Forum:Attitude toward official sources on this wiki

Original Topic
I am a big Bleach fan, and I am really pleased that this wiki is extensive as it is. However, the precedence I see being given to fan scanlations over official translations is a little troubling. While I personally don't like, for example, the romanization "Visored" that is none the less the official romanization of the world, whether I like it or not, and I definitely think that in cases where the official and fan interpretation of word differ, we should mention both but precedence should be given to the official interpretation. Only in cases like "Shinigami" versus "Soul Reaper" do I think it's generally okay to keep the generally accepted term, but only because the term has been left untranslated altogether---using "shinigami" over "soul reaper" is fine, but using "death god" over "soul reaper" is not.

Basically, adhering to fan-made scanlations, which I admit I read and imagine most of us here do, over the official translation makes the whole wiki look like reference for fanon rather than canon information of Bleach. Which hurts the creditability of the endeavor itself. I imagine this will be a very unpopular opinion, but I still think that Bleach Wiki should move away from this practice.

We adhere to the original Japanese. Dubing, even Viz translations do not just do a straight translation they also to cultural translation and that introduces inaccuracies. For example, because the Viz translation has everybody refer to everybody else by their first name with only occasionally has someone refer to as Ms or Mr - it does in fact take away from the story. Use of honorifics and the type of honorifics does say something about the intimacy or the lack their off between characters, as well as saying something about the characters general respect level. This is lost when Viz drops the -sama, -san, -chan because it might confuse their audience and one of the reasons I feel ripped off every time I buy a Viz volume because I have to mentally put the honorifics back in when I am reading the story. So, NO, I cannot support Viz translations or dubbings over the original Japanese. Tinni 05:32, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

I generally don't object to what your mentioning. Where there are matters specific to Japanese culture, I would agree that it is best to use the original Japanese as the primary text. I am more concerned with Bleach specific terminology and naming, which can often be obscure even for someone who has studied Japanese. In cases where a technique or an item is not simply given as is in Japanese, if we prefer an unofficial to an official translation of the meaning, we are preferring the interpretation of someone whose has no credentials we can be sure of and no connection to actual author over someone who has credentials and at least a potential connection to the author. If you think I am being unfair to scanlators, I can only give this example: http://manga.bleachexile.com/bleach-chapter-66-page-19.html to show that scanlations are to be treated with at least more distrust on such matters than I see here. Daisekihan 05:55, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

Thus, "Soul Reaper" is not the translation of "Shinigami" but its transliteration in the case of Bleach, eventually for the Shinigami's duty which is ripping souls. No matter what, in Japanese "Shinigami" means literally "God of Death" (example: Hades). Anyway, in Bleach "Soul Reaper" appellation would be the most precise. In so many cases, even the official translations were far to be accurate, as well as Tite Kubo who took some liberty to translate in English from Japanese without following the English or Japanese academic translation rules decided by the two countries' Ministry of Education. Of course, he is the only who could decide the naming of his characters, but the translators job would be harder too. For example: TK translated ノイトラ (Noitora) in Nnoitra, but the double N (Nn) doesn't exist in Japanese, without talking about some translation of Grimmjow jaguaerjacquez or jaguarjacque or else...Ace of Spade 09:44, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

Ok the question of translation or rather the translation source Bleach wiki uses has been brought up again in Talk:Shunsui_Kyōraku. Perhaps it is time for an official policy on translation that explains which translation is used and what weight is put on Viz translation. That seems to be contentious issue here. At the same time, perhaps some mention can be made regarding the weight placed on dialogue coming from dubbed episodes too. Tinni 17:06, November 25, 2009 (UTC)

Evaluation of Translated Sources
I thought I would start putting information on the various translation sources for Bleach. I encourage everybody to share what they know about the scanlators and stuff. I will add more when I have time. Tinni 11:49, November 26, 2009 (UTC)

Manga-Rain: Manga-Rain is generally considered good, however, they translate from Chinese to English. Not Japanese to English. As a result they have been known to do some strange things with translations.

Manga7: Seems to be the fore-runners of Maximum 7 and has an affiliation with Bleach 7. However, the quality seems to be indifferent.

Maximum 7: Generally considered good but has been known to produce confusing translation and some have been blatantly wrong.

Ju-ni: Generally considered one of the best translations out there.

Viz: Does an adaptive translation, that does americanize certain dialogue. In addition, has produced totally incoherent dialogue, has their own terminology for many things.

Sleepyfans: Usually the fasts but not necessarily the most accurate. They too omit Japanese suffixes.