Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody Vol 23
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Anybody else read this latest volume yet? What the hell happened to the translation/editing quality? It's so bad that I'm not even willing or able to post a review. There are parts of the story that I honestly can't follow. What a disappointment.
I started a reddit thread last week, where some of the worst examples were raised and discussed. The list is hardly exhaustive. And more than just the obvious errors, the volume has an overall lack of polish - it desperately needs a few rounds of editing.
Why does Yen Press release the digital and print editions at the same time? At least if they released the digital version a couple months early, it would be relatively easy to fix any errors in time for the print release. But now, I wonder if they will bother fixing this at all. I really hope they do, though. I can honestly say that I am unwilling to continue with this series if this is what I have to look forward to. It's just not palatable in it's current form.
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I think you underestimate the time gap required to fix errors in the print release (especially since you can't actually assume people submitting corrections know what they're talking about, and have to double check them). Realistically they should be relying upon paid proofreaders (since that's a position they do advertise for from time to time) instead of volunteer corrections from their customers.
Yen Press' QA process has failed Death March many times (them changing Arissa and Lulu to being affected by a Geist instead of a Geis was horrendous), but yeah this one was a noticeable let down even for that.
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@GeorgeMTO I'll admit that I don't have a good grasp of how long each step in the process takes. I imagine that the final version has to be in several months prior to the release date to account for printing and distribution.
That said, I'm only suggesting that the digital version is easier to fix before the publisher has committed it to thousands of physical copies. Releasing it early can act as a canary to alert the published that something catastrophic has occurred (as was the case this time), so that emergency fixes can be made before it's too late. I agree that reader feedback could never replace professional translation or editing.
While I've certainly found errors in Death March volumes before, it's never impacted my ability to follow the story. Some of the translation/editing artifacts in this volume are so bizarre that I'm suspecting they used some LLM for parts of it.
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When I commented about it on reddit, I heard they'd changed the translator. I guess they didn't want to pay for quality anymore. I also suspect MTL. (At one point, a character was called a young man, then a young woman in the very next sentence.)
I also left a 1-star review on Amazon, but I wonder if anyone relevant will see it, or care. It's still noted 4.4/5.
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@Almond-Magnum said in Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody Vol 23:
I heard they'd changed the translator.
I know they changed the translator for this volume, but I don't know the circumstances. If it was truly just to save money then that really bothers me. And it might not even wind up saving much money if they have to reprint, or if they lose customers (they're about to lose me if they don't do something).
I wonder who's giving the novel 4 and 5 star reviews? I didn't think to 1-star an Amazon review, but I've been submitting error reports on Kindle and tried reaching YP through email. I have yet to hear back though.
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Yeah they constantly use the wrong name, get Mia's forest wrong and lots more. It was very, very jarring alas
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That makes me glad I hadn’t ordered yet, but part of me is wondering if I should just to leave a 1-star review.
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@grobinson2k1 I'd support any response that might prompt Yen Press to fix things. If we just boycott, they might think the series has lost popularity, which is not the case! But I'm not sure what else we can do.
I know that JNC is fairly responsive to errors submitted post-release, and that they are constantly updating their library with fixes (the JNC site shows me which volumes have been updated since I last downloaded them). I have no such insight into YP.
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@unknownmat People give JNC books 1-star reviews when Amazon fails to deliver the full ebook file, which is not even our fault :x
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@myskaros In other words, 1-star reviews* are not a great way to reach the publisher either. Darn. I'm just not sure if we're making a big enough stink that the publisher will even notice or care. My Reddit thread has only about 3.6K views, 20 upvotes, and about a dozen participants. From a publisher's perspective that's hardly anybody, I would imagine. Also, somebody's going to find something to complain about no matter what they do, so what makes this any different?
* In defense of Amazon buyers there are several aspects that come together to form a single experience of which the content of the work is only a single dimension. It's always funny when I see readers leaving reviews for classic books - "The bible was an OK book. Interesting plot but I struggled to relate to the characters." - so I mostly assume that they are reviewing the specific edition rather than the work as a whole.
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@unknownmat The intent behind leaving that comment was "if people are doing crazy stuff like that anyway, you're at least commenting on the content of the book, so you should feel free to leave 1-star reviews too!"
The issue here is that 23 volumes into a series, a bad review is unlikely to do too much to deter buyers. Either you're a fan of the series and will get it regardless of reviews, or you're going to look for volume 1 first. However, we at JNC do check reviews to see if there are technical problems such as books not being delivered properly to customers to ensure we're not doing something wrong on our end, so I wouldn't say it's useless. I can't speak for any other publishers, though.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros said in Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody Vol 23:
The issue here is that 23 volumes into a series, a bad review is unlikely to do too much to deter buyers. Either you're a fan of the series and will get it regardless of reviews, or you're going to look for volume 1 first.
True. A WN I was reading switched to absolutely shitty MTL with minimal editing after 2000+ chapters, and I still finished it.
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@myskaros Got it. Thanks for clarifying. I did leave a 1-star rating, but if there's a chance that Yen Press will read the reviews then I'll try writing my thoughts out, instead. Hopefully I can post anonymously.
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It really was bad. Bad enough that I was jotting down notes about some of the worst lapses in continuity as well as some of the incorrect names for people, skills, gear.
Besides all of those mistakes the prose was nearly incoherent in spots, in at least one case to the point where I couldn't tell whether it was a mistake in continuity or just written so badly it looked like one. Did the translators really think "Advisor Tachibana" was a man following Arisa's instructions for training new executives at Echigoya? (Spoiler: that is her own family name.)
I've read here that JNC has new translation teams read the earlier volumes of a series to get up to speed but that clearly did not happen with the new Death March team.
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I'm from the Netherlands. I noticed a few inconsistencies but wasn't really bothered by them. I think the story itself was not great this time around. Perhaps it was an attempt for Satou's crew to take a step towards independence, but I think it was just dragging on. Some characters had very short and sudden appearances, only to be cut off immediately, making me wonder what the point was. It's not like the story was that long; there was plenty of room for a bit more information. I hope the next volume will be better.
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Why does Yen Press release the digital and print editions at the same time?
Why indeed (´ ∀ `)
It's a genuine mystery-
And the translation error concern not so different, whether in Danmachi, ReZero, and now Death March today, or Touno's Log all the way back in 2015, among quite a few more
Then the absence of licensing apocryphal/sequel material, although I suppose that's (somewhat) finally been taken care of.
(No Ex volumes for Death March sadly)All the same, the no early digital... here in 2025... is a shackle that'll probably stick with em forever.
And Again, who knows why ┐(‘～` )┌
Its become quite transparent, gachawise, how lucky a reader is to roll [title he's interested in] with [X group handling its TL] .
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While I'm ranting about
Yen[ no, the cover was from Fujimi Shobo's Japanese version ] , they also seem to have replaced the cover artist for The Irregular at Magic High with someone less competent or perhaps AI - https://www.amazon.com/Irregular-Magic-School-light-novel-ebook/dp/B0CQNYLCRB -
@HarmlessDave It's the same cover in Japan, so hardly Yen's fault:
https://bookwalker.jp/ded99b9040-944e-43cd-827f-552e027265cf/
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@myskaros - fair point. Misplaced Yen rant withdrawn and replaced with now off-topic Fujimi Shobo rant :) Tatsuya just looks off to me, especially his face and hand.
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@HarmlessDave
That was Tatsuya? I haven't followed Irregular at Magic High School for a good long while, but I thought it was a grumpy girl.
