Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.
-
@ShipTeaser said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
posting on r/lightnovels gets it visible and seems to work, so that is a good option as well.
Just a heads-up for anyone thinking of doing this. I haven't read r/lightnovels to know what the temperature is. For now, please do not quote my work there. My reddit account is under the same name as my account here, and I don't want a bunch of requests for comment in my inbox if there's an ongoing witch-hunt.
Anyone who wants to is, of course, free to do the same research I did and post their own conclusions, but please leave my name out of it and either do your own translation or use a WN fan-translations if you do. (The JP is, as far as I can tell, identical to the WN)
-
@ShipTeaser Two complete different situations, but human pattern-recognition is going to make patterns I guess. I would usually suggest that it takes three things to make a pattern.
And again, I remind you we do not know if they made the change or the manuscript they received was changed before they received it.
In either case, a politely worded letter is far more likely to bring change than any rant on any forum in the history of forever. Rants have a habit of festering and causing bad feeling, which leads to more anger. I'd like to see the passage restored, too. So let's focus on asking directly, politely for that change.
Cheers,
Erica
-
Let's please not escalate any further, especially not against each other.
Just popping in to highlight this point, the conversation in this topic has remained largely civil, and at the end of the day lively debate can be an overall good.
Let's keep it all on point, that point being the main purpose of this topic, and not beyond that.
Thank you,
-
@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
I noticed something odd when a piece I remembered from a translation of the WN for 私の推しは悪役令嬢 didn't show up in the Seven Seas translation of the LN (I'm In Love With the Villainess). It stuck in my head because it was a particularly powerful scene and I felt like the LN's characterization of Rei made her sound like she was unrepentant in her harassment.
Before everyone goes off the deep end, you shouldn't compare the Japanese WN to the English LN when looking for content that's been removed. The Japanese LN may have removed those sections in their editing process in which case there should be no expectation that it would be in the English release.
-
@jpwong said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
Before everyone goes off the deep end, you shouldn't compare the Japanese WN to the English LN when looking for content that's been removed. The Japanese LN may have removed those sections in their editing process in which case there should be no expectation that it would be in the English release.
Exactly!
We just cannot know what Seven Seas received. They may well have translated exactly what they were given.
-
@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
Turns out, that scene appears in full in the LN exactly as it did in the WN
Given 7S 'history', unless there is an official statement given by GL Bunko, this was a move by 7S. I will not come up with a convenient excuse for them.
-
@OkazuYuri said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
We just cannot know what Seven Seas received. They may well have translated exactly what they were given.
We assume 7S received the same text as in japanese books that currently are being sold, unless proven otherwise. Because that's an additional editor's work and it costs money.
-
@Khaos I did see that, but I was making a more general statement that using the WN as a reference is fine, but unless someone has the actual Japanese LN, they shouldn't frame something as being missing from the English version based purely on the WN version.
Otherwise (just as an example) someone could scream at how JNC was censoring bookworm because POV chapters have been removed when in fact we know they were rearranged and edited for the LN release and do not appear at the same spots they did in the WN version of the story.
-
@OkazuYuri well Mushoku Tensei, and Classroom of the Elite. multiple.volumes of each in fact. There's your two extra instances. You are entitled to defend Seven Seas all you like but the odds do not favour your interpretation so excuse me if I believe in the most likely scenario.
of course if they have to redo a load more volumes due to issues like this it's bad for us all as they might decide light novels aren't worth the cost and hassle but at the end of the day if they make bad decisions to remove stuff that changes character interpretation a over multiple series it is indefensible and not likely to be accidental or due to circumstances.
It also seems so very needless for them to do so, I really cannot fathom their decision making process as a lot of their Ghost Ship manga has way worse and actually pictorial stuff than what has been cut from text volumes. I expect from now on though if they persist with Light Novels they'll be.more careful not to cut out character beats for no valid reason so.maybe things will be better...
-
@jpwong said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
I noticed something odd when a piece I remembered from a translation of the WN for 私の推しは悪役令嬢 didn't show up in the Seven Seas translation of the LN (I'm In Love With the Villainess). It stuck in my head because it was a particularly powerful scene and I felt like the LN's characterization of Rei made her sound like she was unrepentant in her harassment.
Before everyone goes off the deep end, you shouldn't compare the Japanese WN to the English LN when looking for content that's been removed. The Japanese LN may have removed those sections in their editing process in which case there should be no expectation that it would be in the English release.
I did see that, but I was making a more general statement that using the WN as a reference is fine, but unless someone has the actual Japanese LN, they shouldn't frame something as being missing from the English version based purely on the WN version.
I understand and agree, as most probably will. The only reason I replied is because rsog412 did not do this but your quote of their post strongly implies the opposite. While maybe the differences from the WN was the origin of their curiosity, rsog412 then did confirm the text in the JP LN, to insure it was not a WN > LN omission.
But then as of right now I am taking rsog's word for it (confirming of the JP LN text) as I haven't looked it up myself. But seems like a safe bet, unless they are just completely trolling.
-
Hmmm something interesting seems to happen on Reddit. Seems that posts regarding this get strange downvotes in troves after some time. A rogue who thinks something bad about this (and this is a literal transltion so sorry if this is not the right phrase in english).
But then again as some seem to mention that it was not Seven Seas who did this (like @OkazuYuri ). I assume when Seven Seas gives statements about this putting the blame on the editor (which seems the most likely case) and the translators mention that they translated this the right way and it was changed afterwards, then the idea of them getting another script from the japanese publisher seems a little far fetched.
Oh and as I also see comments on Reddit about changes in Skeleton Knight, refering to it being mentioned in this thread. Sorry but without evidence I am a little sceptical. The one who posted it here doesn't even say what was changed. Even after being asked about it. So my advice would be to wait for any proof of this before posting this elsewhere. The discussions only get more heated with this. I for my part don't like kicking people that are on the ground. Even though it is easy to believe after those changes in the other books that there are more mistranslations out there in other novels.
-
I'll also ask people not to use fan translations; I personally don't trust them as I've seen several instances of "translators" using a garbage MTL "translation" and "editing" it by fixing the broken English to get the core meaning and then embellishing it to replace the lost detail. When I first saw the Classroom of the Elite comparisons I was initially mistrustful since it was only comparing to the fan translation; it wasn't until I personally checked volume 7 against the Japanese LN that I was satisfied that Seven Seas wasn't simply trying to placate upset, misinformed fans with empty words but actually was acknowledging a serious error on their part. The Mushoku Tensei comparison OTOH included excepts from the Japanese LN so I trusted it immediately despite Seven Seas'... initial reluctance to address it honestly.
-
@Khaos said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
But then as of right now I am taking rsog's word for it (confirming of the JP LN text) as I haven't looked it up myself. But seems like a safe bet, unless they are just completely trolling.
@Gamen said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
I'll also ask people not to use fan translations; I personally don't trust them as I've seen several instances of "translators" using a garbage MTL "translation" and "editing" it by fixing the broken English to get the core meaning and then embellishing it to replace the lost detail.
Absolutely agreed on both points. I'd love it if someone could check my work, for a couple of reasons. The first is that if someone were to accuse me of trolling right now, it'd be my word against theirs and that's not a great look. The second is that the odds that I've mistranslated something in that passage is basically 100%. While I didn't use MTL, I did spend over an hour with a dictionary and my interpretation was probably affected by the fan translation I'd read before because my Japanese really isn't that good.
The larger of the two passages in question starts around 1791/6051 in the Kindle edition. The other one is a bit before that.
Regarding the rest of this thread: For now, I'd like to stick to fact-finding. This isn't a good look for Seven Seas and it does fit the pattern of the other two (a few highly charged paragraphs were omitted) but we shouldn't immediately assume that this was done by the same people or for the same reasons. In the other cases, we have statements from Seven Seas PR folks as well as from the translators who provided the initial translation, etc. etc. - this is new so we don't have that yet here. It's possible that this was an ordinary gap in quality control or, as others have pointed out, that GL Bunko sent Seven Seas a sanitized version to begin with.
Yes, it's more likely that it wasn't, but we don't have to believe anything yet. The right answer exists and we can go look for it. That starts by me (and possibly others, but I'd prefer if people did so only after verifying the omission for themselves) writing Seven Seas a polite letter.
A word of caution to everyone: before bandwagoning, verify. If you go out and start making noise about this without confirming my claims, you'll be adding to Seven Seas PR problems based on something someone posted under an alias on a forum run by what is arguably one of Seven Seas' competitors. I don't think that's a good look for you, for me, or for J-Novel Club.
-
Having reviewed what everybody has said, I think my revised position on this will henceforth be that I will continue to check out the series I am really interested in but keep an ear to the ground and try to keep well informed but try not to get swept up in the heated discussion when it involves a series I am really invested in. My hope is that this will be better addressed/dealt with in the future.
As long as there is clear information out there (never a sure bet but there we go) I think we can stay abreast of the issue
-
@rsog412 said in Seven Seas in Trouble for Heavy alterations and censorship of light novels.:
Absolutely agreed on both points. I'd love it if someone could check my work, for a couple of reasons. The first is that if someone were to accuse me of trolling right now, it'd be my word against theirs and that's not a great look. The second is that the odds that I've mistranslated something in that passage is basically 100%. While I didn't use MTL, I did spend over an hour with a dictionary and my interpretation was probably affected by the fan translation I'd read before because my Japanese really isn't that good.
Yeah, there's a few problems, like 同性愛を売りにする芸能人のような振る舞い is just "behaving like those performers who made homosexuality a gimmick"; nothing about exaggeration or characters, and continuing 私自身がしているようなものである might be like "is like what I myself am doing"...
But the point stands that it's not something that should have been cut down to "overstepping boundaries", and same with the other edit.
-
Aye. I guess getting extra confirmation would be handy. As I've said before ideally we don't want Seven Seas to bin off Light Novels as to much trouble...
It's a shame we are having to worry about this stuff though...
-
This whole mess has now reached the original author of I'm in Love with the Villainess. I'm kinda surprised she wasn't more upset, I know I would be if I was in their shoes.
-
@Eternal-Wanderer from what I understand of her response, it seems that her position is "there must have been a reason, and I believe it must have been a good reason".
So maybe that why she wasn't more upset
-
@Eternal-Wanderer She's probably upset that now people will be bothering her about this when she personally can't do anything about it either way.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
-
@myskaros Yeah, I can see how that would be a problem.
