#mangastream

[richardsondavis]

So I started reading Jujutsu Kaisen and I know that I am pro-official translation but this time, I'll have to concede to my roots. I'm going back to the scanlations of JJK and to my surprise it's by JaiminisBox whom I regard as one of the greats of my scanlation years. When I was reading MHA I got to see them and they were great. And the fact that they don't have a watermark is just GOATED. Sad to see that they went down the drain when Shueisha launched its own app.

I'm not much for mangastream. Mostly because I find their Chainsaw Man translation to be the cause of that Twitter drama but then again, why would I get affected by this drama. It makes me uncomfortable, yes but it shouldn't worry me much. I know myself and I know what I like so I'll stick to my principles.

Okay, back to JJK. I was just interested to see what it was but the first chapter isn't really doing it for me. Maybe it's because it's just D.Gray-Man but more shounen.

[optimizerforall]

What Down Subscription Site Speaks about Mangastream Popularity

Here at chasadnaeem blog, in this article, we will speech the Mangastream popularity concurring down membership site. If you are new to this Mangastream series, it's been idolized by intellectuals and fans equivalent to one of the most staggering choices for those looking for a wonderful and mature manga figuring out experience. Certain people even difference it with other eminent series like Naruto, Bleach, and Rail Wars. Coming up next are a couple of essential issues that you need to acknowledge about it preceding proceeding to examine this article.

[transhawks]

Love going on Viz to find out Caleb did not translate it as "my back isn't broad enough" and instead did some dumb shit "with my neck on the line."" completely fucking up the meaning of that line and how important it was.

[everycanute]

[ramjam]

nobody asked but i finally found the source text so i could properly fix this mistranslation. i may have not picked up all the characters correctly, but this is the correct translation. compared to the weird way mangastream has mistranslated it. like what:

[the-nysh]

Regarding that menstruation ask, I don't think they taught that stuff in the dojo because it has nothing to do with fighting a lady opponent (she won't talk about it to Garou and for him to assume such would be condescending) He probably doesn't know because he was 14/15 when Bang took him under his wing...the age where such stuff was taught in schools.

(The topic is starting to get a little weird cause normally bodily functions like this, including bowl movements, which is another Weird Ask I've gotten, aren't things fictional characters Need to worry about. So why......unless someone was intent on portraying the chars needlessly worse than they are - as in ignorantly idiotic or misogynistic - pick your poison, which are both unpleasant to think about.)

Because in the real world, 14/15 is already a high schooler - far too late past the onset of puberty, in which the basics of anatomy and preparation should have already been introduced or taught in 5th grade (age 10 for me) or followed up in middle school health/biology classes at minimum. (Otherwise not teaching the basics to kids in time is either irresponsible to downright harmful, boys included.)

This example would also assume Genos is in the same boat and wouldn't know anything from that age either, if female anatomy would be irrelevant to his body & combat functions as a cyborg too. It'd be just too absurd if he, or Garou, as top students even, had never heard of it before or had basic coverage in their primary schools already, before even Kuseno or Bang's respective 'home' schooling later. So I don't buy it, unless someone really had a beef with these characters and wanted to make their female fans feel uncomfortable or weirded out....so let's not, please. :'D

[delku]

i feel like "quirklessness being outright referred to as a birth defect by deku" REALLY flies under the radar in discussions by the way. like, that is ridiculously important to his (and others') perception of it. (i was going to quote the mangastream translation here (due to me misremembering how it went), but not only does it not do this, it... completely missed that deku was using that thin veneer of "a friend" to keep ofa secret.)

[wrongplaceworsttime]

me considering getting back into opm like:

i’ll just read the whole thing! oh wait that’s 160 chapters? hmm nevermind then, i’ll just read the monster association arc. that’s when i left off anyways, so that means i start at... chapter 78?? you mean this single arc is over half of the entire series at this point?! wait... if that’s the case then why not read from the beginning? 

or i guess i could always go find the last chapter i was caught up with and start from there... but that was years ago and i doubt that i remember the specifics of the arc :/

[kugisakiss]

what shounen jump series are you reading if any?

the ones I'm all caught up on: one piece, jjk, hero aca, witch watch, pppppp, mashle, hunterxhunter...

and I've got a couple others I've read the first few chapters of that I need to catch up on...

[just-absolutely-super]

ahhh I remember loving that Luffy's alias was "Lucy"

[nicastamatis]

i really love the way that, rather than lulling you into a false sense of security, oshimi chooses to make every mundane moment feel foreboding... every page feels cloying and claustrophobic, even when its two kids sitting on a bench in an open field

[twomiddlefingersforthehaters]

(I've already talked about this before but I can't stop talking about it)

Raw: これで... これでやっとオレは.. なれる) ーーーじゃあな。 オレ唯一の... 友よ!!

Romaji: kore de... kore de yatto ore wa............. hitori ni nareru) ーーー jāna. ore yuitsu no ....tomoyo!!

Literal: (With this... With this now I can finally.... be alone) --- See ya. My one and only... friend!!

It's so intense, he deliberately pauses his words ("my one and only") as he looks into those blue eyes, then adds 'friend' to the sentence in an aggressive tone. And that word 'friend ' was completely separated in the next panel.

The typeface used in each panel is different and that's how it's usually used, thus it describes the situations.

Raw: その唯一がオレだからよ

Romaji: sono yuitsu ga oredakarayo

Literal: Because I'm your one and only.

Here Naruto completely cuts 'friend' out of the sentence, as he stares at Sasuke intently and says 'I'm your one and only'. [The Look on Naruto's Face when he saying this. Just look at it!!]

And Other translation be like 'oops! They are so gay, you better add friend or something to it'

1. VIZ

2. Mangapanda

3. Mangastream

[codenamesazanka]

I need help writing the league of villains for a fan fiction. Like can you give me tips on to write their dialogue and stuff like that

Thanks for the ask! Here are some things that I think would be helpful, but please be aware that it's my approach to writing the League the way I interpret them. I'm sure there's people who finds my fic wildly inaccurate in terms of characterization. Sometimes I go back months later and disagree with my own stuff, given new information or outlook. You'll have different interpretations than me, and that's okay. And thus,

Tip #1: First of all, it’s fanfic, it’s fun, and it’s yours. You can do whatever the heck you want! It does not matter at all what you do with the characters, their dialogue, their personalities, their relationships, etc. I’ve read plenty of AU fanfics where I could not recognize Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko, despite the character having the name, but I still liked the story okay. Really, it’s all up to you and what you want. 

That said, to actually answer your question:

Tip #2: Re-read the manga. Read the scanlations - multiple versions from different scanlation groups. Read the official. No version will be perfect, some are better than others (Viz Official has its issues, but it is done by a professional translator and I tend towards it; Fallen Angels (Chapters 1-150s) was the first to scanlate and iirc they even included translation commentary at the end of their chapters; I found mangastream to be more accurate than Jaimini (Chapters 150-250s)), but having a variety of translations will give you insight into the intention of a dialogue, and different ways of achieving it. Read the original Japanese, if you can. 

Tip #2.5: Best way to figure a character, I find, is to describe the panels they’re in as if you’re writing a very plain, objective, impartial image description. Now you have an overview of their outward behavior, their actions, their dialogue. Using that, you have the basis for developing their motivations and personality. It’s the difference between ‘Shigaraki used gamer lingo a few times here, so he is a gamer... therefore he’s obsessed with games and that’s all he does’ and ‘In the first 100 chapters of the story, despite speaking sometimes like a gamer, Shigaraki is actually seen reading newspapers rather than holding a game console’.

Put another way, don’t assume generalized descriptions or traits for a character and write them based on that. You risk writing a trope or archetype or situation rather than the actual character. 

When a loved one dies suddenly, people will be in shock, before sobbing and weeping uncontrollably. That’s generally true, but the character may manifest grief in a different way. Someone close to Toga is killed - what does she do? You can write her breaking down crying, that’s perfectly reasonable. But if you look at the manga, when Twice is killed, she doesn’t cry right away. She gets angry; she lashes out. She’s deeply hurt by his murder, of course! But the tears she sheds for his passing are few in the immediate aftermath - her grief mostly takes the form of slicing Heroes’ throats.

Tip #3: Read everything else, for inspiration, for background knowledge, for tone, for your own gain outside of fandom.

Just the other day, I read Real, the wheelchair basketball manga by Inoue Takehiko. Its three main characters are marginalized by proper society - two because they’re disabled, one because he’s a high school dropout - and there were moments where I was reminded of the League’s situation. In the first chapter, the high school dropout makes a final visit to school where his teachers didn’t think much of him, and his classmates looked down on him. As he leaves, he thinks to himself that everything he does ends in failure and he’s an idiot, all the while he takes a dump at the school gates as a parting gift.

While I can’t see anyone from the League doing that exactly shot for shot, the spirit of it - being seen as a fuck up, being unwanted, being defiant in face of that, even in a inadvisable way - is similar.

Tip #3.5: Another book I’ve read years ago is Codes of the Underworld: How Criminal Communicate. It was very informative, and I think back to it sometimes when I write for the League. 

Criminals face severe constraints on communication imposed by the action of the law, and, unlike the rest of us, cannot easily develop institutions aimed at circumventing them. This central feature of criminal lives makes communication and above all reliable communication exceptionally hard to sustain. For instance, the same secrecy that protects criminals from the law hinders their opportunities to advertise their goods and qualities… In the underworld, moreover, punishments for mistakes and irrational behavior are harsher than they are elsewhere. In the world of regular business, failures of communication can lead to a loss of business, but in the underworld they can result in years behind bars, or worse.

I don’t follow it exactly, because the League is in a children’s fantasy story, and maybe this was obvious but now that it was written out to me, I know how to give the Villains an “edge” to them that a non-Villain might not have, because as Villains, they do often logically would to be secretive and brutal and cautious. Dabi walking around in broad daylight meant their hideout was discovered and All Might literally took down the wall to the bar; a breakdown in negotiations with Overhaul meant Magne dying and Compress getting his arm blown off. 

Tip #4: Related, let the League be assholes, because sometimes they are. Let them be mean and cruel and problematic. Sometimes they’ll be jerks to each other. Nearly all of them grew up in bad circumstances where they probably were not taught important lessons and details about respect and boundaries and being nice. They are definitely not going to be aware of the intricacies of fandom's (oft-American and oft-terminally-online) consensus about problematic behavior. And that’s fine. 

I remember once receiving an ask about why Shigaraki would pull Twice’s mask off in Chapter 224. Wasn’t that terrible of Shigaraki? Yeah, it was. It was also the quickest, most efficient way to get Twice to quit his arguing with the rest of the League, so Shigaraki can announce that they are going to rescue Giran (what Twice was arguing for). After that, he puts the mask back on for Twice. If you ask me, I’d say Shigaraki thinks this evens out - he does something mean that he knows will freak out Twice for a moment, but it’s because he’s arguing for Twice’s side, and he’s putting on the mask back at the end. 

You and I would likely never do something like that because we know taking away someone’s important assistive aid, even for a moment, hurts them and we don’t want to cause them pain for even a second if we could help it/there’s not ‘evening it out’/it demonstrates a power unbalance that perpetuates ableism/there are other ways to stop someone and grab attention/we know not to touch someone even the slightest without permission/etc. But does the character you’re writing know all this? Does he care? Does he think it’s worth following these rules? Does he have time for it, does he have incentives for it, does he have the lucidity, does he think he’s an exception because of this and that, etc, etc. 

A lot of things, most people often just don’t know until they’re taught to be specifically aware. As an example: When I was younger, I knew broadly that taking things without permission was bad; but what if I took these pair of scissors from my friend’s desk and used it and put it back before the owner knew? The owner is my friend. They once told me it was okay to take it, so it counts even today, right? It was just a pair of scissors, a common household item. My friend did not care; still does not care. But knowing what I do now about things like violations of boundaries, explicit consent, the continuation of these concepts for the most trivial and mundane things even in the deepest of friendship or familial ties - I feel the need to ask to use something. That’s me and what I’ve learned through the years, though. It’s probably not going to be [fictional character].

And sometimes the League are just bad people. Shigaraki tried to kill Toga and Dabi at their first meeting. Mr. Compress is seemingly a-okay with kidnapping and murder despite his ancestor being more of a Robin Hood type. Spinner likely knowingly doomed his family to even worse ostracism and harassment from his fantasy-racist hometown when he ran off to join a group of well-televised terrorists. 

That’s also fine. They’re not real. They’re fictional Villains, and you’re temporarily using them as hand-puppets to tell a story. 

Tip #5. For dialogue, it helps knowing what each character’s voice/speaking style sounds like. Some basics:

Shigaraki: 

“Shigaraki speaks with the normal masculine contracted speech, but with a sinister tone. Surprisingly not very cussy. He likes aggravating other people though.”

Caleb Cook notes that Shigaraki talks like an overgrown kid. (In comparison to ReDestro, who “uses more SAT words, since he’s had a formal education.”)

He can be a sarcastic smartass.

Kurogiri:

“Kurogiri is Extremely Polite”

He only refers to Shigaraki as ‘Shigaraki Tomura’. Always the full name, always just that.

He speaks very formally and respectfully; however, there is also a nastier side to him that comes out when he faces off Heroes: Saying to All Might, “I can't say I like the idea of having blood and guts inside my gate, but… if they're yours, I’ll happily oblige.” (Chapter 18); mocking Eraserhead and Mic when they're being sad over him, “Have you mistaken this place for a confessional of some kind?” (Chapter 254)

Dabi: 

“Dabi is like Shoto but ruder, though not to Bakugo’s extent”

He calls people names: Toga most often, as 'crazy'; he called Spinner 'lizard' once; when he first met Shigaraki, he said 'gross'.

Note that all the examples above are people younger than him; as far as I know, Dabi refrains from name-calling his allies who are older than him: Compress, Twice, Skeptic.

He inexplicably politely calls Ujiko ‘Ujiko-san’.

Compress:

“Compress is kind of like Sero. He’s got that trickster tone to him. Gets rougher when things don’t go his way.”

Likes to call himself an ‘old man’ at age 32; talks like an older gentleman as well. 

Twice: 

Twice contradicts himself a lot. Generally, he says one thing, his alter then says the opposite of that immediately afterwards. 

However, when things are urgent or serious, his alter’s speech fades. See Chapter 148, when he confronts Shigaraki about the Overhaul plan - he spills out his feelings with no contradiction. See Chapter 224, after they find out Giran’s been kidnapped - when arguing with the League about whether to say Giran, he’s completely coherent. 

Twice argues back with the alter sometimes, rather than the alter simply blurting out the opposite of what he says. 

After he gets over his clone trauma, the alter seemed to have…integrated into himself? He still speaks in contradictions, but less so, and it doesn’t seem to be a separate voice speaking out involuntarily

Spinner: 

“Spinner also speaks the normal masculine contracted speech like Kirishima and Kaminari, but he talks like Tokoyami during the Forest Lodge arc because he’s a Stain chuuni.”

An average, normal guy, compared to the rest of the League: not very polite, but not particularly rude; no great wit or affect (after he stops being a Stain fanboy), but not unintelligible; game references infrequently.

Giran: 

“Giran is also like speaks the normal masculine contracted speech similar to Shoto, but he’s a lot more mature.”

He calls Shigaraki “Shigaraki-san”, being polite towards him as a customer. 

He calls Twice by his last name, ‘Bubaigawara’, likely because they seem to be friends beyond just business. 

Toga: 

Toga is a generally polite girl, talks like a teenager. 

She can be bad at explaining herself! Seems to forget the people are lacking context for the things she says. ���Hey, my best friend Jin just got killed by a Hero, which makes me sad, as well as worried that I'm going to be cut down like nothing as well, especially because I've been told how abnormal I am, even though I think I'm a normal person just like you, because I have emotions like love and fear, as any regular human does, and that lifetime of repression has hurt me.” -> Whatever she actually says to Uraraka in Chapter 289.

Only Toga uses first names with honorifics with the other League members. This is her being cute and desiring familiarity, but still polite. 

　◦ Twice is ‘Jin-kun’

　◦ Shigaraki is ‘Tomura-kun’

　◦ Dabi is, at first ‘Dabi-kun’; after she finds out he’s Touya, he’s ‘Touya-kun’ 

　◦ Spinner is ‘Spinner-kun’

　◦ However, Mr. Compress is simply ‘Mister’ 

Conversely, only Mr. Compress and Twice call her ‘Toga-chan’. All the 20-somethings dudes call her just ‘Toga’. 

*Note what the League calls each other. They all call each other using Villain names. If the male members of the League are using first names and honorifics for each other, they’ve either gotten extremely close and intimate and weirdly polite, or they’re being possessed by AFO. 

Tip #5.5. Instead of fretting over writing good dialogue right away, just write whatever you need to get a scene over with. You can go back later to change the tone and speaking style of the sentence.

Here’s a line I had for Dabi at first: 

“Whatever hospital he works at should be shut down for incompetency in background checks.”

Wayyy too formal. Here’s the line after I went back and fixed it:

“Whatever hospital he works at should be shut down for being shit at background checks.”

Still not my best shot, but better. Sometimes all you need is just to change a word. 

Tip #6. Humor. The League is ridiculous and hilarious. Always try to have fun with their interactions and antics.

[lostcauses-noregrets]

When Hange and Levi are talking to Yelena and Onyankopon, does Levi actually say something about Erwin laughing about something that Yelena says? I remember seeing someone say that somewhere, but idk if it was true. Do you know what I’m talking about?

I'm tagging @tsuki-no-ura here because this is definitely one to file under A Question of Translation. This exchange takes place in chapter 106 when Yelena explains to Levi and Hange that the pure Titans Marley unleashed on the island, which were originally intended to confine the Eldians inside the walls, were actually preventing Marley from attacking. The panel you're asking about is Levi's response, and I actually have three different versions of it.

The first is from the fan translation of the raws:

The second is from Mangastream, so I presume this is a semi (?) official translation of the chapter:

And the third is from the English edition of the tankobon (I think):

There was a huge amount of debate about this panel when it first appeared. The fan translation did not specifically mention Erwin but, many fans took the "he" to refer to him, meanwhile other readers argued that a better translation would have been something along the lines of "what a joke" or "don't make me laugh". Much as I love the fan translation, I'm inclined to think the Mangastream version is more accurate. The tankobon version seems to lack character. I haven't got a copy of the original and my Japanese is non existent anyway, so I'd be interested to see what Tsuki thinks.

[elmaxlys]

huh. interesting one:

"in that case, where does your anger come from?" (glénat)

VS

"there, there... there's no need to let it get under your skin" (mangastream)

VS

"well then, don't get so worked up" (jaimini's box)

[fruitchakra]

idk if this bothers anyone else but me but it’s been eating me up - the wording for the most romantic quote in naruto is translated slightly differently:

mangastream:

official viz:

got a friend to confirm whether it’s ‘die with you’ or ‘die together’ and: 

だからお前の憎しみを一緒に背負って一緒に死んでやる

die together

mangastream’s translation is slightly more accurate, and imo it makes all the difference. ‘with you’ does not carry the same weight as ‘together’.