#I do not have nice opinions with Suika's translation given this was to pay for

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

hi, ive only read SVSSS because i was waiting for 7Seas to release the rest of MDZS and TGCF and i’m now looking to read MDZS as the last volume will be released next month but i read that the translation for MDZS isn’t accurate or good or whatever idk? where would i find a better translation for MDZS? or is the 7Seas one decent?

Good evening anon!

The Sevenseas is passable, and I use that with little generosity as it does take a lot of needed nuance away if you are very very green with lore of cultivation and theology for intersection Buddhism, Doaism and Confucianism when it was translated to English. Personally I don't find it a good to pay for the price it asks for which is probably about 115-120 USD depending on vendors for all five volumes. If you don't mind more than the general lore that MDZS has, it reads fine. However there are many issues with lines messed up or omitted strangely that have not all been fixed as volume one has only gotten a second physical reprint I believe. As far as I'm aware, the digital copies have yet to be fixed (no I'm not biting at the bit at all over any of this and trying to remain neutrally polite).

Bluntly put, for my opinion, I found it to be a mediocre translation and the stepchild of the MXTX products Sevensea took on, and it is no more or less than the previous completed fan translation (mind you this one is liable and forgiven for mistakes given it was hobby and freely translated, edited by fans as well, and a 17 year old main translator, from a site that was used to japanese BL novels at the time, but I digress 🥴).

In terms of readability? Dialogue and imagery in Sevenseas is a lot cleaner and less awkward than the ExR one to me. The results are on par with each other with the end product and if you kind of... smoosh them together it probably would have been just fine, ironically.

I can't speak for Tian Guan Ci Fu, as I read it a whole once in standard mandarin, never finished the online Suika translation, and am still at a standstill with the beginning of volume 2 for Sevenseas lol. It may be best to speak with @mxtxfanatic for this one and opinion on how it reads in English.

There are no other complete translations, but I quite liked Taming Wangxian's when they used to post it. Personally, read that one to get a "cleaner" idea of what the start of MDZS should be and I guess continue from their stop point with Sevenseas.