Tania del Rio brings us up to date on her work on Sabrina the Teenage Witch and her planned two-volume series for Tokyopop in this interview with Benjamin Ong Pang Kean at Newsarama.
New manga! The MangaCast crew sort through this week’s new releases.
Translators Alethea and Athena Nibley discuss how they decide whether to use the Japanese or the English term at Manga Life. (I didn’t know that Japanese cats say “nyaa” rather than “meow.” I guess I don’t read enough cat manga.)
John Jakala of Sporadic Sequential asked recently whether there are any manga or superhero comics with literary merit; now he posts his readers’ responses, along with a few comments of his own. David Welsh posts his own picks at Precocious Curmudgeon, and readers add more in comments.
The Broccoli folks have put up Chapter 1 of Nui on their Brocomi webcomics site.
Job board: Viz is looking for interns. (Via Japanator.)
Reviews: If you like your reviews in podcast form, head over to Anime Pulse, where the Manga Pulse team discusses MPD-Psycho and Me and the Devil Blues. Lissa Pattillo reads vol. 10 of Cantarella at Kuriousity. Patricia Beard reviews vol. 1 of Croquis Pop on Mania, formerly AoD. Ken Haley is not too impressed with vols. 1 and 2 of Dorothea at PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon blog. John Thomas checks out vol. 2 of Translucent at Comics Village. New at Manga Life: David Rasmussen on vol. 2 of Gun Blaze West, Joy Kim on vols. 11 and 12 of xxxHoLiC, and Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 2 of B.O.D.Y. and vols. 11 and 12 of Nana. Julie reads vol. 1 of Oh My God! at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Erica Friedman enjoys vol. 1 of S.S. Astro at Okazu. Japanator’s Zac Bentz reviews vol. 1 of Cat-Eyed Boy.
I guess we never sent you a copy of our Japanese sound-effects book, Brigid. It gives the Japanese equivalents of many “English” animal sounds (meow, woof-woof, ribbit, etc.), plus dozens of other onomatopoeic words drawn in the backgrounds of manga.
Alethea and Athena actually reviewed the book a few weeks back.
Anyway, I’ll be sure Chris puts a copy into the mail for you!
Ooh, that sounds nifty.
I always enjoy Alethea and Athena column…I wish they had comments enabled.
However this week I have to -slightly- disagree. I think in 2008 when a cat meows in Japanese it is “nyaa”. I understand dumbing it down a little for new readers, but I can’t see anyone really being perplexed by “nyaa” and not understanding that it is “meow” in Japanese. I can see the initiated feeling like they might rather see “nyaa” over “meow” if only because there are so many cat (and cat-ear) references in manga in English now…and “nyaa” is a part of that, where “meow” isn’t.
I think they’re best off translating the nyaa into meow. Like they said, there’s a clear cultural equivalent there, and so you shouldn’t raise a fuss just because you want it a certain way. These are mass-market items, so there needs to be a certain amount of hand-holding when it comes to Japanese culture.
Like I said it was a SLIGHT disagreement. No fuss raising inteded at all. Every year there are more and more words that we don’t translate from Japanese to English. A few years ago you would’t have seen “bento” and “~sama” in translations, but now you do. Personally I feel like “nyaa” has reached that level, especially in the way it is used in “cat-speak” furry manga, but I am not handcuffed to that opinion.
Ultimately it’s the editor’s discretion. On certain projects we’ll transliterate and then suggest English equivalents. I know I have my personal preferences (and so do the translator and the scripter!), but it doesn’t really mean anything unless the editor asks.