#caleb cook

[thealiveshadow]

Dudebros when they’re trying to hate on MHA but their competitor is Caleb ‘Cook’:

[siflshonen]

WAIT I JUST SAW UR ANON ASK, caleb talked abt your presentations/analyses?? where are theyyy 😭 if he's talking bad abt thrm permission to smacc pls

No. Please, please, do NOT do anything of the sort.

Personally, I don’t think anyone in the industry should or would care much about the over-enthusiastic thoughts of a fan that is not directly involved with their job or social sphere - so it’s probably not true anyway.

Besides, there’s no way for me to know by one vague ask alone if the “not good things” he was saying were actually meaningful, insightful critique as the professional who interacts closely with the work for his job with a specialized skillset that I do not have.

And even if it is true that he actually said “not good things” about my extremely cringe passion projects, how Caleb uses his Twitter account is none of my business unless it’s actively harming me in some way or impacting someone’s life in a meaningful, significant, and negative way - and him saying, I dunno, whatever about anything I may have put out doesn’t seem to be doing that. It’s up to him to use his account however he likes.

Also, I don’t put anything on Twitter for a reason. Willingly engaging in verbose fandom drama of this nature on Twitter (Twitter! For real? On spaceboy’s now-X-then-Twitter?) is honestly not worth my time.

So while I am flattered you would want to come to my defense, I strongly suggest you deeply consider if doing such a thing would even be worth your time, either. You have one life and I hope you live it to the fullest.

[cryptically-cryptic-cryptid]

Y'know, I didn't think Caleb could mess up the translation of a chapter as badly as he did for TogaChako, but guess I was wrong, cause dear fucking lord this chapter's translations are shit.

Like, there are entire lines that are either missing or mistranslated and the reason? It's because Caleb's got an ego the size of fucking Jupiter and can't stand having the same translations as a fan translator does.

[graphicpolicy]

Spider-Man: Fake Red is a fun manga spin on the classic character

Spider-Man: Fake Red is a fun manga spin on the classic character #comics #comicbooks #manga #graphicnovel #spiderman

Yu’s new high school is kind of awful. He’s failing his classes and striking out socially. Everything changes when he finds one of Spider-Man’s costumes abandoned in an alleyway. At first, it’s fun to put on the costume and play hero, but when powerful enemies appear, Yu quickly realizes he’s out of his element. Still, with the real Spider-Man nowhere to be found, the city needs someone to save…

[transhawks]

I'm still mixed on Caleb getting run off on twitter by Endev stans because it was deranged. But he's really a subpar translator who has clear favorites, and is very unprofessional about this, and thus really doesn't allow for a deep and sensitive translation of characters he dislikes. It's all rather straight forward and lacking nuance and it means people miss important characterization.

[allforafro]

Lucky for you, Caleb Cook, we can't meet in real life because I'd punch you in the face

The way he ridicules afo I don't like at all and if I met him I would tell him what I think about his translation

[dereksmcgrath]

Masaoki Shindo’s story, and Caleb Cook’s localization, create an odd but welcome tone to a story that treats something as bizarre as dragon-puberty as normal as going to school.

Content warnings about online bullying and the alleged toxic behavior of Joss Whedon.

"Can't Blame Her,” RuriDragon, Chapter 6. By Masaoki Shindo, translation by Caleb Cook, lettering by Kyla Aiko. Available from Viz.

Caleb Cook has gotten so much shit that he doesn’t deserve. 

He was chased off of Twitter because so many dickheads despised any choices he made when localizing My Hero Academia. 

Sometimes it was translation choices that, yeah, aren’t necessarily my favorite (although that is a matter of whether the choices I saw by scanlators were actually accurate, rather than just what appealed to me personally and “sounded better”). 

And other times it was his supposed (and unproven) hate for Endeavor (which, even if he somehow hated a fictional character who was a wife-beater and an abusive father…the dude is fictional, and even then is a wife-beater and an abusive father–why are you taking the side of a fictional abusive asshole over a real-life non-abusive person?)

I say all of this not to stan for Cook’s work as a translator: it stands on its own terms, and I don’t think I’m in a position to judge the accuracy of the strict translation from Japanese to English, or localization choices made. I can definitely examine how I think the dialogue works or doesn’t work within a scene, and while a lot of that is based on the original text, a lot of it also owes to whether the translator can create dialogue that matches characters, tone, and situation.

It’s one reason Cook’s translation of Masaoki Shindo’s RuriDragon catches me off-guard. It’s not bad. It’s just that what starts from Shindo’s text is so everyday that it clashes, as is the point, with the story’s supernatural elements. 

The manga, now up to its sixth chapter, is about the eponymous Ruri learning that her unseen dad is a dragon and that she is starting to inherit some of his qualities, starting with horns and flame breath. It’s the typical story you have seen more than once, using supernatural changes to the body as analogous to puberty and expected social changes as children become teens and then adults. It’s not breaking new ground in that way, but then again, you could say similar stories like Blue Exorcist (“becoming a demon is like becoming a teenager”) and Turning Red (“becoming a rampaging kaiju red panda is like becoming a teenager”), overlooking what newness those stories brought (“here’s a whole mess of religious narratives mashed together,” “here is how what your parents thought was destructive is actually self-expression and can help heal a cycle of generational violence”). 

With all of that in mind, yeah, RuriDragon has some similarities with Blue Exorcist and Turning Red. But in just six chapters so far, where being a dragon-child is not a source of angst and drama but just treated as normal, this story is satisfying what I would hope from come from it, and given how chill her mom and classmates are about Ruri’s significant changes, it establishes a compelling story, to see just how far Ruri can change her appearance, abilities, and even species before it overwhelms and those around her–or, how those strong familial and platonic relationships persist despite the significant changes she is experiencing.

And that contrast between the really bizarre changes a dragon-child is experiencing, and the calm and complacent tone of the dialogue, helps the series stake out its own brand of comedy and create something largely believable. 

The world of RuriDragon looks pretty much like our own. So, when characters are relaxed in their dialogue with Ruri, it feels believable. 

It probably benefits that manga because it’s not trying to tell some larger supernatural battle story we may expect in your typical shonen action series–at least for now. We’re just seeing Ruri return to school, lowering her guard, removing some of the icy demeanor she had even before learning about her new dragon abilities, and letting that metamorphosis be an ice breaker in conversation to form friendships that, hardly stopping once her unique condition becomes normalized, is letting people get to know her and like her for her personality. 

By avoiding a supernatural battle story right at the beginning, RuriDragon stands in contrast to other stories that, I think, have tried and failed to seem “realistic”: the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in this mess, having started with a flawed “grounded in reality” approach with Iron Man that, hardly making that story more palatable, just clashes poorly with how much more bizarre the stories want to get. (It’s disappointing how, in contrast, Arrow somehow shifting into “now Constantine is here” and “now the Flash is here” worked without compromising tone and actually benefiting by leaning into what has been called an American version of tokusatsu.) 

So, what does all of this have to do with the dialogue? Because my brain is cursed with reducing “funny dialogue,” “the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” and “school-based supernatural hijinks” to toxic creator Joss Whedon and his “Whedonverse.” 

Yuck. 

That’s not what Cook is going for in the dialogue, although it’s difficult to escape the shadow of what Whedon has done for how we imagine “the young people” talk. There’s nothing in RuriDragon that is too awkward to work, and I imagine the dialogue will retain longevity even as it is steeped in our current brand of slang and phrasing. Stuff like saying “def” instead of “definitely,” “can you not with that” instead of “could you not do that,” and “I dunno” instead of “I don’t know” are common enough without trying too hard to imitate young-people speech until it becomes artificial, already dated, or ahead of its time. 

But what also got me noticing the dialogue in this chapter is just how, well, not boring exactly, but calm and largely conflict-free it was in the sixth chapter. Yeah, Ruri’s friend admonishes her about being too friendly with boys in class when it comes to letting them touch her horns, but even that dispute is low-key rather than exaggerated drama. 

That sense of calm is on top of chapters that already showed how chaotic things could get for our main character: discovering flame abilities, controlling her ability, fear of returning to school, anxiety over trying to join a study group. 

Now we are in this relative peace in the story where I can’t say much happens in Chapter 6–which is ignorant on my part, because a lot happens. Yeah, it’s just characters talking about the weather–because by the end of the chapter we see it’s not the weather alone causing all that static cling and sinus headache for Ruri. Yeah, it’s characters asking to touch her horns and fixating on her appearance–because that anxiety persists about how she is different, even as Ruri and her classmates are mostly used to it all. Yeah, we spend a panel discussing Ruri’s new school outfit she swapped out–because she is still undergoing changes that are probably going to have bigger ramifications. Yeah, we pause the story in its tracks for an extended lunch between the students–because this calm is probably the last we get before whatever electricity coming off of Ruri is probably going to start big problems in the next chapter. 

And with the two-week break Shindo is thankfully taking, it’s that dialogue, and Cook’s translation choices, that help heighten that tension between what is scary about the unknown (especially for a teenager) and what is still so typical and "normal" in day-to-day experiences (such as having lunch and conversation with classmates). Those choices in story and dialogue help ease readers of RuriDragon towards accepting new information as it comes, which helps make Ruri's rather understated reactions to what has happened to her come across as not just funny but also understandable.

[artsofmetamoor]

Dilla and Caleb meet baby Miles, and adopt him not long after 💙 An alternative to this:

My heart broke and melted for Spider/Mile's hardships and neglect, therefore me and @katerinaaqu keep including him in our Avatar AU, and I'll be damned if I won't draw this sweet lad the loving family he deserves🥰

[inorheona]

disguise self as goths

[sinizade]

Save me elemental magic fairies... Elemental magic fairies save me

[nerissa-crossnic]

Arts by TayuraAnna

[cedricsnotdead]

PLEASEEE REBLOG again, duration is always 24 hours!

So you voted for your favourite comic ship, now it's your time to click a button for your favourite cartoon ship!

For this one I must thank the W.I.T.C.H. Discord server for suggesting the ships, because I personally don't know the cartoon and the only ship I knew there was Cedric/Phobos (GO GET THEM BOYS!!)

Remember that this time it's cartoon only! (post with the closed comic poll here; post with results here)

The six most voted of this round will be put in a FINAL POLL together with the six most voted of the comic poll and you will be able to choose your absolute favourite ship (comic and cartoon)!

EDIT: final poll here!

[chandralia]

last year on June 27th 🥹

and because it was happening on the same day I also want to bring up the “hokan” situation again because I’ll never forgive the English translation for this

“If there’s anything that could complete Izuku Midoriya now, it would be…”

[graphicpolicy]

So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as Goblin Vol. 5 adds an interesting new aspect to the story

So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as Goblin Vol. 5 adds an interesting new aspect to the story #comics #comicbooks #graphicnovel #manga

Most goblins are lucky to see their seventh day–but not Akira! Once an ordinary Japanese salaryman, he has dedicated his second life as an exceptionally long-lived goblin to making a utopia for goblinkind, where weeklong lives are not tragedies but rather the rhythm of society. Until one day, Akira ministers to a goblin on her deathbed, and she abruptly resuscitates…with an even stronger skill to…

[i-plague-eater]

I had a comic about Kane/Phobos being envy about his other self glorious make up and I was in a real need of cute comforting pictures so here's Elyon doing a make up for everyone, everyone's having fun and let's pretend they avoid talking about politics and using "Phobos" as a synonym for "A pure evil tyrant who don't deserve to live".

I like Orube without make up too. I know she isn't Japanese but any oriental vibe suits her and cool anyway. She was the one taking photos, but Taranee took a nice shot with her :3

[heartlandians]

Heartland - 17x08 - Harmony