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Bilingual Comics
Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 2:55 am
by awigo50
I've picked up a couple of comics that Kodansha put out in Japanese & English. The selection seems pretty thin though. Any chance that Seven Seas would venture off into this field? Having translations side by side is a great way to learn a language; but getting two copies of a book can be annoying. And holding a pen, writing on a notepad or drinking beer is difficult if you have to hold open two books. I heard rumor that Kodansha stopped publishing the comics because of complaints from the english publishers over lost sales; but this seems less applicable the other way seeing that the manga has already been published and demand has dropped.
Anyway, that's the product of my overactive imagination today. Just think of all the time you'll save by not having to delete all the Japanese lettering!
Re: Bilingual Comics
Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 3:33 am
by Adam_Arnold
awigo50 wrote:I've picked up a couple of comics that Kodansha put out in Japanese & English. The selection seems pretty thin though. Any chance that Seven Seas would venture off into this field? Having translations side by side is a great way to learn a language; but getting two copies of a book can be annoying. And holding a pen, writing on a notepad or drinking beer is difficult if you have to hold open two books. I heard rumor that Kodansha stopped publishing the comics because of complaints from the english publishers over lost sales; but this seems less applicable the other way seeing that the manga has already been published and demand has dropped.
Anyway, that's the product of my overactive imagination today. Just think of all the time you'll save by not having to delete all the Japanese lettering!
Bilingual editions tend to be pretty niche, so it would be difficult for us to really recoup our costs from them.
In addition, the types of translations you find in those bilingual editions have to be very literal, which isn't how most manga is published. Manga publishers translate the material and then tweak/adapt those translations to read well in English, so even books that stay true to the source material are often not direct word-for-word translations as that would make for a very clunky and boring read.