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

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.

Wellwisher

To be honest, I find it baffling how a lot of people in this topic doubled down in their accusations once Seven Seas representative appeared. Hey, we finally got some of the answers we wanted, and we had an actual working channel of communication.
Situations like this really show why companies don't usually interact much in social media, if at all.

Gamen

@wellwisher Well, "there was not one singular cause for the issues" is a nice way of saying that they've got multiple issues, not just a simple-to-change censorship policy or a rogue editor or something. It's a warning that they're not going to have an easy time fixing their process problems and even after that mistakes will continue to be made.

I mean, other than confirmation of that what would you want from a representative in this thread? It's not like they're going to run down the specific decision that resulted in a particular editorial change and expose it to us here, or open up corrections threads for their novels in JNC's forums...

Personally I'm conflicted because I while I detest censorship I also believe translations are independent works themselves and not a substitute for the original any more (or less) than an anime or comic adaptation... And it is Seven Sea's translation, so they're free to change their story as they wish. And with MT they were consistent in their changes to Paul and Lilia's past, so I give them credit for that.

To me the problem isn't that they "censored" their own translations, but that by a lie of omission (and by putting the original author's name on the cover) they represented their translations as being faithful to the original work when they were really "formatted to fit this screen and edited for content", playing into the misconception that translations are somehow the words of the original author but magically changed into another language using a Babel fish or some isekai cheat power instead of being a particularly detail-oriented retelling by the translator...

...it's the same misconception that leads people to think that Google Translate can MTL a novel into English and it just needs a little editing to make it readable.

Edit: Though I suppose I have to acknowledge that since I'm at least passably literate in Japanese for me Seven Seas is not the gatekeeper to these works but merely a gateway.

Shiny

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

I mean, other than confirmation of that what would you want from a representative in this thread?

Good question. I think the following would be appropriate practical remedies for existing titles:

For digital editions, provide updates to all effected titles and let people know which titles these are so they can get the updates.
For print editions, fix for future printings and provide online errata to list any significant changes or omissions for those who already have a printed editions.

For future titles, I would expect them to take appropriate corrective measures based on the issues identified by their analysis of what went wrong. This could, for example, include:

Providing the translator with a 'track changes' copy of what was changed by the editor to see if they had any concerns to flag up to a more senior editor (a suggestion from earlier in this thread).
Ensuring translators are given appropriate instructions regarding the need to be faithful in translation and to flag up anything which could be controversial if it came to light.
Having a clear contact point for concerns that people have with translation decisions and a process for assessing them.

Gamen

@shiny Interesting, but I don't see why you replied to me; the operative phrase was in this thread. On JNC's forums.

I'd say more, but I hold at least three contradicting opinions on the subject >.>

Shiny

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

@shiny Interesting, but I don't see why you replied to me; the operative phrase was in this thread. On JNC's forums.

It's possible I misunderstood your post. You raised the question "...what would you want from a representative in this thread?" so I explained the actions I would like the representative to help get adopted as policy and then report back as such in this thread (and elsewhere). I made the comment here because I know there is a Seven Seas representative here, and because your raising the question was here.

Gamen

@shiny No, sounds like you understood me correctly; just a failure of imagination on my part. I'd never think of trying to co-opt a company representative in one of their competitor's forums.

x014

@wellwisher
I suppose it's because there isn't much being done to assuage the concerns that people have. Like has been said, there's an almost odd dance around culpability too. So it's almost certain that while issues keep cropping up and Seven Seas remain relatively silent on most fronts (Have they addressed the COTE vol5 and vol7.5 issues yet?) Especially since as I've said before vol 7.5 has just been released in print, what can they do to assure me that this is either a novel with issues and I should hold my purchase back, or go ahead with buying it. It's all the confusion and unknown that causes the unfavorable reaction here.

And while I certainly wouldn't expect them to react or give an official statement on another publisher's forums, there.. hasn't been an official statement as such. It's just been social media replies and reaching out to various channels who reach out to them. It really needs to stop being reactionary. They should prepare a statement, that can be seen on their own website that will list the issue at hand and what they're doing in some detail to address it.

jpwong

@shiny The only thing I thought was weird was that what you listed likely isn't possible for whoever is behind the account to personally implement and see it done (so is probably not something the rep can actually do), but in terms of asking them to pass it along as feedback to whoever will be handling all this it's perfectly constructive.

For the first part it's probably the best anyone can reasonably expect to be done, similar to how JNC (I believe) has the text available on the site somewhere for anyone who missed their print replacement program for the book that was printed incomplete.

Shiny

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

@shiny No, sounds like you understood me correctly; just a failure of imagination on my part. I'd never think of trying to co-opt a company representative in one of their competitor's forums.

While @sevenseas are competitors with JNC when it comes to trying to obtaining a license, once they have that license Seven Seas have a monopoly over that title. It is important to the LN industry for there to be consumer confidence that LN publishers will not abuse that monopoly as many consumers will judge the industry based on the practices of the worst offenders. Some people may divert their purchases from Seven Seas to other publishers, but of danger to the industry are those who might stop buying LNs altogether (or who might be put off from ever starting to buy them).

I expect that the userbase for light novels outside Japan is primarily those who enjoy anime, and there are many people who enjoy anime who would enjoy LNs but not all of those people actually buy LNs. The success of every publisher in the light novel industry helps to maintain and grow interest in LNs. As such, the behaviour of Seven Seas impacts upon the reputation (and therefore customer base) of the whole LN industry.

Sam Pinansky said back in 2016 that: "The overall purpose of J-Novel Club is to create and grow a worldwide market for Japanese light novels translated into English" and that one way he would help achieve that could would be to provide a "forum to foster discussion and community building". In that spirit, I think that using the forum to discuss how Seven Seas can help regain consumer confidence in commercial light novel translations is quite fitting.

Gamen

@shiny Yeah, I don't know the market well enough to make any useful speculation; in a sane world the minor edits that Seven Seas made wouldn't merit much comment - so many little nuances are lost in translation in the first place, what's a few more? As long as the translation stands on its own as a story, I don't see a problem with the process itself.

Now, as I've already said I see representing the translation as the words of the original author as problematic - especially when changes are done without the intent of preserving the author's voice - but that's an industry-wide "problem" where I feel like I'm in a very small minority in seeing it that way. And I agree that some of the editorial decisions imply a certain lack of respect for the audience and the original author, and a betrayal of the fantasy that translation can perfectly reproduce the original story in English, and a reluctance to preserve the original story with all its flaws.

But I can't claim to have been particularly upset when I learned about the changes; more like an exasperated "I don't think you really had to do that...", and I don't plan on not continuing to buy Seven Seas' translations; I never had any trust they could deliver a perfect translation in the first place, only one better executed than an amateur (or worse, someone armed with only Google Translate and a thesaurus). ...Of course, I mostly detest anime so that's another way in which I'm an outlier. ...really not sure how one could enjoy anime adaptations and be worried about literal translations; they usually fail at both being faithful adaptations and standing on their own.

As for the forum aspect... I don't know; it felt like I was a guest in someone's home, and the host had their friend over, and another guest started pestering and harassing the friend. It just makes me vicariously cringe in embarrassment. ...but then had I been the 7S rep, I never would have injected myself into the thread in the first place so there's that.

Microdynames

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

an actual working channel of communication.

Working is a generous way to put it. I wouldn't place too much expectation on having real communication with the 7SE representative in this thread. It's not like JNC where Sam/Quarkboy can just saunter in over the heads of the community managers and speak frankly with his executive powers. Anything the 7SE rep writes beyond the canned pre-approved messages would likely have to go through seven middle managers and three committees in a fifty reply long email chain during which it would be stripped of all real meaning.

And yeah, that's likely also part of why other companies don't really engage in social media that much. The bigger the business grows, the further the person who handles the social media gets from the person who actually has the ability to give the answers and effect the changes that social media wants, and the more such social media engagement just causes more trouble than it's worth as every interaction turns into unavoidable stonewalling. It's been a long time since Sam personally managed the company twitter and Curiouscat.

unsynchedcheese

@microdynames The issue is we don't actually know if this is the case.

As in, we don't know if the Seven Seas representative is speaking (or posting) in their own capacity as an individual who happens to have some insight on the inner workings of the company, or if their every post has been vetted thoroughly by the PR department at Seven Seas to properly convey the official stance of the company.

Because if the posts are indeed vetted and pre-approved, that means the posts have weight as what Seven Seas intends to communicate. Which means we can analyze and pick it apart as much as we want, because presumably every word and nuance has already been considered by Seven Seas as a company to serve as an official press release.

However, if the posts are by Just Some Person who hasn't gone through strict scrutiny by the PR department, then we must be more lenient and forgiving, because maybe they can mis-speak or are unaware of the specifics of a developing situation, so we must allow them to correct themselves or clarify their meaning, rather than pin interpretations on every word.