Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.
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I think at this point, the best thing to do is to wait and see. The problem is a lot more nuanced than might be apparent.
Over the past couple days, I've made it through the first chapter of ILV's second volume side-by-side with the Japanese. It bugged me that people were talking about giving up the series because of what happened - I don't want anyone to abandon the series just because of a complaint I wrote went viral - so I started this effort hoping to be able to exonerate it. Doing this has given me an appreciation for the work professional translators and their editors do, even beyond what I had previously from the behind-the-scenes approach that J-Novel Club takes.
Removing passages to improve flow is something that happens. Language is complicated. Lines which in the original were clever preambles or witty conclusions might translate into something ramble-y or repetitive. Sometimes a back-and-forth makes no sense because the characters are responding to a bit of wordplay that can't be translated. While a perfect localization might translate these into things that have a similar effect on the reader in the target language as they did in the source language, translators capable of doing that reliably in all cases are rare - doing so takes the skills of both a translator (to understand the original author's intent) and an author (to express that intent in the target language). That's not even getting into concepts that can't be expressed in one language or the other without adding more information, such as with gendered pronouns, honorifics, or pluralization.
All of that is tangential to the kind of corruption of the work being talked about here (where an editor removes a passage of text because they presumably don't like the content), but I hope it provides some context for how hard the problem is to solve. The editor is already removing and editing things to try to make the story more readable. Telling them they're not allowed to delete anything ever for any reason would prevent them from doing their job, and we'd get worse translations as a result.
I think it's wrong to characterize Seven Seas as an unwavering villain here. They're not a large company, in the grand scheme of things. The negative attention this generated is probably the biggest problem the company so far this year, and I can't imagine they're not taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.
So what's a fan of a Seven Seas title (or really, any localized light novel) to do?
If you can read Japanese, read your favorite works in both languages. Not side-by-side playing spot the difference, but see if your impression of the work is significantly different between languages. If you spot any, and are sufficiently certain of the correctness of your analysis, send Seven Seas a polite email alerting them to the discrepancies. If they give you the runaround, share your findings with other fans - but check your work thoroughly first. These things can apparently go viral overnight even from a small forum like ours.
Additionally, if you don't spot any major omissions, I think it'd be good to let other fans of the series know that someone's done the work and that the translation is good. I've read comments from people who are worried about that and feel like they have no way of knowing if they're read a modified work. This also helps reward good work and good corporate behavior instead of being all-stick-no-carrot.
If you can't read Japanese or don't have time to spare, then you have a few options.
- If you don't mind potentially reading a modified work, there's nothing morally wrong with continuing as usual. Ignore the rumors surrounding the company. If one of your favorite works is affected, maybe re-read it after reading the corrections so you can experience the original work, too.
- If you want to avoid reading modified works but don't have any sort of grudge against Seven Seas, talk to fans of series you're interested in and ask them if the 7S translation is any good. Seven Seas translations are going to be subject to more scrutiny than before now, so if there's issues with the official translation, there will be fans who are aware of it and will tell you about it.
- If you have a grudge against Seven Seas and want to see them go out of business, stop reading their products. Don't buy them, but don't pirate them either: It's not good enough for my tastes, so I'm just going to take it without paying for it is a cheap excuse used by grifters and extortionists and people will see through you. Also, don't assume that everyone is in this boat - most people I've read comments from sound like they'd be most comfortable under the second bullet, but most comments from people under this bullet sound like they're making it a moral imperative to punish. You'll make enemies if you push too forcefully.
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To be clear I'm not reading ILV and only heard about it today. I'm concerned about Mushoku Tensei as that's the series I care about. I'm also more worried about the company as a whole and what they license in the future.
Edit: It would help if Seven Seas was honest in their press releases btw. The press releases so far on both the Mushoku Tensei case and ILV case are quite obviously not truthful and knowing how such a thing could happen would be helpful in restoring people's trust. If they hide it in corporate speak then it'll only damage them as people will imagine the worst.
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@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
Removing passages to improve flow is something that happens. Language is complicated. Lines which in the original were clever preambles or witty conclusions might translate into something ramble-y or repetitive. Sometimes a back-and-forth makes no sense because the characters are responding to a bit of wordplay that can't be translated.
On that I'm going to strongly disagree. That is never okay to do in any real translation written for adults. You can't just delete it because you can't figure out how to localize it. At the very least you need to rewrite it into something similar in the language you're translating it to, and also run it by the author to see what the characters were thinking in such a scene to make sure the meaning is carried across. Mushoku Tensei had paragraphs deleted that were descriptions of a scene with nothing to replace it. And they weren't allegorical or anything. They were simply descriptive prose.
Edit: I see you later said what I wrote above is also not okay, but I don't see how you're not contracting your previous statement. I disagree with your statement that editors shouldn't be prevented from deleting things wholesale. I think editors should be disallowed from deleting things wholesale. If it doesn't flow very well for one paragraph occasionally, well then oh well. That's a sacrifice that should be made in the name of retention of original content.
(As to your bullet points, I'm in the #3 camp if policies aren't actually changed and we see this behavior again, but at the same time I'll read it if fan translators take Seven Seas' work and add back in the removed content and release the pirated + fan translation version. If they fix the behavior then I'm in #2 camp and I'll buy it.)
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@mlindner said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
(As to your bullet points, I'm in the #3 camp if policies aren't actually changed and we see this behavior again, but at the same time I'll read it if fan translators take Seven Seas' work and add back in the removed content and release the pirated + fan translation version. If they fix the behavior then I'm in #2 camp and I'll buy it.)
Alright. I understand where you're coming from. What happened to Mushoku Tensei seems a lot worse to me than what happened to ILV, but I'm not familiar enough with that series to really be able to tell.
I don't think there's any reason to assume at this point that there has been a failure to course correct. All of the issues that have been found so far are in titles that were published before this blew up. Charitably, this could all be a strategic blunder where they misunderstood what their customers wanted.
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@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
Removing passages to improve flow is something that happens. Language is complicated. Lines which in the original were clever preambles or witty conclusions might translate into something ramble-y or repetitive
Can you give me an example of 'removing passage to improve flow'? As far as my opinion goes, removing passages should not be justified at all. If anything else, I say this is lazy reason. English Language is vast. You always can find one way or another to improve flow without removing a thing at all.
I think it's wrong to characterize Seven Seas as an unwavering villain here. They're not a large company, in the grand scheme of things. The negative attention this generated is probably the biggest problem the company so far this year, and I can't imagine they're not taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.
This had happened in the past before ILV. And did they improve? Not at all. This same thing happen again and again. All they did was fauxpology which tell by the way 'having changed the way they edit' and ILV was released before they change. That's bullshit and they don't even tell what series are affected by their edit.
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My biggest concern is that for Mushoku Tensei as an example SS only adressed the changes in Volume 1 and 2. There are also changes made in Extra story of Volume 6 to the point of rewriting the whole thing to a different narrativ and in Volume 8 they simply cut several paragraphs worth of internal monologue that cannot be simply explained as "better flow".
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@DragooMind Once again disheartening to see the extent of these, especially the continued insistence of dancing around Paul being a rapist. I think at this point I'd like to see Seven Seas at least work within this series, and Classroom of the Elite (Possible Villainess) and inform us of any changes. Especially since there are physical volumes on the horizon. I'm going to be taking the wait and see approach, but I do believe they owe us that much if they want to be sincere in their claims of change.
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@supera1998 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
Can you give me an example of 'removing passage to improve flow'? As far as my opinion goes, removing passages should not be justified at all. If anything else, I say this is lazy reason. English Language is vast. You always can find one way or another to improve flow without removing a thing at all.
Sure. Before I get to deletions, though, I have one for adding, which is something fans would I assume consider even more egregious, but I think is even more necessary.
Quoted dialog in Japanese literature is almost always obvious who it comes from, because different characters have different voices. Those voices are basically impossible to translate; while characters should have a unique voice in English, too, English isn't a flexible enough language for their voice to come through uniquely in every single thing they say.
As a result of this, we have a construction in English literature where quoted dialog gets broken up by a clause that explains who it's coming from, like: "[Introduction]" [character said], "[rest of quote]." Additionally, English language works get repetitive if we use the same verb "said" over and over again, so the tags here are often varied or some action is added. If a localization team added a verb here and there to compensate for the lack of character voice, I would consider that improving flow.
I believe that there is probably a similar flip-side for where it would be appropriate to remove something, because English makes it obvious when Japanese doesn't - for example, English literature uses uses things like emphasis italics more freely than Japanese does. In a case, for example, that the meaning of an entire sentence could be delivered by italicizing a word in the preceding sentence, I would also consider doing so and deleting the summarized sentence to be "improving flow."
@supera1998 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
This had happened in the past before ILV. And did they improve? Not at all. This same thing happen again and again. All they did was fauxpology which tell by the way 'having changed the way they edit' and ILV was released before they change. That's bullshit and they don't even tell what series are affected by their edit.
This is what I'm pushing back against. The issue that was in ILV was written and published before the issues in CotE and MT were discovered. It was discovered later. Claiming that it's a failure to course correct is a misrepresentation of the timeline.
@DragooMind said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
My biggest concern is that for Mushoku Tensei as an example SS only adressed the changes in Volume 1 and 2. There are also changes made in Extra story of Volume 6 to the point of rewriting the whole thing to a different narrativ and in Volume 8 they simply cut several paragraphs worth of internal monologue that cannot be simply explained as "better flow".
Okay, this is something worth pursuing. These sorts of things definitely go beyond "improving flow" as I discussed it above, and are actually cutting content, which is not what we want as fans. We should make sure that Seven Seas understands that we as customers do not want them to cut content under any circumstances.
Have you reached out to https://sevenseasentertainment.com/about/contact-us/ about this? If they're being contacted about this and are giving non-answers, that could certainly seem like evidence of them not intending to fix it. However, (charitably) they might have just not known the extent of their own damage at the time when they wrote that initial press release.
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@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
Have you reached out to https://sevenseasentertainment.com/about/contact-us/ about this? If they're being contacted about this and are giving non-answers, that could certainly seem like evidence of them not intending to fix it. However, (charitably) they might have just not known the extent of their own damage at the time when they wrote that initial press release.
I used a contact form to send them an email almost a week ago, with no response. I also recieved no response at all when I mailed them before about errors in vol.3 when it first came out (not related to current drama, just mix-up of terminology used in the series) - said errors are still not fixed.
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@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
Have you reached out to https://sevenseasentertainment.com/about/contact-us/ about this? If they're being contacted about this and are giving non-answers, that could certainly seem like evidence of them not intending to fix it. However, (charitably) they might have just not known the extent of their own damage at the time when they wrote that initial press release.
Sent them a note about volume 8 of MT. Will be interesting to see if there's a response or not, because that in itself will tell a few things...
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@Korppi said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
Sent them a note about volume 8 of MT. Will be interesting to see if there's a response or not, because that in itself will tell a few things...
Yes it will.
I want to make it clear that I am not opposed to holding companies accountable for bad customer service. If Seven Seas can only be moved to fix issues by a social media firestorm, then I guess social media firestorms are the way to go.
I just want to make sure we're really in that case first.
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I have contacted them using their contact page and tweeted @gomanga with the same issue + screenshots. When they adressed their changes of volume 1 and 2 on twitter im pretty sure I saw some people mentioning those changes too. For now I will wait and see. But if they dont give any answers about those in the near future im not sure I can really trust them.
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@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
As a result of this, we have a construction in English literature where quoted dialog gets broken up by a clause that explains who it's coming from, like: "[Introduction]" [character said], "[rest of quote]." Additionally, English language works get repetitive if we use the same verb "said" over and over again, so the tags here are often varied or some action is added. If a localization team added a verb here and there to compensate for the lack of character voice, I would consider that improving flow.
I agree removing some repetitive words would have been called improving flow but removing the whole paragraph are entirely different things. In all Seven Seas case, it's later.
@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
I want to make it clear that I am not opposed to holding companies accountable for bad customer service. If Seven Seas can only be moved to fix issues by a social media firestorm, then I guess social media firestorms are the way to go.
If anything else, social media firestorms always worked when forcing company like Seven Seas to fix their issue. They can't afford to lose their public face. Emailing them never work. I highly doubt they would reply to a customer email unless it's related to sales.
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I wanted to chime in to say that Seven Seas receives a lot of messages through our website's contact us form and even though you might not receive a reply to your message, one of Seven Seas' staff does read the emails and forwards the messages on to right team member in each imprint. If there is a correction needing to be made to a book, we keep a log of those and try to get them fixed for reprints. --AA
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@sevenseas Might I suggest you create a forum like this one? Rather than have a ton of individuals emailing you about corrections (many of which might overlap), this way there's an open discussion.
Honestly I feel it's a little awkward to have a thread like this on our forum, but I also know that there isn't any other good alternative place for discussions like this on the internet at the moment, so we aren't going to delete it or anything as long as it stays civil.
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I’m not confident at telling which changes are significant, so I’d like to hear others' opinions on some examples from Bloom Into You light novels.
I’m not fluent in Japanese at all. By all means, correct me on these examples. Or please inform me if these lines are controversial/impede flow.From volume 2:
Original (page 34 of physical edition)
「それを、相手と距離を詰めようとして、前に出て……そうすると、今まで見えていなかった角度から相手を見ることになる。背景も変わるし、隠れていたものも見えてくるし。好きだって感じたものがまるで別の形に見えてくるかもしれない」
以前は燈子にもそんな疑いのような思いを抱いたことがある。でも、それは杞憂だった。
私にとって燈子は、どの角度から見ても綺麗なものだった。
そんなことを確認するように心の中で呟いて、少しだけ満ち足りる。
胸に生まれた美しさは、どんなことがあっても損なわれない。
「でもね、そうして距離が変わっていって……最初がなくなっているのは相手も、向こうも同じなんだってようやく気づいた」
相手だって、位置が変わればこちらを見る目も変わる。Seven Seas (page 35 of physical edition)
“You’re trying to get closer by moving ahead…but when you do that, you see the other person from an angle you hadn’t seen before. The backdrop changes, and things that were hidden before become visible. Even the things you liked about the person might look entirely different.”
But when you changed positions, the other person’s view of you changed, too.my attempt at adding the missing lines
“You’re trying to get closer by moving ahead…but when you do that, you see the other person from an angle you hadn’t seen before. The backdrop changes, and things that were hidden before become visible. Even the things you liked about the person might look entirely different.”
I used to feel that kind of uncertainty towards Touko. But it was needless.
To me, Touko was beautiful from every angle.
I mutter it in my mind to affirm myself, and feel a little satisfied.
Beauty born from the heart will never be tarnished, no matter what.
“But you know, with the distance changing…you finally realize that it’s the same for them, that they also lose what they saw at first.”
When your position changes, the other person’s view of you changes, too.Original (page 35)
足踏みを終えて顔を上げた頃には、彼女たちはとても遠くにいた。
追いつくことも難しいくらい。それこそ、星を見上げるくらいに。
でもそれは、仕方のないことだった。
良いも悪いもなく、自分で選んできたのだから。
誰が後悔を肩代わりしてくれるわけでもない。
後悔があるのなら私が自分の生き方を悲しんで、受け入れて、前を向くしかなかった。
どうにもならないなら、遠くを、ぼんやりと見る。
まだ綺麗なものがそこに見える限り。
「よかったら一緒に、変わってあげて」
燈子がそれを望むなら。
言葉は全てを語らず、遠回りで。どこまで明確に伝わったかは定かじゃない。
でも全部を声に出してしまったら、きっと酷く味気ないものになる。
そういうものを、私たちは共有している。
心は声や文字だけでなく、全身で感受するべきだった。
「はい」Seven Seas (pages 36-37)
By the time I raised my head, they were already far ahead of me.
“Why don’t you change with her?” If that’s what Touko wants. Though I couldn’t say everything I wanted to, I tried to convey it to Koito-san in a roundabout way. I think we understood each other.
“You’re right.”my attempt
By the time I raised my head, they were already far ahead of me.
It’d be so difficult to catch up. It’s like I’m looking up at the stars.
But that was just how things turned out.
Rather than good or bad, it was simply what I had chosen for myself.
It’s not as though someone would shoulder my regrets.
If I had regrets, I would only sadly accept my way of life and face forward.
If nothing can be done about it, I will absentmindedly look into the distance.
As long as I can still see something beautiful there.
“Why don’t you change with her?”
If that’s what Touko wants.
Instead of saying everything I wanted to, I went in a roundabout way. I’m not sure how clearly I conveyed it.
But if I had said everything out loud, it would surely become terribly dull.
That’s how it is between us.
The meaning should have been picked up not just through voice and words, but with the entire body.
“Okay.”From volume 3:
Original (pages 17-18 of book☆walker preview)
友人とお茶を飲み終えて、パラソルの庇護から離れる。
途端、迫りくる輝きが前髪に降りかかった。
「……………………………………」
二十歳と夏が目前の、強い日差しの下。
高校生の頃を空の彼方の出来事みたいに、そして時折昨日のことのように感じながら。
大学二年生になっていた。
「じゃあがんばってね」
「ええ」
がんばらないことを決めた人に応援されるというのも、なんとも妙なものだった。
本当に正門の方へ向かっていく友人と別れて、離れの講義棟に向かおうと人の流れに混ざる。Seven Seas (page 18 of book☆walker preview)
We left the protection of the parasol, the sun beating down upon our heads. The summer of my twentieth year awaited me under that intense sunlight. At times, my high school days felt like a far-off dream, while other times it was like they had just happened yesterday.
I parted from my friend, who really was heading out through the main gate, and then blended into the flow of people going to the lecture building.me
I finish my drink and leave the protection of the parasol with my friend.
Immediately, the radiance fell on my bangs.
“………”
The summer of my twentieth year awaits me under that intense sunlight.
My high school days seem like events beyond the sky, and occasionally feel like they had just happened yesterday.
I was in my second year of university.
“Well, do your best.”
“Right.”
It was strange to be cheered on by someone who had decided that they wouldn’t try so hard.
I parted from my friend, who really was heading out through the main gate, and then blended into the flow of people going to the lecture building.(About the phrase 空の彼方の出来事みたいに, I’m fairly sure it is a reference to 空の彼方みたいに, the title of volume 2 chapter 3. Though omission of parallels might not count as omission of text.)
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Huh, that seems to be a lot, even compared to MT. There wasn't anything missing from volume 1, or did you only check 2&3?
Still, at this pace, makes me wonder how many works are affected that we don't know yet?
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To add to that, I’ve always found Seven Seas to be quite responsive on Twitter as I’ve sent the odd screenshot of a typo their way and usually get a response - but often not for a few days (there was one actually linked in this thread already regarding a couple of wrongly assumed genders, which was pretty understandably without reading ahead since one was a “Demon Lord” and the other was a “Master”).
They’re also going to be a little busier than usual at the moment on the PR/social media front, and on top of that they’re probably going to be triple-checking anything they say. -
Well we now have an official announcement regarding fixing fixing the first two volumes of Mushoku Tensei and vol 7 of classroom of the elite. While this is a promising step in the right direction I do hope Seven Seas commits to fixing the rest of the effected books in their catalogue.
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@eternal-wanderer Yes. This is important. Silence regarding other books doesn't inspire confidence at this point. We don't even know how many books are affected.
(MT vol 8 seems to have major alterations.)
