Production Poll

[ghost]

I personally think that DH is a bit slow when compared to Tokyopop and everyone else. Then, again, it could just be slow because of the rate new ones come out in Japan.

What about you?

[TheMisfitDragon]

I've seen this complaint before and I might have put that they're slow if I hadn't just gotten reacquainted with the series a year ago. I first got interested about five years ago or so but then I went to a different school, had different friends, and my schedule was busy. My sister happened to pick up a copy of Mystery Child last June and over the summer we increased our supply of volumes from four to... a lot more... I've also been getting some of the Japanese ones and using translations so the wait thing hasn't bugged me so much. There's also the question of when I have money. I didn't get DH # 18 until yesterday though it's been out for over a month (at least I had a gift certificate... the funny thing is, I bought I, Robot also, not knowing about the reference that was in The Phantom Racer to the Three Laws of Robotics).

When I think back, it's really silly how much my sister and I have spent.>_- Ah well, I still plan on getting Volume 28 eventually.^^;;

[YukaNewb]

Well, would you say that Dark Horse's translations are as close to the original Japanese writing as they can be? I don't know much about Dark Horse but I know that Tokyopop has been known to sort of screw up more than other manga-to-America companies (from my own experience of course) With Tokyopop, they try to get the translated manga out as soon as possible, but then many mistakes are made thought their rush.

Exhibit A: Sailor Moon manga: so many typos and misspellings so little time to tell about them all. And they got those out in about 2 years or less for all of the 14 volumes.

Exhibit B: Newer manga from Tokyopop has so many "modern" terms in them and over explains stuff in their scripts.

So yeah, Tokyopop isn't my favorite but they have gotten a bit better. But I'll gladly wait 3-4 months to gather up money for my Oh My Goddess-Dark Horse manga anyday over a CardCaptor Sakura-Tokyopop manga. ;D

[Timotheus]

Dark Horse has a high quality translation staff working for them and they put in a lot of time sweating out the best compromises to convert Japanese aliterations, jokes, and cultural references into their English volumes. Studio Proteus took the job quite serious and demanded the time to do it right. Even though studio Proteus has closed, Dark Horse has retained most of its staff so the quality level should remain the same.

They sometimes went overboard in westernizing the text in the past, but they were trying to establish a market in a somewhat parochial society. They've gotten much better about leaving the Japanese flavor in lately.

As for the release schedual, they're actually shooting for one chapter a month, same as Kodansha, but various problems usually make them lose a month every year or so. but it's usually worth the wait.

[Moiraine]

DH is mega slow...if they werent so slow we wouldent need scanslations.
so they better kick into action and increase thier work rate.

[Aragon]

They Do Seem Slow A Little!

[Keiichican]

I agree with what Timotheus was saying about cultural referrences. I am a stickler for keeping true to the meanings,names,personalities of the japanese originals and although the rewriting was always pretty darn good, even though they reword somethings I don't mind as long as it comes across clearly what is meant,but it annoyed me that they changed the japanese cultural referrences to american ones. Now that manga is becoming a pretty large industry in the US the japanese refferences are all staying in with little notes explaining what it means. although the jokes sometimes may be alittle less funny this way, I prefer it much more.

Also I wish DH would speed up their releasing of chapters so we may get closer to the original Japanese versions,but if they had to drop in the current quality level like viz and tp to do so I would prefer it stay as is. I really wish they would simply stop releasingsingle issues and just do a graphic novel every 2-3 months( i know it can't be every month for the pacing),but still I would like to be within a year or two of the japanese volumes,not FIVE 1/2 away!

[Aragon]

I Do Hope They Hurry Up!

[urd]

I think so too, I can't wait so long for it

[Timotheus]

I posted the following on the Dark horse Forum in response to a similar question involving Berserk....

revised 7/12/04

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Dark Horse only has a limited number of translators, and they work on different titles in rotation. It may only take a week or two to translate a given manga, but when they've got five or six series going that's three months right there. And then if there's a question that needs an answer from Japan, that can tack on even more time.

Also, even though they get the manga artwork in ready to print form (and this is just speculation) there will still be a great deal of set-up work to be done before Dark Horse can send it to press - redoing sound effects, reformating and sizing pages and artwork, heck, just putting in the new word ballons and adjusting the panels around them could take a couple weeks. And the artists and techs doing this are also working on several series at the same time so that compounds the time needed.

As much as I'd love to see Oh! My Goddess catch up to Kodansha's releases, I can see why it might not happen. Dark Horse would have to double the price to pay for the extra employees.

And I haven't mentioned the possibility of contractural problems with the Japanese publishers, who may have restrictions on when their titles can be republished overseas.

I believe TokyoPop has achieved it's high turnout rate by outsourcing all its translation work to freelance contractors and pretty much eliminating in house editing and review. This means the quality and accuracy of its works varies from title to title and issue to issue.

I've found that almost always Dark Horse had a good reason for actually changing the story, sometimes because of copywrite problems (i.e. read Earl commanders article), a cultural reference they couldn't take the page space to explain (like mellow, mellow in the anime), or a pun or joke you'd need a degree in Japanese language interpretation to understand (many of these).

All in all, I'm happy with Dark Horse's approach.

(I just wish they'd speed up a little, too.)

[Aragon]

They need to get their ass in gear and pick up the past!

[keiichichan]

^...err..pick up the 'past'? Wouldn't that mean they should go in reverse aka slow down their pace? lol Just busting your chops abit.

[Jimmy C]

I think I know why DH is unlikely to publish any faster than they are now. Money
If you compare the prices for the monthly chapter releases and the GNs, you will realise that the GNs are the almost the same price as the total price of the chapters within them.
If DH wanted to catch up to the Japanese release (to satisfy you fans) they'd have to drop over sixty monthly issues and release them only as GNs to do so. That would mean losing half the income from those 60 chapters. That's a lot of money.
While the Taiwanese publisher was willing to do so, I think DH is more reluctant to let go of that money.

[keiichichan]

^ I agree,but we can dream can't we? I really wish DH would reconsider the single issues. I'm not sure,but don't they lose money by making the single issues too?

[Jimmy C]

How would DH lose money by publishing the chapters in monthly format?