Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.

heimdal7

@sevenseas Thing is this has been going on for years and if was gonna be fixed it should been years ago. So many of them are ones that there is just no excuse for happening.

Take vol 1 of Bloom Into You. When it was announced it was licensed a SS rep actually came on reddit in r/manga and started talking about how committed they are to the series and yuri and how much SS cares about it and will treat it with so much care when translating. Then the vol comes out and literally have the MCs names wrong with names that aren't even in the manga anywhere plus did a spoiler in dialog using something from later in the story that was suppose been a big reveal but instead they said what it was specifically at the beginning in dialog that was suppose only allude there is something not known. There is even a big write up online about all the problems in the Bloom translating and editing of things that were wrong if you look for it. Plus there apparently were issues with the spin off LN to.

Then you have Kuma Bear where characters were switched when things that previously happened in earlier volumes and the current volume was mentioned in the story.

These are just issues that there is no reasonable excuse that can be made for them to happen.

To put it bluntly SS has zero credit in anything they say at this point and gonna take a lot of effort to regain any trust.

The don't make personal attack comment was made while I was typing this though don't think this would count as it is just stating facts and issues that shown up repeatedly and needs a lot more then just PR releases.

Jon Mitchell

my $.02:
SevenSeas could "make this right" with consumers. Offer a ebook of the revised edition(s) to those who email a photo of the barcode/ISBN (yes someone will cheat and borrow someone else's copy and game the system- but for the most part (IMHO) this would help rebuild relationships with readers more than be a sunk cost top SS)

to those that fell slighted that their copies are tainted - congratulations - you now own a collectors item. First editions historically have errors/are in need of revisions that subsequent editions fix.

mlindner

@korppi said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

@macadate Thanks for the info, and the work involved. So the volumes are littered with missing bits but you also found the bigger ones mentioned in vol. 2&3.

No idea how SS is going to fix this mess, assuming they will...

Edit 25/3;
In Elite vol. 5 Seven Seas summarized a big chunk of text into a few lines;
https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassroomOfTheElite/comments/lcong6/we_are_paying_to_the_wrong_translators_official/

Two of my favorite light novels are Skeleton Knight and Reincarnated as a Sword and both are Seven Seas properties. I'd lie if I said I don't feel anguish over it, but so far there's been nothing, knock on wood. Trouble is, does it mean they are translated properly, or no-one's simply gone through and compared them yet?

You should be able to check pretty easily for Reincarnated as a Sword as the notable fan translation is one of the best fan translators out there. If there's any really major differences they should show up really easily. (Assuming it's not a light novel vs web novel difference.)

rsog412

@mlindner said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

(Assuming it's not a light novel vs web novel difference.)

That's the rub - some web novels get published almost verbatim, others get almost completely rewritten during publishing, but I'd say most receive some moderately sized changes. The default assumption should always be that it is a WN->LN difference, IMO. Innocent until proven guilty.

I suppose you could buy the JP version of the LN, and then compare it to the JP version of the WN. Even if you don't speak Japanese, you could see if the letters match.

That sounds like a lot of extra work, though, so I'd recommend finding some fans of the series who speak both languages and asking them for their thoughts.

mlindner

@myskaros said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

@mlindner Please refrain from making personal attacks.

There's no personal attack in that post. I didn't name anyone. It's company criticism.

WaterDweller

@heimdal7 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

Then you have Kuma Bear where characters were switched when things that previously happened in earlier volumes and the current volume was mentioned in the story.

Could you tell me exactly where, and which characters they were? I've read the volumes out so far a couple of times, and can't say I've noticed anything egregious, so if it's there, it could very well be subtle/an oversight.

Note: I've read the fan translated web novel as well, up until the point where the official translation was announced, and while that leaves a period of a year or two between my initial reading of the web novel and reading the official translation, nothing has stood out to me as obviously different, aside from the prose being vastly improved.

@mlindner said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

You should be able to check pretty easily for Reincarnated as a Sword as the notable fan translation is one of the best fan translators out there. If there's any really major differences they should show up really easily. (Assuming it's not a light novel vs web novel difference.)

I followed the Reincarnated as a Sword web novel translation as well up until the official translation was announced, and with the same caveat as with Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear (a long time period between reading the web novel and the official release), I can't say I've noticed any glaring differences or omissions there either. (Edit: Aside from the author adding a lot to a few of the arcs. Edit 2: and Fran now speaking in complete sentences instead of sounding like a caveman, which is the case in the fan translation of the manga as well, so I'm assuming it's a difference between the web novel and the light novel.)

Don't take this as gospel, though. It's only one person's evaluation, and others may have a better memory than me, or pay more attention to details, in which case they could very well have spotted things that might be dealbreakers to them and others.

heimdal7

@waterdweller said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

@heimdal7 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

Then you have Kuma Bear where characters were switched when things that previously happened in earlier volumes and the current volume was mentioned in the story.

Could you tell me exactly where, and which characters they were? I've read the volumes out so far a couple of times, and can't say I've noticed anything egregious, so if it's there, it could very well be subtle/an oversight.

Note: I've read the fan translated web novel as well, up until the point where the official translation was announced, and while that leaves a period of a year or two between my initial reading of the web novel and reading the official translation, nothing has stood out to me as obviously different, aside from the prose being vastly improved.

In the think it was most recent official translated volume

spoiler

Hopefully it has been fixed at least digitally as I informed them right after the volume came out and they responded that they got my email and thanked me for pointing it out.

heimdal7

@darkwolf-psddcyt The volume 1 stuff did in digital and new print batches of vol 1. Though all the other issues remained.

jpwong

@jon-mitchell said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

SevenSeas could "make this right" with consumers. Offer a ebook of the revised edition(s) to those who email a photo of the barcode/ISBN (yes someone will cheat and borrow someone else's copy and game the system- but for the most part (IMHO) this would help rebuild relationships with readers more than be a sunk cost top SS)

I was thinking something like that could work as well, though I was imagining they would need mail in the entire back cover or something like JNC was doing with their print replacement program. Guess it would depend on whether stopping fraud vs actually having to have someone go through all the physical mail they'd be getting.

The main problem I see with that sort of offer is that as far as I can tell, seven seas doesn't have their own in house ebook program like JNC does, so any such program would almost certainly end up being tied to one of their ebook retail partners if it's even possible to work out.

WaterDweller

@heimdal7 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

spoiler

heimdal7

@waterdweller Welp dunno, they were wrong in mine. I read it in one sitting soon it released then notified them of the errors. Thinking about it I might be miss remembering the 2nd one. It might been they did it with the guild master. All I remember is something was with the naming. Wait are you reading when it initially happen or later when they are referencing back to it. ?
Ugh I'm have pull out my copy now.

WaterDweller

@heimdal7 I found the spot, and it was a mistake I had noticed as well now that I think about it.

spoiler

Edit: in other words, you were half-right about the first one, though you probably accidentally skipped the paragraph for the second point.

heimdal7

@waterdweller Ok 2nd one was the finna persective chapter at the end of the book on the third day part I think. Honestly I'm tying remember stuff from when it released and I've got a lousy memory at times.

heimdal7

@waterdweller ok found the email I sent them. I was remembering wrong some the stuff I had sent.

spoiler

WaterDweller

@heimdal7

spoiler

heimdal7

@waterdweller yep I was just remembering wrong who it said it was with the mistake.

WaterDweller

@heimdal7 The question remains whether it was a goof by the translator or a goof by the author. I recall checking similar mistakes previously in the corresponding web novels, and found in at least one of those cases that it was the author who had goofed, though in this case, it's in a side story which is light novel exclusive, so unfortunately I can't check. It's a minor goof, though, in my mind. I've made similar mistakes in my own stories from time to time.

Macadate

@heimdal7

spoiler

I guess when the stage reading of BIY includes any of the details missing in the light novels, another issue will be how well Seven Seas discerns what is and isn't important to adapt.

heimdal7

@macadate Well the digital they did and people said it was fixed in later versions physical versions. I only bought digital. Maybe you just ended up with a older version that didn't get sold. Is there any kind of dates on it?

Its been way to long for me to remember but I think they tried sweeping it under the rug so to speak to some degree. It being a niche market there wasn't that big a voice to call them out on it. This time though they pulled stuff with main stream series and very large fan bases that called them out on it and brought to light what they were doing. Then you got Villainous what for all intent and purposes was direct discriminatory editing with what they removed was about.

Who knows how many other series they done that they pulled this stuff with but the fanbase wasn't as big or invested enough to know the source material or by other means to show they were doing it to those series to.

What I can't get out my head is with the physicals they are making people buy them twice so they are cashing in double on novels that people will now have get a 2nd one with corrections.

BartzBB

@heimdal7
As @jon-mitchell said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:

to those that fell slighted that their copies are tainted - congratulations - you now own a collectors item. First editions historically have errors/are in need of revisions that subsequent editions fix.

The first book is now a rare collector's edition.