 90s, believe it or not, manga artists made occasional appearances at American comic conventions. Mizuki once in 1993, Nagai a few times. The collector got these sketches from them then. Apparently no one was in Mizuki's line so he could just walk right up...
Read 4 tweets
Gegege no Zack Profile picture
26 Nov 20
Translation discourse: If you leave words in Japanese you should have a VERY FUCKING GOOD REASON. "Ni-chan" and "Ni-ni" and (sorry) "senpai" have no business being left in English. (Again, unless you have a VERY FUCKING GOOD REASON). The default should always be 100% English.
As many have said, manga and anime translation suffers from a legacy of bad translations choices. There was a time that language was used as a bar to clear to enter the fandom; you needed to learn the lingo to enjoy. That time is long gone.
Manga and anime are no longer niche fandoms. They are literally the BEST SELLING COMICS IN THE WORLD. They are being read by people who couldn't care two figs about "fandom." This is Good. This is what we all wanted all along. So past time to raise that bar on translation.
Read 6 tweets

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