#also cleaned up the blog a bit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skydigiblogs · 4 months

Text

I Kind of Wanna Talk About the Translation of Digimon Liberator

So change of plans, I'm gonna pause before reading chapter 2 and talk about the translation so far. Full disclosure: I have a BFA in English and a lengthy background in Creative Writing. I only have like, a child's level of conversational Japanese under my belt, meanwhile. But our system is really fascinated with translation theory.

This isn't the first time I've talked about translation theory in Digimon on this blog, either (see this post), so if you're a regular, some of this might be familiar territory.

I'll only be talking about official profiles and chapter 1 for now, because I can't keep the thoughts quiet enough to read chapter 2 lmao.

[REALLY REALLY LONG POST BELOW THE CUT, I'M SERIOUS]

Defining Translation Theory

Before I can talk about the translation of Digimon Liberator, I want to briefly explain the concept of translation theory, as it's something I'm fairly interested in exploring through the Digimon franchise.

Translation theory is, essentially, the drive behind how a text is translated from one language to the next. Kind of self explanatory on the surface, it's complicated by the medium of a text, as well as whether certain elements can be cleanly translated from one language to another.

In this conversation, "original language" will refer to the language a text was in prior to translation. For Digimon, that's Japanese. "Host language" will refer to the language a text was translated into. For what I can read, that's English.

Certain mediums lend themselves well to translator's notes. If you've ever picked up a work in translation, this may be a foreword from the translator in books. Those of you familiar with fan subs will know these as those notes that show up on the top of the screen whenever something needs more context to fully convey (such as a linguistic joke or cultural reference).

I'm going to use an example from Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleur du Mal, my go-to on this topic thanks to how many translations there are and the fact that Les Fleur du Mal is a poetry collection. Specifically, i want you to look at "L'Albatross," (literally "The Albatross" in English). These two sites have a lot of translations (and the first site has the original French text available to read as well).

I'm not going to make you read all of the translations, but I do want them to help you understand the different ways translation theory can affect a text in its host language. Scan through a few and it becomes clear that every translator did something at least a little different. With poetry, this is quick to spot, because how a line reads can drastically change how the poem itself lands with an audience.

Generally, a few questions should come to mind when you're reading a translated work. This list isn't every question you should (or could) ask, of course, but these are some of the ones I think of:

Is this translation intended to be a literal (as close to 1:1) translation?

Additionally, is a literal translation even possible, linguistically?

If not, what form of writing is the translator engaging in?

(For example: if the original work has references to culturally distinct idioms, does the translator literally translate those idioms, or do they look for the closest idiom in the host language that conveys a similar meaning?)

The same can be asked of figurative language. What similes, metaphors, and so on are changed to make more sense in the host language, if at all?

What linguistic bias is on display in translation?

(A good example for understanding this would be the translation theory of Emily Wilson, who was the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English. She noticed a bias in the interpretation of language by her male predecessors in the field. More on that in the many articles she's been interviewed for, but I'll highlight the one she wrote for TIME back in 2017.)

And, perhaps, what is lost in the oral quality of a translation?

(Turning back to Baudelaire for a moment, French sounds different from English, on a fundamental level. Will a translator attempt to preserve the meterical qualities of an original work? Oral qualities refer to anything that can be heard when read aloud. Assonance, consonance, rhyme, slant rhyme, etc.. I think this is the easiest example to ponder over what is lost in translation, because it is fundamentally tied to the language itself.)

Okay, We Can Talk About Digimon Again

So, Digimon Liberator (in both forms) is a work in translation from its original language of Japanese. I think I'm not alone in saying that, regarding the comic's translation, everything looked pretty clean, showing an intent on Bandai's part to make sure the comic was legible to a Western audience.

I didn't notice any weird linguistic artifacts in the comic, and I haven't seen anyone complaining about its translation here on tumblr. I'm not talking about the comic, because I think the translation method applied is extremely effective!

Similarly, there are "lore" articles that explain the mechanics of the fictional universe from an in-universe perspective. They're written like promotional guides for players, and I think the style employed there works quite well. Any stiffness in the writing feels expected, because it's an in-universe article, where formality and a bit of reservation should be used.

What I want to talk about specifically is Chapter 1 of the novel. I just got done reading it (about an hour ago at this point since I've been working on this post so long lmfao).

It's obvious to me that a lot of thought is going into how this series is being translated. Similarly, it's obvious that it's not being machine-translated. My biggest examples for this come from two things I've noticed so far:

[ID: A screenshot of the Digimon Liberator official thumbnail for Winr's profile. Winr is a boy with pentagonal, green-framed glasses over his brown eyes. He has a neutral expression on his face. He wears a short sleeved blue and red hoodie with gold honeycomb patterns over a long sleeved yellow dress shirt. On a lanyard around his neck is a black and gold Digimon v-pet.]

This is Winr. Or, for those of you who can read Katakana, this is "Saikyo." I think it's actually "Saikiyo?" My point stands either way. If it's just "Saikyo," it's literally the superlative for "strongest." If it is "Saikiyo," I'm fairly certain it's still meant to evoke the word.

Why am I certain of that? Well, because his name in the host language is "Winr!" Which is a play on the word... well, "winner!"

I doubt a machine translation would be able to make this kind of wordplay, and it evidences to me that there is thought going on behind this translation and its legibility in its host language.

My other example is...

[ID: A screenshot of text that reads: "Please, I'll buy you some cute accessories next time, so please forgive me, Impmon!" "Ha! No way! I won't forgive you until you reflect on what you did!" "But what if it's like…mad cayuute?" "I don't need no darn cute accessories! And what do you mean by mad cayuute? Just say it's 'really cute'!"]

[ID: A screenshot of Japanese text that reads: 「お願い、こんどかわちいアクセサリー買ってあげるからゆるして、インプモン！」「やーだーねー！　今日ばっかりはユウキが反省するまでゆるさねーからな！」「でも“エグい”くらい“かわちい”よ……？」「カワチイアクセサリーなんていらねンだよ！　っていうかなーにがエグいだ！　なにがカワチイだ！　ちゃんと“スゴく”“可愛い”って言え！」]

Okay. Bear with me on this one. My Japanese isn't good enough to be able to read a literal translation on the whole section here, but I was curious about the "mad cayuute?" line in English. That struck me as a "this is something translated from a joke I might not get otherwise" line, especially with that phonetic drawing out of "cute."

Someone who's more fluent in Japanese might be able to help me out, because Impmon's speaking above my expertise LMAO.

In the third line of dialogue in the Japanese version, Yuuki says this word "かわちい" (phonetically, "kawachii"). I think it's interesting to see that it's even couched by quotation marks. I'm not as familiar with Japanese formatting, but it wouldn't surprise me if the use of quotation marks here is to bring attention to the way Yuuki speaks. The same formatting is used with "エグい" (phonetically, "egui") earlier in the line, which does have a literal translation as an adjective (I'm not listing out all the definitions I'm finding because I don't want to get too into the weeds with a language I have very minimal experience with though).

So What Does This Mean?

Like I said, the way the translation is being done suggests to me that there is at least one actual person working on the translation work. I don't know how many people are working on the translation team, as I can't find any credits on the site itself.

That said, I find it refreshing that there is evidence of some thought being put into the translation of the web novel. Now, I don't know what the deal was with Seekers, because I genuinely could not get myself interested in it. As much as I would love to do some comparative analysis of the translation in Liberators versus the translation in Seekers, you cannot convince me to read Seekers. I just don't have the patience.

Now, why do I bring this up?

Well, while I can't compare Liberators to Seekers, I do know some people had issues with the way Seekers was written. I think, reading Liberators, I want to talk about my criticisms with, strictly, the formatting and prose in the host language.

As we saw in the second example above, Japanese and English prose are formatted very differently. Those of you who also read through the Liberator chapters may have noticed that a lot of the dialogue is paragraphed in a way that groups them together. This is my first issue with the translation so far. I don't think Bandai will change the format (and I admit, it's helpful for doing comparative analysis like I did above), but separating out dialogue in English is important for legibility.

So too are dialogue tags, which aren't present in the original language in the same section I highlighted. In the section I used as an example, this isn't an issue, as both Yuuki and Impmon use each other's names in dialogue, marking the back and forth for the reader. But there was an example in chapter 1 that I needed to go back and reread after the paragraph.

(From Chapter 1.2)

[ID: Screenshot of text that reads:

"Anyway, it’s been bothering me. We could chalk it up to a bug, but there's something fishy about the new ability item and cards." “Ah, I agree. It’s kinda bothering me, too. Maybe we should consult Altea next time?" "Eh, I don't really like that Altea."

　The Altea that Yuuki mentioned is a member of the debugging team who supports them behind the scenes. Typically, she works alongside the Digimon Espimon to assist the GMs. Undoubtedly, Altea is the most knowledgeable about the system within their team and a reliable figure indeed.]

I'm not going to dig for the quote in Japanese, if only because I want to focus on the English translation here. If it's a matter of character voice, there's some argument that maybe the translation could have done something to differentiate Yuuki and Impmon here. However, while it would be an additive change, I think that the inclusion of dialogue tags would be the least intrusive means of preventing the kind of confusion I experienced with this section.

Anyone familiar with English prose will know that it's common in the beginning of a dialogue section to denote who's speaking within the first line or two of dialogue, especially with dialogue that does not communicate character on its own. Since it's just two people talking, you only need to show who one of the speakers is.

Ultimately, this is kind of an editing nitpick, and I'm really only bringing it up because I noticed it as an artifact of translation, rather than a sign of bad writing. Honestly, I'd love to learn more about formatting in Japanese novel writing, but that's a deep dive I'm not ready to embark on for a silly little tumblr post I'm writing about my initial thoughts about translation quality in Digimon Liberator. I do want to encourage everyone reading to consider translation theory when they're reading Liberator though, because it plays into the limitations of the medium.

The bigger issues I had with the translation are twofold: tense and syntax.

Tense is going to be easier to discuss here. The easiest way to explain it is thus: tense denotes temporality. "I ate a bagel" means that there is no longer a bagel in my bread box; "I am eating a bagel" means there's not a bagel in my bread box, it's in my hand; "I will eat a bagel" means there's a bagel in my bread box, not in my hand. Really simple explanation, but I want to give the explanation up front so we can look at Liberator's prose.

Let's look at Impmon's introduction.

"Impmon sighed deeply without turning its small, deep purple body toward her. A level 3 Evil Digimon, Impmon is characterized by its two long, clown-like horns, red gloves, and scarf." (1.1)

Notice how between sentences, we shift from "Impmon sighed," to "Impmon is." If the tense was consistent here, it might look like this (editing by me):

"Impmon sighs deeply without turning its small, deep purple body toward her. A level 3 Evil Digimon, Impmon is characterized by its two long, clown-like horns, red gloves, and scarf."

"Impmon sighed deeply without turning its small, deep purple body toward her. A level 3 Evil Digimon, Impmon was characterized by its two long, clown-like horns, red gloves, and scarf."

Tense in a piece generally needs to stay consistent, in the English language. A novel may bend this rule sometimes, but those tend to be in cases where it serves a narrative purpose. Flashbacks are an easy example of using tense to your advantage. Tense denotes time, and determines the forms of words used in a piece. Tense shifting can also be used in other creative applications, but the use in Liberator seems less a creative choice and more, well...

See the next section.

I also want to talk about syntax in the Liberator webnovel. Syntax refers to the way sentences are structured. It's a very broad subject, and the English language allows for some very diverse sentence structures.

I'll use the last example for illustration here, so that you can see what syntax can do to your experience of a piece:

"Impmon sighed deeply without turning its small, deep purple body toward her. A level 3 Evil Digimon, Impmon is characterized by its two long, clown-like horns, red gloves, and scarf." (1.1, original)

"Without turning its small, deep purple body toward her, Impmon sighed deeply. Two long, clown-like horns, red gloves, and scarf characterized the level 3 Evil Digimon, Impmon." (different syntax)

This is an exaggerated edit, but I want to get across how flexible English sentence structures are. Japanese, however, is a highly structured language by comparison, and if you aren't familiar with the syntax of Japanese, it might make you trip a little bit. When translating to English, the order of Japanese sentences is generally Subject-Object-Verb, as opposed to Subject-Verb-Object.

So in Japanese, the sentence "I / eat / a bagel" would be structured "I / a bagel / eat." "I" being the subject (what's doing the action), "a bagel" being the object (the thing being subjected to the action), and "eat" being the verb (the action being done).

(Technically Japanese doesn't have the same kind of particles as English but like. I don't have the technical knowledge of Japanese linguistics to go into it. The structure of Japanese is incredibly cool though, especially from the perspective of someone speaking a language that is a chaotic whirlwind of rules and exceptions.)

I bring this up because, when translating from Japanese to English, this means you have to restructure the sentence you are reading in order to fit general English syntax. That's work! And as we've been trying to illustrate, someone is definitely doing the translation work for Digimon Liberator!

However, one of the pitfalls of literal translations (which Liberator appears to primarily be, regarding its translation theory) is that you sometimes end up with a very dry text in the host language. Let's look at the very next line after Impmon's introduction, for an example.

"Having been with Yuuki since the beta-testing days, Impmon has been communicating with her like this for over half a year. There is no longer any reserve between them, and they're close to inseparable." (1.1)

Compared to later in chapter 1:

"There was no defending such recklessness. What had she been thinking, launching into battle without doing the necessary groundwork? It was her fault. There was no doubt about it." (1.1)

Okay. These two paragraphs have a very different rhythm to them. Do you see it? Diversity in syntax is crucial to momentum in a text, as it acts like grease on the wheels for a reader. The first of these two examples is comprised of two long, "rambly" sentences (for lack of a better word). The second example, in my opinion, shows a better use of syntax (though improvements could be made). It's broken into varied sentence lengths to help maintain movement.

If you want another example, let's circle back to Baudelaire for a second (you remember him from the beginning of this essay?). Poetry is heavily tied to its structure, like we discussed. That structure, like in the Liberator webnovel, is key to the movement of a piece.

I'm unsure to what length the syntax in the webnovel can be attributed to the translator, but distracting, stale syntax can be difficult for some readers to maintain interest in. I'm pushing along because I really like Impmon (and the new line looks sick as hell), but a less-invested reader may find Liberator difficult to follow because of these flaws.

Compared to the comic, which benefits from its visual storytelling (which serves as momentum on its own), the novel has only its prose to fall back on when maintaining readership.

TL;DR Digimon Liberator Needs an English Editor

Hire me Bandai /j

Joking aside, Digimon Liberator's webnovel, in its English translation, reminds me of the kind of shaky prose that a newer writer might produce. As I said in the last section, I'm not sure what role overhead has in maintaining the structure of the translation.

However, I think Digimon Liberator could benefit from an English language editor. Between oddities regarding dialogue tags, tense, and syntax, some readers may not have the patience to sit through this one otherwise. I find that a shame, too, considering the evidence someone is working hard on this translation!

It's not awful. Please don't take this big long essay to mean that's what I'm saying. But I have a BFA in English, like I said at the start, so I'm pretty good at sniffing out the kinds of writing pitfalls that make retaining readership difficult. Hell, it's the same instinct I use when I'm trying to determine what to read (whether that be professionally or unprofessionally published).

Writers tend to struggle with self-editing because they're so familiar with their own work. I'm uncertain if Bandai has an editing team on call for the Liberator novel, but if not, that needs to change. Putting the work of translation (a form of writing in itself) and editing on one person is too much. And if it's a team of translators, they should make sure at least someone is looking out to edit for English style.

#sky talks #digimon #digimon liberator #trying so hard to type with proper capitalization for once because this isn't just a silly little post like my usual #also ironically i am ending this with a conversation about editing but do not have the brain power to edit this whole thing #i may come back to this later to clean up any weird bits but at the end of the day this is a fan blog

6 notes · View notes